[Bunninator]

I'm sure I'm not the only one here who doesn't quite understand the hi-fi nut speak. When someone says rolled off highs lows mids etc. I'm not sure what the hell they're talking about.

I know what high mids and lows are but rolled off? What?

At any rate I'd like to LEARN to listen objectively. Is almost everyone capable of determining these things or does it take a certain ear?

For example I'd like to be able to listen to the Shure E4 and E3 and be able to determine the differences and compare. I'm not so sure I could do that now. I might notice a difference between the two but would I know one is better, or how to put into words what the differences are? I have no clue.

So yah. How do I listen thru the ears of a discriminating audiophile? And do IEMs need burning in?

 

[Sarchi]

Rolloff comes from studio/pro-audio lingo, refers to truncating of the frequency extremes. i.e. "highs are rolled off" = a muted treble response.

Dictionary of pro audio terms

 

[edstrelow]

The more critcal listening you do, i.e. making comparisons of equipment and the like, the more you will find yourself hearing differences you didn't notice before. You can train your auditory skills. Professional musicians hear many things in a performance that ordinary listeners don't. I think it's a bit like reading, some people read a book but don't understand what is being stated.

Good equipment should make you feel that you are hearing a live unamplified concert. However this criterion doesn't as work well if you primarily listen to amplified concerts, eg. rock concerts in stadiums.

Then you could just chose equipment that makes your favorite music sound best. This doesn't work so well if you have broad tastes.

Treat it as a hobby, not a quest for the holy grail and you will keep your sanity and your wallet intact.

 

[PhaedrusX]

listening objectively would be useful when comparing headphones, amps, sources.
but other than that, i am looking for the opposite.
i want to be emotionally involved in the music, not detached from it.
for me, it's a gut feeling more than it is an analytical one.
as others are wont to say, "if it sounds good..." well, you know the rest.

 

[webbie64]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bunninator /img/forum/go_quote.gif I'm sure I'm not the only one here who doesn't quite understand the hi-fi nut speak. When someone says rolled off highs lows mids etc. I'm not sure what the hell they're talking about.

What the previous posts say is right - ENJOY the music.

If you want to clarify what others are talking about, though, use the HeadFi Glossary of Terms - http://www.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=223116

 

[Audio-Fi]

Well most of audiophiles opinion, discriminatings, and sayings are psychological.....

 

[PiccoloNamek]

The first part of becoming an audiophile is throwing objectivity right out the window. In this world of audio, nothing is objectively true; if you feel or hear that something is so, it is! Isn't that wonderful?

 

[BassheadJazz]

Well I think it's mainly that by the time you are able to attain the experience and relatively unlimited funds that allow you to be a audiophile, you have a standard set of music that you use for reference/comparison. From there, the terminology is just something you learn over time, and quite honestly, I'm sure most people make it up as they go along anyway.

 

[tygger]

You might find this interesting:
http://www.enjoythemusic.com/audiohell.htm
The article itself may seem disputable, but considering one of the authors builds some of the best amps in the known universe, it's worth reading.

 

[Nachtschicht]

Quote:

Originally Posted by PiccoloNamek /img/forum/go_quote.gif In this world of audio, nothing is objectively true; if you feel or hear that something is so, it is! Isn't that wonderful?

Succinct and true!

 

[mdarnton]

If you want to be objective about it, first you have to have a known and familiar baseline to listen relative to. Then when you look at some different equipment, you listen for differences from that baseline, and try to describe them in a way that you will be able to remember the new sound. Remembering a sound is difficult, but remember words is easy, if you used them the same every time, and then they can trigger the sound in your mind when you need it. Comments like "rolled off highs" are always relative to something, so you need to get that "something" firmly in mind, first. Because my first phones were the SR80s and I've had them for a long time, I tend to compare things to them.

The basis for comparison doesn't have to be good, or even neutral. That's why when one person calls a phone "neutral" usually a lot of people will always disagree, because they're referencing from another sound. I don't even know what "neutral" is anymore--notice how in one thread one person will call his faithful QXR-527Bs "neutral" and then in some other discussion they'll be talking about whether the bassy version of that one is better, and how much better it is with new cables or the flavor of the month amp--there goes the "neutral" concept.

