[SodaBoy]

The earphone market is 10x more snake oil than the full-sized market.
 
Look at this: http://www.jomoaudio.com/collections/jomo-iem
 
Jomo1, Jomo2, Jomo,3 Jomo4, Jomo5, Jomo6, ROFL. What makes Jomo6 better than Jomo3? This is why, for me, the portable audio forum has become a dark pit of despair.

  I feel like over time the Summit-Fi front has taken more ground. Increasingly I'm seeing people begin a post with, "I know that I need to spend at least $$$ on amplification for <headphone x> in order to get the best out of it, so which $$$ amp should I buy...". I'm also unfortunately seeing people say, "I really want to buy <headphone x>, but I don't have enough to buy a $$$($...) amp, and I know that it's not worth it unless I have a good amp, so what other headphones would you recommend instead?" The HD 600 gets this quite frequently. It always breaks my heart when I see it because I know how good this thing is, and to see somebody just flat out give up on it (several times already the poster just walked away, presumably without getting anything at all) is tragic. It's the diametric opposite result from what this hobby should be about, which is finding gear that lets you enjoy your music to the fullest.

That's amusingly true, I see this all the time. They have swallowed the blue pill completely, and they go to great lengths to preempt any potential attack by stating that they are already aware that XYZ amount of money needs to be spent on amps and DACs in order to pair up with XYZ kind of headphones in order for it to "live up to its full potential". This is followed usually by an apologetic admission that their limited budgets have forced them to commit audio heresy.

 

[Koolpep]

I think there is a counter-trend of rapidly improving products at the lower end of the price spectrum and way more options in the middle. The audiophile hobby is getting better for people in that price bracket, whilst people in the top bracket have massively diminishing returns. I think the overall quality of the industry is improving because in spite of all the expensive items joining the summit-fi ranks you've got $5 earbuds that compete on sound with $200 IEMs, and good DAPs and amps for under $100.

I don't think there has been a time with so much value for money.

+1

Never been a better time. "Older" TOTL headphones dropping in price. New headphones coming out in lower price brackets that are stellar. Never been a better time to be an headphone audiophile. I made this point before, the costs are not rising, they are going down. While flagships might reach new pricing heights, the quality across the range gets better.

Maybe it's time for a recommendation thread:

Objectionists best headphone/DAC/amp setups under $100, $300, $500 dollars? I would be happy to replicate them and do some blind tests on our next meetup.

Cheers.

 

[U-3C]

Yeah I used to think thats crazy. Who the heck will pay thousands for headphones and valve amps and setups. Then buy another high end headphone.

But then when I used to work at a Casino. There tons of people who were crying to staff who bet their house property away. That they bet 10,000. They want the money back. Lots of drunk people betting things that is sacred.

Including a wife betting wedding ring plus 2,000 cash.

Makes people who spend thousands on Hifi very miniscule in comparison

 

[Koolpep]

Well luckily audio gear doesnt' seem to follow the "loses 1/2 the value once you drive it off the lot" rule.

I am one of those people who, despite having lots of education in many mathy things that aren't electrical engineering, paid lots more on an initial setup than what I have now, because I simply wasn't on guard for just how subjective everything is on this site. After finding this sub-forum and putting those math skills to use, I've basically sold off everything fancy except my HD800 (which I keep around for the low distortion #s). It's not that it ruins lives, but it certainly wastes money that could be going towards more useful things.

Just look at the new Realiser. For $1000 (at the kickstarter) you could have gotten a device that can turn any decent set of cans into an impressive facsimile of any multi-$1e6 speaker setup you can find. Yet you're more likely to have someone recommend spending the same amount of cash on an amp/DAC combo to "fix" the problems of a single set of cans. Perhaps if all the people who supported "synergy" instead supported real virtualization efforts, stuff like the Realiser wouldn't need to cost $1k.

I agree with you. Also bought too much in a too short time.

But I also am a very curious person, I love to try out new gear, explore a new amp or DAC, test it with my gear and find out what I perceive differently. And sometimes, well I experience the great hated "synergy". Oppo PM-3 for example, driven from the Liquid Carbon in balanced mode, really popped my eyeballs. A headphone I listened to for a year, suddenly sounded so much more engaging. Were the differences night and day? No, but very significant. And maybe it's only "better" for my taste in sound signature and music genres, who knows. I love finding these setups that I enjoy the most. It's fun. And since I have acquired too much gear in any case i can play the combination game for many years to come without buying much new things, haha. And start slowly selling off the stuff I don't need anymore.

Problems with EQ and realizes for me: I have two or three mobile setups I like to use, all of which don't have a good EQ setup. I have a setup at work and a home setup. I listen more hours at work then at home.

Curious about the realizer but am a bit doubtful, so far none of these "out of your head" software was worth it for me.

Cheers.

 

[mulder01]

+1

Never been a better time. "Older" TOTL headphones dropping in price. New headphones coming out in lower price brackets that are stellar. Never been a better time to be an headphone audiophile. I made this point before, the costs are not rising, they are going down. While flagships might reach new pricing heights, the quality across the range gets better.

