[Napilopez]

For those of you that have top-end cans, like the HD800 and T1, how do you compensate for the quality of your source? Meaning, I've heard people describe cans as being warm or muddy or harsh or cheesy(ok not really that one), but I guess I just wonder at one point do you start to consider it might just be something with your source? When I went microphone shopping last year, I remember reading about different microphones with different sound signatures. Some mics are more sibilant, others have recessed mids and blah blah.

While it seems that microphones have been more accurate at capturing sound than headphones are at reproducing them, I was curious as to your thoughts.

Another semi-related thought: I always wondered what if a company tried to do testing by having a people(preferably audiophiles) hear live instruments play and compare that to the sound from headphones? Like I don't know, something like blindfolding the participant, having this person wear a real headphone set first, and then put on another set where the cups were cut off or something so they were completely open, and have live instruments play the music instead. The people would then be asked which one was the live instruments, and which were headphones, and then to maybe assess the differences between the two. Maybe if you could food 25% of the people, theyd be like uber awesome headphones or something? Or am I just crazy? Lol me and my silly thoughts.

 

[Amarphael]

Well regarding to the second part, As you just can't reproduce the exact sound of live instruments on ANY headphone today, You'll have no problem whatsoever to recognize the source and the playback. Sencond, even if that was possible to do 1:1 reproduction, As channels are totally seperated in standard Headphones (except ear-speaker hybrid like K1000) you'll still hear diffrently the playback because of different brain pereception and thus inevetably notice the source. Plus there are added... um vibrations?... that are present with live instruments playing (not just LF instuments) that you can't exprience otherwise.

 

[Napilopez]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amarphael /img/forum/go_quote.gif Well regarding to the second part, As you just can't reproduce the exact sound of live instruments on ANY headphone today, You'll have no problem whatsoever to recognize the source and the playback. Sencond, even if that was possible to do 1:1 reproduction, As channels are totally seperated in standard Headphones (except ear-speaker hybrid like K1000) you'll still hear diffrently the playback because of different brain pereception and thus inevetably notice the source. Plus there are added... um vibrations?... that are present with live instruments playing (not just LF instuments) that you can't exprience otherwise.

Yea, I assumed as much, but I thought perhaps in a carefully controleld environment, wherethey perhaps place a robe on the participant, in a room that kills extra reverberations, and positioned the instruments in a certain way, maybe it'd be more effective than one might guess. I'm basing the 25% on this Artificial intelligence test thingy, which is that the AI should be able to confuse a certain number of people into thinking it's a real person for it to be deemed good or whatever.

I do think we have those "out-of-head" experiences sometime, but if you could confuse a few listeners, maybe the non audiophiles, than who knows, maybe it could be a good indication. Very difficult and impractical though.