I now own a pair of Anandas and the LCD-2C. What I have learned is that the Ananda's have a beautiful detailed soft presentation with slight recessed midrange and sparkly highs, while the LCD2-C are way more forward in the midrange. It is very strange because some tracks are amazing with the Anandas (e.g. 'In the Air Tonight'), while others are better with the LCD-2C (e.g. 'I Wish it Would Rain Down). The enjoyment difference was not subtle, each was amazing on the one track, and meh on the other. So, now I am wondering if this is the nature with all headphones, or is there a stack or headphone that does it all well? I am having fun swapping around though, so not stressing on it. This is also teaching me about recessed vs forward presentations, and which I prefer.
Experiments, what have you learned?
- Thread starter DP42
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This is the nature of all headphones. There's no unanimously agreed upon perfect headphone, though you might find one perfect for your tastes.
Yes it's down to the songs you like best, the Ananda has nice speed for metal or techno. I just shoot for neutral or Harman, and then EQ different profiles to change things up, like a playlist for different genres to match.
Thanks, I am considering the Lokius to see if I can improve some of the 80s thin sounding recordings.
castleofargh
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It’s the nature of the game. First, most albums ever made were for speaker playback. How one particular arrangement will work on a particular headphone or any headphone, is sometimes up to luck, sometimes up to how much the sound engineers bothered to check how it sounded with a headphone, and then which headphone he used.
Second, HRTF and the deeply subjective human experience. Like, just because a headphone is bright for you, doesn’t mean it feels that way to someone else. Same for some placements in space, a certain frequency response might place an instrument above eye level for you but below for me. It’s a somewhat extreme example, but it exists for some people with significanrly different ear shapes probably.
We’re very good at doing models and predictions about subjective experience when most/all the variables agree and give the same message about the sound, what it is, where it is. But when several variables are outside purely standard human binaural hearing, I believe that subjectivity becomes even more of a per-subject experience.
Back to your anecdote, my first guess would be about frequency response. The sum of how a certain track in tuned and mixed, the FR of the headphone, and then how your brain decided to interpret the final result. Maybe it makes certain songs work better on one headphone. I think we all have those experiences. Explaining them is another story.
Another idea I have, but now it’s just me talking and not all the clever guys who came up with psychoacoustics, is that maybe the first system we used to play a given track, could become our reference of how we think it should sound? It’s an impression I often have, with nothing scientific to back it up. Just my guts. Some artist I discovered on a crap V shape IEM, just doesn’t feel right to me unless I use an EQ to get back that V shape horror that feels so right on those specific tracks. I really believe this is a factor for me, but again, I have no evidence whatsoever that it’s a universal thing. It might just be me and 3 other guys.
Second, HRTF and the deeply subjective human experience. Like, just because a headphone is bright for you, doesn’t mean it feels that way to someone else. Same for some placements in space, a certain frequency response might place an instrument above eye level for you but below for me. It’s a somewhat extreme example, but it exists for some people with significanrly different ear shapes probably.
We’re very good at doing models and predictions about subjective experience when most/all the variables agree and give the same message about the sound, what it is, where it is. But when several variables are outside purely standard human binaural hearing, I believe that subjectivity becomes even more of a per-subject experience.
Back to your anecdote, my first guess would be about frequency response. The sum of how a certain track in tuned and mixed, the FR of the headphone, and then how your brain decided to interpret the final result. Maybe it makes certain songs work better on one headphone. I think we all have those experiences. Explaining them is another story.
Another idea I have, but now it’s just me talking and not all the clever guys who came up with psychoacoustics, is that maybe the first system we used to play a given track, could become our reference of how we think it should sound? It’s an impression I often have, with nothing scientific to back it up. Just my guts. Some artist I discovered on a crap V shape IEM, just doesn’t feel right to me unless I use an EQ to get back that V shape horror that feels so right on those specific tracks. I really believe this is a factor for me, but again, I have no evidence whatsoever that it’s a universal thing. It might just be me and 3 other guys.
That could be part of it, whether a particular track sounds right to me. I guess I am finding out that audio perfection comes in small doses for my ears. I crave the transporting experience when music sounds perfect, but mostly my listening is just enjoyable, but not mind blowing. The worst part is that I remember 80s bands sounding so good, we loved music, it was a big part of our youth. But I now I listen to these same recordings and they sound so bad, not sure any equipment can make them sound right.It’s the nature of the game. First, most albums ever made were for speaker playback. How one particular arrangement will work on a particular headphone or any headphone, is sometimes up to luck, sometimes up to how much the sound engineers bothered to check how it sounded with a headphone, and then which headphone he used.
