[Psalmanazar]

   
Thanks for your opinion about Metal and Headphones , was fun and interesting to read .
But you forget something , Metal will not like or hate emphasized treble or what ever , it's only down to the listener preferences who will choose what they want to hear .
 
Currently i enjoy all of my headphones for any kind of metal depending on the mood etc , i like to hear different interpretations of a same album ...
 
Damn , i don't have any problem with the "fake" AKG large soudstage , the treble peak of death from Beyers , the sparkling of HD600 etc
 
Let's take an exemple,  In fact when i listen to let's say Battle in the North from Immortal , some times  i like to think it about a violent Blizzard , something cold and harsh , and the DT-880 is really great for that because the treble is not as soft as with a HD650 , but i don't care it's like i was battling my self in the North , a cold and razzor sharp sound  .  With the HD650 ??? no it's a much more relaxed experience , but also enjoyable for sure .
 
For STAX and planar i don't see why some couldn't enjoy Metal with them .
 
(If you can't stand some harshness while listening Metal , then you don't like Metal IMO )

Battles in the North doesn't really have anything wrong with it recording wise. Yeah Immortal sped up the drum track resulting in pitch-shifting and the vocals are way too loud in the mix but there isn't any high frequency nastiness or clipping. Just some black metal television static rhythm guitars and some shimmering cymbals that are recessed due to a slightly compressed master. Certainly nothing wrong with boosting the high frequencies for euphony without pain there.

I found Beyerdynamic's elevated 1980s diffuse field treble mountain range of doom (770/880/990) to have severe problems with flawed recordings like Pure Holocaust, The Red in the Sky is Ours, Nespithe, and Fallen Angel of Doom. They don't take kindly to clipped cymbals.

  Just curious, how do the Alpha Primes fare with metal, specifically Black and Death metal?

The better Fostex T50RP mods are very good for closed headphones but the treble can be too spiky for many poorly recorded death and black metal albums due to driver variance. Nothing can get around the drivers falling off a cliff in the upper treble robbing recordings of air.
 
If you only listen to the commercial, brickwalled  pop music with growls/rasps that is put out by Nuclear Blast and Century Media, you can use anything as they often do not have any real drums or even guitars (GuitarPro and digital reamping) on the recording. Nuclear Blast encourages bands to use EZdrummer. Nuclear Blast Suffocation isn't that bad music wise except for recycling entire songs but any revealing setup will show you they too are using stock EZdrummer samples just like Nuclear Blasted Immolation, who now might as well be Machine Head with Vigna guest solos after Kingdom of Conspiracy. A neutral, revealing setup will only expose these records for what they are but can do wonders for the late 80s and early 90s classics.

 

[paradoxper]

Psalmanazar, have you heard the Alpha Primes as that's precisely what emester was asking about.
Not some better Fostex mods.
 
I find you cherry pick your examples and that's incredibly annoying.
 
You bring up NB encouraging the use of EZdummer. Plenty of labels use GP, EZdrummer, EW's own ProDrummer, Superior Drummer etc etc.
There are both good and bad engineers mixing. Stop generalizing the entire label, ***.
 
You may provide context to your cherry picked example also. Has nothing to do with being digitally mixed, etc etc.
 
Plenty of engineers that are revered use these programs. Hell, look at Steven Wilson GhostWriter.

 

[Fearless1]

  I'm probably going to destroy all my credibility here, but I just have to tell you guys about this.
 
I've been rocking a super weird setup lately, but I'm loving it with metal! It is truly unholy and makes zero sense whatsoever. The headphone is actually the least expensive part of the chain, but I just can't stop rocking out to it!!
 