Maybe it's time for a recommendation thread:

Objectionists best headphone/DAC/amp setups under $100, $300, $500 dollars? I would be happy to replicate them and do some blind tests on our next meetup.

Cheers.

 
It would be good - plenty of people are happy to say that you don't need to spend much money on a dac/amp, it just has to be suitable for your situation, so I asked for a recommendation based on my situation and so far only SodaBoy has come forth with a suggestion.  It seems most objectivists are hesitant to recommend a product for some reason.  I'm pretty sure I asked the same question about a year or so ago in the sound science subforum (for people to name specific products) and it was like trying to get blood from a stone.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

I guess you people punting about the value of certain headphones might really not be full-up on your objective-fu and deserve to be smacked upside the head by pctazhp

To me, about the only measurement I care about for a pair of headphones is the distortion response curve at a certain (high) measured volume level. This tells me whether said headphones can reproduce a full range of frequencies at volumes demanded by music playback, without noticeable distortion, especially at the frequency extremes.

I care naught for the default frequency response of the headphones because I will always totally reshape that via EQ, and by extension, reshape the entire sound of the headphones.

To some extent it is good if the frequency response has fewer narrow peaks and dips, which are harder to correct, and if the FR is more consistent between slightly different wearings, to make the EQ profile more totally applicable across sessions. But I seldom run into big problems in those senses, and it is a rare set of measurements that would show such detail anyway.

These days I "audition" headphones simply by putting them on to judge comfort; there's very little more I can glean for my purposes by making them actually play music, uncalibrated, especially in noisy show conditions.

 

[Koolpep]

@Joe Bloggs But you must admit that you are a very special case 

 

[U-3C]

I guess you people punting about the value of certain headphones might really not be full-up on your objective-fu and deserve to be smacked upside the head by pctazhp

To me, about the only measurement I care about for a pair of headphones is the distortion response curve at a certain (high) measured volume level. This tells me whether said headphones can reproduce a full range of frequencies at volumes demanded by music playback, without noticeable distortion, especially at the frequency extremes.

I care naught for the default frequency response of the headphones because I will always totally reshape that via EQ, and by extension, reshape the entire sound of the headphones.

To some extent it is good if the frequency response has fewer narrow peaks and dips, which are harder to correct, and if the FR is more consistent between slightly different wearings, to make the EQ profile more totally applicable across sessions. But I seldom run into big problems in those senses, and it is a rare set of measurements that would show such detail anyway.

These days I "audition" headphones simply by putting them on to judge comfort; there's very little more I can glean for my purposes by making them actually play music, uncalibrated, especially in noisy show conditions.

I aspire to be like you one day, Joe Bloggs sama!!!

XD

 

[Ancipital]

  I think there is a counter-trend of rapidly improving products at the lower end of the price spectrum and way more options in the middle. The audiophile hobby is getting better for people in that price bracket, whilst people in the top bracket have massively diminishing returns. I think the overall quality of the industry is improving because in spite of all the expensive items joining the summit-fi ranks you've got $5 earbuds that compete on sound with $200 IEMs, and good DAPs and amps for under $100.
 
I don't think there has been a time with so much value for money.

 
I'm so glad someone said this, I think you beat me to it, but also did a better job that I would.
 
If we ignore the silly excesses of ego-fi, someone shopping for equipment to make their music sound good has an amazing choice. Things like the quality of DAC chips, the power of embedded systems, the quality/price ratio of mass-produced stuff is incredible, if you know what you're shopping for
 
I am not stinking rich by any stretch of the imagination, but I have been able to afford a setup which sounds incredible, and which is reasonably portable. I keep wanting to send it back in time to teenage me, who was lugging dodgy tape walkmans around, my mind would have been blown- and not just by the tablet computer source.
 
There will always be people spending silly money, often on things of dubious value, and others just throwing money at genuinely diminishing returns. However, for those of us with "normal" budgets and a certain grasp of how things work, it has become quite possible to get most of the way there for a fraction of the cost. There's a lot of choice, if you're a bit savvy; reliable, well-made, well-specced kit that even ticks most subjective boxes is in reach of many people, if they care to look.
 
I love it.

 

[NLNH]

  I think there is a counter-trend of rapidly improving products at the lower end of the price spectrum and way more options in the middle. The audiophile hobby is getting better for people in that price bracket, whilst people in the top bracket have massively diminishing returns. I think the overall quality of the industry is improving because in spite of all the expensive items joining the summit-fi ranks you've got $5 earbuds that compete on sound with $200 IEMs, and good DAPs and amps for under $100.
 
