How do stand today’s über-expensive headphones (by this I mean everything that exceeds 1000€) against flagships of 20-25 years ago when 700-800€ was already considered expensive and only some headphones went over 1000€? A Sennheiser Orpheus was 4000€. A Sony R10 or a Stax Omega 1 like 1500€. An Akg K1000 was maybe 1000€ or even a bit less. Audio Technica L3000, Sony Qualia, Grado PS1… 1000-1500€ and all of them were considered absolutely in the clouds, stuff for audiophile Gods. Now I see a plethora of headphones which impress me by design… and by the pricing. Are they really as impressive in terms of sound as well?
I have heard the whole Stax line, Sony R10, Sony Qualia, AKG k1000......as well as others, I can’t remember them all. I heard the above with really good systems, maybe systems that were perfectly matched for the headphone. Obviously newer ones too, like k701 which I own, as well as the HD800 which I don’t own, that are from 2006 and 2009 respectively.
I haven’t heard all the modern flagship TOTL headphones. Actually very few modern headphones I have tried, because I’m into IEMs now.
But if you were to ask me how my MDR-Z1R is in contrast to the Qualia or R10, I would obviously say more bass.
How or why? I guess there are different engineers at Sony now. The big thing is supposed to be room response. Speakers have waves that bounce around inside the speaker then leave the speaker out the back and side. These sound waves then reflect back off the room walls and add a bass boost. That’s the big change with the Sony sound anyway. And that single thing really makes the tone of the MDR-Z1R different than the past Sony TOTLs.
Obviously people are still happy with past Sony flagships but to me even hearing them 13 years ago, they were too bass shy? All the talk of changes to the industry is questionable in some ways. The whole slant of talk is week to week month to month improvement?
I’m not so sure that is the case, but I like the new Sony sound now?
I'd say comparable all around. Today the market is more saturated from low-mid-high-end.
K1000 was cherry picked -- $1500 during yesteryear's release today is $3300 which nets an SR1a. And the K1000 simply can not compete with RAAL.
What today's headphones are closing in on increasingly is a more encompassing and balanced sound.
The past, say, 2 years are seeing HD800's characteristics just being surpassed.
As well, the closed back variants are also very much able to compete with the open back TOTL.
And those R10 prices, ever inflated, surpass the Rognir, R10P, Verite, so call 'em a bargain.
Back then, IMO only a few halo products really stood out and stand out today. R10 / Omega mk 1.
Today, IMO only a few more products really stand out. TC / Susvara / HE1 / 009 / Rognir / SR1a.
But there's really argument for a slew more to just slide in.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Actually, I think about this a lot from time-to-time. While I never had the chance to listen to the uber headphones of yesteryear, like the K1000 or the highend STAX, etc, it's really interesting to me how much the headphone market has changed since I got started.
I am by no means one of the longest-running headphone enthusiasts around, but I got my start around the time I graduated high school in 2005. Back then the headphone world was very different. A TOTL headphone was considered the Sennheiser HD650 or AKG K701. Which means the ceiling, excluding the few really exotic models I mentioned earlier, could be had for $400-500. When Ultrasone introduced headphones for ~$1400 (if I recall right), it was a major controversy on this forum and elsewhere. Did it actually make sense to spend so much on a headphone, we all asked? My how times have changed!
On the broader end of things it's also interesting to see how the landscape has changed as far as highend headphone makers goes. Sennheiser is still very much around and still kicking (despite the consumer division sell-off). People do still talk about Beyerdynamic products, though the widespread enthusiasm isn't anywhere near where it was several years ago. AKG exists but not really in the highend consumer space. You rarely hear people talk about Grado anymore, and they were a HUGE deal in the early 2000s.
My first pair of "TOTL" headphones in 2006 was a Beyer DT990 Premium (even though the DT880 of the same line was more popular overall). I later got some AKG K702s just to see what they were about (didn't like them). I didn't get a chance to try the HD650s, but I had a decent grasp of the highend world at that time. Grado introduced GS-1000, their first $1000 headphone in 2007, and Sennheiser released the HD800 in I want to say 2008, so the market was starting to open up more to >$1k headphones very quickly. But around that time something was happening in the headphone space that was nothing short of a revolution, and that landed me with a pair of Hifiman HE-5LE, only their second released highend headphone.
That revolution was, of course, the planar revolution, which started around 2008. This forum is main reason for it, of course. Hifiman and Audeze were grassroots companies sprung up straight out of the community, and with only a handful of people, sometimes in a garage (in the case of Audeze), they were reviving an abandoned transducer technology and producing headphones that competed with multi-million dollar companies that had spent countless manhours and funding into R&D. It's hard to understate what an upset this was to the market.
