Frustrated with Cymbals

[bagwell359]

That very much depends on what you mean by “similar emotions/perceptions”. Obviously, the emotion/perception of a live event is affected by numerous factors; the anticipation of queuing to enter the venue and then waiting for the performance to start, the presence and anticipation of the other audience members, the smells and sights of the concert venue, etc., none of which can be captured (as you state) in an audio recording or reproduced in your sitting room of course. However, a “really well done recording” will deliberately differ from the actual sound that existed at the event in order to somewhat reproduce how that sound may have been experienced/perceived, and some recordings do that very well.

G

Well done recordings: London, Shaded dogs, Sheffield, Wilson, Mapleshade, Chesky and so many recordings Doug Sax mastered are among them.

I went to the BSO about 60 times from age 9 to 14. I didn't have much in the way of expectations/anxiety. Just following the music with eyes mostly closed. Perceptions of how massed strings sounded, or how violas or oboes set a mood.

Looking forward to the various live performances we'll see at the Winter Markets (Paris, Strasbourg, Colmar, etc.) we'll attend starting in a few weeks.

 

[audionooby]

Just found this thread and I have some of the same sensitivity that the original poster has, where on some gear things like cymbals are too sharp and can make listening uncomfortable. Not most of the time, but sometimes. I personally found this to be an issue on ChiFi IEMs, but have not had the issue on my SE846 (thanks @Vamp898), which I run with the default red filter and bass boost on EQ. For some reason I can tolerate all kinds of music on these just fine.

I am curious if folks in this science forum have thoughts on what appropriate open and closed headphones might be for someone with that type of sensitivity.

 

[castleofargh]

Just found this thread and I have some of the same sensitivity that the original poster has, where on some gear things like cymbals are too sharp and can make listening uncomfortable. Not most of the time, but sometimes. I personally found this to be an issue on ChiFi IEMs, but have not had the issue on my SE846 (thanks @Vamp898), which I run with the default red filter and bass boost on EQ. For some reason I can tolerate all kinds of music on these just fine.

I am curious if folks in this science forum have thoughts on what appropriate open and closed headphones might be for someone with that type of sensitivity.

Obviously, someone who's not a fan of elevated treble can just get something tuned with rolled off trebles and be done. But depending on how early you need attenuated trebles, that might make the music quite dull.

Most of the time it's a certain frequency that is problematic, instead of trebles in general. And being in the treble, frequency graphs are not very helpful. As the upper trebles are already a mess, sometimes the difference between a resonance hitting a peak or a dip at your eardrum, is a shift of not even 0.5Hz. Something your ear canal or a small change in placement could cause. And if we didn't have enough fun, there is no guaranty that you'll get the same resonance frequencies in both ears(different shape, different placement).
Only you can play a sine sweep to feel if some frequency abnormally points its loud bothering head, and then with test tones or EQ, find where that is with that transducer. Then maybe you can EQ down just a small area. And maybe if you find something consistent over a bunch of gear, you can get a more definitive answer as to what you should avoid(from the same measurement source for online graphs, or it's worth less than nothing). Some luck is involved here, IMO. The good news is that so long as it's attenuation, EQ presents zero risk. It's when someone tries to boost some high frequencies that he might be playing Russian roulette with his hair cells.


Side note just in case, a surprising amount of people think there is a problem at 8 or 10kHz when what bothers them is at 3 or 4kHz. More reason to check sweeps, test tones, or just fool around with an EQ to make sure you're identifying the offending frequency area as accurately as possible.

 

[mrhenu]

Most IEMs seem to have just too much treble. They need it because there's typically a lot of bass that needs to be balanced out.

I have also had problems with cymbals on IEMs in the past but moving away from a V-Shaped tuning to a neutral one makes them much better. Jigsaw Falling Into Place and Reckoner now sound as they should.