[soozieq]

Hello argada, and welcome to Head-Fi

And thank you for your post. You made a lot of valid points.

You too Shigz!

 

[Spyro]

Regarding the argument FOR dynamics and IE8's, I read far to many reviews saying the bass is VERY big and drowns out the treble where the treble detail is even less than the rolled off SE530. Certainly not a sound I would be looking for. I think triple drivers have overcome BA difficiencies.

SE530 certainly sounds dynamic compared to ER4. LOL!!

 

[dookiex]

... and now back to our regular scheduled program. Take it away Voltag3

 

[dragoonf144]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spyro /img/forum/go_quote.gif Regarding the argument FOR dynamics and IE8's, I read far to many reviews saying the bass is VERY big and drowns out the treble where the treble detail is even less than the rolled off SE530. Certainly not a sound I would be looking for. I think triple drivers have overcome BA difficiencies. SE530 certainly sounds dynamic compared to ER4. LOL!!

The bass doesn't drown the other spectrums imo even with bass knob on max

Hell, my eq looks like this now as i think the IE8s extend too well in treble compared to the shures, hurts my ears.(which is still why i love the shures)

Then again, im kinda a bass-head

 

[shigzeo]

and here it is: proof that sound is subjective. if voltage is happy with the se530, that is great. it was not for me but i think i am overly harsh on all iems.

the only iems i have been fully impressed with are customs for the main reason that they engage other parts of the ear than just the canal. they don't dampen sound like a universal which must blow its music through a rubber, foam or silicon mouthpiece. customs vibrate all along the body which hugs the ear shape, creating if nothing else, a great impression of space and better extension for all frequencies. no matter that a driver may be exactly the same build, customs should always be better except for isolation.

naturally, if they carry a low end driver that does not perform up to snuff, that is a problem, but other than that - well-designed customs simply are another step up from any non-custom.

the futuresonics i will remind you use a high end dynamic are are used by many professional musicians despite probably not isolating as well as their counterparts from ue, sleek, westone and livewires because they have a bass port on the side to allow the drivers to flex for bass output.

 

[oarnura]

Quote:

Originally Posted by shigzeo /img/forum/go_quote.gif ornaura: time and time again, mid to low fi stuff has been shown in blind tests to perform as well as high end stuff. high end stuff always sounds better when people know what system is playing the music. it always wins unless that specific brand is not in vogue. in fact, the same equipment can be used in a test and can be announced as a different better or worse equipment. as long as the equipment is announced differently, people will perceive a better or worse sound.

Believe me I am not fan of ultra expensive gear. I just listened to some B&W 802Ds driven by $50K worth of gear yesterday. My $5K setup I though had the same or better resolution.

Quote:

saying that dynamic is not neutral is admitting nearly every speaker, both high end and low is rubbish.

I didn't say dynamic can't be neutral. I was against the claim that Dynamic is more "musical" because it can produce more bass.

All the Dynamics I have heard that produce lots of bass have been less than transparent. To me something that isn't transparent isn't "musical" no matter how warm it sounds. To some "warm" / "polite" sounding gear is "musical". The B&W 802D sounded great for $14K worth of speaker alone but the bass was blurry and the sound was too polite. Could have been the room and electronics.

Quote:

what you don't like in dynamic phones (and not even all dynamics) is bass impact. impact has nothing to do with being neutral or not. music with bass and music without bass exists. if there is impact in the music, there had better be from your earphones. impact and texture is as much a part of the details as is sparkly treble.

I love bass impact. When I have low bass in a song at home I can feel it my sofa and the visceral impact just fine and love it. What I don't like about dynamics is the "mid bass" boom or resonance that people think is "good bass" or impactful bass. It just doesn't sound clean to me. Also most Dynamics IEMs have their bass jacked up 10db.


Build A Graph - HeadRoom - Right Between Your Ears

Here I am comparin the Grado RS1, Senn HD600, Senn HD 650 and the IE8.

Notice how the IE8 has a crazy bloated bass curve. People use the other headphones I have listed for mastering and monitoring. They have no where the bass response of the IE8 at the lowest bass settings.

However, People argue that the IE8 is "natural". Do you really think that bass instruments in a performance are 10db (3x louder ) in a real performance?

Open cans move more air but IEMs don't need to to produce bass because of occlusion and proximity to the ear. Why is the bass on the IE8 jacked up 10+ db?

