Not objectively (barring extreme cases) but for a great many, arguably all, there are many correlations between measurements and how good or bad something sounds to them.
What Happened to Head-Fi? (Rant)
- Thread starter livedavid
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Not objectively (barring extreme cases) but for a great many, arguably all, there are many correlations between measurements and how good or bad something sounds to them.
Redcarmoose
Headphoneus Supremus
At 18 years old I had the stereo way over my age bracket with 4 Cerwin-Vega 15 inch woofers and horns. Though moving to college I started to get into the intensive aspect of headphone listening. Still in those days headphones..........at least in the US, had very little audiophile connotation?
There was obviously really good stereos and you could buy nice headphones but headphone technology was in it’s infancy!
Later in the mid-1990s there was stuff advertised in Stereophile and The Absolute Sound. Still I don’t think there was a big market. Also around 1989 you had super expensive flagships released by AKG with the AKG k1000 and the Sony R-10. I remember seeing $600 Grado headphones and thinking “Wow”.
But mainstream:
That’s what Head-Fi IS in September 2020. It’s audiophile headphones for the masses for better or worse, they came in listening to cell phone IEMs and Dr. Dre and leave with the FOTM.
Headphones were tools you used in home studios and professional studios and folks had nice headphones with their stereos but there wasn’t Head-Fi as we know it today. Japan may have been a different story. For myself it made sense to find people always into headphones. I have always had a stereo and always had some kind of headphone.
Thus even having big home stereo systems there was this special advantage to Headphones. When you get down to it speakers nor headphones really replicate the live music experience. So graphs of frequencies mean only so much. They probably mean more when an IEM or headphone is placed as a measurement right next to the new IEM or headphone graph? They are best for side by side comparisons or seeing a character that you heard which stood out.
So I’d say it’s a slow gradual slope of getting more into headphones. The typical consumer wants headphones for activities like roller skating or walking/running. And for most..........middle of the road headphones do the trick. In fact it could be said that audiophile headphones are waisted outside. Yes, you have a group really into them on the subway. But again there are a huge group listening to expensive portable IEMs only at home. And to talk about IEMs, they have been the biggest change here in the last 10 years!
So let’s take the stance that really headphones nor stereos do live music exactly like live music. It’s always a mental gymnastic to get your head around the headphone being a real playback of music. But.....as the years go by a listener gets better at forgetting there is anything other than headphones. Though at first the contrast seems it’s easier to think a loud or super critical home stereo as a replay of live music. Truthfully I’ve only thought I was listening to live music only one single time on an expensive stereo playing a small jazz group. So in my lifetime I’ve only heard electronic replay of real music to sound real one time. All the rest have been recreated music that is still entertaining. And with EDM you get even more fireworks with special sound effects (with headphones) which may not even sound so clear live? Maybe the first golden age of headphones was the mid 1970s when Sennheiser open-backs became popular, along with Koss headphones. The mid 1970s also gave us music like TDSotM that was great on headphones, yet I’m not sure how many took headphones seriously? Stereos were serious.
So it’s this graduation to headphones where you start to not care so much about speakers. Also something happens when you get so into headphones.............that even nice speaker systems seem to leave something out. At that point you can even go to some concerts and feel let down by the PA system. Remember too, that in modern Head-Fi technology big sounding desktops can now be in the middle cost area.
The cost savings over speakers is no room treatments. With headphones you are always in a specially treated room. So there is also the convenience too, as it’s easy just to put headphones on an not worry about disturbing people.
But it’s maybe looked at like holding a book. At times smaller books are easier to read. Smaller books are easier to hold too. So for lazy people having a portable headphone system is just something they have learned to get entertained by. And......portable IEMs and desktop systems have come along way to providing value never seen before.
There was obviously really good stereos and you could buy nice headphones but headphone technology was in it’s infancy!
Later in the mid-1990s there was stuff advertised in Stereophile and The Absolute Sound. Still I don’t think there was a big market. Also around 1989 you had super expensive flagships released by AKG with the AKG k1000 and the Sony R-10. I remember seeing $600 Grado headphones and thinking “Wow”.
But mainstream:
That’s what Head-Fi IS in September 2020. It’s audiophile headphones for the masses for better or worse, they came in listening to cell phone IEMs and Dr. Dre and leave with the FOTM.
Headphones were tools you used in home studios and professional studios and folks had nice headphones with their stereos but there wasn’t Head-Fi as we know it today. Japan may have been a different story. For myself it made sense to find people always into headphones. I have always had a stereo and always had some kind of headphone.
