[e19650826]

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Ok, if HD600 is top-tier then the DT880 and AKG K701 are also top-tier.
 
What does that make the T1 and HD800? Super mega top-tier?

 ever seen the Diminishing Utility graph? if the HD800 is the 95th percentile, the HD600, K701 and DT880 are probably in the 85th percentile which makes them hi-fi by all means. yes they might be lower if you compare them to HD800 but they are mid-fi by no means. I've always been bothered when people only consider the top 10 (or what ever number they feel comfortable with) cans Hi-Fi and everything else are just thrown into the "Mid-Fi" group. This kind of catrgorization is just ridiculous.

 

[IEMCrazy]

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I think we argue too much over terms.
 
At one time these cans were at the top of the heap.  They aren't any more.  I have heard that there are two versions of the the HD 650, but in any case they sound great.  But they are no longer the greatest and we can hear the difference of cans that are better.  A reasonable person could call them "mid-fi" based either (or both) on the bases that they are no longer among the top tier cans on the market and those that are have superior sound (at least to most) than the HD 650/600.
 
This argument will continue unless and until we come up with an objective way to define what qualifies as "hi-fi" and will so qualify for many years to come.  Ah--there's the rub.  The 50's and early 60's definition of "hi-fi" now includes many cans priced below $50 street.  So why are the best cans of 200x forever to be rated as "hi-fi"?  Therefore it is logical that cans below the current best generally available to the public are not in the top tier.  If that top tier is called "hi-fi" then those below it might be called "near hi-fi", "hi-fi lite" or (God forbid!) "mid-fi".  I guess that we can call the new leaders "higher-fi" and more folks will be happy.  Cans like the HD 600 & 650 are still very good, but they are no longer the best.  Someday they may not even be very good.  I've seen (and heard) that happen over my decades of listening to cans beginning in the mid-60's.  Cans that were very good or excellent decades back are entry level or worse when compared with todays cans.
 
And so it goes with cans, cars, TV's and many other products.

I don't think we argue too much over terms  when the term is the defining glue over what H-F is all about.   There's nothing nebulous about the term hi-fi and it hasn't changed much in 50 years.  As I've said before, hi-fi is that which produces sound with a high amount of fidelity..    That is, if it sounds sufficiently like real life, or at least sufficiently like the crummy recording of real life.  Not much equipment meets that criteria.   Once a piece of equipment does meet that criteria, it is high fidelity and it will always be high fidelity because the sound of real life will not have changed.  It has become common to cnfuse hi-fi with high end/exotic/exclusive.  Ultimately the goal of any hi-fer would be the elimination of low fi and mid-fi entirely.  Once we get to a point that both the high and low end of equipment are all high fidelity, there would be nothing to argue about.  Right now that is not the case, there is plenty of equipment that does not meet acomparison against lifelike reproduction or accuracy to the recording.
 
Yes, the old flagships are hi-fii. They were hi-fi years ago, they are hi-fi now, they will be hi-fi 10 years from now.  M50 was never hi-fi.  it will not be hi-fi in the future.  Not unless the nature of human hearing in reality evolves to some new design in 10 years will any of that change.  Headphones of the 60's may have sucked, but hi-fi speakers of the60's are still hi-fi as well, and more, fortunes are spent on the recovery and restoration of them.  
 
Remember, reality is the governing body not datamining.  The new trend toward datamining and accentuated detail could be argued as not hi-fidelity.  They are moving toward the surreal of the digital domain rather than accurate fidelity to life.
 
The exception that only TOTL flagships count as hi-fi and everything else is not is absurd.  I presented a conundrum in the HD700 thrread.   HD650 is a former glagship.  HD60 is a former flagship.  HD598 was a former glagship.  HD700 costs $1k, is not a flagship, and nver has been a flagship.  By the definition of the "mi-fi" crowd, HD700 is  $1k mid-fi headphone, while HD650 was formerly a $500 hi-fi headphone.  Now doubt the crowd would defend 700 because it's expensive (proving that "hi-fi is a factor of price, not performance), or defend it because it performs well ((indicating that hi-fi is a measure of performance and not a measure of being the flagship.)  
(As always I apologize for horrible typos, this computer won't let me edit on this forum for some reason.)   But in either case above the cirrcular reference that hi-fi is somehow exclusive of whatever is the best techological performer of the moment and not a measure of all performance audio products doesn't tread water for long.  But it does help some people feel good about dumping fortunes to join an exclusive club, even when that club already had the name summit-fi.

