[iSennheiser]

To my Ears as a new Audiophile and life time Musician and Pianist. Sennheiser and Beyerdynamic Headphone is the most realistic sounding above all.

 

[Senn-Fi]

Holy Resurrection Batman!

 

[Happy Camper]

I'd be interested in the impressions of some of these characters by today's products. Good dredge.

 

[Gnomeplay]

Quote:

I'd be interested in the impressions of some of these characters by today's products. Good dredge.

 
Interesting perspective seeing how fast things evolve.

 

[SHAMuuu]

Would be nice to see some members with their modern gear and experience with some older legends speak on this.

Is there anything modern that has surpassed the classic legends? I sure hope so; tired of reading about the glory of the UNOBTANIUMS

 

[richard51]

I dont have experience with top headphone like top stax or others....I owns 2 stax headphone in the past... I now listen to akg k340 and akg k 701....My he 400 are broken(very bad design) but i prefer the akg to them...My experience is, given a moderately good audio system dac and amplifier, the most transforming upgrading effect is the cleaning of the house electrical grid and this without too much electronics device(because active filtering electronics introduce a trade-off noise effects) but more so with passive filtering device like minerals at key points of the audio system and along the electrical grid...The effect was so extraordinary in the speakers and headphones alike that there is no comparison between before and after the cleaning... I listen now mostly with my top Mission speakers because there is no comparison between speakers in a cleaned house grid and headphones...Then clean the grid and treat the room before buying expansive audio....No conventional headphones i had owns can rival good speakers in a cleaned grid with a more visceral and more natural sound...

 

[Nik74]

Can you expand a bit more on the crystals and stones and passive filtering, I m very interested

 

[Zhanming057]

Would be nice to see some members with their modern gear and experience with some older legends speak on this.

Is there anything modern that has surpassed the classic legends? I sure hope so; tired of reading about the glory of the UNOBTANIUMS

Technology is better. This might be an unpopular opinion, but the R10 is outclassed as a closed can by the HD820 and Ether C Flow. If it was a new product from Sony I would maybe pay $800 for it. There's obvious a lot of collector value there but that's irrelevant to how they actually perform. The HD800 is still an attractive option since dynamics haven't been getting enough love, but unless you really like the Sennheiser house sound, there are much more well-rounded options these days (Abyss 1266 phi, Hifiman Susvara). And the K1000 is outmatched by the Mysphere 3.2 in just about every conceivable way, basically Heinz Renner kept the K1000 tuning and made it into something that can go toe to toe with summit-fi planars.

Nostalgia is all well and good, but it's kind of meaningless to argue for any sort of technical regression because that's just no happening. The kind of materials and processes that headphone designers work with would be almost science fiction 20 years ago (extensive use of carbon fiber on the Ether and Raal Requisite, 3d printing on the Mysphere), and it would be bizarre to suggest that they're making worse products as a consequence.

 

[HBen]

necroing a thread that wasn't posted in for almost 6 years - plus the fact that this thread was already resurrected after years once before is pretty impressive indeed


On the matter itself:
According to my experience the most "realistic and lifelike" sounding headphones are the most transparent and coherent sounding headphones, and in this respect the STAX 009 on an appropriate system plays in an area where very very few are able to compete.

 

[Gogogoluke]

I'll second the fact that the AKG K340 is a very realistic sounding headphone. I am very impressed by its sound, especially considering its age, and I think it is definitely the most realistic sounding headphone that I own. The amount of detail the electret drivers give the music is enthralling.

 

[336881]

Technology is better. This might be an unpopular opinion, but the R10 is outclassed as a closed can by the HD820 and Ether C Flow. If it was a new product from Sony I would maybe pay $800 for it. There's obvious a lot of collector value there but that's irrelevant to how they actually perform. The HD800 is still an attractive option since dynamics haven't been getting enough love, but unless you really like the Sennheiser house sound, there are much more well-rounded options these days (Abyss 1266 phi, Hifiman Susvara). And the K1000 is outmatched by the Mysphere 3.2 in just about every conceivable way, basically Heinz Renner kept the K1000 tuning and made it into something that can go toe to toe with summit-fi planars.

Nostalgia is all well and good, but it's kind of meaningless to argue for any sort of technical regression because that's just no happening. The kind of materials and processes that headphone designers work with would be almost science fiction 20 years ago (extensive use of carbon fiber on the Ether and Raal Requisite, 3d printing on the Mysphere), and it would be bizarre to suggest that they're making worse products as a consequence.

