DeathMetal Headphone Please..

[Cerebral_Mamba]

I have an SR325i and my only complain is that when I play some deathmetal, its gets all so blury. Its like the can cannot handle the insane bombardment of drums, guitar and vocals all togather and all these sounds seas to merge and I just am not enjoying as much as I would like to. Is it a limitation of my Amp? My Total bithead does not clip, so I woud assume that sufficient current is provided.

Also, what is the ultimate headphone that you found for playing deathmetal. I am basically an IronMaiden fan and the Sr325i does great with it, but for the more crazier bands, I feel my Can is not up to it.

 

[Murdoch]

Its probably the bithead. Never owned one myself though, so I'm only speculating.

edit- Or it could be the quality of the recording itself, which the grados are revealing to your ears for the first time. They tend to do that; they're VERY revealing cans.

 

[Jazper]

your headphones are fine.. it's more the amp I'd question..

 

[Cerebral_Mamba]

nope, the quality is 320kbps mp3 I ripped from the cd. I'm sure its not the mp3s coz this is the case with almost all my metal songs. Having said this, i personally have not listened to any other can that gives the performance of the Grados, but its far from the live experience. SO I was wondering if something else does it better.

 

[James63]

I have a Total Airhead and the MS-2i. I am listening to the bands, Death, Sepultura, and Dimmu Borgir right now. I first listened to a few songs from each band on the MS-2i using my Total Airhead. I then listened to them on the Gilmore Lite. To get a comparison I did the same thing on the 650s.

Conclusion:

The Total Airhead did slightly smear the music, BUT it was not a night and day difference. I would not have been able to tell with out a direct A/B comparison.
I believe the headphones are more at fault than the amp. On the same songs the 650s were very clear and controlled. Then smoothed out every note and made what could be call “noise” sound like music.

So did do I like the senns better for death metal? No not really, they sound too dull for this type of music but I can pick out every symbol crash and guitar strum: impressive!

In the end if you buy a new amp just to fix this problem you might be disappointed (but it would help). There might be headphones that are better damped than the MS-2is and still keep the energy. But I don’t know what though. Your gear is a little different so take all of this with a grain of salt.

 

[Iron_Dreamer]

Get the fastest sounding, non-rolled off headphones you can that have bass impact (i.e. not electrostatics), which leaves you at the new Sony SAx000 line. If you want even more than that, upgrade your source to something known to be very detailed. I listen to mostly metal of all types and have yet find a better sounding rig for it that what I currently own.

 

[kramer5150]

Source / cable upgrade next perhaps? followed by an amp?

It could also be the conjestion in the recording itself.

Garrett

 

[grawk]

Bring em by my office and we can try them with my supermacro and emotion+

 

[Jon L]

If you resolve the "bass issue" one way or another (mods, EQ), AKG K1000 can give you death metal, heavy metal with unimagined separation, definition, impact, and sheer microscopic resolution, and most of all preserve the rawness and emotion.

 

[fogia.4]

Buying a decent source can help alot with that. I use the RA-1 with the 325i, but the DAC-1 really does all the work when it comes to instrumental separation and speed, especially for death/black/heavy and rock guitar/drum solos.

 

[Dusty Chalk]

Do you have Nine Inch Nails' Broken? That's some of the best recorded metal I've ever heard. If that one's congested, then we can rule out the recording.

320kbps should be fine, but you might want to go from CD just to make sure.

I've never heard that complaint about the Grados, so I doubt it's them, but not having one, don't know for sure. It might not necessarily be amp, it might be a combination of things (like the compression and the amp/headphone synergy).

And yeah, what are you using for cables? That's the only other thing I can think of.