[Garraty]

Dynamic drivers are the main drivers in the headphone market but over the course of the past few years, orthodynamic drivers have gained in popularity, reviving a once rarely used technology. (for companies such as HifiMAN and Audeze, they mainly use orthodynamic drivers rather than the industry standard) Orthodynamics are famed for having extended bass with more slam and a more layered presentation than normal dynamic drivers.
 
Many have embraced the new bounds in orthodynamic technology in headphones but some still say that dynamic drivers have a more preferable, organic sound presentation that orthodynamic drivers cannot replicate.
 
In YOUR opinion only, which of the two do you prefer and why? (Electrostatic drivers are not included in this discussion)

 

[Garraty]

Bump.

 

[TMRaven]

More slam from planar magnetic drivers is a myth.  I do tend to agree that they have the potential to provide effortless extension and textural layering of the bass though.

 

[Garraty]

  More slam from planar magnetic drivers is a myth.  I do tend to agree that they have the potential to provide effortless extension and textural layering of the bass though.

 
Which of the two do you prefer?

 

[TMRaven]

I prefer whatever sounds better.

 

[Happy Camper]

Right now, I've made camp with the HE-6. I still use a dynamic and an IEM as different tools but for my critical listening, it's Orthos.

 

[DisCHORDDubstep]

Hmm... No electrostat drivers... What about plasma ionization speakers? http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_speaker lol.

 

[elvergun]

  I prefer whatever sounds better.

LOL

 

[Bill-P]

Listening to music is much like looking at a photo to me. The louder I go, the more I "zoom in" on the pixels of the photo. I think we all know a low resolution photo would look crappy when zoomed in... and that is very much like low resolution music would sound crappy at higher volumes. This is especially true if your music chain is so brutally clean and true to the original.
 
However, I have heard implementations of a dynamic driver that not only mask the flaws of a recording, but also filter them and make the whole presentation more pleasant. Much like this:
 

 
Left side is basically how I hear an ortho/planar/electrostat: brutally honest, but low-res stuffs sound bad with them. Really bad.
 
Right side is what I would ideally prefer to get out of a dynamic driver.
 
Note that I'm not advocating a loss of any information that was in the original. It's simply that the characteristics of certain dynamic headphones cause extra info to be added. In some cases, I would argue that the extra stuff is more pleasant to the human ears than the brutal honesty.

 

[Edwood]

  More slam from planar magnetic drivers is a myth.  I do tend to agree that they have the potential to provide effortless extension and textural layering of the bass though.

 
More slam with less distortion.   Easily one of my favorite feature of Orthos.

 

[DisCHORDDubstep]

More slam with less distortion.   Easily one of my favorite feature of Orthos.

yes, but not more slam in general. Only less distortion. I've seen dynamics that jump off of your head from bass.

 

[Willieboy]

I have HD600s, Mad Dogs and Beyer T51Ps.  I like them all very much.

 

[Nirmalanow]

  Listening to music is much like looking at a photo to me. The louder I go, the more I "zoom in" on the pixels of the photo. I think we all know a low resolution photo would look crappy when zoomed in... and that is very much like low resolution music would sound crappy at higher volumes. This is especially true if your music chain is so brutally clean and true to the original.
 
However, I have heard implementations of a dynamic driver that not only mask the flaws of a recording, but also filter them and make the whole presentation more pleasant. Much like this:
 

 
Left side is basically how I hear an ortho/planar/electrostat: brutally honest, but low-res stuffs sound bad with them. Really bad.
 
Right side is what I would ideally prefer to get out of a dynamic driver.
 
Note that I'm not advocating a loss of any information that was in the original. It's simply that the characteristics of certain dynamic headphones cause extra info to be added. In some cases, I would argue that the extra stuff is more pleasant to the human ears than the brutal honesty.

This maybe explains why some high quality headphones also seem to be forgiving of lower quality recordings. Seems like it would be the best of both worlds. I am about to try a pair of JVC HX-FA850s and that is something someone said about them: that they sound great with good recordings but also sound good with lower resolution recordings....and they use dynamic drivers.

 

[pp312]

My experience is that the more balanced and smooth the FR generally, and the HF in particular, the kinder the phone is to poorer quality material. This would give the lie to the idea that the better the phone, the more ruthlessly revealing it is. Try a poor quality recording on an HD201 and then on an HD600. I think you'll find the latter is much kinder than the former.

 

[elvergun]

  My experience is that the more balanced and smooth the FR generally, and the HF in particular, the kinder the phone is to poorer quality material. This would give the lie to the idea that the better the phone, the more ruthlessly revealing it is. Try a poor quality recording on an HD201 and then on an HD600. I think you'll find the latter is much kinder than the former.

 
My Grado SR60s can expose flaws in recordings that I was not able to pick up with some of my other headphones...