[Steve999]

Here is one of my favorite recordings of all time (even though it is not at all well known, and is often out of print or distribution).

If you like listening to the details of intricate drum work (I certainly do), here is one of the founding fathers (born 1911, but recorded here in 1977, I think it was, in his later years, but I really love the way it’s recorded here):

 

[gregorio]

Conversely, bass is, in my subjective opinion and in my personal listening eperience, concretely less important than cymbals/hi-hats …

That’s not my subjective opinion, which is that both are vitally important. Loose either one and the result is a dramatic difference, a catastrophic difference in many cases.

Some recordings have really crap sounding high hats and cymbals especially recent modern recordings.

That’s typically deliberate. Most electronic/dance genres for example deliberately rely on highly processed cymbals, hat and drum samples. Personally I miss the live based hats/cymbals and think these genres would often benefit from them but that’s just an “old fashioned” opinion to modern producers of these genres.

Thats like 1 of 10,000 people! LOL

Sure, anyone can simply invent nonsense statistics. I would put it more in the 1 in 20 range or higher, which would be many millions people.

Ask normies about high-hats and cymbals and you will likely get an answer like, I don't like them to hurt my ears and thats about it.

Play the same tracks to “normies” without hats and cymbals though and they’ll like it even less. Same old audiophile nonsense here, lacking any semblance of logic; engineers exist to ruin music recordings and now drummers use hi-hats and cymbals because 9,999 people out of 10,000 don’t like them. Popular music genres are by definition driven by popularity, if the vast majority preferred popular music without hi-hats/cymbals their use would have died out 50-60 years ago!

G

 

[castleofargh]

Personally, I find that the most annoying aspect of IEMs is how the trebles can and often are pure chaos. At one point, all the cheap stuff would have some 10kHz spike that made people believe it had detailed trebles, but it also made cymbals and others similar instruments sound like you just dropped a few spoons on the floor. It's pretty hard to get nice upper range in IEMs, and it's even made harder by how slight changes in insertion can change the upper frequency response in a big way. Sadly, the amount and tonality of the "pschhhhhhh"(totally super technical term) are going to be heavily impacted by the upper range. EQuing is tricky and borderline dangerous IMO, because it's easy to start pushing for a dip we almost can do nothing about with EQ, and then have that shift a little in frequency and start killing innocent air cells in the ear because that particular nearby frequency is now way louder while still being in an area we're not all that sensitive to (it destroys us, but we don't really feel it).

I very much enjoy drummers who show subtlety over speed and violence. It's a general drummer thing for me and not specific to cymbals. For rock, hard rock genres, where the guy must get into it, I noticed how I often lean toward those who don't record their drummer very loud relative to the rest of the band. Most Iron maiden recordings, for example, I might have been a total fanboy anyway, but I think how they mix things played a part in how much I've loved/love them(Bruce>all). The drummer is still all here, but not Animal here.

Edit because I reread my post and both Godzilla and I had a stroke. Too much autocorrect trying to make sense of my poor typing.

 

[WoodyLuvr]

That’s not my subjective opinion, which is that both are vitally important. Loose either one and the result is a dramatic difference, a catastrophic difference in many cases.

That’s typically deliberate. Most electronic/dance genres for example deliberately rely on highly processed cymbals, hat and drum samples. Personally I miss the live based hats/cymbals and think these genres would often benefit from them but that’s just an “old fashioned” opinion to modern producers of these genres.

Sure, anyone can simply invent nonsense statistics. I would put it more in the 1 in 20 range or higher, which would be many millions people.

Play the same tracks to “normies” without hats and cymbals though and they’ll like it even less. Same old audiophile nonsense here, lacking any semblance of logic; engineers exist to ruin music recordings and now drummers use hi-hats and cymbals because 9,999 people out of 10,000 don’t like them. Popular music genres are by definition driven by popularity, if the vast majority preferred popular music without hi-hats/cymbals their use would have died out 50-60 years ago!

G

Don't think it is old fashioned at all. There really is something about (the nuance regarding) the attack and decay of live-based/recorded percussion instruments that is so appealing.

 

[Elegiac]

Try this for cymbals hahaha
I can only listen to it on headphones with a fair bit of treble roll-off

 

[hifilove]

Hi, and I completely understand your frustration. What you're experiencing is the limitations of the gear that you're using. It does not resolved the treble+ region well or at all. Many components have this problem and it really doesn't matter how much they cost. A component that resolves cymbals well will provide the air and shimmer and tone that makes them seem natural. Tuning after the fact is a bandaid on a poorly resolving component. Just saying.

 

[bigshot]

I very much enjoy drummers who show subtlety over speed and violence.

Max Roach. That's all that needs to be said.

 

[Ghoostknight]

Hi, and I completely understand your frustration. What you're experiencing is the limitations of the gear that you're using. It does not resolved the treble+ region well or at all. Many components have this problem and it really doesn't matter how much they cost. A component that resolves cymbals well will provide the air and shimmer and tone that makes them seem natural. Tuning after the fact is a bandaid on a poorly resolving component. Just saying.

hi hats are one of the things i listen for and on a speaker setup much stuff influences highs quite hugely
- my new Aune X8 dac definitely resolves highs better than my previous topping d10
- reasonable made sommercable XLR`s compared to premade cheapo cordal ones also made a good jump in highs, tho the effect were more of smoothing out high sounds, it was less fatiguing and more natural sounding afterwards, also high frequency distortion sounded really unpleasent ("earpiercing") before on flat speakers
- i also noticed my new aune X7s headphone amp resolves way better than the Fiio E10k i used before... more natural/airy sounding
- one thing with headphones/iems is definitely frequencyresponse... the harman curve isnt perfect + the one driver philosophy might be not the best too for highs, modulation distortion is most probably a thing with headphones as with wideband speakers... (and i also noticed myself my DT880 never reach the high resolveness of my pretty flat speaker setup..)

to truely know how hi hats sound i would advice listen to them in real-life or on good resolving (flat) speakers, if you havent done this yet

i might see with what test songs i can come up later today

 

[Steve999]

Max Roach. That's all that needs to be said.

