[LTUCCI1924]

HI: How does one know when or if their headphones are at their max or full potential?

 

[Budgie]

For me = When I stop hearing the phones and start hearing only the music.

 

[john_jcb]

Lou,

Change out your headphone cable to a balanced one and hook it up to the following equipment:

Headroom Blockhead - $3,300
Revox E-46 CD player-$5,900 with upsampling and upgraded power supply.
Synergistic Research Designer's Reference Intereconnect w/active shielding-$2,000

This drove the HD-600's and RS-1's to what I believe is their full potential.

I also think that as you improve one piece of the audio chain you expose the weakness in say your source or amp. This is part of what has us hooked the quest for that perfect system.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

You don't.
@Budgie: but how do you know that your phones are capable of that?

 

[Budgie]

Good question! A matter of faith, maybe?

 

[LTUCCI1924]

john_jcb
HI JOHN: How are you? Would you like to buy my house because thats what it would take to get all that stuff. LOL This place has me going nuts. I like my cd minidisc deck and my Max Out META42 and My ATH-A1000 and should just stop there. But when you read what other stuff is out there I just go nuts thinking about it. I am starting to think about cutting my ears off and that will end the insanity. Or would that also be insane.

PS VINCENT VANGO must have had the same problem but only cut one ear off

 

[LTUCCI1924]

Budgie
HI: I like that answer.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

I dream of designing a source / amplifier combo that compensates for all the imperfections of a headphone--not just EQ but phase and transient response, and digital processing for crossfeed...

Now THAT would be driving a pair of headphones to their highest potential.

 

[Flasken]

Just an advice: Don't try to drive your phone to it's full potential... You'll end up buying another headphone!

 

[kelly]

Listen to a headphone on multiple high end systems. The flaws you carry with you from one system to the next finally either belong to the headphone or to the recording. Listen to enough recordings, swap out other headphones and finally you can be confident what you're hearing is the signature of the headphones.

I don't think it's possible to push the transient speed of a dynamic headphone into perfection with some kind of hardware. Phase response is overrated but a very high end equalizer with enough patience I believe probably could push a headphone just a little bit closer to tonal neutrality.

That's what it would take to find out the "limits" of a headphone but sometimes you have a rough idea much earlier on.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

Quote:

I don't think it's possible to push the transient speed of a dynamic headphone into perfection with some kind of hardware.

Of course not to 'perfection' but you can correct for e.g. overdamping / underdamping. And if you know that the transducers are going to lag behind the leading edge of a transient by a certain amount you can drive the transducer earlier and harder than the musical signal indicated to obtain a faithful reproduction of the musical signal--at least up to a point. I think it may be theoretically possible to perfectly reproduce a waveform within the frequencies that a transducer is capable of producing (i.e. not up to infinite freq. as in impulse response)

 

[kelly]

Quote:

Originally posted by Joe Bloggs Of course not to 'perfection' but you can correct for e.g. overdamping / underdamping. And if you know that the transducers are going to lag behind the leading edge of a transient by a certain amount you can drive the transducer earlier and harder than the musical signal indicated to obtain a faithful reproduction of the musical signal--at least up to a point. I think it may be theoretically possible to perfectly reproduce a waveform within the frequencies that a transducer is capable of producing (i.e. not up to infinite freq. as in impulse response)

So um, what kind of device have you seen that does this?

 

[Joe Bloggs]

None of course

Digital room correction amplifiers are a step in that direction, though

 

[Vertigo-1]

When you're happy with what you have, or when your bank account hits $0 and you're sleeping in the streets with your headphones.

 

[pigmode]

It might be simpler to explore one's full potential to not be completely satisfied.