[BillsonChang007]

Hello all!

So I have demoed I can say, quite a lot of headphones this few months~ and the more different type of headphones I came across, is it true that brighter headphones tend to be sensitive to the audio format/bit rate/ simple rate etc? The reason why I ask this is because I realized, most bright headphones are very unforgiving to badly recorded music!

The next question is, IEM or headphone? Never tried a lot of IEM but for the same price, which is better?

Thanks!
Billson

 

[cucera]

Good high resolution bright headphones like the Sennheiser HD800 are very source dependent. Most people are more sensitive to high tones. Sometimes brighter headphones are prone to sibilance and this may sound like a bad recording even though it was originally bright. Thats why darker ones like LCD2 are often more forgiving. But some dark ones are an exception and also picky like the Stax007 MK2.

For the same price good full size HP beat IEMs at least for most people (as allways there are exceptions but they are seldom)

 

[BillsonChang007]

Hello!

Thanks for the respond! It seems legit!

But the IEM produces better details?

 

[xnor]

Deviation from a flat frequency response is called linear distortion. As we know, distortion is usually bad. It makes sense to think of it as distortion since it can cause sibilance, highlight recording problems or clipping etc.
Lossy compression artifacts also can be amplified by certain peaks in the frequency response, especially in the treble.
 
Bit depth/sample rate doesn't really matter if we're talking about lossless audio.
 
 
IEMs or headphones? My choice clearly is headphones since I don't like to put stuff into my ears, but if that doesn't bother you and that many IEMs roll-off at roughly 12 to 16 kHz then I'd think that IEMs offer better performancerice ratio. You also get greater isolation from outside noise.

 

[BillsonChang007]

Deviation from a flat frequency response is called linear distortion. As we know, distortion is usually bad. It makes sense to think of it as distortion since it can cause sibilance, highlight recording problems or clipping etc.
Lossy compression artifacts also can be amplified by certain peaks in the frequency response, especially in the treble.

Bit depth/sample rate doesn't really matter if we're talking about lossless audio.


IEMs or headphones? My choice clearly is headphones since I don't like to put stuff into my ears, but if that doesn't bother you and that many IEMs roll-off at roughly 12 to 16 kHz then I'd think that IEMs offer better performancerice ratio. You also get greater isolation from outside noise.

Does it mean most IEM have dark/mellow sound sig? I like IEM because if it's portability, details (most IEM I came across offer excellent details), and lastly, isolation. However, I do not quite like the isolation. It doesn't isolate 100% of noise thus making outside noise more annoying to me because of the "muffering" sound like mmmmmmmmmmmmm sometimes high pitch (rare) making my head dizzy :O

Billson xD

 

[cucera]

No dark IEMs are an exception, most sound rather bright. Regarding higher detail, the best custom IEMs like the UE reference monitor have excelent resolution comparable to top Staxs.

 

[BillsonChang007]

No dark IEMs are an exception, most sound rather bright. Regarding higher detail, the best custom IEMs like the UE reference monitor have excelent resolution comparable to top Staxs.

Nothing is considered "bright" after you take a spin with Grados XD lol

Nah, just saying! I find IE800 extreeeeeemely bright T.T it's "agressive" kind of bright to me

Billson