Some of the simple stuff, like proportions of highs, mids, and lows can be learned by playing with the equalizer in something like Winamp. Other terms are more obscure, and some of them won't even make sense until you first hear the phenomenon.

 

[P.F. Jo]

You can't listen to music objectivley, you may be able to compare equipment objectivley, but even then the comparsion WILL be heavily affected by your hearing preferences..

To 'learn' what you are talking about, and review stuff and know what are 'rolled off highs' [which are in fact a matter of prespective, that again, is affected by ones hearing preferences and only in comparsion to something with, lets say.. better highs] all you need to do , is just hear a lot of equipment, and with time and experience these things will come to you naturally....

For example, If you hear the... Audio Equation RP-21, and then hear the... AKG K81DJ [just for example] - You will notice that the K81DJ has much deeper, smothered bass compared to the RP-21, whilst the RP-21 has less 'rolled off' highs/mids and more tight bass...

I hope you get what I mean,

Good luck,

-Jo

 

[m00hk00h]

I think the "audiophiles" are just overrated. It's not that we hear different from you, you hear the same things that we do. But over time we have learned to categorize what we hear and that is nothing but training! Passive or even active.
Most of "us" have developed that kind of hearing during the long and enduring search for the equipment that fit's or taste the best. To do so you have to have an expectation of what something (e.g. you favorite song) should sound like. And compared to that expectation (and experience in comparing other equipemnt) you can justice the (e.g.) headphone you are listening to right now.

It's nothing else like a car mechanic who can tell what's wrong with the engine by just listening to it. WE can also hear that something runs not right there, but he has learned just by experience what several defects sound like.

m00h

 

[espire]

Note how most of the posts in this thread are made by newer, non-audiophile (so to speak) members

But if you want to know what I think, it simply comes with a lot of time spent with a wide variety of headphones.

There was a time when I would not know if certain headphones had more "bass" than others, because I simply never noticed a difference between the awful headphones that I had listened to. However, when I got my Gumys and my EP-630, and I listened to my EP-630 for the first time, I finally realized what headphones with proper bass sounded like. When I got my KSC75, I relearned this.

When I got my Sennheiser eH-150 a few days, ago, I had progressed more. I could instantly understand what people meant by the new Sennheisers having a lot of bass impact, and I could find crazy-cool subtleties in the music, including a second set of lyrics vocoded in a songs bassline! I could notice more, now, though. I noticed that the high-frequency sounds were not as extensive as usual. I also learned of this "soundstage" business, regarding where the music seems to be coming from. I noticed more, but I won't get into that.

If you want to learn to listen objectively, you'll likely have to start with a bigger difference than the EC3 and EC4. The listening skill that I have is nothing compared to others, but I have it from starting small.

Burn-in still hasn't been proven to actually do anything, but I suppose it can't hurt to do it either way. They certainly don't have to be burned-in, but you could even do it slowly, as you listen to your music.

 

[wualta]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tygger The article itself may seem disputable, but considering one of the authors builds some of the best amps in the known universe, it's worth reading.

Even if the person writing the article was a fool, it would still be worth reading, although it needn't (and probably won't) change many minds. It contains one priceless nugget: the insight that the system that can present the differences between recordings in the most obvious way is likely to be more accurate. This is not a particularly new or original insight; it's something that's been known to audio nuts for decades, but I like the way it's presented here in contrast to other more rubber-rulery ways of evaluation.

As tygger says, some bits of the article are certainly disputable. For example, the subsection on detail and resolution and the analogies to film and video isn't much help, beyond the questionable analogy. But one good nugget per article is a pretty good yield.

As long as an audiophile isn't afraid to use the socalled Contrast method (I think differentiability has better buzzword potential) along with the other intuitive methods, and as long as the 'phile in question remains skeptical about his/her own abilities and realizes there's always more to learn, both about him/herself and the equipment, he/she will have a good chance of staying out of Audio Hell, which is reserved for those who've lost their faith.


That's just my opinion, of course. In the audio world, nothing is objectively true, including the statement that nothing is objectively true.

Thanks to tygger for the link!

.