[AgainstTheGrain]

+1
Please try DT990 and signature DJ. I believe with conviction that you will settle on one of these far more happily that any of the others you list. We all have different tastes, set ups, and requirements. Although neither of my suggestions are cheap, in general buying big $ headphones doesnt by any stretch mean it will be the best (for you). There are too many variables for one headphone to do it all IMO. BUT based on your posts i strongly believe you must A/B the SIg DJ and DT990, then A/B the winner against your LCD2 or anything else your tempted by. These threads always end up very long, until the OP actually goes out n tries all these cans. The more cans that get listed, the more opinions are thrown in,  the longer the thread. THis isnt a bad thing at all! Just common place by now.

If you dont live near any shops etc etc, order online with a return policy, and dont abuse it.

I'll check NYC to see if there is a place where I can actually listen to them all. Or at least the top ones on my list.

 

[mrbigsby]

good start! Im excited to hear your feedback.

 

[AgainstTheGrain]

good start! Im excited to hear your feedback.

I know this is pretty vain but the Signature DJ look ugly to me. I much prefer the style of the Signature Pro. I'm pretty much set on the SP. I want to A/B the SP with the LCD-2 and pick the winner

 

[mrbigsby]

They are identical in build, just white shell black shell. Neither of your final choices offer soundstage nor will pair to warm up your solid state stack enough to compliment hip hop. I can tell you've already made up your mind though as you've also omitted the DT990 before even trying it (has soundstage and bass response). Best of luck though. I guess knowing what you want was the purpose of this thread to begin with, so that's great!

 

[oblique63]

Quote:

 
Don't know what is ideal but flat FR in bass region is what people consider "neutral" in terms of headphones. If you look at uncompensated vs compensated graphs, for example from inner fidelity, you will find that bass region is not compensated at all. You can read up something on this topic on innerfidelity's blog I believe.

That's the thing, what measures as 'flat' is still a bit subjective cause it depends on which HTRF you use. Innerfidelity/goldenears/headroom/etc all have reasonably valid interpretations of 'neutral' with their measurements. We c[size=small]an be as objective about 'flat-ness' as we want once we adhere to a given standard, but what that standard should be is still pretty much up in the air at this point. I'm no expert in the area so I could be off base on some points, but I know that a reasonably compensated bass is what I consider to be 'neutral' and use the term as such when discussing sound here, I just don't always point it out (like lots of others that might agree with me here).


In any case, it appears we might be getting some impressions on the Sig Pros soon; can't wait![/size]

 

[Danz03]

The problem is that it's not possible for most human beings to be able to tell what's neutral sounding, listening to some bad speakers or headphones for a few minutes can easily change someone's perspective of what's flat sounding. That's why there are reference systems, they are measured and calibrated to sound flat and neutral, like the reference monitors in recoding studio. Many people above the age of 35 cannot hear anything above 16 or 17 kHz anyway, so I don't think the human ears are a good reference for audio flatness.
 
Not everyone thinks neutral sounding systems are good, otherwise valve amps and the HD800 wouldn't have been so popular in my opinion. So the thing is, if flat and neutral sounding is not good, then in theory, nothing is actually good or bad, as everyone has a different preference. For me, I'll take the flat sounding LCD-2 r 2.2 any day. 

 
To the OP : I think you really need to hear all 3 headphones to decide what you want, what someone likes about a pair of headphones can be very different to what you like as it's so subjective.
 
Quote:

That's the thing, what measures as 'flat' is still a bit subjective cause it depends on which HTRF you use. Innerfidelity/goldenears/headroom/etc all have reasonably valid interpretations of 'neutral' with their measurements. We c[size=small]an be as objective about 'flat-ness' as we want once we adhere to a given standard, but what that standard should be is still pretty much up in the air at this point. I'm no expert in the area so I could be off base on some points, but I know that a reasonably compensated bass is what I consider to be 'neutral' and use the term as such when discussing sound here, I just don't always point it out (like lots of others that might agree with me here).

