Dark or Light preference?

[Skylab]

No doubt, if it has to be one or the other, I'd rather have it a bit dark sounding. But what I really prefer is neutral mid/treble with a fat, booty-kicking bass.

 

[blessingx]

Never heard 'light', but if that's 'bright' I'll take nearly anything (even bloated bass, recessed midrange, etc.) over it. Etys a while ago showed me detail != brightness.

 

[AML]

I've always preferred being on the dark side.

 

[mulveling]

Dark here - but not too far from neutral. Dark and smoooooth. I abhor the Grado bowl pads - vwaps or flats only! I love the L3000, which is incredibly smooth and just a little on the dark side. I find the HD580/HD600 a bit too bright and grainy. The K1000 (w/ SS amp) and sr325 (w/ vwaps) were enjoyable, but both are way too bright for me to use regularly.

 

[tradja]

Quote:

Originally Posted by crazyfrenchman27 Kinda funny. Nearly all the headphones you own are dark. -Matt

V6? DT531? My Little Dot II is my brighest and favorite amp. My K240S and MX400 are too dark. I loved my A500. There's more to "bright" than Grado, IMHO. Also, individual headphone inventories on headfi are seldom static!

 

[philodox]

This is sort of a silly question. 'Brightness' and 'Darkness' can be a bad thing or a good thing in the same way that you can have bloated bass or lots of tight bass. I've heard headphones where their treble energy was a strong point and many where the brightness introduced painfull levels of sibilance. Likewise darkness can be attributed to a pleasant smooth sound or can sound so recessed that there is too much detail loss. My AKG K340's have a lot of high end detail, but are not fatiguing in any way... but if you were to compare them to the Grado SR225 you would think that they are laid back and dark sounding.

That said, some people do prefer one sound signature over the other. In the end I think that brightness done wrong bothers me the most, but darkness just for the sake of smoothing out the sound is slightly irritating as well. If I had to choose one I would say that I prefer brightness, since when properly implimented, this offers massive amounts of detail without introducing listening fatigue. Dark headphones done well by contrast are interesting, but could never be my primary headphone.

I'd also like to introduce a third option which I personally would pick any day of the week.

"Lushness"

If you don't know what I'm talking about, try out one of the high end AKG headphones. If Sennheisers are dark and Grado's are bright, AKG's are most definately Lush. To put it simple, lushness is a slight emphasis on the midrange. Since that is where most of the music is, this offers a very smooth sound without obfuscating a bunch of detail as is sometimes the case with 'Dark' headphones.

 

[grawk]

Funny, lush is how I describe the high end grados (HF1s, RS1s, PS1s) and what is lacking in the 325is...Lush is the ideal for me in headphonia...

 

[philodox]

I'm not saying that AKG's are the only makers of lush headphones, just that lushness seems to be more prevalent in their designs. I agree that the RS1 is quite lush as well... and from what I've read I would think the L3000 falls in this category.

 

[Glod]

Hmm - if I say that a dark sound has a slight dip in the upper mid range, and lush sound would be the opposite; I cannot have Dark and Lush sound

. Hmm - I don’t know about that.

I think the traditional so called tubey sound comes close to my definition of lushness; a kind of richness and warmth on the border to an euphonic sound. Nothing wrong in such a sound. Actually, a tube setup I listen to on a regular base. RCA VT-231/6SN7GT (early) and some of the B 36´s spring to mind. Sorry for the off-topic slide.

 

[Spiritboxer]

I'm a night person so.....

 

[Bill Ward]

Dark versus light (or bright) would seem to pose a fallacious dicotomy, since they represent opposite ends of a continuum along which various headphones will fall. Looking at the cans I actually listen to regularly, I guess I'd vote for a brighter sound more often than not, colder as opposed to warmer in tone.

BW

 

[rsaavedra]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bill Ward Dark versus light (or bright) would seem to pose a fallacious dicotomy

In logical or rhetorical terms, a "false dilemma". An example of a false dilemma: "you either fully agree with me or you are an enemy". The continuum between dark or bright don't really invalidate the dilemma though, what really sort of invalidates it making it a false dilemma is what Philodox mentioned, the fact that there is another posibility besides the dark vs bright polarity: "lush". Or whatever name we might give to the balance in which neither bass nor treble stand out, but the midrange is the segment of the spectrum that stands out, or rather, is sucked out, while the headphone is neither bright nor dark.

