Sczervok
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Dec 15, 2003
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I am probably ranked pretty high on these boards for the crappiest set of ears ever... but I was just thinking.
I mean, most of us here are encoding in better qualities, spending more money on better phones, and buying amps, and then talking about these minor details that many people can't even hear. You just step up... your first phone may be a prepackaged one. You second may be one that you've bought, or was given to by a friend. And the more you buy, the better quality you look for in them, thusly the more you spend. After going higher, lower quality phones just don't cut it for you... you just can't take them anymore. They sound crappy, loss of detail, truncated frequency response... the absolute crap of quality. Always... something is just... missing.
But going higher, doing more, going beyond... does it matter? I've used my dad's phones, and from what I can tell, they are pretty damn good... all they really did for me, however, was to just turn my entire phone collection into crap. I mean, it was kinda hard to me to detach myself from my dad's phones and move back onto my own...
Was I enjoying music more with my dad's phones, than I was before with my old ones? With my old ones, I couldn't tell anything from anything else. It was just music, and I didn't care any about the quality... I was more concerned about how good the artist was, and didn't ever have any thoughts about how my earphones would affect it...
You get used to high quality. And when that happens, it becomes just that, the same enjoyment you got from you old ones before you moved up. Is spending an extra $50 worth it just for better phones? How long will they make you happy? How long before you enjoy music as you did with your older phones?
I see a guy with A900s (or some really big blue headphones that looked like A900s) just sitting there listening to music, with this really bored emotion stamped across his face.. NJB3, some random amp, I would guess, and another guy... he's using stock iPod buds, and he's having the time of his life...
Glancing back and forth amoung the two people, I just gotta say.. the guy with the A900s just doesn't seem to be rocking it at all... and the iBud guy? I would have knocked myself out already if I were doing that. That guy is just hip hopping the hell out of there! Probably would have started to break dance if we weren't standing on grass.
With the lower end (crap) phones, you not only get more of a selection, you also get to buy more (considering your not some multi millionare). Just about anything will work for you... and you can even enjoy those high end phones because they just sound better to you. But many people have taken the plunge, gotten a pair of $40 phones, and they've just permanently latched onto the ladder, climbing upward to hi fidelity. And probably never ever turning back.
Just a thought.. is it worth it if you enjoy your music as much as you did before?
Personally... I have various things I look for when I want to enjoy music...
First off is the artist, in which I must love or else I won't enjoy it all. If I love the artist... it doesn't really matter how bad my earphones sound (unless I can't understand the lyrics, then that's kinda pushing it)
Secondly, the comfort. I must treat my ears like someone I love, and can not bear to let them fall into pain, or discomfort.
Third... they must look nice. I can't go walking around with a pair of giant headphones shaped after telitubbies or whatever... that's almost like suicide.
Forth, sound quality.
I remember when I first got Kazaa. I had no clue what it was... then some experimenting revealed.. it downloads stuff for you.
Now what the f--- was I going to do with that?
Oh... music a good idea... wait... I don't know any musical artists...
For 3 months, I had 6 songs that I downloaded... from who? I don't know. I didn't really care. All I knew was that I was overwhelmed with emotion and feeling by the music I was hearing. They just sounded so moving coming out of a crappy Rio500 with stock earbuds...
Well, 7 months later, and after picking up a ton of foreign techno, and a Rio Volt, I was suprised... (mind you, the Rio Volt 150 is a piece of crap, but to me at the time... 700 megs of music? I didn't even have 700 megs of music). Not only did I have my entire music collection on there, but I was kinda suprised at how much better it sounded. Then again, I did buy a pair of $10 earphones, so that did have something to do with it...
I've compared this player + earbuds with my computer + Altec Lansing 5.1 speaker system, and I was just blown over by the bass response I got with the subwoofer. I could have cranked that baby up and shook the friken windows (my dad does that all the time), but even at low levels, I was just blow away (almost literally) by the sound.
A year later... I can't find that feeling anymore. They're just regular computer speakers to me.. nothing special anymore. All that subwoofer does to me now is to vibrate when I put my feet on it. Nothing more. My stock earbuds have long been modded, failed, and discarded in various experiments.
I've gotten used to things. And that alone has just taken away the peak enjoyment level that I could ever attain for my music. Never again, will I enjoy it so much. I had stock earbuds, and a halfworking player, and I was on top of the world. Now? I'm nothing. Music is just there. Quality is just there... there's nothing special to me anymore. Never again.
It's like cocaine.... you'll reach that extreme high, but never in your entire life will you ever attain that level again... you just crash down and down. The next time, it'll be great... but not as good. And the more you use it, the less high you can get until you're just saving yourself from crashing down too low and getting stuck there.
Well... I guess I've just lamented my permanent loss of acheivement... but it's a little something to think about at least.
Maybe in the future... we'll have reached even higher limits of sound quality, to the point where phones have such fidelity, that it would be impossible for human ears to be able to detect... at that point, it wouldn't matter anymore.
I've decided to postpone me ordering my shure e2c's for a while... a long while... at least after I get a pair of real $2 fidelity discharge buds. I'm kinda doubting if that'll work either... I wonder if I've gone too far down the abyss already.
