[fcolpz]

Hi everyone, I recently learned that I am sensitive to very high frequencies. I learned this because I recently purchased a pair of ATHM30 headphones and I loved all the new things I was hearing that I couldn't get with the earbuds that come with iPhone. However, whenever a singer would pronounce an "S" or in some cases the high hats, I would feel a piercing pain in my ears. It is not constant, but still way too often. I learned that I am sensitive enough to hear 18 kHz. Now, would this piercing sound go away with better headphones or better quality music files? I am currently using 320 mp3 by the way. With lower quality headphones i don't get this problem, but i know I will be missing out on some other sounds. If better headphones are the answer my budget would be around $100-200. Thanks in advance for your advice

 

[Me x3]

Hi,
 
Most low quality (and also some good quality) recordings have sibilance issues. Most modern music tend to be over-bright / ultra-compressed and have low dynamic range. You won't have much sibilance problems with most high quality recordings.
Anyway, you should pick dark sounding headphones in order to avoid having sibilance issues even when sibilance is there on the recording.
 
Sound quality and sound signature are two different things. You can get amazing sounding headphones with dark or bright sound signature, you are not missing some sounds picking a dark one, it is just a different presentation of the same sounds, some recordings pair well with bright headphones, some don't.
 
If you want to avoid sibilance issues you should pick headphones without much energy between 5.5KHz and 9KHz.
 
As some examples (Bright vs Dark):


Best Luck!

 

[davidsh]

Yeah, you want to look for warm/dark when readings reviews. You want to avoid sibilant/bright/v-shaped headphones. Can't immediately come up with anything that'd work well for you.