Technology is better for what is the popular medium of entertainment. Audio is not that and has not been that for a couple decades imo. Television, video games and computers (internet) have for sure taken over that roll and it will probably remain that way for a while, if not forever.

Tell me what is it you like so much about this modern technology? Is it the itty bitty class D amps that have a one year shelf life and are really hard to fix once they break down? Is it small active speakers with such bad frequency response you think that they are broken? Is it the record player with the floating platter that will wreck your cartridges suspension if a gust of wind blows by? Is it the $8k Shangri la Jr. that has been broken down to reveal piss poor build quality? Is it the sabre dac's that sound like an ice pick being jammed in your ear?

Say what you want about the R10 but people got a headphone that Sony itself spent $3600+ dollars on. Something you will never see today. At best you will get a 1:4 ratio. Something you only see when the medium of entertainment is the most popular. A real passion and gift back to those who were willing to spend big bucks like they do. I see it today but it is with TV's not audio and it is more budget-mid level than cost no object.

 

[Svatopluk]

I'll second the fact that the AKG K340 is a very realistic sounding headphone. I am very impressed by its sound, especially considering its age, and I think it is definitely the most realistic sounding headphone that I own. The amount of detail the electret drivers give the music is enthralling.

You are very fortunate to have a pair of AKG K340's that still work correctly. I had a pair back in the day, fantastic headphones for sure.

 

[weasel1979]

To my ears the Stax sound is very beautifull, maybe the most beautiful. But it is not the most realistic, as in real life, like with instruments present. The Stax sound is airy, flowting, transparant. A real drumkit or a trumpet is not, at all. Most or many instruments in real life sound heavy, thick, meaty, hard. They hurt a little bit, if you know what i mean. They cut through air. Stax is more layed back ( which I love). Real instrumets have a sound with a lot of body. Cuz many instruments have an actual body.
So the most realistic, that is, meaty and heavy, sound comes from the Abyss headphones, in my opinion. They have a certain weight to ther sound. Plus, the stage is very realistic, kind of 3d like. Very dynamic, too. In reality, instruments sound of course much more dynamic, but for a headphone, the Abyss comes closest. (1266 or 1266-Phi). Just my opinion man

 

[Gogogoluke]

You are very fortunate to have a pair of AKG K340's that still work correctly. I had a pair back in the day, fantastic headphones for sure.

Yeah I've read about the electrets losing their charge after about 30 years, which is about the age of the headphones. I hope my pair keeps going for as long as possible, they're my current favorite pair due to just how unique they sound, plus because of how forgiving they are to lower quality recordings while still having the flexibility to show off the detail in better recordings. If you have an amp powerful enough, you should get a pair on eBay, they're not too expensive.

 

[ChaChaRealSmooth]

The question this thread asks has so many caveats and nuances that it's headache-inducing.

First, what is realistic? What is real-life sound? What is "neutral?"

Let me ask another question. Can anyone here honestly say that they know exactly what a guitar is supposed to sound like? Violin? Piano? Drums? Horn? The reality of the situation is that every instruments sounds different. A grand piano sounds different than an upright; heck, two grand pianos made by different companies sound different.

And that's just looking at it from an instrument point of view. What about the room that the sound was recorded in? What's reference there? Concert halls sound different than theaters, and sound nothing like small studio rooms.

What about recording gear? Any good sound engineer knows that the differences in mics don't capture things exactly how it was performed. Heck, there could even be colorations with analogue-to-digital converters.

I haven't even touched the reproduction gear part of the equation. With sufficiently revealing headphones and amp, a Matrix X-Sabre Pro sounds different than a Schiit Yggdrasil. A Violectric V200 sounds different than any Burson. The obvious difference is the transducer; a HD800 sounds very different from a HEK.

Really, the question should be "which system sounds the most realistic/life-like?" And even then there are problems. Is a system that makes a song sound more like it was performed in a concert hall unrealistic? What if that was the original intention of the artist and/or what the engineer preferred? What if there was a limitation in recording equipment?

I feel too many in this hobby fall into this pitfall of listening to their gear and not listening to the music. I've been there; I've obsessed over what's 'neutral.' Just find something you enjoy. Don't worry too much about whether or not it's "realistic."