Headphone:
HiFiMan HE400 with the 2011-type velour pads (they have a larger opening and the pad is sealed to the bottom - they actually bring the upper mids back quite well!). I added a small square of sorbothane at the 7:00 position on the outside and it tames the treble nicely.
$250
 
Cable:
Moon Audio Silver Dragon (I'm really surprised how refined this makes the HE400 sound - very clear and clean!)
$275
 
DAC:
Schiit Bifrost Multibit (I'm loving this thing so far, BTW. Great addition.)
$600
 
Amp:
Wells Audio Headtrip (I have this on loan right now. I could never afford it, as it's one of the most expensive amps around.)
$7,000
 
If I heard the HE400 blind on this setup, with no knowledge of the other components, I'd probably guess it was somewhere in the $1,500 to $2,000 range, easily. Sure, you can say, "Oh, it's plugged into expensive gear, of course it sounds great," but I'm telling you, I'm listening to it back to back with the HE-6 and HD800, and the HE400 is just killing it.
 
There is nothing right about this gear combo. The amp retails for 28X more than the headphone! None of this makes sense! But honestly, I can't tear myself away from it! I've never done this much air guitar-ing and thrashing before. All the components compliment each other and the effect stacks to a critical mass of awesomeness.
 
I doubt this odd, super specific (and expensive!) combo is going to help anybody find their perfect metal headphone... but the experience has been so cool and unexpected, I just had to share with you guys. Sometimes, I wish we all lived closer so I could share this kind of thing first hand... it's just crazy awesome!!

And then there are all of the naysayers that say, the O2 and or  the Magni is more then enough to max potential from the HE 400/400i, they scale something severe with better gear! 
 
Btw through your Audeze pads on the 400!

 

[Psalmanazar]

  Psalmanazar, have you heard the Alpha Primes as that's precisely what emester was asking about.
Not some better Fostex mods.
 
I find you cherry pick your examples and that's incredibly annoying.
 
You bring up NB encouraging the use of EZdummer. Plenty of labels use GP, EZdrummer, EW's own ProDrummer, Superior Drummer etc etc.
There are both good and bad engineers mixing. Stop generalizing the entire label, ***.
 
You may provide context to your cherry picked example also. Has nothing to do with being digitally mixed, etc etc.
 
Plenty of engineers that are revered use these programs. Hell, look at Steven Wilson GhostWriter.

All Fostex T50RP mods have treble issues. Potentially elevated lower treble spikes + massive roll off in the upper treble. Characteristics of the driver. I have heard Mad Dogs. They were good for what they were. I wouldn't use them as a solely for metal can as metal already has treble issues.
 
Those albums are all classics of death and black metal and some of the best in the entire metal genre. A sterile recording like Carcass's Heartwork with its Akai sample-replaced drums will sound acceptable on almost anything.
 
Nuclear Blast always sucked except for the few years in the early 90s when they jumped on the death metal bandwagon. Before that they released bad German hardcore. In the mid 90s, Nuclear Blast forced their roster to commercialize their music, slowly let their back catalog go out of print, and starting signing only mallcore and over the hill acts.
 
It is just bad recording practice to use stock EZdrummer samples without even attempting to track yourself or at least take your own samples. These bands are not some basement projects. They just want to put a record out as quickly and cheaply as possible so what you will usually hear is EZdrummer samples for everything but the ride cymbal and high hat (sometimes the snare too), which will usually be poorly miced and shelved in the mix. The mastering is usually just lower everything to the guitar or vocal peaks using compressors.

 

[paradoxper]

  All Fostex T50RP mods have treble issues. Potentially elevated lower treble spikes + massive roll off in the upper treble. Characteristics of the driver. I have heard Mad Dogs. They were good for what they were. I wouldn't use them as an only for metal can as metal already has treble issues.
 
Those albums are all classics of death and black metal and some of the best in the entire metal genre. A sterile recording like Carcass's Heartwork with its Akai sample-replaced drums will sound acceptable on almost anything.
 
Nuclear Blast always sucked except for the few years in the early 90s when they jumped on the death metal bandwagon. Before that they released bad German hardcore. In the mid 90s, Nuclear Blast forced their roster to commercialize their music, slowly let their back catalog go out of print, and starting signing only mallcore and over the hill acts.
 
