[Munksome]

You know when the treble hurts/pierces your ears when someone sings a word containing an "s" or the drummer hits the cymbals (and often snare hits in electric music too)?
 
I have listened to a small number of headphones, but haven't been able to find someone i liked, mainly because of this problem. I have tried the HD 598, the DT770 80 ohm and the DT990 Pro 250 ohm, all powered by my Fiio E10.
 
All three of those headphones are popular choices on this forum full of audiophiles, so i do not understand why i (who wouldn't call myself an audiophile) have a hard time enjoying music using them. Some songs i find more enjoyable on my $35 Sennheiser VoIP headset because of this problem.
 
I know good headphones are often very unforgiving of bad recordings, but most of my music is 320 kbits MP3.

 

[LFF]

Sibilance is the correct term for the "s" sound.

 

[catscratch]

Sibilance is right. It doesn't matter that your music is in 320k, the mastering of individual tracks is what matters more here. If your music has sibilance to begin with, a lot of headphones won't hide it, and many headphones will only make it worse. Unfortunately, most headphones are on the bright side, Beyerdynamics included.

You can try the Sennheiser HD650, though you'll need something better than a Fiio for it to be at its best. Still it's among the least-sibilant headphones around.

 

[Gclef]

Grado

 

[Munksome]

I guess what i'm looking for then is a pair of non-sibilant headphones in the range of $200-300

 

[clairyvic]

AIAIAI TMA1. Although perhaps that's the opposite problem in that it's a bit dark.

 

[shaneotool]

Check out:
Hifiman HE300
Sennheiser HD600
 
You should not have a problem with most Sennheisers, I have not heard the HD598, so I can't speak for them.  They may be a little brighter than the rest of the lineup.
 
I think the term you are looking for is "bright" when you are talking about too much treble.  I used to have the DT990 and it was like icepicks were being jammed in my ears after a while.
 
Keep in mind that everyones hearing is different, one person may say a headphone has no treble, that it is veiled, lifeless, whatever - but to me they may sound perfect...
 
Stay away from Grado and Beyer

 

[devhen]

Quote:

 
Stay away from Grado and Beyer

Or just EQ out the 8/10 khz spike.
 
My Beyer 770s have the sibilance you speak of but its only an issue when listening to music very loud because at that point the treble spike results in VERY loud high frequencies. EQ solves it but I also have the Senn HD600 and the 600s definitely don't have this problem and are a great choice for someone looking for something that isn't at all sibilant.
 
Edit - the 600s are $400 but razordogdeals2008 on ebay will typically accept an offer of $300 on them and they are an authorized dealer.

 

[TMRaven]

I might stay away from HD600 and partially the HD650 as well (only the newer version) both have pronounced upper mids in the 5k region that can lead to sibilance.  When I AB'd a newer version HD650 against my D2000, the HD650 generally showcased more sibilance than the forgiving and recessed upper midrange of the Denons.
 
 
From my experience with DT990, it actually isn't that sibilant.  It has a recessed upper midrange and only a 10k treble spike, which only leads to sibilance on certain recordings.  However to be safe I might just stay away from that too if I were you.
 
 
Hifiman HE-400 is a choice, and the HE-300 sounds like a good choice as well.  I'm sure there's a couple more good 'dark' headphones out there as well.

 

[devhen]

Quote:

From my experience with DT990, it actually isn't that sibilant.  It has a recessed upper midrange and only a 10k treble spike, which only leads to sibilance on certain recordings.

Bingo. This is how my 770s are. Sibilance really isn't a problem except in songs that are already rather sibilant right at that 8/10k spike. Slight adjustment in the EQ solves the problem of 'peircing' highs at very high volume but in the huge majority of my music its a non issue. Other's ears might be more sensitive than mine though and the best thing might just be to try out a few headphones to find out if its the 10k spike or upper mids spike that are causing discomfort/pain. I would definitely recommend avoiding any headphones or music that hurt your ears as that will probably eventually damage them. But don't forget, hearing damage is caused only by excessive volume for extended amounts of time. The reason headphones with treble spikes are hurting your ears is because while the rest of the frequencies are at the volume you've chosen, those treble spikes mean those frequencies are even louder than the rest of the music. Its that excessive volume that causes the problem. Try out some headphones and find the ones that cause the least discomfort or, once you've pinpointed which frequencies are causing the sibilance/pain, just use EQ to flatten out that region.

 

[Munksome]

Which EQ program do you guys recommend?

 

[tresvigint]

you can try shure, maybe shure 940 or 1440 or 1840

 

[devhen]

Quote:

Which EQ program do you guys recommend?

Well it just depends on what program you use to play your music files. And some sound cards have EQ at the sound driver level but, as in the case of my integrated Realtek sound card, that EQ can be pretty ridiculously crappy sounding. I've found that most decent mp3/flac/audio programs have decent EQ's, for example foobar2000/itunes/musicbee etc
 
If you are talking about portable use.. the iPod has a builtin EQ but I'm not sure if the quality is very good and I don't have an iPod myself. If you get a portable amp however, you might want to checkout the ones that have (albeit limited) EQ builtin like the E17.

 

[Munksome]

Quote:

Well it just depends on what program you use to play your music files. And some sound cards have EQ at the sound driver level but, as in the case of my integrated Realtek sound card, that EQ can be pretty ridiculously crappy sounding. I've found that most decent mp3/flac/audio programs have decent EQ's, for example foobar2000/itunes/musicbee etc
 
If you are talking about portable use.. the iPod has a builtin EQ but I'm not sure if the quality is very good and I don't have an iPod myself. If you get a portable amp however, you might want to checkout the ones that have EQ builtin like the E17.

I guess i am looking for some kind of system-wide EQ since i'm using a Fiio E10 and i'm using more than one program to listen to music.

 

[devhen]

Yeah.. the E10 is your sound card in that situation so it has to do the EQ'ing if you want system-wide EQ. So unless the E10 driver software has an EQ feature you're pretty much out of luck on a system-wide EQ. Personally I think its easier to just use the EQ in your music programs. They'll let you save presets and you can match them up between programs. I usually only make small EQ changes myself so I don't even bother with presets and the builtin EQs of the programs I mentioned have worked pretty well. Actually...I can't vouch much for the iTunes EQ, I've all but quit using iTunes because of its lack of FLAC support.