[AuralBliss]

Grado SR-200,
very forward, a commanding midrange coupled with a passive-aggressive upper end (only makes itself known when pushed, comes out brightly) make it sound unbalanced and forward, real bass is no where to be found, though it tries to make gesture its really there. Imaging lacks the much sough after top class clarity and focus of better headphones. Overall though, still offers a very appealing musical sound.

 

[dngl]

vert- which definition of forward were you using? your list had a lot of cans I want to audition on it and I was just wondering which scale you were using.

 

[gaineso]

I've got HD 600's on right now listening to SG1 in the office while the SO watches news.

My first A/M phones were closed Aiwa supraural. Bass and some highs, not much mid -- laid back?

Then I got HD 535's with DSP 360 from Audio Advisor. Somewhat better, but still a little shy on top and bottom. Not really bright or dull, just okay with small letters -- still sort of laid back?

I bit the bullet and got HD 600's with a "Total Airhead" amp. What can I say. The most involving, detailed, beautiful sound I've heard from anything short of $5K speakers and better than most of them. OKAY, big letters on TV, WOW on movie, and ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE on music. That's the "package". Cans and amp. Cans alone nearly as good on any source I've tried them on -- portable, PC, laptop, $10K main sytem. If there are any better out there, I really don't want to know.

 

[Mike Walker]

I agree with much of what you wrote (about compression), Dustychalk. But I would point out two things. One...compression in moving coil transducers is caused by their "motor assembly" (the moving parts) reaching, or nearing the end of their linear travel, something which very seldom happens at high frequencies in headphones! The amount of cone movement required to reproduce high frequencies, even at very high volumes, is a tiny fraction of that required to reproduce full bass. So I doubt that HIGH FREQUENCY compression caused by the mechanical assemblies in headphones is much of a problem.

However, MECHANICALLY GENERATED compression certainly can, and does result at low and midrange frequencies.

Second, I would point out that very little of what we percieve as noise occurs much above 10khz. Our hearing acuity takes a RADICAL nosedive (varying from person to person) above 10-15khz (in some people this starts at 9-10khz, in others 15-17khz, but it happens to nearly all adults). The frequencies that we percieve as "extreme" highs are actually usually in the 7-10khz range. Thus the range between 5 and 10khz is where most AUDIBLE noise exists...right in the very range where our ears and brains perceive musical "detail". Which is why it's so damn hard, nearly impossible in fact, to remove noise (tape hiss, for instance) from historic (analog, gasp!) recordings without doing damage to the music!

In my opinion (in case you're interested), "blackness between notes" certainly isn't the holy grail of sound reproduction! Don't believe me? Get your hands on an old (1980s) outboard dbx noise reduction unit, and play one of your favorite (un-encoded) cds through it. You will hear NO NOISE, thus you will achieve the ultimate "blackness between notes", but the sounds which remains will be horrible beyond belief, because the badly mis-tracking device will poke (large, very black!) holes in your music in places where it did not belong!

Some noise is present in all environments in which recordings are made, and in all equipment used to make them! The total elimination of noise isn't a goal that I'd waste very much time trying to achieve! (Neither do manufacturers, by the way, as thusfar NO dvd-a or SACD players actually achieve noise levels below the 19th bit! By the way, the audible equivalent of 20 bit performance can be achieved with a garden variety dat recorder running Sony's SBM (Super Bit Mapping). I find it most amusing to know that my 5 year old Sony DTC-A6 is actually "quieter" than the most expensive dvd-a or sacd unit. Tee Hee!)

 

[Gluegun]

Hey, what about electronica? Trance? Music where digital samples, either recorded or generated with a synthesizer, are looped and mixed in various ways?

That is an entire GENRE of music, (not to mention many of it's related genres) that, by the time it gets to a CD, is supposed to be "black", as at no times is played music actually recorded in a room. The only exception would be, say, when it is a CD recording of a DJ doing his mixing on an LP (in which case you'd get the natural pops and clicks of that), or when they use A LOT more "sampled" sounds than usual, or recording the environment of a live DJ in a club doing his work....

But, many times, it is JUST the synthesized music! That is why sooooo many people use, say, Trance to test systems, because that is a type of music that NEEDS blackness, because it has a LOT more black holes than other types....

Thoughts?

 

[Eagle_Driver]

My list of full-sized headphones that I've heard within the past six months (from "forward" to "laid back"):

Sennheiser HD 570 (Eeeeeew, they sound WAY too ********* BRIGHT!)
Sony MDR-V700DJ (Gyah, they sound BOOMY!)
Grado SR-60
Sony MDR-V6/MDR-7506
AKG K240DF
Philips SBC-HP550
Sennheiser HD 590


And please, don't call me "craptripblah"!!

 

[Mike Walker]

The cd format (and other 16 bit formats) have, and some players actually achieve, a signal to noise ratio of -96db. In other words, noise (generated by the recording format itself) is 96db below the loudest sounds which can be recorded. If you're listening to "pure" digitally generated music, and can hear noise at -96db, I pray to God that I am NEVER in the room when you listen, because the volume of the music would surely cause hearing damage!

