[sebaz]

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I see a lot of people here talking about the sound quality of the headphones, but I don't see a small list of CDs to be used as reference for better judging. Since the beginning of the 70s until now there have been  thousands of recordings that go from absolute perfection to absolute crap. There are several 70s recordings that sound amazing, such as Yes' Fragile and Relayer, and there are some from the last few years that sound absolutely horrible. I'm a huge fan of Foo Fighters, but all their records sound like crap. It seems to be that with each record their quality goes down more and more. In "One By One" there are songs that even distort, and of course I'm not talking about electric guitar distortion, I'm talking about the sound engineer applying so much dynamic range compression without caring that some parts of the song actually distort and sound like crap.
 
I read many people here saying that a specific model of headphones is better for metal, other model for jazz, and so on, but to me it's not so much about the genre as it is about the quality of the recording.
 
As I write this I'm listening to Pat Metheny's "Still Life Talking", from 1987, and even though most recordings from the 80s sound awful, this one could be used as a starting point for comparison. On the JVC HA-RX700 ($36) this recording sounds excellent. There's perfect stereo imaging and all the instruments sound the way they should.
 
Another excellent recording to be used as a benchmark is Dave Matthews Band's "Behind These Crowded Streets" (1998). Not only it's his best album, but the sound is just superb. I'm not an engineer and I can't give you the educated reason why these sound so great, but I have been in concerts and smaller shows and I know what instruments sound like live, and any recording that sounds as close as possible to the real instrument is excellent to me.
 
My point is, you can buy a $1000 pair of headphones and if what you play sounds like crap, if the sound engineer did a poor job at the recording, mixing and/or mastering stage, it's going to sound like crap. So it would be good if everybody who buys headphones would have a set of CDs that are recognized as excellent sound by the audiophile community, to judge headphones and speakers with the proper source. If not, many people can play Dire Straits' "Brothers In Arms" with their horrible 80's style snare drum and most 80's rock and pop albums that sound the same and wrongly conclude that the headphones have a boost in the 4 to 8 kHz range. Or, they may also listen to one of many rock albums from the past few years and think that the headphones distort, when in reality it's the ridiculous amount of dynamic range compression applied by the sound engineer.
 
And, of course, what you connect the headphones to makes a huge difference. I hope nobody judges big headphones by connecting them straight to the computer or MP3 player, although probably some do. I laugh at the number of people that in their Amazon review of the RX700 or RX900 say they're not comfortable for using outdoors. Well, duh, moron, huge around the ear headphones are for the home, not to exercise with them. That's what little headphones are for.
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[Eric_C]

Hey, dunno which threads you've been reading but quite a few Head-Fi regulars cite "source first" as their motto. In saying that, they're generally referring to the quality of the recordings--as you are.
 
Also, there was a Head-Fi test album on HDTracks, made specifically to test headphones and not speaker systems.
 
You should also look up a thread on the "best mastered/produced albums" (or something like that) which discusses quality recordings in much greater detail, with the valuable input of one forum member who does a lot of production work.
 
Lastly, it's commonplace to qualify headphone recommendations by stating the need (or lack thereof) for an amp, which underscores an understanding that one should not expect optimal results from pairing full-sized cans with portable MP3 players.

 

[baka1969]

This have been a topic on Head-Fi for years. Recording quality is only another part of the entire equation. Source and amp are other parts. The music will only sound as good as the weakest link in the chain. Plus there's symmetry issues too. I've been lucky enough to listen to a wide array of equipment and have heard how some combinations of gear work better than others. Also, the better the rig is, the less forgiving it will be to poor recordings and bad production.

I'm going to disagree with you on one point. I have Dire Straits "Brothers in Arms" and happen to think it's one of the better recorded albums of the era. After reading what you wrote I happen to start playing it. The magic of the album really starts in the second half. "Why Worry" and "Ride Across the River" are great songs that are well recorded and produced. Yes, it's an 80's album that has a good portion of songs that have held up. IMHO of course.

 

[Blasto_Brandino]

I can't really recall reading too many discussions about recording quality on the boards here, it should be a bigger issue....
 
Quote:

*Snip*

I'm going to disagree with you on one point. I have Dire Straits "Brothers in Arms" and happen to think it's one of the better recorded albums of the era. After reading what you wrote I happen to start playing it. The magic of the album really starts in the second half. "Why Worry" and "Ride Across the River" are great songs that are well recorded and produced. Yes, it's an 80's album that has a good portion of songs that have held up. IMHO of course.

X2 I agree Brothers In Arms is one of the albums I test headphones with.
 

 

[sebaz]

Quote:

I'm going to disagree with you on one point. I have Dire Straits "Brothers in Arms" and happen to think it's one of the better recorded albums of the era. After reading what you wrote I happen to start playing it. The magic of the album really starts in the second half. "Why Worry" and "Ride Across the River" are great songs that are well recorded and produced. Yes, it's an 80's album that has a good portion of songs that have held up. IMHO of course.

It is pretty decent considering that it belongs to the mid 80s, and you're right that the second half is the best part of the album. However, the first two songs "So Far Away" and "Money For Nothing" show that really annoying style of recording the snare drum with a ridiculous boost of the mid highs so it doesn't sound at all like a real snare drum. Almost every rock and pop recording of the 80s has the same defect. I guess it was the way they did it back then, to me it sounds awful. Other than that, the 80s albums also sounded like there was a cut-off at 10 kHz, and the same on the other side of the spectrum, rarely you will find an 80s CD that will have great bass. Nowadays they went to the other extreme, you get these CDs in which the bass seems exaggerated, but I prefer that since at least the bass is there and you can turn down the subwoofer level and it sounds fine.
 
