[Deathyak]

At first this started as a bad joke.  What headphones are best for lo-fi?  But then I thought more about it and wondered.  Because the music is supposed to sound lo-fi, should we try and replicate that as much as possible, or rather should we listen to it through the crappiest headphones/speakers we can find?
 
In essence, to get the true "feel" should we use hi-fi equipment when listening to lo-fi, or are crappy speakers part of the experience?

 

[Head Injury]

Trip-hop sounds great with my HF2s. So I would say hi-fi is best for lo-fi.
 
There's actually an art to the reproduction of static, pops, and distortion. Listen to some on a high-end headphone that's fast relatively free of grain, then listen to it on a cheap headphone. Really amazing what you miss with the cheapo. I've commented to myself several times while listening, "even the noise sounds hi-fi".
 
A good track to test is "Mr. Self Destruct" from NIN's "The Downward Spiral" for static. Any Portishead song for pops and other lo-fi noises.

 

[SP Wild]

Tubes.

 

[Head Injury]

Quote:

Tubes.

I believe he is referring to lo-fi songs 

 

[SP Wild]

Most recordings are lo-fi, no?

 

[Choronzon]

Take lo-fi, listen in a lossy format on crappy equipment.  Whaddaya got?
 
It really doesn't matter what the music is, who the musicians are, at the extreme of that line of thinking.  Definitely you want accurate (read: hi-fi) playback of what was recorded.  I'm not particularly a "lo-fi" aficionado, but occasionally will listen to Pavement and Sebadoh and such, and the difference between some highly-resolving headphones and cheaper stuff is enormous.  I don't have a "lo-fi" bedroom system to compare on the big speakers, but the principle would be the same no doubt.

 

[Head Injury]

Quote:

Most recordings are lo-fi, no?

If it's mastered to sound like ****, we can only assume that's how it's supposed to sound. The better resolution that **** is in, the more faithful we're being 

 

[Deep Funk]

Cheap discman plus cheap acceptable sounding headphones makes for a low-fi audio set up, what more do you want?
 
What amuses me about this thread is that a lot of old high end gear can be bought for insanely low prices, would you be right to call that low-fi for its price or is it just old HiFi? 
 
If there is one headphone I have that sounds barely acceptable it is my Panasonic RP-HTX7, that thing really needs power to sound good enough for me. To think people pay 60 euros for that headphone :-{}.

 

[Deathyak]

Just to clarify, I'm referring to bands like Sleigh Bells Plasticines, some NIN, and others--Not just 128kbps mp3 files.  
 
So we should be faithful to how its supposed to sound?   The example that comes to mind is electric guitar.   Instrument speakers roll off frequencies all over the place yet you wouldn't play your gibson through a pair of HD800s nor your lossless through a wall of Marshall full-stacks.

 

[zotjen]

Well, I wouldn't consider NIN lo-fi. Granted, the music is noisy at times but there are a lot of sounds and details that you can only pick up with a good pair of headphones. As I recall, the term lo-fi comes from using old or poor recording equipment. I don't think Trent would ever be accused of using poor recording equipment.

 

[elogical]

I happen to be listening to NIN right as I found this thread and I would say it sounds better on good phones (or at least my mediocre phones, I don't have any hd800s laying around to test with). I would agree with some other posters though, that there's a big difference between music like NIN (well-recorded, but intentionally a little rough at times) versus the local punk band that recorded an album in their basement... I don't know if I'd bother plugging in worse phones just to be "honest" to the music though

 

[Deep Funk]

Me neither, to make matters more complicated what about mono mixes/recordings? Sometimes the mono recording does more justice to certain records and even sounds better. Pink Floyd's "The Piper AT The Gates Of Dawn" for me sounds more fun and interesting in mono but that all comes down to preference. 
 
Low Fi = Mono and/or Live recording?

 

[pow3rtr1p]

Listen to Mountain Goats' album "All Hail West Texas" for a nice taste of Lo-Fi.
 
And I agree, the imperfections recreated perfectly is a nice effect.

 

[anetode]

Grados appear to be engineered in line with the lo-fi aesthetic and they're good enough to clearly render that contrast between distortion and melody which defines a lot of modern lo-fi.