Thus even having big home stereo systems there was this special advantage to Headphones. When you get down to it speakers nor headphones really replicate the live music experience. So graphs of frequencies mean only so much. They probably mean more when an IEM or headphone is placed as a measurement right next to the new IEM or headphone graph? They are best for side by side comparisons or seeing a character that you heard which stood out.
So I’d say it’s a slow gradual slope of getting more into headphones. The typical consumer wants headphones for activities like roller skating or walking/running. And for most..........middle of the road headphones do the trick. In fact it could be said that audiophile headphones are waisted outside. Yes, you have a group really into them on the subway. But again there are a huge group listening to expensive portable IEMs only at home. And to talk about IEMs, they have been the biggest change here in the last 10 years!
So let’s take the stance that really headphones nor stereos do live music exactly like live music. It’s always a mental gymnastic to get your head around the headphone being a real playback of music. But.....as the years go by a listener gets better at forgetting there is anything other than headphones. Though at first the contrast seems it’s easier to think a loud or super critical home stereo as a replay of live music. Truthfully I’ve only thought I was listening to live music only one single time on an expensive stereo playing a small jazz group. So in my lifetime I’ve only heard electronic replay of real music to sound real one time. All the rest have been recreated music that is still entertaining. And with EDM you get even more fireworks with special sound effects (with headphones) which may not even sound so clear live? Maybe the first golden age of headphones was the mid 1970s when Sennheiser open-backs became popular, along with Koss headphones. The mid 1970s also gave us music like TDSotM that was great on headphones, yet I’m not sure how many took headphones seriously? Stereos were serious.
So it’s this graduation to headphones where you start to not care so much about speakers. Also something happens when you get so into headphones.............that even nice speaker systems seem to leave something out. At that point you can even go to some concerts and feel let down by the PA system. Remember too, that in modern Head-Fi technology big sounding desktops can now be in the middle cost area.
The cost savings over speakers is no room treatments. With headphones you are always in a specially treated room. So there is also the convenience too, as it’s easy just to put headphones on an not worry about disturbing people.
But it’s maybe looked at like holding a book. At times smaller books are easier to read. Smaller books are easier to hold too. So for lazy people having a portable headphone system is just something they have learned to get entertained by. And......portable IEMs and desktop systems have come along way to providing value never seen before.
Last edited:
VNandor
500+ Head-Fier
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A good model has been developed to predict how good speakers are going to sound based on measurements by some people working for Harman. If anyone is interested in it for some reason it can be downloaded here. The predictions are so good it practically guarantees a strong correlation between measurements and the subjective opinion of the listeners.
Admittedly, this is a very different situation compared to what consumers have to deal with if they want to pick a headphone they enjoy just by looking at some measurements but the correlation between measurements and a good listening experience is still there.
Personally, I don't know if I can make better decisions by basing my choices around some numbers and graphs instead of going through impressions threads and reviews because I haven't bought enough stuff since I started doing that... which could be a coincidence. Maybe if I go through some more gear that I got because their measurements looked like a good fit for me and I end up liking all of them I will be more confident.
I quit as a moderator in 2016. For better or for worse.
The amount of obnoxiousness on the forum that I've seen lately in some threads is shocking. Seen quite a few people simply quit posting as a result. Discussion on the 'net in general has become so bad I just avoid it for the most part.
I think this summarises what I've seen well. It's like a political or religious movement, with equal amounts of uninformed BS. The gross irony is people suggesting that measurements keep the manufacturers honest, but then some manufacturers use the best numbers from the measurements to suggest their gear is the best performing, which is basically dishonest.
Overall, I'm quite depressed over discussion on the internet in many areas and keep to private discussion that doesn't suffer the issues that large forums such as this one does.
I'd observed that small groups of extremists can overwhelm discussion on a forum very quickly, and now that has shown to be true on a much larger scale. Basically, the internet is beginning to be significantly drowned out by noise, amplified by news services desperately trying to sell clicks.
What is worst is that I've noticed that Google search has become fundamentally broken, starting with image search being overwhelmed by Instagram, which is all, essentially, stolen images. Regular search seems to be hiding useful results too.
Back when I was involved in this thread, I would have taken serious time to observe what is happening, at least on a forum level (a microcosm in which these things can be observed) and considered what is going on more deeply. However, now I just don't want to be bothered -- and since I'm not moderating the forums, there's no motivation for me to do so.
Part of that is because my thinking has become more multi-dimensional in some ways (compared to when I was writing the Posting Guidelines, which was somewhat more 2-dimensional in how it was thought out) and articulating the complex mental images as words takes considerable effort. Even if I do make the effort, it will be criticised by the ill-informed, which I can't be bothered dealing with. Maybe that is why making videos is easier, though sometimes I forget to edit out poorly-thought-out wording and mistakes.
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