I mean, most of us here are encoding in better qualities, spending more money on better phones, and buying amps, and then talking about these minor details that many people can't even hear. You just step up... your first phone may be a prepackaged one. You second may be one that you've bought, or was given to by a friend. And the more you buy, the better quality you look for in them, thusly the more you spend. After going higher, lower quality phones just don't cut it for you... you just can't take them anymore. They sound crappy, loss of detail, truncated frequency response... the absolute crap of quality. Always... something is just... missing.
But going higher, doing more, going beyond... does it matter? I've used my dad's phones, and from what I can tell, they are pretty damn good... all they really did for me, however, was to just turn my entire phone collection into crap. I mean, it was kinda hard to me to detach myself from my dad's phones and move back onto my own...
Was I enjoying music more with my dad's phones, than I was before with my old ones? With my old ones, I couldn't tell anything from anything else. It was just music, and I didn't care any about the quality... I was more concerned about how good the artist was, and didn't ever have any thoughts about how my earphones would affect it...
You get used to high quality. And when that happens, it becomes just that, the same enjoyment you got from you old ones before you moved up. Is spending an extra $50 worth it just for better phones? How long will they make you happy? How long before you enjoy music as you did with your older phones?
I see a guy with A900s (or some really big blue headphones that looked like A900s) just sitting there listening to music, with this really bored emotion stamped across his face.. NJB3, some random amp, I would guess, and another guy... he's using stock iPod buds, and he's having the time of his life...
Glancing back and forth amoung the two people, I just gotta say.. the guy with the A900s just doesn't seem to be rocking it at all... and the iBud guy? I would have knocked myself out already if I were doing that. That guy is just hip hopping the hell out of there! Probably would have started to break dance if we weren't standing on grass.
With the lower end (crap) phones, you not only get more of a selection, you also get to buy more (considering your not some multi millionare). Just about anything will work for you... and you can even enjoy those high end phones because they just sound better to you. But many people have taken the plunge, gotten a pair of $40 phones, and they've just permanently latched onto the ladder, climbing upward to hi fidelity. And probably never ever turning back.
Just a thought.. is it worth it if you enjoy your music as much as you did before?
Personally... I have various things I look for when I want to enjoy music...
First off is the artist, in which I must love or else I won't enjoy it all. If I love the artist... it doesn't really matter how bad my earphones sound (unless I can't understand the lyrics, then that's kinda pushing it)
Secondly, the comfort. I must treat my ears like someone I love, and can not bear to let them fall into pain, or discomfort.
Third... they must look nice. I can't go walking around with a pair of giant headphones shaped after telitubbies or whatever... that's almost like suicide.
Forth, sound quality.
I remember when I first got Kazaa. I had no clue what it was... then some experimenting revealed.. it downloads stuff for you.
Now what the f--- was I going to do with that?
Oh... music a good idea... wait... I don't know any musical artists...
For 3 months, I had 6 songs that I downloaded... from who? I don't know. I didn't really care. All I knew was that I was overwhelmed with emotion and feeling by the music I was hearing. They just sounded so moving coming out of a crappy Rio500 with stock earbuds...
Well, 7 months later, and after picking up a ton of foreign techno, and a Rio Volt, I was suprised... (mind you, the Rio Volt 150 is a piece of crap, but to me at the time... 700 megs of music? I didn't even have 700 megs of music). Not only did I have my entire music collection on there, but I was kinda suprised at how much better it sounded. Then again, I did buy a pair of $10 earphones, so that did have something to do with it...
I've compared this player + earbuds with my computer + Altec Lansing 5.1 speaker system, and I was just blown over by the bass response I got with the subwoofer. I could have cranked that baby up and shook the friken windows (my dad does that all the time), but even at low levels, I was just blow away (almost literally) by the sound.
A year later... I can't find that feeling anymore. They're just regular computer speakers to me.. nothing special anymore. All that subwoofer does to me now is to vibrate when I put my feet on it. Nothing more. My stock earbuds have long been modded, failed, and discarded in various experiments.
I've gotten used to things. And that alone has just taken away the peak enjoyment level that I could ever attain for my music. Never again, will I enjoy it so much. I had stock earbuds, and a halfworking player, and I was on top of the world. Now? I'm nothing. Music is just there. Quality is just there... there's nothing special to me anymore. Never again.
It's like cocaine.... you'll reach that extreme high, but never in your entire life will you ever attain that level again... you just crash down and down. The next time, it'll be great... but not as good. And the more you use it, the less high you can get until you're just saving yourself from crashing down too low and getting stuck there.
Well... I guess I've just lamented my permanent loss of acheivement... but it's a little something to think about at least.
Maybe in the future... we'll have reached even higher limits of sound quality, to the point where phones have such fidelity, that it would be impossible for human ears to be able to detect... at that point, it wouldn't matter anymore.
I've decided to postpone me ordering my shure e2c's for a while... a long while... at least after I get a pair of real $2 fidelity discharge buds. I'm kinda doubting if that'll work either... I wonder if I've gone too far down the abyss already.