brunobm
New Head-Fier
I'm very skeptical when I hear reviewers describe a particular headphone or IEM as "natural" or with "correct timbre". To me something natural is what I hear with my bear ears. For instance, I know what my wife's voice sounds like. Ignoring the effects of how it's captured, I feel like it would be fair for me to be able to say that headphone X or Y reproduces it more naturally.
But I don't see how the above can possibly apply to music, especially given reviewers naturally use a wide variety of music to reach their verdicts. Let me use 3 examples here:
1. There's a big YouTube reviewer that always mentions the drum intro on Led Zeppelin's When The Levee Breaks. Unless he was in the studio when that was recorded, which I'm pretty sure he wasn't, how the heck does he know what it should sound like? Not picking on that reviewer in particular, just one fun example.
2. That there is a range of what each instrument could sound like. Take pianos for instance, which are simple enough to take amplification out of the equation. Different pianos sound vastly different. Maybe the tuning on headphone X favors a more high fidelity reproduction of piano A, but headphone Y favors that of piano B. So how is it that reviewers can generalize how strings, brass, voices, etc sound oh so natural on a certain phone?
3. I love The Killers and have heard a lot of their albums repeatedly over the years. The same album sounds different in my car, played through the speakers I had in my room growing up, playing through my headphones now.. and there's no "correct" or "natural" way it should sound, other than the way I'm used to it. I've even gone to several concerts and it very much depends on the speakers being used, how the sound technician set everything up, if it's out in the open or in a stadium, etc.
Anyway, I think you get the point. And let's assume we're talking about decent headphones here, not the stuff Delta Airlines gives you, of course.
But I don't see how the above can possibly apply to music, especially given reviewers naturally use a wide variety of music to reach their verdicts. Let me use 3 examples here:
1. There's a big YouTube reviewer that always mentions the drum intro on Led Zeppelin's When The Levee Breaks. Unless he was in the studio when that was recorded, which I'm pretty sure he wasn't, how the heck does he know what it should sound like? Not picking on that reviewer in particular, just one fun example.
2. That there is a range of what each instrument could sound like. Take pianos for instance, which are simple enough to take amplification out of the equation. Different pianos sound vastly different. Maybe the tuning on headphone X favors a more high fidelity reproduction of piano A, but headphone Y favors that of piano B. So how is it that reviewers can generalize how strings, brass, voices, etc sound oh so natural on a certain phone?
3. I love The Killers and have heard a lot of their albums repeatedly over the years. The same album sounds different in my car, played through the speakers I had in my room growing up, playing through my headphones now.. and there's no "correct" or "natural" way it should sound, other than the way I'm used to it. I've even gone to several concerts and it very much depends on the speakers being used, how the sound technician set everything up, if it's out in the open or in a stadium, etc.
Anyway, I think you get the point. And let's assume we're talking about decent headphones here, not the stuff Delta Airlines gives you, of course.