It is just bad recording practice to use stock EZdrummer samples without even attempting to track yourself or at least take your own samples. These bands are not some basement projects. They just want to put a record out as cheap as possible.

You're very good at obfuscation. Did you hear the Primes? And on what gear. And the environment. And the duration. And the source material?
And this would apply to any gear you've experienced. You're new, you don't list gear, you have 0 trade feedback. I'm trying to gauge your exact experience.
 
Bad practice, my ass. You can't provide context to why using software is a detriment. Just one example. But not a generalization.
 
Let's focus on the actual music. You know, the quality. I'd rather avoid politics.

 

[Psalmanazar]

  You're very good at obfuscation. Did you hear the Primes? And on what gear. And the environment. And the duration. And the source material?
And this would apply to any gear you've experienced. You're new, you don't list gear, you have 0 trade feedback. I'm trying to gauge your exact experience.
 
Bad practice, my ass. You can't provide context to why using software is a detriment. Just one example. But not a generalization.
 
Let's focus on the actual music. You know, the quality. I'd rather avoid politics.

All Fostex T50RP mods can have treble issues. There is no getting around Fostex's loose driver manufacturing tolerances for the T50RP. Why do you think MrSpeakers sells the damping materials separately?

 

[Hansotek]

None of the ZMF headphones have treble issues, to my ears, and those are all T50RP based.

 

[paradoxper]

  All Fostex T50RP mods can have treble issues. There is no getting around Fostex's loose driver manufacturing tolerances for the T50RP. Why do you think MrSpeakers sells the damping materials separately?

So that's clearly a 'no.' Which means you're giving advice to someone about a particular headphone because?
Let's not focus that each 'Fostex modder' uses different implementations. And some, take it further addressing driver issues.
 
Thank you for clarifying how you have 0 credibility from here on out.

 

[paradoxper]

If it's your opinion that using EZdrummer is crap, fine. Stop trying to explicitly state your thoughts on the subject as a fact. 

 

[Psalmanazar]

None of the ZMF headphones have treble issues, to my ears, and those are all T50RP based.

Never heard them. Do they have a more open headphone timbre than the stock T50RP body mods?

 

[paradoxper]

So you haven't heard those either. Yet blanket statement all Fostex mods. 
 
Makes one wonder just how disingenuous you are.

 

[swspiers]

  Just curious, how do the Alpha Primes fare with metal, specifically Black and Death metal?

After owning them for about a year, I'm still asking myself that question!
 
For me, I can only take the Primes on reference-type material.  With well-recorded music like Opeth, later Agalloch, and recent Om, they are simply amazing.  But I'm a snob when it comes to quality recordings.
 
When it comes to stuff like most Black (not my cup of tea to begin with), I just can't take it with the Primes.  It's probably more a commentary on the music than the headphones though. But they are so darn accurate and revealing, primitive recordings sound really, really bad.  If you need to hear how poorly recorded early Mayhem and Emperor are, you might love the Primes!
 
I also don't get all this talk about the drivers and treble.  The Primes are HEAVILY modified Fostex drivers, and it's virtually impossible to to accurately make a blanket statement about the Primes in relation to the other mods out there.
 
YMMV, IMHO and all that

 

[Redcarmoose]

I'm probably going to destroy all my credibility here, but I just have to tell you guys about this.

I've been rocking a super weird setup lately, but I'm loving it with metal! It is truly unholy and makes zero sense whatsoever. The headphone is actually the least expensive part of the chain, but I just can't stop rocking out to it!!

