[saint.panda]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhythmdevils i would define tonal accuracy as reproducing EXACTLY what is in the recording, giving your ears the exact information that is on the cd. for me, i dont want my headphones to be neccessarily involving themselves, but rather allow the music to involve me. and for this to happen, for me, i need to hear exactly what is on the cd. i have an example of a different situation that i think describes my exact feelings on neutrality. the example is eating tomatoes. you can eat them plain, or you can eat them with salt, and then there are the varying amounts of salt you can put on it. a tomato with salt tastes more exciting, or fun. but you are not tasting the tomato alone, you are enhancing it. the purist might not want to add that salt, even if it is more exhillerating. he might want to know that he is only eating what the tomato plant produced with sunlight and the nutrients in the soil.

The problem is that you'll never get to see the plain tomato so you don't know how it tastes like unsalted.

 

[rhythmdevils]

Quote:

Originally Posted by saint.panda The problem is that you'll never get to see the plain tomato so you don't know how it tastes like unsalted.

true. and thats why its so much more difficult with headphones than it is with tomatoes. i suppose thats a big reason why we all keep coming back to this board. we never know if we are tasting the tomato or the salt.

but we can avoid the ones that are so salty that it hurts the tongue

 

[Nak Man]

Isn't live music, unamped = the real tomato, unsalted ?

 

[rhythmdevils]

yeah, the sound of an acoustic guitar (or anything else acoustic) in person would definitely do it. good call

 

[saint.panda]

Quoted from "Road to Audio Hell":

Quote:

An ideal audio system should re-create an exact acoustical analog of the recorded program. If so, then it would be very useful if we had meaningful knowledge of exactly what is encoded on our recordings. Unfortunately, such is not possible. (This assertion may appear casually stated, but on its truth depends much if the following argument; we therefore invite the closest possible scrutiny.) Even if we were present at every recording session, we would have no way of interpreting the electrical information which feeds through the microphones to the master tape--let alone to the resulting CD or LP -- into a sensory experience against which we could evaluate a given audio system. Even if we were present at playback sessions through the engineer's monitoring (read: "presumed reference") system, we would be unable to transfer that experience to any other system evaluation. And even if we could hold the impression of that monitoring experience in our minds and account for venue variables such knowledge would turn out to be irrelevant in determining system or component accuracy since the monitoring equipment could not have been accurate in the first place.

To wring out the tomato metaphor entirely, people in the old days used salt to preserve food from going foul.

 

[Jazper]

well.. so far, reading this thread, I've realised that I like my tomatoes with salt and a sprinkle of basil

 

[gpalmer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rbaulbin I hear everyone mentioning the HP-1000's, but they're not available.

Sure they are you just have to hunt them instead of walking into the local shop for a set. If you want the best in your price range, that's the one to get...

 

[PeterR]

Tomato, Tomatoe...

 

[dj_mocok]

What's all the fuss about tomatoes...
Screw tomatoes. I want my thick, juicy steak. Lightly salted.

 

[philodox]

Well, I put salt and pepper on my tomatoes... and I LOVE tomato sandwitches [with a little bit of hellmanns on toasted brown bread]. mmmmm

Um, but as far as 'tonally accurate' headphones, I'm not too sure. I doubt the K340's are 'tonally accurate' to most peoples standards. I really don't care though... they sound GOOD. Give me the salt and pepper!

 

[3lusiv3]

The HD 595 seem pretty accurate to me.

 

[Andrea]

I find the HD650 very accurate (obviously my most accurate phone ever, quite comfortably rivalling or rather surpassing the mini-monitor speakers I've had, like the Acoustic Energy AE1 mkII, Harbeth HL-P3/es, Epos ES12, Sonus Faber Minima ...ah, nostalgia

).