[kitaoji]

Hi,

I'm going to vary the thread musicmind started, and since this involves different headphones, I felt it was worthy to create a new thread instead.

I'm currently running foobar out of my Toshiba Portege A100 laptop, and the headphones (currently Sennheiser eH350) run straight out of the headphone out port. Most of music is in 160+kbps mp3 (sometimes 192, sometimes 320, or lossless), and is relatively light anime soundtrack (think light background music that doesn't mean too much, soprano female vocals, and some rock+tight bass a la Kajiura Yuki [a prominent composer]). I also use my headphones for listening to everything, so this includes internet radio and watching movies on my laptop.

I'm not sure if my soon-to-arrive-DT880s are overkill for this current system, although the reason why I chose them in the first place was their soundstage and more treble focus, as opposed to my bass-heavy (echo-y) PX100s, which I love the sound-texture of, but not that bass. Also, I love instrument separation. If the headphones can give you that really good 3D effect that's allows you to locate the x,y,z co-ordinates of a particular voice and instruments, that would be lovely ^_^ instead of spitting out molded globs of music the eH350s are doing now.

Obviously the DT880s will need some amp to run them, but I'll leave the amp for DT880s elsewhere...

So right now, will the DT880s be too much? I've read in some places that the AKG 501 might be decent, or the AKG 701 is just as equal a choice (plus its lower impedance and higher sensitivity, make it easier to run out of a laptop and the integrated sound card). I might return those beyers after the 100 hour burn-in mark, if they aren't quite what I'm looking for (or too many people convince me otherwise)

Also - if you're in the Bay Area, and have any of the AKGs or any equally high end headphones, AND willing to let a college student borrow them for a week or so, please PM me. My ears and wallet (which keeps on going into slumps when I buy a whole bunch of headphones to try) will thank you.

 

[Mercuttio]

DT880 are overkill for 160 mp3, IMHO. 160 isn't very good encoding, and you're going to find a lot of compression artifacts due to the 880 clarity. The DT880 is not very kind to bad recordings...

 

[kitaoji]

So the DT880s are going to make me hate my music instead O_O That's not a good thought.

In that case, what are the most "forgiving" high-end cans for such a setup? I believe it was mentioned elsewhere that the K701s are better, although I'm not sure about the Sennheisers.

Unfortunately, I won't be able to change the source - my files will stay as they are, but I can throw in things such as amps, dacs and so on to improve them (as much as they will go).

Also, how would the 'phones compare for just dialogue? Since I'm using my headphones for everything (listening to REALLY bad recordings of lectures, webcasts) so some soundstage and clarity for those would be good.

 

[kitaoji]

just pushing this thread to the top so it can get more noticed...

 

[Purgatos]

Senns are pretty good for covering up bad recordings, so are Grados.

Trying to upgrade with a good amp or DAC is pointless, 160kbps will never sound high end, no matter how nice your other equipment is.

 

[kitaoji]

On the recordings - what do you consider the "minimum" for one of the high-end headphones (e.g. HD650, K701, DT880)?

And out of these three phones (or some others or lower, such as the HD 555), which are the most forgiving?

I greatly appreciate your comments. ^_^

 

[Purgatos]

On my 880s, I usually listen to Lossless, can't really tell much difference between that and 320kbps and 256 is still okay, but not preferred. I'd probably call 256 the floor for those Beyers.

The Senn 600s I was borrowing were much more forgiving and seemed to smooth over a lot of the artifacts to make things more listenable. I haven't heard the 650 much, but since it seemed to have a fairly similar presentation I would expect it to be as forgiving as the 600, possibly even more so.

I've never heard any AKG offerings, so I can't say where they'd fit in.

Edit: Oh and think that the HD555s would be likely to serve you well.

 

[Mercuttio]

Somehow it double posted, sorry.

 

[Mercuttio]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kitaoji On the recordings - what do you consider the "minimum" for one of the high-end headphones (e.g. HD650, K701, DT880)? And out of these three phones (or some others or lower, such as the HD 555), which are the most forgiving? I greatly appreciate your comments. ^_^

I like my music in at least 224 AAC, which is like 320 mp3 to my ear. That's pretty good as far as compression goes. I keep most stuff in lossless, just to have uncompressed backups that I can mess with later.

Of those headphones, I'd say the HD650 probably handles bad recordings the best... the warm tone can sometimes gloss over artifacts in my experience.

Be careful of higher end Grados. My MS2i with C-Pads are the most rediculously revealing headphones I've heard under $800... thought hey definitely gloss over some details with only stock pads.

EDIT: HD555 seconded. It's probably what you want.

 

[Febs]

I always wonder how people can make a blanket statement that "x bitrate MP3 is the floor" without specifying (1) whether they are referring to CBR or VBR, and (2) which encoder they are referring to.

MP3s encoded at -V2 use the full spectrum of bitrates up to 320kbps, depending on what is required for a particular recording, and tend to average around 190 to 205 kbps. Files encoded at -V2 should be perceptually transparent (i.e., indistinguishable from the source) to an overwhelming majority of the population. Files encoded at lower-bitrate settings (-V3 through -V5) should still sound very good, if not completely transparent, to a large majority of the population.

I'm not saying that it will be impossible for you to hear a difference between high-quality MP3s and the original recording. It is entirely possible that you will be in the small minority of people sensitive to compression artifacts typical of MP3s. However, I don't think you can or should assume that using MP3s will automatically ruin your music listening experience, especially if you use well-encoded MP3s. In my mind, your laptop's on-board sound is far more likely to be the weak link in the chain.

 

[kitaoji]

the DT 880s arrive tomorrow... hopefully with my barely-adequate Little Dot Micro I may finally see what they sound like.

I ripped most of my CDs using iTunes, then someone suggested that the iTunes decoder isn't that great, so maybe 10% have now been converted using EAC and LAME. I personally don't think I can tell too much of the compression artifacts; I probably couldn't really tell the difference between 128 and 192. (however, 192 VBR is MUCH more superior than a transcoded 128 CBR, that I can tell you.)

Thanks for the comments for the HD555s, by the way, I'd love to get them, but since I already have the eH350/HD497 and those don't seem too popular to foist onto the Head-fi community, I may have to leave this as somewhat unfortunate choice. Oh well...

 

[musicmind]

Hi kitaoji

Good luck with your new DT 880's.
Let us know how they perform for you with your music

Thanks, Cheers