 

[Mad Dude]

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The new trend toward datamining and accentuated detail could be argued as not hi-fidelity.

 
This statement is very important I think. Yes, there are headphones that have much better resolution than the HD600/650, some have more extension, and a much larger soundstage. But does this mean that they are better?
 
Personally, I find that a large soundstage, for example, is not always desirable. Sure, it depends on the music - for classical, it actually is great to have a large soundstage. For other genres? Not so much. A coherent, realistic soundstage is a lot more important to me (and some of the more exotic headphones, namely the popular Orthos, do by no means excel in this area!).
Same applies to resolution - a lot of HD800 owners, for example, complain that it makes poorly recorded music "unlistenable". This is not the headphones fault, but what's the alternative? Not listening to your favourite music anymore, just because a headphone reveals the flaws in the recording and/or mastering? Ridiculous. Now with the so-called mid-fi cans, I think that these issues are much less pronounced than with the more high-end-ish ones. I can listen to any recording with my HD600, no matter how poorly recorded/mastered it is, and still enjoy it. If the music is any good, that is. And in my humble opinion, that's pretty much what Hi-Fi is all about...

 

[e19650826]

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I don't think we argue too much over terms  when the term is the defining glue over what H-F is all about.   There's nothing nebulous about the term hi-fi and it hasn't changed much in 50 years.  As I've said before, hi-fi is that which produces sound with a high amount of fidelity..    That is, if it sounds sufficiently like real life, or at least sufficiently like the crummy recording of real life.  Not much equipment meets that criteria.   Once a piece of equipment does meet that criteria, it is high fidelity and it will always be high fidelity because the sound of real life will not have changed.  It has become common to cnfuse hi-fi with high end/exotic/exclusive.  Ultimately the goal of any hi-fer would be the elimination of low fi and mid-fi entirely.  Once we get to a point that both the high and low end of equipment are all high fidelity, there would be nothing to argue about.  Right now that is not the case, there is plenty of equipment that does not meet acomparison against lifelike reproduction or accuracy to the recording.
 
Yes, the old flagships are hi-fii. They were hi-fi years ago, they are hi-fi now, they will be hi-fi 10 years from now.  M50 was never hi-fi.  it will not be hi-fi in the future.  Not unless the nature of human hearing in reality evolves to some new design in 10 years will any of that change.  Headphones of the 60's may have sucked, but hi-fi speakers of the60's are still hi-fi as well, and more, fortunes are spent on the recovery and restoration of them.  
 
Remember, reality is the governing body not datamining.  The new trend toward datamining and accentuated detail could be argued as not hi-fidelity.  They are moving toward the surreal of the digital domain rather than accurate fidelity to life.
 
The exception that only TOTL flagships count as hi-fi and everything else is not is absurd.  I presented a conundrum in the HD700 thrread.   HD650 is a former glagship.  HD60 is a former flagship.  HD598 was a former glagship.  HD700 costs $1k, is not a flagship, and nver has been a flagship.  By the definition of the "mi-fi" crowd, HD700 is  $1k mid-fi headphone, while HD650 was formerly a $500 hi-fi headphone.  Now doubt the crowd would defend 700 because it's expensive (proving that "hi-fi is a factor of price, not performance), or defend it because it performs well ((indicating that hi-fi is a measure of performance and not a measure of being the flagship.)  
(As always I apologize for horrible typos, this computer won't let me edit on this forum for some reason.)   But in either case above the cirrcular reference that hi-fi is somehow exclusive of whatever is the best techological performer of the moment and not a measure of all performance audio products doesn't tread water for long.  But it does help some people feel good about dumping fortunes to join an exclusive club, even when that club already had the name summit-fi.

 at last...  someone mentions the false consumerism... the price-tag is always a part of measurements of quality these days. The true era of Hi-Fi seems to has past three or four decades ago, when people are really thriving for the best sound, not the highest price-tag
 
It seems to me that there is a widespread misunderstanding that if a can is cheap, it is not as good. Every time I see this spoken deliberately or implied, I feel both a little bit amused and pissed. Not to derail the thread (but seems to be already derailed), the false consumerism has gone so bad, that people are putting rubber feet under solid state amps for "cleaner" sound. My EE friends laughed so hard it wasn't even funny, and I don't even want to touch the cable stuff.
 