Second, HRTF and the deeply subjective human experience. Like, just because a headphone is bright for you, doesn’t mean it feels that way to someone else. Same for some placements in space, a certain frequency response might place an instrument above eye level for you but below for me. It’s a somewhat extreme example, but it exists for some people with significanrly different ear shapes probably.
We’re very good at doing models and predictions about subjective experience when most/all the variables agree and give the same message about the sound, what it is, where it is. But when several variables are outside purely standard human binaural hearing, I believe that subjectivity becomes even more of a per-subject experience.
Back to your anecdote, my first guess would be about frequency response. The sum of how a certain track in tuned and mixed, the FR of the headphone, and then how your brain decided to interpret the final result. Maybe it makes certain songs work better on one headphone. I think we all have those experiences. Explaining them is another story.
Another idea I have, but now it’s just me talking and not all the clever guys who came up with psychoacoustics, is that maybe the first system we used to play a given track, could become our reference of how we think it should sound? It’s an impression I often have, with nothing scientific to back it up. Just my guts. Some artist I discovered on a crap V shape IEM, just doesn’t feel right to me unless I use an EQ to get back that V shape horror that feels so right on those specific tracks. I really believe this is a factor for me, but again, I have no evidence whatsoever that it’s a universal thing. It might just be me and 3 other guys.
castleofargh
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All you need is a pair of speakers, a younger brain, and memory loss to experience it all over again without knowledge of good playback audio and clean recording/mixing/mastering. 
Trying to pit reality against great memories makes for a truly unfair fight. Odds are that we’ve embellished the moments quite a lot over years of reminiscing. And we simply were different people.
As a young kid I have no memory of the concept of hi-fi. Music I liked in the car and music on the expensive system at my grandparent's(in a big room with about a 5 meter clearance before reaching the roof), they gave the same sincere moments of joy. What it played mattered, not how. I can’t go back to that state of mind now that I have all that knowledge, all those things I can complain about! I wish it was a joke, but IMO that’s also part of your/our problem.
I’ve had some years when I was deep into punk music(only the music). How many of those hits recorded horribly by people who could hardly be called musicians, in some place with the reverb of a public toilet, can feel like the good old days on my current setup? Not one track!
Somehow, in the car on a terrible sound system with the windows rolled down, some of those guys become fun again for me. It’s never the energy and emotion I once felt(and I suspect I’m the one who lost it), but at least I’m not going crazy over the garbage recording like I would at home on a clean system. Maybe that would work for some of your music? A relatively mediocre speaker playback, like the good old days. Maybe a high distortion(around 4% thd) tube amp would bring back some of the old experience if you were near those at the time? But I have no fix for you being someone different today. The deal is done on that part.
I don’t think higher fidelity would help here. It’s a different quest.
Trying to pit reality against great memories makes for a truly unfair fight. Odds are that we’ve embellished the moments quite a lot over years of reminiscing. And we simply were different people.
As a young kid I have no memory of the concept of hi-fi. Music I liked in the car and music on the expensive system at my grandparent's(in a big room with about a 5 meter clearance before reaching the roof), they gave the same sincere moments of joy. What it played mattered, not how. I can’t go back to that state of mind now that I have all that knowledge, all those things I can complain about! I wish it was a joke, but IMO that’s also part of your/our problem.
I’ve had some years when I was deep into punk music(only the music). How many of those hits recorded horribly by people who could hardly be called musicians, in some place with the reverb of a public toilet, can feel like the good old days on my current setup? Not one track!
Somehow, in the car on a terrible sound system with the windows rolled down, some of those guys become fun again for me. It’s never the energy and emotion I once felt(and I suspect I’m the one who lost it), but at least I’m not going crazy over the garbage recording like I would at home on a clean system. Maybe that would work for some of your music? A relatively mediocre speaker playback, like the good old days. Maybe a high distortion(around 4% thd) tube amp would bring back some of the old experience if you were near those at the time? But I have no fix for you being someone different today. The deal is done on that part.
I don’t think higher fidelity would help here. It’s a different quest.