You have me flipping around the inter webs checking out Max Roach out of curiosity. This tune from his later stuff is super trippy—sounds like, I’d call it, 11/12 time? Onomatopoeia. . .

 

[Ghoostknight]

is one of the songs that stucked in my head for highs, on speakers the descending effect (from 18-20khz down to 5khz) sounds really "sparkly" and troughout the song you also got hihats/cymbals but at a lower volume, kinda dark mix beside those tho

 

[Ghoostknight]

You have me flipping around the inter webs checking out Max Roach out of curiosity. This tune from his later stuff is super trippy—sounds like, I’d call it, 11/12 time? Onomatopoeia. . .

sounds like a great "test" song i have to listen to it on speakers later today...

 

[Steve999]

is one of the songs that stucked in my head for highs, on speakers the descending effect (from 18-20khz down to 5khz) sounds really "sparkly" and troughout the song you also got hihats/cymbals but at a lower volume, kinda dark mix beside those tho

Never heard that tune before, pretty simple but I really like it, it’s a cool song.

So I listened to it on Spotify, so it’s not like the vinyl version you apparently linked to for overall sound, imho, for whatever reason.

The digital version on Spotify sounds totally awesome to me, on my stereo to me anyway. The sparse drum work is really well-recorded for my taste, the bass or bass synthesizer (?) sound is awesome, and the keyboards in the mids sound really well-balanced, so for me, anyway, the sound quality is exceptional.

 

[Ghoostknight]

So I listened to it on Spotify, so it’s not like the vinyl version you apparently linked to for overall sound, imho, for whatever reason.

The digital version on Spotify sounds totally awesome to me, on my stereo to me anyway. The sparse drum work is really well-recorded for my taste, the bass synthesizer (?) sound is awesome, and the keyboards in the mids sound really well-balanced, so for me, anyway, the sound quality is exceptional. (-:

i dont think its a vinyl version i posted, its just a "creative" video tho it might be a different master to what i meant, i also listen to the "normal" digital version on deezer/qobuz

yep its quite a nice song, i like these "slower" songs for testing it kinda lets you focus more on the little things... and this descending high effect got stucked while testing.
i can also confirm because of easyeffect`s spectrometer that the effect indeed goes from around 18-20khz to 5khz on flat speakers you get a really nice flat response from this descending effect

 

[jenkinsontherun]

Personally, I find that the most annoying aspect of IEMs is how the trebles can and often are pure chaos. At one point, all the cheap stuff would have some 10kHz spike that made people believe it had detailed trebles, but it also made cymbals and others similar instruments sound like you just dropped a few spoons on the floor. It's pretty hard to get nice upper range in IEMs, and it's even made harder by how slight changes in insertion can change the upper frequency response in a big way. Sadly, the amount and tonality of the "pschhhhhhh"(totally super technical term) are going to be heavily impacted by the upper range. EQuing is tricky and borderline dangerous IMO, because it's easy to start pushing for a dip we almost can do nothing about with EQ, and then have that shift a little in frequency and start killing innocent air cells in the ear because that particular nearby frequency is now way louder while still being in an area we're not all that sensitive to (it destroys us, but we don't really feel it).

I very much enjoy drummers who show subtlety over speed and violence. It's a general drummer thing for me and not specific to cymbals. For rock, hard rock genres, where the guy must get into it, I noticed how I often lean toward those who don't record their drummer very loud relative to the rest of the band. Most Iron maiden recordings, for example, I might have been a total fanboy anyway, but I think how they mix things played a part in how much I've loved/love them(Bruce>all). The drummer is still all here, but not Animal here.

Edit because I reread my post and both Godzilla and I had a stroke. Too much autocorrect trying to make sense of my poor typing.

Used Tia Trios are probably the limit of my budget, but as a future note, would anyone mind sharing their setups, particularly speakers, that render that beautiful "pschhhhhh"? Moreover, are there are certain "tricks" in combination with certain gear to achieve such an effect? For example (and this is totally made up), EQing 8k down on a pair of HD600s? I locked up my wallet in a safe within a safe, so I won't be tempted to go on a shopping spree. So emphasis on the "tricks" part . I'm sure many users would appreciate budget options, too. I can list on them on the original post. All in all, it would be nice in the future to shop for speakers that suit this unyielding preference for "pschhhhh" sound.

I suppose, as a side note, I have "identified" the issue. The key takeaway (for myself anyways) is that hi hats are different from cymbals, and artists use them to impart a sharper, more "tempo-ey" feeling to the music, and sometimes that sharper attack is intentional by the artist. Personally, I don't like that sharp-strike-without-decay sound, but hey, who am I to argue against The Eagles or Radiohead?

 

[Ghoostknight]

oh who ever said max roach for cymbals/hihats is absolutly right..


i also listened to Onomatopoeia, quite nice testing song indeed on speakers