Hifihedgehog
500+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Oct 24, 2007
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- 189
I'm amazed to read this. I would have considered myself part of the "general population" until I started researching headphones. Surely most people who are interested enough to spend more than £50-100 on a bog standard pair of headphones from somewhere like Argos (UK) or Walmart (USA), will also do a certain amount of research ? Would that new found knowledge not upgrade them to enthusiast at least, if not audiophile ? Thus making them aware of the phenomenon mentioned above and making their choice more informed ?
If they listen to less than ideal recordings and poor quality file formats, surely they would not even consider headphones such as the HD800 or T1's as these would just make poor recordings sound worse ?
Why do non audiophiles listen to music louder ? DO they ? Where does this come from; is it assumption ? And your bass boost comment... where on earth does that come from ? Do you mean to say that most of the general population all stand in front of their living room loudspeakers or go to live gigs all the time with the stereo blasting at them full on ? That's a little odd to be honest.
I agree, CBonUK. The line of reasoning that Me x3 just shared is the old flawed headphone designer line of thought from the 90s and early 00s when the HD6xx was in its heyday. As a matter of fact, what he shared is almost exactly word for word from HeadRoom's late written explanation on how to interpret their graphing system. I was expecting him to share some experiences he had with real people but it appears he does not have any on-the-ground experience with these headphones.
Maybe those who are not musically trained or musically inclined would fall under his category of the "general" population. From what I have seen, I listened to the HD 650 with family members who are not audiophiles and the conclusion they came to (as was mine) was they did see the appeal in the HD 650. Perhaps one of the reasons the HD 800 exists is Sennheiser fundamentally misunderstood how most people interpret music in the general population when they created the HD 650 and HD 600. Tyll's comments on InnerFidelity are very enlightening on the subject of bass in headphones:
If you read the Harman papers carefully you'll find they thought this might be the case, but in further experiments they found that people were selecting about 2dB LESS bass in headphones than on speakers. Totally counterintuitive, but there you have it. None the less, I do agree that a +2 or 3dB bass boost below 120Hz is likely proper for pleasing listening.
Read more at http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/first-test-estimated-harman-target-response-curve-various-headphones#FVi0F2YDPTa9jt1i.99
Studies have found people actually prefer less bass in headphone listening than speakers, not more as Me x3's is stating below. I was simply wondering if someone has ever shared a T1 and HD 800 with their friends and colleagues who are not audiophiles and seen one of those two headphones preferred over the other and why exactly they preferred them. Maybe I should move my question to its own thread and see if I can get a more adequate answer than what I am getting here.