To characterize a headphone properly using those three extremes, instead of using a point in a segment with dark vs. bright extremes, we would need a point inside a triangle that has for vertices the extremes of dark, bright, and lush. As if those three were the primary colors, and the characterization of a headphone was just a color resulting in the combination of certain amounts of each of the primaries. The closeness of the point to any of the vertices in the triangle would characterize the balance of the headphone in terms of bright or lush or dark, or rather neutral enough if the point falls in the center of the triangle.

Dividing the universe of headphones (or transducers) into dark vs. bright would be an attempt to characterize all points inside that triangle by just using points along one of the sides of the triangle. In mathematical terms this is an example of a so called "dimensionality reduction".

In any case, even though it is a gross simplification to evaluate whether the overall balance of a headphone favors the top end of the spectrum vs. the bottom end, that evaluation is still very useful.

PS. Notice that the triangle characterization is still very incomplete. For instance, a perfectly flat response would correspond to a point in the middle of the triangle. A uniformly jagged response would also fall in that same spot.

 

[HWF]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bill Ward Dark versus light (or bright) would seem to pose a fallacious dicotomy, since they represent opposite ends of a continuum along which various headphones will fall. Looking at the cans I actually listen to regularly, I guess I'd vote for a brighter sound more often than not, colder as opposed to warmer in tone. BW

Thats the reason for posing the question in the manner I did. I feel if a 100 people listened to the same phone, amp, and source it would be described differently. I simply wanted to know what the general concenus was. I found that I preferred phones darker. My listening experience has been with very cheap phones and wondered if that experience had colored my ability to hear a truly great sound from quality phones.

I had to look up a couple of the words you used in your post.

Dichotomy
(Me thinks you spelled it wrong)=being twofold; a classification into two opposed parts or subclasses

fallacious
(Me thinks you may have used this one wrong)
containing or based on a fallacy; "fallacious reasoning";
"an unsound argument" [syn: unsound]
2: intended to deceive; "deceitful advertising"; "fallacious
testimony"; "smooth, shining, and deceitful as thin ice" -
S.T.Coleridge; "a fraudulent scheme to escape paying
taxes" [syn: deceitful, fraudulent]
3: based on an incorrect or misleading notion or information;
"fallacious hope"

 

[HWF]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rsaavedra In logical or rhetorical terms, a "false dilemma". An example of a false dilemma: "you either fully agree with me or you are an enemy". The continuum between dark or bright don't really invalidate the dilemma though, what really sort of invalidates it making it a false dilemma is what Philodox mentioned, the fact that there is another posibility besides the dark vs bright polarity: "lush". Or whatever name we might give to the balance in which neither bass nor treble stand out, but the midrange is the segment of the spectrum that stands out, or rather, is sucked out, while the headphone is neither bright nor dark. To characterize a headphone properly using those three extremes, instead of using a point in a segment with dark vs. bright extremes, we would need a point inside a triangle that has for vertices the extremes of dark, bright, and lush. As if those three were the primary colors, and the characterization of a headphone was just a color resulting in the combination of certain amounts of each of the primaries. The closeness of the point to any of the vertices in the triangle would characterize the balance of the headphone in terms of bright or lush or dark, or rather neutral enough if the point falls in the center of the triangle. Dividing the universe of headphones (or transducers) into dark vs. bright would be an attempt to characterize all points inside that triangle by just using points along one of the sides of the triangle. In mathematical terms this is an example of a so called "dimensionality reduction". In any case, even though it is a gross simplification to evaluate whether the overall balance of a headphone favors the top end of the spectrum vs. the bottom end, that evaluation is still very useful. PS. Notice that the triangle characterization is still very incomplete. For instance, a perfectly flat response would correspond to a point in the middle of the triangle. A uniformly jagged response would also fall in that same spot.

Thanks you beat me to it but I had to research.

 

[Nomad]

Dark

- It's more forgiving.
- It's less fatiguing. I'm usually wearing cans for several hours non-stop.
- Having UE10s, I'm finding myself listening the iPod nano with my PX100 quite often.

- Having HE60s, I'm getting some Omegas sooner or later

- If the HD650 were 50 Ohm, my HD595 wouldn't last 5 mins.
- Dark is cool anyway