Upgrade from the HD600? Truely, there isn't any. From this point and on, most of the changes are due to personal preference. Take every suggestion on the forum with a grain of salt. The only way to really determine if anything is an "upgrade" is for you to listen to it in person. And try not to think about the price-tag while listening, although that's going to be hard. If you still insist higher price tag is better, you can just write a 20K check and put that against your ear, and you should hear heavenly sound that surpasses every headphone that is ever made.

 

[LCfiner]

I might as well try to be constructive and offer suggestions for the OP

Here's a list of headphones that I personally find better than the hd600 from experience. Some are more neutral than others. some are crazy expensive, some are slightly more than the hd600 Msrp.

Grado RS1
Magnum v4
Grado GS1000
Grado PS1000
denon D7000 (but not the D5000 for my taste)
Senn HD800
Hifiman HE-5 LE (500 should be even better and easier to drive)
Audeze LCD2 (not my fav high end can but I respect its capabilities)
Stax 407
Stax omega 2

 

[PLUSSOUND]

^ I would also suggest the HD800 and Audeze LCD2/LCD3.

 

[nicholars]

Maybe you could all just say that there is no such thing as low mid and hi fi headphones and that all headphones have different benifits and shortcommings? These ratings are simply subjective labels which you have attached to what you personally think they are.

 

[KG Jag]

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I don't think we argue too much over terms  when the term is the defining glue over what H-F is all about.   There's nothing nebulous about the term hi-fi and it hasn't changed much in 50 years.  
 
It's been about 60 years--and it has changed greatly.  "Hi-Fi" came into prominent use in the 1950's as both a term of marketing and the technical quality of sound reproduction equipment.  It was used to describe the great improvement brought by the (then) new technologies that brought the the 45 and 33 1/3 RPM mono records in place of 78's and mono FM instead of just AM radio.  It was a big step forward in fidelity, but by the late 60's (if not before).  "Stereo Hi-Fi" was now well mixed music in true 2 channel audio made from 8 track recording machines.  Although still generally delivered to the public through 33 1/3 RPM "long playing" albums, the frequency response and clarity was greatly increased, while the levels of distortion were greatly reduced.  Home based equipment, including turntables, receivers, reel to reel tape decks and even a limited selection of headphones were available to take in what the new technology and artists that used it had to offer.  Of course the state of art of the late 60's is the state of crap today.
 
To the contrary--the meaning of "hi-fi" has changed greatly over the years and continues today--espcially for headphones.
 
As I've said before, hi-fi is that which produces sound with a high amount of fidelity..    That is, if it sounds sufficiently like real life, or at least sufficiently like the crummy recording of real life.  Not much equipment meets that criteria.   Once a piece of equipment does meet that criteria, it is high fidelity and it will always be high fidelity because the sound of real life will not have changed. ....
 
Can you not see the subjectivity and relativism built into that standard?  If not, I suggest that you have not taken in the full and long view of what has happened from the 50's through today and beyond.  Folks in the 50's truly believed that standard was fully reached by mono LP's and classical music on mono FM radio.  Now we hear it is reached by the HD 600 & 650.  But they are not the end or even near the end of this long audio road.
 
Unless and until we can reach agreement--for the long term--on truly measurable (including by the human ear) of the strict technical specifications--for example: frequency response, distortion, separation, clarity, sound stage, etc.--that must be met for a product to be "hi-fi", then the subjectivity and relativity of that term will continue much as is always has since the 50's.  It will continue in its use as a term describing "objective" audio quality.  It will continue as a product comparison term in pitting one product against another and one product line against others.
 
I am not holding my breath until we all reach agreement on a truly objective or even objective-ish long term definition of "hi-fi", in any of the ways that it is and has been used for 60 +/- years.  

 

[TMRaven]

Do we really have a long way to go in terms of improvements though?  It's not like electrostats, ring radiators and planar magnetics are all new technology only recently introduced-- in fact they've been around forever.  And it's not like headphones can get drastically lower in distortion than they already are-- not an audible difference anyways.  There's many facets to the technology that's already been very figured out.  Audio isn't the same as computers or televisions, and as others have said, many still highly value vintage speakers-- hell, half of what I see as head-fi'ers headphone amps are vintage receivers (and of course let's not forget tube amps)

 

[IEMCrazy]