Ha ha, thanks, yeah that's it, trying to recapture those moments seems futile. My hifi journey started this Spring with some Marantz and KEF gear, then Bifrost 2, cables, isolaters, sub, etc. Got it sounding pretty good, but changed the stuff I was listening to, focusing on 'hifi' quality recordings. But recently I started trying some of my old albums, Ratt, Journey, VanHalen, etc. Wow, it sounds bad, try some old Tom Petty, yikes! The headphone stuff is my recent thing, G111 MK2, plus the new cans, so I can stop bothering the wife (I like it loud-ish). I am listening to the Cars right now on the LCD-2C, they sound pretty good, and some Phil Collins tracks, etc. sound good. Beatles can also sound pretty great, I just wish everything sounded great, I hate having to put those 80's hair bands aside, those were actually what we really into, I can't even listen to them on my hifi gear, it hurts my ears! But, yeah, I might try Tom Petty, etc on the car stereo with the windows down, good idea!
Get yourself a nice vintage receiver from the 1970s and a pair of AKG K240 sextetts, and I'm pretty sure all of that 80s stuff will sound rockin' to you again.
The reality of high end gear is that some of it is so revealing that you will hear new stuff in songs you thought you knew by heart, but the flip-side of that is some of your fav tracks from back in the day were mastered with a potato, and you will hear it in all of it's 5 dollar production value awfulness
I keep two vintage receivers in my chain at all times, and I own 4 pairs of Sextetts, one of each variant and a 2nd pair of the MP version that I bought for my stepson and he gifted it back when he left for uni. The receiver/sextett combo is for when I simply want to rock out, and I have high end headphones/amps/DACs for critical listening.
The reality of high end gear is that some of it is so revealing that you will hear new stuff in songs you thought you knew by heart, but the flip-side of that is some of your fav tracks from back in the day were mastered with a potato, and you will hear it in all of it's 5 dollar production value awfulness
I keep two vintage receivers in my chain at all times, and I own 4 pairs of Sextetts, one of each variant and a 2nd pair of the MP version that I bought for my stepson and he gifted it back when he left for uni. The receiver/sextett combo is for when I simply want to rock out, and I have high end headphones/amps/DACs for critical listening.
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Yeah, I am starting to think less is more when it comes to these poorly recorded albums, I wish I had a dial on my system called 'dumb it down' so some of the 80's stuff wouldn't sound so harsh. I am real tempted by the lokius, but have a feeling it won't be enough to fix this kind of music, so I might go with your suggestion at some point, I would love to have some vintage gear.
Vintage receivers already have tone control built-in. Most models came with bass and treble adjustment knobs, but usually the TOTL units also had a midrange adjustment as well. Then there is the 'loudness' function, which increases treble+bass when activated. It was meant to fill out music when listening at low volume levels, but it works at full blast too...don't ask how I know this.
The thing about the old receivers though, they sound their best with high impedance dynamic driver headphones, which is why I suggest the K240 sextetts, which have a 600 ohm impedance. Low impedance DD HPs usually get a bad case of bass bloat and planars can sound grainy.
The sextetts still have the best midrange I've heard of any headphone, despite the fact that you can find them for around 100 bucks. I reviewed the sextetts a few years ago on my Youtube channel (link in signature) and also did a video on using vintage receivers as HP amps as well.
So true. Sometimes I'm convinced part of my brain wants to reject an objectively superior musical 'experience' - not just detail but other aspects too. Especially when listening to beloved music from a certain time in my life I originally heard on poor equipment that I didn't care was poor at the time but had an emotional effect on me. Maybe my brain latched onto that at the time and got configured to match endorphin release with that particular sound.
(and early 80's metal for sure - I grew up on NWOBHM and a lot of that stuff sounds terrible on decent equipment now)
I have been a headphone guy for the past 20 years, mostly IEMs and DAPs, but went to speakers this spring. Then realized a headphone amp and new cans could help me not bother the wife during the afternoon, so got the G111+LCD-2C. I have less invested in the headphone setup, but in general I love the immersion of the headphone experience, but I will say my KEF speakers + Marantz are a bit more forgiving on some of these bright 80s recordings. So, I tend to switch around between headphones and speakers depending if I find my ears bothered too much. Any suggestions on whether a Lokius would be worth it for the headphones, to warm up these harsh 80s recordings? I see in the Lokius thread some people complained about its effect on soundstage, don't want to compromise the sound quality too much.
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