In any case, it appears we might be getting some impressions on the Sig Pros soon; can't wait![/size]

 

[oblique63]

Quote:

The problem is that it's not possible for most human beings to be able to tell what's neutral sounding, listening to some bad speakers or headphones for a few minutes can easily change someone's perspective of what's flat sounding. That's why there are reference systems, they are measured and calibrated to sound flat and neutral, like the reference monitors in recoding studio. Many people above the age of 35 cannot hear anything above 16 or 17 kHz anyway, so I don't think the human ears are a good reference for audio flatness.
 
Not everyone thinks neutral sounding systems are good, otherwise valve amps and the HD800 wouldn't have been so popular in my opinion. So the thing is, if flat and neutral sounding is not good, then in theory, nothing is actually good or bad, as everyone has a different preference. For me, I'll take the flat sounding LCD-2 r 2.2 any day. 

 
To the OP : I think you really need to hear all 3 headphones to decide what you want, what someone likes about a pair of headphones can be very different to what you like as it's so subjective.
 

 
[size=small] If you're talking about the combination of HD800's + tube amps, then I totally agree, as I too find it quite puzzling 

. Can't blame people for craving that epic HD800 soundstage though... But yeah, as you said, not everybody likes a 'flat' sound signature. Meanwhile, I'm in the minority because I don't like the idea of artificially trying to 'improve' the sound of recordings. If the recording/production is good: great!  If it's bad: oh well, I'll take it for what it is. Not to mention that "poor" production-values are often intentional in certain styles of music...[/size]
[size=small]  [/size]
[size=small] And yeah, its possible to achieve a flat response in general, but it depends on whether you're talking about headphones independently, or whether you're aiming to reproduce the response of a studio setup. Due to the physics of it (positioning, head/ear acoustics, bass vibrations, etc), they're not gonna be perceived the same way, hence the use of HTRFs to measure headphones and the debate of which function is the most accurate to use of those. Given that a vast majority of modern music is mixed/mastered on loudspeakers, the latter method is the obvious way to go. The quest for 'neutrality' could then be interpreted as trying to find the most faithful reproduction of those original studio conditions. But it gets trickier once you realize that audio engineers don't really always use flat monitors to mix everything (auratones/NS10s anyone?), and that studio conditions can vary a lot for modern 'independent' recording artists (like I pretend to be 

). But I digress...[/size]
[size=small]
Either way, a lot of this stuff is already taken into account by most high-end headphone manufacturers in one way or another, so pretty much all of the headphones that consistently measure as being reasonably flat across a variety of different measurement schemes could safely be considered 'neutral'/'flat' in general. I'm just personally of the mind that 'neutral' headphones should be slightly on the brighter side of flat, and have a slight boost in the bass (to make up for the lost vibrations) in order to best recreate the original studio conditions. [/size]

 

[EddieE]

Are you changing a recording by using a headphone that is not totally flat? 
 
We'd love to imagine every studio in the world has ruler flat monitors and perfect damping but they don't and especially as you go back in time, the chances are that the producer that originally put the recording together was using anything but a truly neutral system. Look at the frequency response graphs of some of the most popular studio monitors out there and you'll see that we aren't talking about perfection and that's before we even consider room acoustics. Take the exact recording the producer was working on and play it in another studio somewhere else with the same monitors and different room size and damping and it could sound different.
 
Therein lies the rub.
 
They also knew that the speakers their records would be played on would likely not be neutral either, so many will have compensated. When I listen to some Bob Marley albums, for example, on neutral-ish gear, its pretty obvious they were massively over compensating bass so as to still have strong bass on the speakers of the day - the bass really is oppressive on transducers that manage to stay flat down into the lower bass - as no speakers could when the records were produced.
 
I think the notion of "neutrality" is one of the most misunderstood. While, in my opinion, there is no real argument for using amps or DACs which change the frequency response, neutrality is more of a grey area with transducers themselves.
 
I personally do favour a largely neutral set of speakers or headphones, and as a gross generalisation the music will be closer to the producers intent with them, its not a science. You will likely never hear the music exactly as the artist heard it unless you recreate their exact studio.

 

[AgainstTheGrain]

I have settled on the signature pro. I love the portability. But due to being pulled over yesterday and getting an expensive ticket these will have to wait. Funny how life works like that.