[castleofargh]

I love how the your saying my whole point is off topic about ER3XR when i was talking about BA vs Planar on decay. But you two have be Assholes about my views on Etymotic's bass while saying it a subjective preference. And bring up dynamic drivers when that wasn't what i was talking about?.

Are you even reading my posts or just finding any excuse to bash me because i hit a nerve here?. Because it pretty stupid to say i should care when my preference being shitted on here?. lol

I really love the ignorance here about BA drivers but who cares when I'm a dumb Ety fanboy?.

Is this supposed to be a reply to my post? I'm highly confused.

 

[gregorio]

[1] If you listen to instrumental music a Planar cannot be beat, it renders instruments better (true to the real life counterpart) than any other driver, including an electrostat.
[2] Most people refer to that When they say planar sound.
[3] The driver is incredibly quick, and has lower distortion than a Dynamic Driver, while still having the instrument weight and air movement that Balanced Armatures lack.
[4] Instead of getting into whys and hows, just give them a listen for yourself.
[4a] No amount of 2nd hand information is going to be a substitute for trying them out.

1. No, they don't. "Real life" instruments are recorded with microphones which are placed very much closer to the instrument than a real life audience will ever be and therefore what is recorded is significantly different to what a real life audience will hear. So, the recording you are trying to reproduce is NOT "true to the real life counterpart" to start with and the effect of the greater distance the real life audience would hear is greater distortion, specifically: A reduction in the high freqs and more room resonances and reflections, which increase and smear the lower freqs and transients. How then can headphones which have less high freq distortion and less smearing of lower freqs and transients render a recording more true to a real life instrument?

2. If that's true, then what "most people refer to" is a fallacy!

3. "The instrument weight and air movement" on a commercial music recording is a subjective decision of the engineers (and music producer) that is virtually always based on listening to studio monitors, which have relatively large dynamic drivers that are significantly slower than even balanced armatures, let alone planars or electrostatics. So what is more faithful (higher fidelity) to the artists'/engineers' intentions? Not to mention, that some very common instruments are recorded with dynamic microphones.

4. Why then is most of your post all about "the why and hows" (albeit somewhat incorrect "whys and hows")? More importantly though, the "whys and hows" are vitally important because they tell you "ifs and the whats". When you "listen for yourself" to commercial music (or other audio) recordings what you hear is a perception that largely depends on your personal listening skills, biases and preferences. When comparing equipment, the "whys and hows" tell us if there really is an audible difference in the audio being reproduced and if so, what that difference is. Therefore:
4a. This assertion not necessarily true. If we perceive a difference but the "whys and hows" tell us there is no difference, then absolutely this "2nd hand information" can be a "substitute for trying them out". Your statement is true in terms of personal preference but not if personal preference is referenced against fidelity, which is pretty much the definition of an audiophile. In the specific case of headphones, there are virtually always real audible differences between different headphones and relatively small anatomical differences between individuals can cause relatively large differences in perception. So while the "hows and whys" (2nd hand information) are not a substitute for trying them out, they can be an informative addition.

What's most troubling about your last point is that the "whys and hows" are largely what differentiates science from superstition, myth and pure fiction/BS. So advocating not "getting into the whys and hows" in the sound SCIENCE subforum doesn't make any sense.

A potential danger with "getting into the whys and hows" is not getting into ALL the relevant/significant "whys and hows", a danger apparently realised by several in this thread. Yes, there are fundamental differences between different driver types and fundamental similarities between headphones that employ the same driver types. However, driver type isn't the only relevant "why and how", how the driver is implemented can be equally important and in some cases more important than the type of driver.

G

 

[bigshot]

Overall I tend to agree with @SilverEars(at least on that specific idea), 2 headphones using planar drivers can have a clearly different sound, so do we even need to try and correlate planar with a certain sound?

I would think that if all of a certain type of headphones sounded the same, it would be because of some sort of deficiency in design that is clearly audible, than it would be an improvement. Different manufacturers and models have different target curves. They don't all shoot for the same sound. If they did (and they were technically able to do that) odds are most headphones of various designs would sound the same. Perhaps there are just fewer makers of planar cans? Not sure why they would sound the same. I've only heard the ones I own and I like them. But I've heard other types of headphones I like too.