By the way, the 19 bit "resolution" that some of today's SACD and DVD-A units achieve is 18db quieter (in theory) than cd! And many of the best measuring amplifier designs are that quiet, or quieter! That's "black"! If you're hearing noise on digitally generated music (with no microphones/preamps/etc) through a well designed solid state amplifier, with headphones of medium or lower sensitivity, then you're certainly listening too damn loud!

 

[Gluegun]

True, I guess Trance is better at finding other faults in OTHER systems....say, a noise floor of some sort introduced for another reason, such as a bad mp3 encoder....or some bad interconnects, or something.....

The thing about trance, it has a lot of black space, and extremes of highs and lows in the same place, at the same time... and it is meant to be played at VERY high volume, LOL!

Anyways, with that knowledge, what would you use this type of music to test? I took a guess, based on what people tend to use it for (but those aren't audiophiles or engineers...), but what do you think?

Anyways, for example, look at these.....stuff on mp3's, and they use trance to tell the differences between them. I am not SURE why, but a big argument pops up on the subject! LOL!

http://66.96.216.160/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl...191057&start=0

http://www.tranceaddict.com/forums/s...threadid=24531

The first one is a lot to read, but, i'd like to hear your thoughts about it. Thanks!! I'd really like to know to what extent I was wrong or got the wrong idea or stuff from someone i TRUST, rather than these forumers, LOL!

 

[MikeR17]

Hmmm, this one's pretty easy...

Grado SR-225
Sony MDR-7506
Sennheiser HD-600

 

[Dusty Chalk]

MW, Re: compression -- I suspect the compression is actually occuring because a low sensitivity headphone is making the amp work too hard at specific frequencies, but I was unsure as to the exact numerical ranges.

Re: blackness/non-blackness -- actually, I prefer an un-messed up sound myself, so I totally agree with you. I was still trying to answer the poster's question, though. Hey, if that's what he wants, I was just trying to figure out how he could get it. Sounds like he should still take my advice, just change the numbers from "10kHz and up" to "5kHz and up", yes, no?

Side story -- there's different types of noise floors, too. When CD first came out, I quickly noticed that the audible dither that was added couldn't be "heard through". I.E., if the noise floor on one of my records was 50 dB down from the signal level, I could still hear quieter signal (if there was any), so the hiss wasn't such a big deal. Whereas, with CD, I could not (by design, of course). So the hiss on CD's (the first recordings of King Crimson's Discipline and one of Al Di Meola's albums, Casino, I think, are two that come to mind) was indeed, intolerable.

G, Re: trance -- I suspect that 95% of trance still is put through reverbs, which is what MW is talking about when he's talking about the "noise that's supposed to be there". So they're effectively adding it back in. In this case, it's artificially generated. But your point is still valid, since this is usually kept to a minimum -- the music is still "fast". The music would be organic if it had any reverb, which is contrary to the point of trance.

If you want to know what I'm talking about, listen to any record from the 80's produced by Trevor Horn (Art of Noise, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Grace Jones Slave to the Rhythm etc.) -- he played that digital reverb like an instrument!

 

[Mike Walker]

Dustychalk IS RIGHT that a major cause of "compression" in headphones is low sensitivity headphones making inadequate headphone amps work too hard.

As for the exact qualities of "trance" music, I admit that I wouldn't know the genre if it bit me on the hiney. I'm a 43 year old man who simply doesn't listen to the sh@t, er...has yet to develop an appreciation for this fine artform

 

[Eagle_Driver]

And not all the blame on compression is on the low-sensitivity headphones, but the very-high-sensitivity headphones can also be blamed for the "compression" - they have very little "damping". An example of a headphone that's too sensitive (to the point where sound accuracy is lost) is the Sennheiser HD 25.

 

[Mike Walker]

I'll be damned if I know what sensitivity has to do with "damping". Perhaps you mean RESONANCE? There are some high sensitivity headphones with very low resonance, and some low sensitivity 'phones with lots of it.

Resonance CAN (of course) smear detail, but this isn't, strictly speaking, compression! Perhaps this is an area where I, and others who work in the pro audio field, have a bit of an advantage (understanding what compression really sounds like) because one of the most used items in music and other forms of audio production is the COMPRESSOR/limiter. Just because you hear dynamic compression in music, don't assume your headphones are doing anything other than reproducing what's there! There is NO electric/electronic music (rock, pop, country, "trance", r&b, etc.) that doesn't employ HEAVY doses of compression and/or limiting on at least some of the tracks. And this is not a bad thing! Anyone involved with audio production can tell you what an important tool compression is to make individual tracks "sit" in a mix. I use compression and or limiting on EVERY SINGLE PROJECT I produce. It's amazing how properly applied dynamic range compression can help the listener hear more deeply into a dense mix. Except for purely acoustic types of music (classical, bluegrass, acoustic jazz) where there is a true acoustic "image" to be true to, compression is our friend!

 

[JayK]

Are the terms "bright" and "forward" used to describe the same sound? In many posts it seems to be used in the same way, but "bright" usually mentioned in a derogatory way. Thx.

 

[Mike Walker]

Yes, "Bright" and "Forward" are different ways of describing the same thing...an overly prominent (in absolute terms) midrange and treble. "Bright" is probably the way it would be described by those who enjoy this type of sound. "Harsh", "Aggressive", "In Your Face", etc are less flattering ways of describing the same thing!

Mike