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The one significant point you missd in your examples though was that most of those great improvements since the 50's involved major changes in recording and distribution of music content, not speaker design.  Fed high quality recordings those old 50's speakers still hold their own and in many cases are exceptional.  The improvements in vinyl etc were largely a product of improved recording technologies and techniques, improved microphones, improved mastering, and storage/distribuion formats that contain much more data/signal.Most of the recordings from that era chopped half the audible spectrum worse than a low bit-rate MP3.  The speaker designs of that era, especially the 60's were very much hi-fi even by today's standards.  Again since the end result is real life sound, a known quantity, and since the modern headphones are simply reproducing current recording/distribution abilities, there's only a certain peak that can be reached before it's life-like,.  And since colorless sound is only theoretical possibility, and in practicality not even desirable in a headphone, the question remains, how "non-life-like" is HD600, 650.  How much more life-like is HD800, how much does 800 and even 650 veer away from reality and twoard "better than reality" in terms of detail accentuation.  And beyond HD800, other than taming the highs, where does it go from there?  
 
No, the only way we will see improvement to the point that the former hi-fi is no longer hi-fi is if it is in response to drastic changes in recording methods.  Changes that go beyond just sample size and rate which can already be pushed beyond human hearing, and fundamentally affect soundstage/positioning/separation at the recording level.  Until then we're at and have long been at the trailing edge of the reproduction of what can be recorded.  HD598 did that long before HD650 existed, and I'm certain it wasn't the first to do so.
 
My latest sonic enhancement was througuh switching my 80's tubes to some 70's tubes.  That old gear can sound darn good...  As TM Raven said, tubes....ortho and stat tech predates HD600 by far.  We're in a period of refinement, not revolution as far as playback and recording tech goes.  Nothing close to what it would take to transition the very meaning of high fidelity.  That can't happen until something fundamental changes in recording tech. And there seems to be no indicator that anything like that is even being experimented with.  

 

[IEMCrazy]

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One other point of interest is that the vintage stuff (speakers, receivers, etc) is never considered "mid-fi", it is considered "vintage hi-fi".  Only in Head-Fi does yesterday's hi-fi seem to get labled "mid-fi".

 

[TMRaven]

One thing that could be done is a standardization of 5.1 recorded music, but the industry is reluctant to pursue it, just as it was reluctant to go from mono to stereo.  Admittedly setting up a 5.1 compared to a 2.0 or 2.1 is much more complicated than transitioning from mono to stereo.

 

[IEMCrazy]

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Maybe you could all just say that there is no such thing as low mid and hi fi headphones and that all headphones have different benifits and shortcommings? These ratings are simply subjective labels which you have attached to what you personally think they are.

 
I like your advice on paper, and that would be a perfect ideal.  For the moment it can't be avoided that low-fi at least truly does exist.  An Aiwa HTIB or bookshelf system for example is certainly not high fidelity it sounds like speakers.  iPod docks, clock radios, ibuds, etc, definitely don't present a high level of fidelity.  So low or mid fi does exist.  But it seems more apparent, and is largely the direction you're talking about, that a product is either launched as hi-fi or it is not.  If it was made as hi-fi and acknowledged by critics/owners as hi-fi, it is hi-fi.  If it was not launched/accepted as hi-fi, then it very likely isn't.  The bad habit here is the relabling of hi-fi gear as mid-fi as though its' no longer accurate in sound reproduction just because slightly superior drivers are designed, almost exclusively due to price, while justifying it as being ffor performance. HE-400, brand new, spiffy planar tech gets instantly labeled mid-fi since it's the 3rd down the rung from the mfr nad has a low, low price.  It measures lesser than it's bigger bretheren, but uses the fancy new driver tech, which is more than can be said for, say HD700.  The diference?  $600. 
 
Your idea is largely preferable to the random relabling of what category gear is in at random every time a new product is released, though.  

 

[IEMCrazy]

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One thing that could be done is a standardization of 5.1 recorded music, but the industry is reluctant to pursue it, just as it was reluctant to go from mono to stereo.  Admittedly setting up a 5.1 compared to a 2.0 or 2.1 is much more complicated than transitioning from mono to stereo.

Yeah.  And then mult-driver headphones.  After that, yes, 2 driver units could become mid-fi.  And that means all new amps etc.  I like 5.1 recordings, though most mastering badly misses the mark, but when it works, it works well.  Most people that aren't audiophiles are using HT systems not 2.1 systes as is anwya, so there's a lot of advantage.  That's the only real new direction I can see recording going now  But it also seems to be a somewhat abandoned idea with the near-death of SACD &DVD-A and BD-Audio not catching on well.

 

[nicholars]

People are too quick to attach a label to a peice of equipment based on price eg. "anything under the £3000 bracket is mid-fi" silly tbh