At least not all 80s albums sound so bad. Toto had pretty decent sound overall to my taste.
 

 

[lejaz]

Really good point you're bringing up sebaz. I was considering upgrading my DAC, but then I realized that most of what I listen to is recorded or even remastered like crap(the remastering of the old Sinatra on Capitol comes to mind). Why spend a couple of hundred or more only to pick up the crap in better detail? I'd like to hear more suggestions for well recorded albums as well. I've heard Miles Davis's "Kind of Blue" mentioned before, but I'd also like some that have good vocal performances/recordings...maybe Norah Jones? Any good pop/country/rock albums of recent vintage?

 

 

[Prog Rock Man]

There will be big disagreements on what is badly recorded or not. Shock, horror, but American teens have been found to prefer the sound of low bit rate MP3s, so what is to be done about them? Should decent hifi no longer be produced anymore as it is not worth it?
 
In any case, at what point of how much of each persons music collection is badly recorded should be the cut off where they should not bother with decent hifi?
 
I see the original point, but in the real world it will never mean anything practical.
 
I do see the point in advice to get better sources for decent headphones and which headphones are better for different uses. Thats what we are here for!

 

[Katun]

Yup, I'm starting to notice this. All CD's aren't created equal.
 
I recently bought "The Town" soundtrack, and have been listening to it lately. I've noticed that the piano/keyboard they use in some of the songs, sounds like absolute crap. It doesn't even really sound like a piano at all, even when I try it with multiple headphones I own. This is really quite disappointing, because the songs they use the piano in, would sound fantastic if they actually they actually did it right. I'm talking it makes 128kbps MP3 sound like FLAC.

 

[Prog Rock Man]

Much of this is down to the Loudness War
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

 

[cky8]

Yes it's a sin since most is really going downhill.
 
Or only start listening to CD's that are mastered properly. Like the ones from Ted Jensen 

 

[sebaz]

That's right. For the first ten years CDs were mastered with low volume and then gradually the volume or loudness wars started and CDs got louder and louder to the point of distorting. Some remasters are crap because of this. I remember borrowing from a friend a Pink Floyd boxset that was absolutely horrible, with a great part of the tracks being distorted and they didn't even sound better, they just sounded louder. A good example of great remastering is the latest Genesis boxsets, in which Mike Rutherford and a sound engineer actually got the original master tapes, and spent several days mixing them again. I've got many of the original CDs and the difference is day and night. 
 
Quote:

Much of this is down to the Loudness War
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

 

 

[sebaz]

Another one that comes to mind is Toto's "Mindfields", especially if you want to judge headphones for rock music. Any Toto CD will usually have great sound, but that one stands out as the best quality for me.
 
Also, if your sound card supports 96 kHz/24 bit and your receiver does as well, you can buy some albums or tracks from www.hdtracks.com, but only those that are marked specifically 96 kHz/24 bit. They have a huge selection, a lot of which is not popular, but you might find there something that you like when you preview the tracks. If you buy any, you just have to make sure that your software player supports 96/24 and that the sound card's control panel is set to that, otherwise it will get downsampled to 48/16 or even 44/16, which will still sound good, but as good as it should.
 
Quote:

Really good point you're bringing up sebaz. I was considering upgrading my DAC, but then I realized that most of what I listen to is recorded or even remastered like crap(the remastering of the old Sinatra on Capitol comes to mind). Why spend a couple of hundred or more only to pick up the crap in better detail? I'd like to hear more suggestions for well recorded albums as well. I've heard Miles Davis's "Kind of Blue" mentioned before, but I'd also like some that have good vocal performances/recordings...maybe Norah Jones? Any good pop/country/rock albums of recent vintage?

 

 

 

[haloxt]

 
This is how most albums sound today. What makes me saddest is when exceptional musicians have one or a few of their early albums not loudness warred, then the rest of their albums all loudness warred. And remasters... if Orwell was still alive he would drop dead when he listens to how remasters differ from original recordings (kudos if you grasp the full significance of this sentence ).
 
I've been seriously tempted to create a program or DSP that automatically dynamically compresses music, just so people can easily demonstrate to themselves how much damage loudness war can do to music. I would call it "You can **** up music too!"

 

[Mink]

I don't necessarily agree with the 'source fist', 'garbage in, garbage out' mantra.
With source I mean cd player or DAC, not the recording/cd or MP3. 
Maybe it applies theoretically or when you are moving in the (expensive) high-end direction, but in my experience better speakers and better headphones always resulted in a better sound, better amp and cd player not always or not /only slightly noticeable.
 
If I were to replace my Marantz amp and CD player by a better and way more expensive amps and CD player I am very certain my AE EVO III speakers will sound marginally better, but they'll keep their strenghts and flaws.
If I were to keep my amp and CD player but replace my speakers by better ones I am certain the sound will improve more dramatically, well true, maybe I need to replace my amp, not because of its overall sonics but because the speakers prove to be harder to drive. No need to upgrade the source though.
 
I feel the source is the least important, I know this sounds ridiculous, but in all these years I listened to various cd players I feel the differences are only subtle.
 
 
 
 

 

[kn19h7]

Well, Music is not only up to the mastering quality, too