I don't think there has been a time with so much value for money.

 
reminds me of a story, when foreigners see a crowded petrol station they build a small town around it and grow it into a small city,
when Asians see a crowded petrol station they build another 10 petrol stations around it 

 
'' And now there hasn't been a time with so much choice and value of monies! ''
 
Lower price for now yes. Better value? not when you buy 20 earphones and keep thinking of  ''upgrading'' all the time. 
Not to mention labour cost in production countries rise plus the higher cost marketing more new models.
 
while i do respect many brands that do marketing well and lift the industry/ hobby but there are just too many who take advantage of arbitrage opportunities to fool 

 
 
 
my 2 cents...

 

[richard51]

 
I was like that when I first started. I remember one of first questions I asked was "what's the best headphone I can buy for this price, etc"
People will give me all sorts of answers, "this will give you best sound quality!"
I ended up getting curious and trying out all sorts of gear. I began to get some serious beatdowns from people via PM. It was really good advice too.
A lot of rewiring my brain too.
 
It took till recently that I stopped going for that Perfect Sound quality. As quality doesn't mean too much to me. It took a lot of trying out equipment, 
I do notice I like sonic signatures that are slightly neutral and slightly warm. Cayin N5 has a signature that adds organic warm which I really did enjoy. I love excellent produced timber as well.
Meze 99 classics brought to me a Fun Sound signature that really got me to expand further. Shanling M2/M5 gave me that neutral synergy to mix with as well.
 
I just started listening to people telling me to stop looking for perfect sound quality and looking for what I like in music.
I disliked the term basshead at first in beginning, but I appreciate what headphones like ATH M50x and V-Moda M100 etc, can do for electronic music with bass response, etc.
I keep my equipment now in Mid-Range and just try out stuff that have signatures that I might like.

this is wise....

 

[castleofargh]

Problems with EQ and realizes for me: I have two or three mobile setups I like to use, all of which don't have a good EQ setup. I have a setup at work and a home setup. I listen more hours at work then at home.

Curious about the realizer but am a bit doubtful, so far none of these "out of your head" software was worth it for me.

Cheers.

it's been annoying me for years, then one day I decided to make a small mp3 library(usually 32giga as I still have lot of those µSD) that includes EQ for one of my IEMs, crossfeed, and sometimes a little compressor. didn't want to wait for the world to provide what I like.  and TBH I've tried hard to get some of the head sensors for games to work on my music player but I'm a total zero in computer and programming, so in this case I had to wait for an "affordable" realiser. the atmos stuff are supposed to be compatible with virtual gaming gears, so I also have hope that sound changing with the movement of the head will slowly become a common consumer product at a common consumer price. convolving systems are found for free or not very much money, head tracking can be found for less than 150$, so both together have no reason to cost a limb even if I'm sure it's not that easy to make quality audio following movements with close to zero latency, but maybe not 1000$ worth.
 
 
anyway the realiser has 2 of the things usual surround crap don't have:
1/ you must measure the sound in your own ears with different rooms/headphones, so even if it's not perfect, chances are it will be way closer to your own HRTF than using average body values.(the downside is that you have to go places to make the measurements in the rooms for best result).
2/ it follows your head movement with minimum delay, so your brain now has 2 senses fooled, not just sound. that obviously can play a huge part. in the demos it's even better as the guy sees the speakers, I'm 100% sure this strongly reinforce the illusion of sound coming from those speakers. I know I'll try to put my speakers where the sound is just to help trick my brain like that.
 
all in all the requirements are kind of heavy(I'm honestly afraid that many people jumped on it without understanding what they need to do to get proper results), but it has way more chances to fool us than the typical software once all the conditions are met. 
 
 
 
 
Quote:

I aspire to be like you one day, Joe Bloggs sama!!!

XD

hong kong ≠ japan 

 

[Joe Bloggs]

I aspire to be like you one day, Joe Bloggs sama!!!


XD

hong kong ≠ japan 

I'd be glad to be fooled into thinking I'm living in Japan
Taking my first real trip there tomorrow actually!

 

[krismusic]

hong kong ≠ japan 

I think I might be one of those people Castleofargh.
Who jumped before fully understanding what I was getting into. I'm up for it though. I haven't heard anything that exciting since being into this hobby.

 

[glassmonkey]

 

  I think there is a counter-trend of rapidly improving products at the lower end of the price spectrum and way more options in the middle. The audiophile hobby is getting better for people in that price bracket, whilst people in the top bracket have massively diminishing returns. I think the overall quality of the industry is improving because in spite of all the expensive items joining the summit-fi ranks you've got $5 earbuds that compete on sound with $200 IEMs, and good DAPs and amps for under $100.
 
I don't think there has been a time with so much value for money.

 
Lower price for now yes. Better value? not when you buy 20 earphones and keep thinking of  ''upgrading'' all the time. 
Not to mention labour cost in production countries rise plus the higher cost marketing more new models.
 
while i do respect many brands that do marketing well and lift the industry/ hobby but there are just too many who take advantage of arbitrage opportunities to fool 

 
 
 
my 2 cents...

It isn't the headphone manufacturer's fault that people get addicted to things. Buyer beware and all that jazz.