[thelostMIDrange]

oops, said too much
 

 

[t-crisis]

...... Can you rephrase somehow?

 

[thelostMIDrange]

maybe......seems to me there are 3 types of music and members around here: those who listen to perfectly recorded music and like to listen to headphones primarily for the experience as an end in itself. They like the wow factor and tend to be detail freaks. Then there are those who are more traditional music lovers and have a wide range of music in terms of how it was recorded and it's quality. They are more into the music as the end and not 'the sound'. So they enjoy music more for the perfomance and so have many 'albums' that are poorly recorded yet listen to them happily just the same. whereas the first group would see no point to that. the 3rd group are people who listen to 21st century music that is heavily sampled, digital, ambient, dub, rap etc and has little to no traditional instrumentation (guitar, bass, drums, vocal, violin, piano etc) or recording methods.
 
And the point is that there is no one headphone that suits all 3 no matter what anyone says. And frankly this forum is a mess primarily because of the unspoken mishmash of people,ages, ideas and opinions. Everyone would be better served and more quickly and affordably find their ideal headphone if there were 3 separate forums. I would participate in the 2nd one and feel grado/magnums are primarily for traditional music and methods and 'good' headphones need to be somewhat forgiving to less than perfect recordings as well as hifi enough to extract the good stuff from great recordings. Like everything it's a balancing act. and that is hard enough. There is no way to fine tune a headphone to excel with all those previously mentioned BIG 3 categories.

 

[thelostMIDrange]

sympathy all around on those words. And yes it takes that delicate balance to be able to handle the wide range of songs in a music lovers collection. And I feel it requires a high knowledge of electronics and physics on one hand or intuition and feel on the other....but overall, it seems easier to reproduce flat e/q sound for Sound than natural colored sound for Music.........and there is a huge difference between those two aims.

 

[MrHee]

it seems to me that this whole trend of color neutrality is just an extension of certain peoples sensitivity to the trauma of listening to headphones like sony's mdr or beyer dynamics.  but i guess i wouldn't know because i actually like my dt770 80's (though maybe not for music)
 
of the three categories you state, i would probably fit best into category number 2, but the conclusions you made about quality tastes may not reflect the majority of the group.  although i listen to music for its musicality and not the technical awe of my listening instruments, I would also say that i have many of the qualities from your category 1 head-fier.   i find it hard to appreciate lower quality recordings.  The stuff i listen to mostly is vinyl ripped in flac or vinyl from my record player. i am also extremely pleased listening to a pair of brand new awesome headphones.  and at that point its really only for the sake of the headphones
 
overall i appreciate the mix of the community and as long as we keep our biases and predispositions accurately stated i can only see it as a benefit to have more diversity.

 

[thelostMIDrange]

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[thelostMIDrange]

...

 

[chrislangley4253]

Quote:

...

true dat

 

[thelostMIDrange]

........

 

[kopral 21]

how about bamboo cup? 

 

[thelostMIDrange]

possibly. worth a shot. If anything it may be a little too 'light' a wood, but if so, just adjust the overall mass until you feel it sounds 'right'

 

[ponyfeathers]

...so can anyone point me toward a mathematical or empirically data-driven set of general truths for ideal (specified standard) cup tuning?
Specifically, I'm wondering if there are any decent studies using tone-generators, oscilloscopes, spectrum analyzers, etc. that could provide the untrained ear (mine) guidance on the comparative quality of two or more different sets of headphone cups. Also, is there much consensus on which characteristics lend themselves best toward different music or sound types and/or types of listeners?
  Thanks in advance!!
 
   Brian M. Abel
   Pony Feathers

 

[fleasbaby]

...that way madness lies my brother...

 

[ponyfeathers]

Indeed. By training,  I am more of a visual artist, and one thing that crops up over and over in art are tendancies for images that resemble relatively simple mathematical tendancies (fractals, sacred geometry, the golden ratio, etc.) to generally be more widely accepted as beautiful. Likewise, octaves and chords follow fixed patterns with regards to wavelength. I was contacted by an audiophile to make some wooden cups for his Grados. He wanted them to sound and look better. I was able to do the second one. I'm hoping to confidently be able to address the first.

   -Brian M. Abel
    Pony Feathers

 

[fleasbaby]

Those are indeed gorgeous...the most scientific cup maker I have seen is lostMidrange.

I would advise looking for images and postings by him on the forums. You can piece together at least some if his findings that way.

They hinge on cup depth, wood types and wall thicknesses. They are definitely more functional looking than your creations, perhaps you can marry the two design fields?