Headphone:
HiFiMan HE400 with the 2011-type velour pads (they have a larger opening and the pad is sealed to the bottom - they actually bring the upper mids back quite well!). I added a small square of sorbothane at the 7:00 position on the outside and it tames the treble nicely.
$250

Cable:
Moon Audio Silver Dragon (I'm really surprised how refined this makes the HE400 sound - very clear and clean!)
$275

DAC:
Schiit Bifrost Multibit (I'm loving this thing so far, BTW. Great addition.)
$600

Amp:
Wells Audio Headtrip (I have this on loan right now. I could never afford it, as it's one of the most expensive amps around.)
$7,000

If I heard the HE400 blind on this setup, with no knowledge of the other components, I'd probably guess it was somewhere in the $1,500 to $2,000 range, easily. Sure, you can say, "Oh, it's plugged into expensive gear, of course it sounds great," but I'm telling you, I'm listening to it back to back with the HE-6 and HD800, and the HE400 is just killing it.

There is nothing right about this gear combo. The amp retails for 28X more than the headphone! None of this makes sense! But honestly, I can't tear myself away from it! I've never done this much air guitar-ing and thrashing before. All the components compliment each other and the effect stacks to a critical mass of awesomeness.

I doubt this odd, super specific (and expensive!) combo is going to help anybody find their perfect metal headphone... but the experience has been so cool and unexpected, I just had to share with you guys. Sometimes, I wish we all lived closer so I could share this kind of thing first hand... it's just crazy awesome!!

That is so cool. That's the part of this hobby that's interesting. Each system can be a little different. Still no one knows until the trial and error are accomplished. There are very few cemented in stone systems. Maybe because the variables are so grand? Everyone mixes and matches until they find a happy place.

There is still a great level of mystery to this whole thing. What I'm saying is your happy with the how the HE400 sound but there still are maybe 300 headphones you have not tried on the end of the system.

Actually one of my favorite things to do is listen to how different low cost or mid-fi headphones scale-up. There is nothing more amazing when $100 headphones wake-up to a good DAC and amp.

Also this kind of proves a point we were talking about a page or two back, where it all starts at the source. Still I'm always wondering where the audio color is put in? The question is maybe a pair of more expensive or more clear headphones could ruin the synergy?

 

[emester]

In regards to the types of metal im listening to, NB and Century Media are not really what best represents my preference in taste. I usually go for stuff put out by Dark Descent, Profound Lore, NWN!, Iron Bonehead, some stuff by Relapse and many other labels i cannot recall at the top of my head.

Point being, i do enjoy my metal with a more raw and visceral recording style, yet i do enjoy more clean recordings such as Agalloch and Opeth.

But hey if i can listen to Nattens Madrigal on a pair of Grados quite comfortably, i dont see how the primes will bother me

 

[Hansotek]

That is so cool. That's the part of this hobby that's interesting. Each system can be a little different. Still no one knows until the trial and error are accomplished. There are very few cemented in stone systems. Maybe because the variables are so grand? Everyone mixes and matches until they find a happy place.

There is still a great level of mystery to this whole thing. What I'm saying is your happy with the how the HE400 sound but there still are maybe 300 headphones you have not tried on the end of the system.

Actually one of my favorite things to do is listen to how different low cost or mid-fi headphones scale-up. There is nothing more amazing when $100 headphones wake-up to a good DAC and amp.

Also this kind of proves a point we were talking about a page or two back, where it all starts at the source. Still I'm always wondering where the audio color is put in? The question is maybe a pair of more expensive or more clear headphones could ruin the synergy?

 
Yeah! To be clear, I don't think the flagship cans sounded worse or anything. They perform as expected, which is to say they sound totally awesome!
 
It's that second to last sentence in your above post that is key, I believe. I think it's the fact that everything before the HE400 in the chain was super clear, punchy and transparent... then the HE400 imparted it's unique coloration to the signal - which is fun and bassy. The HE400 (with a couple slight mods to quell issues that affect it's transparency) is sufficiently clear, punchy and transparent enough that it doesn't cause a hinderance to the high-end components before it.
 
I've never thought of it this way before I read your comment just now, but thinking of it in this way explains a lot. Taking and ultra-pure signal and adding a slight bit of hue at the end. Seasoning the signal, if you will.