[Pott]

Sorry, a very broad question...

Basically it seems to be a common understanding that uber good headphones + lossy would only let you hear the quality loss. Therefore past a certain quality, it's not worth sinking the money.

Now I'm into headphones for the portability, which means I use MP3 players, and try to maximise the capacity. I use 192/256/320 and LAME VBR MP3 formats, and won't touch lossless formats (got 62GB of music and I don't want to re-rip all my CDs into lossless :s).

So... what would you guys say would be the top headphones out there that won't quite let be heard all the quality loss? Of course this will vary from person to person, but as I have no way of trying this out myself, I just am curious as to what you guys think and have experience with.

I right now use a Sony A729 or Sansa Clips with Klipsch S4s. The quality is good, but it's a little bass heavy for now, I'll tweak the EQ on the Sony at least. I'm just wondering how much better it could possibly get. I'd try other headphones but in this country it's barely an option...

 

[Young Spade]

It's not really.... like once you get a pair you can hear all of the problems or whatever in your music. It seems to me like you haven't really read up on how everything works; I suggest reading around topics and inform yourself of how quality ties into the equipment.

And if you're using portable equipment you aren't going to get as high quality output for your money as you would with home systems.

 

[Armaegis]

I'm in essentially the same boat as you. To my ears, it's the highs and lows that suffer the most from low bitrates (most of my listening is to jazz/bigband/classical), especially when there's a lot of sound coming in from across the entire spectrum.

In general, I find Sennheiser the most forgiving, although I haven't listed to any of their super high end stuff. I've tried a whole ton from the $50-100 range though. I've listened to the various Grados up to 225 and find them a little too revealing of flaws in the highs. The Shure 440/840s I find a bit revealing in the low end.

 

[Pott]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Young Spade /img/forum/go_quote.gif It's not really.... like once you get a pair you can hear all of the problems or whatever in your music. It seems to me like you haven't really read up on how everything works; I suggest reading around topics and inform yourself of how quality ties into the equipment. And if you're using portable equipment you aren't going to get as high quality output for your money as you would with home systems.

That's exactly my point. I'm looking for portability, so it's useless going FLAC + big headphones. I also don't want to use an amp.
But it's so easy to sink money into earphones, which is then wasted if all they do is point out the flaws in lossy formats.

I've never heard non lossy formats for digital files. I stopped putting CDs on my hi-fi since I realised my PC could hold a hell of a lot more, so I put all 9,000 of my tunes on random and go through it 24/7. On my MP3 players it's pretty much the same. All the same formats.

 

[a_recording]

Using 320k AAC on my S-series walkman, with a pair of really resolving RE0's, I wouldn't say that compression artefacts are noticeable. The only thing I notice when I listen to lossless out of say an iPhone is that lossless is a little less fatiguing. If you're on the go, outside noise will mean you won't notice that anyway.

In fact, many experienced forum members here have spent huge, huge sums of money on a combination of some very expensive earphones coupled with the equally expensive Sony X-series walkman, which doesn't even have proper lossless support. I've never heard any of them complain about sound quality. I don't think you have anything to worry about, except maybe your wallet.

 

[Deep Funk]

Pott, I understand your problem. Somehow in the Netherlands we lag behind with electronic products for certain niche markets. Otherwise you can find Sennheisers and Skull Candies everywhere. The Sony specialist at Overtoom didn't (seem) to know of the existence of the MDR V6-es, not good.

In the outdoors of the City called Amsterdam I use a Creative Aurvana Live plugged in to my Nokia. It plays 128 kbps WMAs pretty good, but I can hear the quality difference. On my PC I only have 320 kbps WMAs and FLAC. The Aurvana Lives are a decent option for their isolation isn't the best, cables aren't high quality and bass is their main weakness regarding sound. Allround they are decent, sometimes better.

Veel geluk!