[edstrelow]

I am not a great fan of vinyl, especially listening through headphones, but my wife and myself, still have close to 1000 lp's and do check them out on occasion.

I did once listen to lp's on headphones, but after getting used to the quiet and lack of distortion on cd's, the surface noise, tape hiss, click and pops and distortion in loud passages on lp's gets excrutiating on the electrostatic phones, I mostly used.

I suspect most vinyl fans are listening more through speakers rather than phones, because the above-mentioned limitations are generally less obvious with loudspeakers.

That said, even some of my electrostatics work well with vinyl. Last night I compared three phones on vinyl recordings, the Stax SRX3, Stax Sigma (low bias) and Stax SR003. Of these the Sigma, running from an old Stax SRA12S was the clear winner.

[img]http://www.stax.co.jp/OLD/...wners think sound especially good with vinyl?

 

[jellybones]

Quote:

I wonederd if there are other phones, dynamic, electrostatic or whatever that their owners think sound especially good with vinyl?

I've been wondering the same exact thing. How are the HF-1's? It seems like woodied headphones would synergize well. RS1, GS1000, Darth. What do you guys think?

 

[4N6]

Quote:

Originally Posted by edstrelow /img/forum/go_quote.gif I am not a great fan of vinyl, especially listening through headphones... I did once listen to lp's on headphones, but after getting used to the quiet and lack of distortion on cd's, the surface noise, tape hiss, click and pops and distortion in loud passages on lp's gets excrutiating on the electrostatic phones, I mostly used.

I would say that the headphones are not the problem. Get a vacuum record cleaner, a quieter phono stage, and a new cartridge. Most of the noise that is heard with vinyl is due to dirty records (the pops and clicks) and a dull cartridge (poor tracking). The phono stage can also add a lot of noise. Other headphones may mask the problem, but will not solve it.

Vinyl, when done right, will sound substantially superior to CD. The problem is that you have to work for it.

 

[derekbmn]

When it comes to spinning vinyl ,my hands down favorites are the Senns.(580/600/650). I am still amazed at just how much they open up when fed from a decent and well setup vinyl rig. I prefer them over my various Stax for vinyl listening. (Wow I hope my fellow Stax mafia cohorts don't read this)

 

[Carl]

Quote:

Originally Posted by derekbmn /img/forum/go_quote.gif (Wow I hope my fellow Stax mafia cohorts don't read this)

 

[Blackmore]

I would say K1000, but only with a good quality LP

 

[edstrelow]

Quote:

Originally Posted by 4N6 /img/forum/go_quote.gif I would say that the headphones are not the problem. Get a vacuum record cleaner, a quieter phono stage, and a new cartridge. Most of the noise that is heard with vinyl is due to dirty records (the pops and clicks) and a dull cartridge (poor tracking). The phono stage can also add a lot of noise. Other headphones may mask the problem, but will not solve it. Vinyl, when done right, will sound substantially superior to CD. The problem is that you have to work for it.

I think my vinyl playing equipment is in good shape. My lp's are all in various proprietary storage sleeves and while I don't have a vacuum machine my discs are cleaned with a variety of other means. Before each play I use a carbon fiber brush to get dust off, then a D4 cleaning fluid and brush. The stylus is brushed each time and daubed with Stylast ( which is supposed to extend stylus life and certainly makes the sound better on each playing) Then I use an anti-static gun and put a Sorbethan puck/clamp on the discs.

I think if I was still playing lps' a lot, I would consider a vacuum machine as I hear that they are the last word in cleaning and I agree this could be an important factor.

However no amount of cleaning is going to get rid of scratches, worn grooves and tape hiss.



Quote:

Originally Posted by Blackmore /img/forum/go_quote.gif I would say K1000, but only with a good quality LP

Interesting. Isn't this phone is somewhat similar to the Sigma in having its tranducers mounted ahead of the ear?

Quote:

Originally Posted by derekbmn /img/forum/go_quote.gif When it comes to spinning vinyl ,my hands down favorites are the Senns.(580/600/650). I am still amazed at just how much they open up when fed from a decent and well setup vinyl rig. I prefer them over my various Stax for vinyl listening. (Wow I hope my fellow Stax mafia cohorts don't read this)

Is the frequency response of these phones similar to the Sigma, i.e. rolled off treble and mid bass prominence?

I am curious about what aspect of a phone makes it a good vinyl player.

 

[MaloS]

Quote:

Originally Posted by edstrelow /img/forum/go_quote.gif Is the frequency response of these phones similar to the Sigma, i.e. rolled off treble and mid bass prominence?

You just described an hd650 sir. And I attest. HD600 out of RSA Apache was asbolutely amazing when playing vinyl records, lots of life and presence. Keep in mind, unlike Stax, Sennheisers are tuned to have a diffused, slower sound, which will make recording troubles far less apparent, especially hiss from tape or crack from vinyl.

I would dare listen to Vinyl with a k340 personally, it separates out all the cracks/pops from records and places them in the field of their own. Its not a dark/black background, but neither does it get in the way of music (unlike the electrostatic headphones that I used).

 

[Zanth]

Quote:

Originally Posted by edstrelow /img/forum/go_quote.gif I wonder if there are other phones, dynamic, electrostatic or whatever that their owners think sound especially good with vinyl?

Well, of all the phones I've heard, no phone seems to transform as much as the RS-1's when vinyl is used as the format. In fact, when I first heard vinyl with the RS-1's I was convinced I needed to dive head first into collecting this format.

 

[tbonner1]

Senn's dark sound and rolled off upper treble are less sensitive to vinyl tracking distortion and record wear noise.

 

[robm321]

The 2 headphones that seem to excel (not just work) with LPs is GS-1000 and HD600.

Granted they don't usually have TTs at meets, so the only headphones I've heard with LP are the ones I have owned.

 

[wualta]

The Senns already mentioned would be an excellent choice, and if you're not a bass nut, I like the AKG K501. Built-in rumble filter.

My retinue (ha!) will be disappointed that I don't mention an isodynamic, but that's not a bad idea, since an iso's impulse response is user-adjustable. De-tune it just a little, and voila, the blemishes are airbrushed out. Think using something like NeatImage for a noisy jpeg.

 

[Stephen Murphy]

Another vote for the Senn 600s. I use mine regularly for vinyl and really enjoy them. My vinyl rig is better than average and I use a VPI cleaning machine. I have no problem with background noise and certainly not with mis-tracking. That would be a sign that things are not set up correctly.

 

[TheVinylRipper]

I can't really speak to the headphone question since I don't have any truly exotic ones.

However, I have found that the stylus can make a big difference in playback quality.

 

[haibane]

Based on what you said I wouldn't be surprised if there was a turntable issue.