Preferences have changed over the years, as well. I also attribute this, at least partially, to the planar revolution, but it could have also been equally, or even influenced MORE by those entering the hobby by way of iBuds or BEATS, etc. The more common preference among audiophiles in the early 2000s was emphasized highs, neutral (or sometimes even analytical) mids, and bass that is WAY more understated than most would be happy with today. In short, it leaned colder. Planars seemed to go more towards the warm side, with more syrupy mids and harder-hitting bass. As it became possible for bass to be more pronounced without bleeding into the mids, people, uh...."warmed up" to the idea of having more of it. Early Hifiman headphones were VERY bright to suit the tastes of the time (people were far more forgiving of sibilance back then), but could present treble more smoothly and with less distortion than many dynamic drivers could before.
Timbre has also been given far more importance. When I got started, if a headphone was hyper detailed, that was generally more important than sounding "realistic". Realistic timbre isn't necessarily warm or cold, but with so many headphones leaning towards a cold sound signature in the early 2000s, there's now been a noticeable shift towards wanting more neutral, naturalistic tonal balance. It should also be noted that many incredibly highend headphones like the Sony R10 were praised for sounding natural, but this wasn't something commonly available in more affordable headphones until recent years.
K1000 is not a uber headphone of yesterday imo. If you compare that with today like Utopia and Susvara is has no chance. But it even loses to K702, HD600 etc. It has a nice design and unique sounding but technically not competitive.
K1000 is not a uber headphone of yesterday imo. If you compare that with today like Utopia and Susvara is has no chance. But it even loses to K702, HD600 etc. It has a nice design and unique sounding but technically not competitive.
K1000 is not a uber headphone of yesterday imo. If you compare that with today like Utopia and Susvara is has no chance. But it even loses to K702, HD600 etc. It has a nice design and unique sounding but technically not competitive.
Not liking the AKG K-1000 is ok, everybody is entitled to an opinion, in particular in the high-end audio field… I personally believe it belongs to the absolutely top-tier headphones ever produced. I started my head-fi journey quite a while ago, and it was with a HD600 (wonderful headphone for symphonic, less good for rock), went through Grado from SR225 to RS1 and PS1, Stax Lambda Signature, Sony R10, AKG K1000, K340… there were quite a bunch of them. AKG K1000 is simply an exceptional headphone (or rather headspeaker) and it always brought me lots of joy. It just immerses you into the music like not many others.
The biggest difference is that manufacturers realized most people prefer more bass. Many older headphones can be eq’d to sound like and even surpass mordern headphones.
Especially older electrostatic headphones and a few dynamics who’s only missing piece in the puzzle was the frequency response. Today there is plenty of good software EQ options for this.
My opinion on the K1000 is that it really has a unique sound, very very out-of-your-head, and probably the closest you'll get to a speaker-like experience other than the TOTL Electrostats BUT it also has outdated drivers where you can hear a lack of technical performance compared to today's flagships. That said, it might not matter that much to those who enjoy it because of its extremely unique presentation. Like the person above said, it is really an immersive experience if you can ignore its technical shortcomings.
Not liking the AKG K-1000 is ok, everybody is entitled to an opinion, in particular in the high-end audio field… I personally believe it belongs to the absolutely top-tier headphones ever produced. I started my head-fi journey quite a while ago, and it was with a HD600 (wonderful headphone for symphonic, less good for rock), went through Grado from SR225 to RS1 and PS1, Stax Lambda Signature, Sony R10, AKG K1000, K340… there were quite a bunch of them. AKG K1000 is simply an exceptional headphone (or rather headspeaker) and it always brought me lots of joy. It just immerses you into the music like not many others.
You misunderstood me. I like it and i own one (though currently not in use). But i think from an objective technical point of view it sucks or is at least somewhat around B tier.
Well, I like to believe that head-fi is still more about the sheer pleasure of enjoying the MUSIC with a little help from objects called « headphones ».
… and a bit less about « objective technical comparisons » of frequency graphics etc.
Otherwise I bet that Bose and Dr Dre Beats and the like would be considered as the best headphones ever built .
The biggest difference is that manufacturers realized most people prefer more bass. Many older headphones can be eq’d to sound like and even surpass mordern headphones.
Especially older electrostatic headphones and a few dynamics who’s only missing piece in the puzzle was the frequency response. Today there is plenty of good software EQ options for this.
Cannot agree more - I have a very positive experience especially EQing (also older) STAX headphones!
PS: kann dir keine PM senden wg deines Angebotes des SR-X 3 den würde ich gerne kaufen!
That is what is interesting.........the Denon TOTL AH-D7000 was one of the first to really include bass, in my uses? I like to think that that and the whole Foster Corporation Line inspired the Sony MDR-Z7. After some time I realized that the MDR-Z7 was a misstep for Sony. They put this giant DD in it but failed to control it correctly. That is where the MDR-Z1R makes an improvement, being more technical across the board. The Denon AH-D7000 came out in 2003.... it really was the start of a whole new sound. I can’t think of one headphone before it that had that sound in the TOTL league? But of course I didn’t try all the TOTL headphones from the mid-two-thousands? There probably was more rare headphones that had lots of bass?
Many also speculated that Beats influenced the trend. Don’t laugh, as in 2010 Beats were the mainstream introduction of bass to the masses. They sold millions of pairs of headphones, many members will not want to disclose that they were the gateway headphone to Head-Fi.
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