Most honored and valued Sir Knight pataburd ,
no, I'm actually joking. No need to be sooo formal ^^
(i)
Well, that is common knowledge as it is known by likely everyone who is mix & mastering music, or even laymen as me.
The talk about that was starting (and ongoing) even in this
thread, or
here. Rtings.com has also a helpful explanation.
The number 90 % is exaggerated; can be 80 %, 70 %, can't say for sure.
But that is without the usual subjective factors having a saying, like the expectation-bias, feeling hungry or tired, time of day etc.
About the airy-thing:
Because Hifiman planars (listened to Sundara, Ananda, Edition X v2, Arya, HE1000SE), are the almost the most leaking and open designed headphones I listened too; and thus airy.
Even more than an LCD-3/4, hd 800S, Focals, Beyer dynamics etc. Only the stax lambda 700 Mk2, omega 2 and sr-009S are above that.
If there is no ceiling/wall etc. in the music, no cues which lead to the perception of a limiting stage, the hifimans are almost airy to the max.
If an stax sr-l700mk2 is 100 % open and airy sounding, an sr-009s/omega 2 is ~ 95 %, an HE1000SE is ~ 85 % and an heddphone is depending on the music listened to 50 - 60 %.
The whole sound stage-and-airy thing the heddphone simply does to a certain degree, differently than the usual headphones it is compared with.
One factor is simply because it is a design based on a tweeter and high frequencies sound differently than mid and low ones.
The same goes for the stax, the SR-009S for example, which expands the airy and open sounding high frequencies to the mids (a thing the heddphone can't do to that degree and other dynamics and planar I listend to absolutely not).
It if obviously a different kind of airy, with the Sundara being more forward sounding, in my head and close to the eary airy, while especially the Arya and HE100SE more outside and less forward.
(iii)
Yes!
However, that [...] music more in the manner that I actually hear it.
Now you explained it more in detail, helpul
Holistic is a term from a biology if I remember; an organism
My personal preference is the same. Because of that the hd 800S is not to my liking.
It has a somewhat more expansive sound stage (the "fake"-depth and the width) but lacks somewhat the coherence of sound.
The spaces between the tones are somewhat empty - what does an expansive sound stage is good for if it is perceived empty, without body (dynamic driver is lacking it compared to planar and heddphone's amt transducer). Kinda sounds lifeless, less natural (thanks to the strange frequency response graph) and less realistic.
HD 800S is a headphone mostly suited for classical music. But even here I think the heddphone replaced it, made the hd 800S obsolete. Better suited and more enjoyable.
But, this is only my rambling about the hd 800S, go on
PS: You can write good explanations!
Cheers
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