Quote:

what dynamics present is bass detailed music as they add another dimension to sound, visceral texture and resolution. what ba phones do well (generally and there are many exceptions to this) is presenting a great small but well placed sound stage and well spaced treble (generally).

The problem is most dynamics are not flat they all seem to have the bass jacked up 10 db or so. Turbines, Atrios, IE8 etc. So when people say dyanmics, do they want 10 DB bass gain? Slow decay characteristics? A resonant mid bass response?

I hope the IE7 changes my mind. I really do.

If a dynamic can have the clarity, speed and resolution of the BA while still giving me great solid clean bass I will take my words back.

The bottom line is it isn't the technology but the marketing. The phones people parade around here as great examples of dynamics to me don't have a neutral sound. Those are generally targeted towards people that want bass anyway. Most of the Pro oriented gear is targeted towards people that want clean sound.

Why does the IE8 have a bass knob to go from lots of bass to crazy bass? Why not a treble and/or mid knobs too? How about all the mega bass, bass boot, clear bass settings on DAPs? Have you seen any other quality gear with those kinds of bass boost features?

Consumers like bass with a lot of mid bass bloat. It is a well established fact that speaker manufacturers jack up the mid bass frequencies to make up for low end response. EQ technology like Audyssey will flatten the mid bass response to make it neutral and people get pissed of and claim they lost their bass. Consumers have been spoilt by an artificial bass response and argue that it is more "natural" or "musical". This is a trait a lot of audio gear share.

The difference isn't Dynamic vs BA. It is what has been marketed to different segments.

 

[kobayashi]

Seems like someone has forgotten about the extended burn-in required by dynamic drivers.

 

[shigzeo]

well if that would be the case, then the only truly neutral phones according to your definition would be the ck10 and the er4s. again, both sound good but sound nothing like music that is heard at any price. simply, both are more anaemic than any speaker, monitor or headphone unless you really work at tweaking down the bass to unrealistic levels.

 

[oarnura]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zalithian /img/forum/go_quote.gif I don't agree with Dookie that BA's are flawed and don't sound musical, but I also don't agree that adding coloration can't make something sound more musical. I don't think I'm missing the point either Oarnura. This argument seems to be what is musical and what is not. It varies from person to person. Nobody here really has the right to claim what is musical or not for every person.

That's a cop out. Then no one has the right to say Bose sucks or the ibuds suck.

The answer to everthing can't be it is different for every person so we can't discuss things..


Quote:

Dookie probably should have used more careful wording, or he really just doesn't feel that BA's are musical. If he does feel that way, I disagree with him strongly as well but I feel that's his opinion. If you want to argue his claim you're free to do so, but I really feel it's more of a misunderstanding. I think what he's trying to get across is BA's are boring (to him) and he prefers dynamic drivers to spice up his music.

This is a discussion board yes? What do we discuss if not audio and headphones?

He can claim he likes dynamics, Shigezo does.. no problems there. But when he claims BAs are inherently flawed he better back it up.

Quote:

Nobody knows exactly how the artist really intends for music to sound. You can play a song on 1000 different devices and with the combinations of headphones, speakers, iems, file quality etc and it will never sound exactly the same - especially person to person. That's why I feel it's pointless to argue or claim BA's tend to be more how the artist intends it to sound.

The mastering engineer, the artists and producer know what the artist intended and put it on the record. They mastered them on gear in treated rooms and neutral speakers.

The problem is that it will sound different on different gear because of coloration and preferences. But that doesn't mean "no one knows" what the artist intended.

The pros use BAs and cans that a close to neutral or they understand how a they color sound and compensate during mastering.


Quote:

A Mcdonalds Burger may indeed pale in comparison to a Kobe beef burger, but someone may like the Mcdonalds burger better with the extras it comes with. That lettuce, tomato, ketchup etc add flavor. Some people just might like cheaper tasting stuff better.

I regularly eat buffalo tenders and I dip them in Bleu Cheese. Is that some kind of crime because I'm not enjoying the pure taste of the Buffalo Tenders? No, not really. I do it because I enjoy it more so than just the plain old tenders. That's no different than adding coloration to music to make it more palatable, in my opinion.[/QUOTE]

You mistook my analogy. Ketchup. People that like ketchup can throw lots of it on a mcdonalds burger and on a kobe beef burger and argue till they are blue in the face that the kobe beef burger is over prices.

