Fantastic!
Splitting hairs among all extremely good headphones is difficult, breaking it down into distinct categories and sub-categories seems like the most logical way to do it. Your categorization and breakdown gives a good sense of those qualities of the headphone and allow better comparison, and let's me prioritize which aspects I am biased for enjoying the most.
That said, my experience is that sometimes when I hear something new and exciting, I lose grip on minutia after a few songs, and I end up just letting a headphone playback my library on shuffle for an hour or more. Sometimes this happens when there's something really GOOD about a certain characteristic which I never knew I valued, or a trait I prioritize hits a new level that I want to hear a couple more favourite songs through the filter of this headphone... Or best of all, and a sure sign of a winner, it all just comes together in such a jucy coherent package that I just have to play everything through to the end, and I'm so awestruck that I relinquish control on the song cue (shuffle all songs in my library) and float with my full attention and emotions riding on the music.
I think it's important to analyze the character of a headphone, and that's especially important when describing the sound to others, but I don't really "grok" a headphone until I break out of my preset "quality test songs" playlist and let random chance teach me about what a headphone does really well (or really poorly). I think there's a certain amount of "brain burn-in" that happens when you overplay a song, even with different headphones. An example of this was with HiFiMan's original HE-400 with velour pads: I thought it did pretty well with my test tracks and I could see living with it, but I didn't realize it wouldn't be an all-rounder for me until "A Woman Left Lonely" by Janis Joplin came on with poor mastering doubling the HE-400's flaw in recessed mids. It sounded like the lead singer was a background vocalist! With my more recent Oppo PM-3 testing, I've grown in affection for it as I enjoyed the forward presentation during intimate songs like "I Don't Get It" by Cowboy Junkies and "Got To Go Back" by Van Morrison, and while not "holographic" the PM-3's rendition of depth on my copy of "Hungarian Dances: No. 5 in G Minor" is very good.
Jelt, do you ever feel like you have a hard time "understanding" a headphone with overplayed test tracks?
Subbed! Looking forward to the rest of the reviews!
Splitting hairs among all extremely good headphones is difficult, breaking it down into distinct categories and sub-categories seems like the most logical way to do it. Your categorization and breakdown gives a good sense of those qualities of the headphone and allow better comparison, and let's me prioritize which aspects I am biased for enjoying the most.
That said, my experience is that sometimes when I hear something new and exciting, I lose grip on minutia after a few songs, and I end up just letting a headphone playback my library on shuffle for an hour or more. Sometimes this happens when there's something really GOOD about a certain characteristic which I never knew I valued, or a trait I prioritize hits a new level that I want to hear a couple more favourite songs through the filter of this headphone... Or best of all, and a sure sign of a winner, it all just comes together in such a jucy coherent package that I just have to play everything through to the end, and I'm so awestruck that I relinquish control on the song cue (shuffle all songs in my library) and float with my full attention and emotions riding on the music.
I think it's important to analyze the character of a headphone, and that's especially important when describing the sound to others, but I don't really "grok" a headphone until I break out of my preset "quality test songs" playlist and let random chance teach me about what a headphone does really well (or really poorly). I think there's a certain amount of "brain burn-in" that happens when you overplay a song, even with different headphones. An example of this was with HiFiMan's original HE-400 with velour pads: I thought it did pretty well with my test tracks and I could see living with it, but I didn't realize it wouldn't be an all-rounder for me until "A Woman Left Lonely" by Janis Joplin came on with poor mastering doubling the HE-400's flaw in recessed mids. It sounded like the lead singer was a background vocalist! With my more recent Oppo PM-3 testing, I've grown in affection for it as I enjoyed the forward presentation during intimate songs like "I Don't Get It" by Cowboy Junkies and "Got To Go Back" by Van Morrison, and while not "holographic" the PM-3's rendition of depth on my copy of "Hungarian Dances: No. 5 in G Minor" is very good.
Jelt, do you ever feel like you have a hard time "understanding" a headphone with overplayed test tracks?
Subbed! Looking forward to the rest of the reviews!
