[freeeekyyy]

Of course that may be true for the individual drivers, I didn't mean to suggest otherwise. But headphones don't have advanced, active crossovers and other methods to deal with the problem. There's a lot less you can do about it with headphones; you're basically stuck with what you've got. Not so with speakers.

 

[3X0]

Of course that may be true for the individual drivers, I didn't mean to suggest otherwise. But headphones don't have advanced, active crossovers and other methods to deal with the problem. There's a lot less you can do about it with headphones; you're basically stuck with what you've got. Not so with speakers.

Crossovers aren't a solution to the problems speakers face. Arguably crossovers introduce more problems than they resolve.

Placement and the room (including room treatment) aren't solutions either. Again, speakers will simply perform poorly in terms of nonlinear distortion, frequency response and directionality. I mean so in their complete implementation, with crossovers and cabinets and all. It's almost crazy how non-transparent they are.

I can understand preferring speakers, but it would be ignorance to not acknowledge their faults.

 

[3X0]

This freaking mobile interface..

 

[TMRaven]

Yet they're still more realistic sounding and detailed than headphones.

 

[3X0]

Yet they're still more realistic sounding and detailed than headphones.

You have a case for the former, but the latter would only make sense if you had some wildly different constraints to define the psychoacoustic notion of detail than what is traditionally accepted. This is simply by virtue of design.

 

[freeeekyyy]

Quote:

Crossovers aren't a solution to the problems speakers face. Arguably crossovers introduce more problems than they resolve.

Placement and the room (including room treatment) aren't solutions either. Again, speakers will simply perform poorly in terms of nonlinear distortion, frequency response and directionality. I mean so in their complete implementation, with crossovers and cabinets and all. It's almost crazy how non-transparent they are.

I can understand preferring speakers, but it would be ignorance to not acknowledge their faults.

I don't necessarily even prefer speakers - at least, not most speakers. Mostly I'm just responding to the people who think it was ridiculous for somebody to come here and say that he likes speakers.

I think that speakers can sound better than headphones, but the cost to achieve that higher level of performance, and the space taken up/amount of equipment necessary, etc, is so exhorbitantly high that it isn't worth it for people who aren't very, very wealthy. I'm not sure I agree that the faults with speakers can't be mostly overcome with good enclosures, etc, either. It's just, like I said, at what cost, both in terms of money and space.

 

 

[TMRaven]

That's nonsense-- another false allegation.  You can buy a great performing near monitor setup for near or under 1000 dollars (Mackie hr624mk2), and with minimal room treatment, you can have a vastly performing pair of speakers without much effort involved.
 
There is no speakers can sound better than headphones.  There's 'x good speaker sounds better than y ****ty headphone,' or ' x good headphone sounds better than y ****ty speakers.'
 
The world isn't so black and white.

 

[3X0]

Many arguments are premised on some nebulous and undefined notion of "better." My own position is premised solely on the objective of transparency (based on the three aforementioned measurements), where speakers will absolutely fail.

 

[freeeekyyy]

Quote:

That's nonsense-- another false allegation.  You can buy a great performing near monitor setup for near or under 1000 dollars (Mackie hr624mk2), and with minimal room treatment, you can have a vastly performing pair of speakers without much effort involved.
 
There is no speakers can sound better than headphones.  There's 'x good speaker sounds better than y ****ty headphone,' or ' x good headphone sounds better than y ****ty speakers.'
 
The world isn't so black and white.

That's why we're referring to typical headphone/speaker setups. I've heard some absolutely amazing speaker setups before, that would beat any headphone I know of. But they were also huge, expensive, and in perfectly designed rooms. A typical set of bookshelf speakers won't measure up to a decent set of headphones in terms of overall sound quality. But it will likely still beat them in terms of impact, and if set up properly, soundstage.

 

[TMRaven]

Quote:

Many arguments are premised on some nebulous and undefined notion of "better." My own position is premised solely on the objective of transparency (based on the three aforementioned measurements), where speakers will absolutely fail.

 
There are instances with both speakers and headphones where perfect measurements don't perfectly equate to sound quality and transparency. 

 

[GearMe]

That's why we're referring to typical headphone/speaker setups. I've heard some absolutely amazing speaker setups before, that would beat any headphone I know of. But they were also huge, expensive, and in perfectly designed rooms. A typical set of bookshelf speakers won't measure up to a decent set of headphones in terms of overall sound quality. But it will likely still beat them in terms of impact, and if set up properly, soundstage.

Sorry for blank post...mobile. Anyway, agree with freeeekyyy. I've had mid-fi stereo rigs (10 to 15K) and high end headphones (Stax)...always preferred listening to the stereo when I could -- more involving experience.

That said, the fact that I can listen to a set of Beyers, switch to ATs, then to Senns provides me with a much more enjoyable experience from 'total listening' perspective.

 

[3X0]

What do you define as sound quality and transparency?

Speakers are generally further from ideal than headphones when it comes to the three principal measurements, especially in terms of nonlinear distortion and directionality. Even if you select some response-adjusted criterion for transparency, speaker amplitude response doesn't conform to any semblance of an ideal contour.

 

[GREQ]

Quote:

How much money do I need to spend to get headphones that have better sound, with similar bass? That is the main flaw, but I like the soundstage and subtle reverberation I get from the music bouncing against the walls.

Better sound is always subjective. 
Better for you is different to what's better for someone else.
 
As you say, you like sound reflections - personally they are my biggest enemy and I absolutely can't stand that kind of sound. 
Better for me in this regard is the polar opposite of better for you. 

 

[Focker]

Quote:

First of all, there isn't any consensus on how speakers are supposed to measure, and in any case they don't measure well.

Considering three primary measurements as: (1) absence of nonlinear distortion (2) frequency response and (3) directionality (which is a function of frequency), all practical speakers fail to be sonically ideal or even close to ideal.

Speakers suffer from high levels of nonlinear distortion at various points of their normal operating frequency response and SPL levels. Their frequency response in any direction (on-axis or off) fails to be flat and in any case does not approach any ideal contour.

As if that wasn't bad enough, there is no consensus on how directionality should be handled in the speaker realm. Any sort of theoretical "best compromise" in this element has been impractical to implement.

As a rule, speakers are so far from ideal that they are completely unmanageable if transparency is the main objective.


But I Do love speakers.

 
This is a great example of why I couldn't care less about all this tech talk about measurements and graphs...it's great for arguing ad nauseum about why headphone A is "better" than headphone B or why speakers can't do something as well as headphones, but it so rarely translates to actual experience for me. All the power to those of you who want to focus on all this stuff, but for me, I'll continue to focus on which gear - headphones, speakers, etc - provides me the most enjoyment in terms of my music and movies.

 

[mitchflorida]

Who cares about so-called "transparency" in sound recording? I am looking for sound equipment that can duplicate the original performance. Go to a concert and you wills e that they use speakers to project the sound in rock concerts and even in classical and jazz music.