Or to put it another way. Mcd burger has ketchup. Kobe beef burger has no ketchup. Guy takes a bite of the expensive burger and says " can't believe this is so expensive". dumps half a bottle of ketchup on it and says" much better but still can believe they charge so much for this and don't even put ketchup in it".

You can argue it is a personal preference. But they if that person started telling every one that kobe beef and X restaurants burgers are overrated and doesn't taste like a burger. All because having ketchup in a burger makes it a burger for him.




Quote:

Hopefully we can get back on topic if necessary. If everyone involved had simply added in my opinion, none of this would be an issue. I think the opinions are just coming out in the wrong fashion so it seems as if it's not one.

Can you stop with the its just opinions? I get it.

1) Claiming a technology is flawed because it doesn't meet ones taste is rubbish.
2) Claiming accuracy and musicality are orthogonal goals is absurd.
3) claiming that mastering setups are inherently different from "listening" gear is another bogus claim.

These are not listening preferences. These are claims made that can easily be refuted. People in the audio industry pick gear based on certain criteria.
Most mastering gear is usually high-end consumer gear like B&W, wilson etc. PMC makes monitors and sells them to consumers they consistently blow
people away at CES. That is consumer gear plain and simple.

Here is a review of the PMC Ib1 in stereophile:
http://www.stereophile.com/standloudspeakers/998pmc/

The claim monitoring or mastering gear is different is just nonsense.

 

[oarnura]

Quote:

Originally Posted by shigzeo /img/forum/go_quote.gif well if that would be the case, then the only truly neutral phones according to your definition would be the ck10 and the er4s. again, both sound good but sound nothing like music that is heard at any price. simply, both are more anaemic than any speaker, monitor or headphone unless you really work at tweaking down the bass to unrealistic levels.

Where have you heard music with bass levels 3 times louder than everything else? Show me a speaker with that response curve. May be even a subwoofer.

Show me a music venue where the engineer has mixed the bass 3 times louder than everything else.

 

[dookiex]

I think we've hijacked Votag3's thread enough already oarnura. Why you are trying to make this into a war I have no idea.

 

[MaloS]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dragoonf144 /img/forum/go_quote.gif The bass doesn't drown the other spectrums imo even with bass knob on max Hell, my eq looks like this now as i think the IE8s extend too well in treble compared to the shures, hurts my ears.(which is still why i love the shures) Then again, im kinda a bass-head

Idiot. Extended treble is not what hurts your ears. Extremely peaky treble (with peaks anywhere above 6 khz) hurts your ears.

 

[dookiex]

MaloS, you're the definition of what's wrong with Head-Fi, it's your elitist attitude and your condescendence to anyone who disagree with your views. Kind of overboard do you not think?

 

[shigzeo]

it is not about the music venue or engineer. it is about lack of feeling from certain phones. i won't comment any more about this but i think that you not hearing the arguments as we mean them. i for one, am not saying that ie8 for instance is neutral. however, i will also not argue for any other earphone on the market. by taking only sound and not factoring into any other factor, what you get is at least 50% difference from true listening environments. if all music and all sound was only available for in-ear use, then this discussion would not make sense.

if hardware manufacturers make 'more bass than necessary' they may be overcompensating for the loss of organic response from muscles, bone and ears to sound that originates outside of the body. on the same curve however, manufacturers who make phones to fit a 0db deviation from treble or bass are numbered 0. There simply is no neutral phone. the closes I know of is the er4s but it spikes desperately in high treble more violently than sennheiser's bloated bass.

simply put: earphones can be pleasant and musical but cannot be neutral. in face if they were, i doubt that anyone would like their sound.

the point is this: earphones are made with checks in place. some manufacturers try to make as clean a deviation as possible and still cannot be perfect while others realise the futility of trying. still others do their best to keep a feel of live music with their phones and create products that have feel.

if you want to qualify 'musical' as a word into another definition, that is your prerogative but it is not good. nuetural, natural and musical have no bearing on what we hear from any manufacturer, ever as all are biased toward some impossible goal.

 

[twylight]

This thread needs some kinda of warning, maybe a burning inferno icon with a small pile of ashes that used to be the original post...