[razor5cl]

I was perusing some high end headphone reviews(LCD3, HD800, T1) and none of them make reference to electronic tracks. They say that this jazz song sounds good, that rock band's music has good treble etc, but no house, dubstep, drum and bass, trance and so forth. Why?

 

[MrViolin]

Assuming people who can buy such gear are older and make money, and older people tend to have different tastes. You don't find older people listening to that stuff every day, or at least I don't and can't imagine such, now do you? There could be other factors, but that seems the most logical to me. 

 

[razor5cl]

That's a good point, older people TEND to like different types of music to younger people, but not all audiophiles are older people.

 

[MrViolin]

Quote:

That's a good point, older people TEND to like different types of music to younger people, but not all audiophiles people who have higher end gear are older people.

ftfy? audiophiles can indeed be anyone. And yes, you'd be correct that not all the people with TOTL things are older.
 
Even if they're not older people, I'd think of people being knowledgeable enough about audio and can afford it would be... classier as you could say or more biased towards it.
 
And they would buy them in mind of listening to non-synthesized music and specific music that's more renown and for (what I think) the phones are meant to play. People who would tend to listen to hip-hop/rap/electronic/house tend to go for Ultrasone as their phone of choice since they're rather made to cater to that taste. 

 

[razor5cl]

Also since open phones aren't really made for that kind of music, whereas closed phones are, but they don't go as high end.

 

[chewy4]

Acoustic music is really the only way to go for evaluating how accurate a headphone sounds.
 
The problem with synthesized music is that there isn't an instrument in real life you can compare it to.
 
Granted, those who have super-high end equipment aren't always going for accuracy. There is high end stuff with bad specs.

 

[KamijoIsMyHero]

Where would electric guitars fit into this then?

 

[Mr.Sneis]

Because they are snooty!
 
When I listen to new gear I tend to listen with music I know very well and have listened to many times.
 
Although not always the case, electronic music that I hear has pretty poor mastering and squashed dynamics so there's that working against the overall goal. 

 

[fuzzyash]

Quote:

Also since open phones aren't really made for that kind of music, whereas closed phones are, but they don't go as high end.

 
no
the planars, such as the audeze and hifimans are great with electronic music
and closed phones arent necessarily marketed for electronic music (eg. th900)

 

[Asr]

Quote:

I was perusing some high end headphone reviews(LCD3, HD800, T1) and none of them make reference to electronic tracks. They say that this jazz song sounds good, that rock band's music has good treble etc, but no house, dubstep, drum and bass, trance and so forth. Why?

 
Have you not seen the reviews that I wrote of the LCD-3, HD800, & T1? I used quite a bit of electronica & trip-hop for them. I listen to electronica & trip-hop a lot myself, it's actually probably my favorite genre of music. I don't use it to gauge "accuracy" of course, but I do use it to gauge how bassy a headphone is (i.e., quantity), treble & bass extension, & clarity, among other aspects.
 
I also take issue with the "intentionally distorted" comment above. Not all of the electronica I've heard is necessarily distorted in any way, a lot of it is very clean-sounding, especially ambient electronica specifically. It has to be clean-sounding to properly deliver the effect.
 
Most of my electronica CDs are releases from the 90s btw, with very very few from 2000 or newer. Anyone who doesn't have at least two of the Top 10 albums on this Web page can't call themselves an electronica fan!

(I have 6 of them myself.)
 
http://www.ghostdeep.com/2010/03/top-100-albums-of-the-90s/

 

[chewy4]

Quote:

I said MAINSTREAM Electronica is crap. David Guetta, Steve Aoki, Tiesto, etc. They are crap. I actually enjoy Electronica.

Yes, I know. One whole area of music that plenty of other people enjoy.
 
 

I also take issue with the "intentionally distorted" comment above. Not all of the electronica I've heard is necessarily distorted in any way, a lot of it is very clean-sounding, especially ambient electronica specifically. It has to be clean-sounding to properly deliver the effect.
 

I was referring to the electric guitar there, particularly the kind that uses a distortion pedal. 

 
 
I listen to plenty of "clean" electronica myself, or at least electronica that includes acoustic instruments. Bonobo, Floex, The Flashbulb, Emancipator... some of my favorite music, really.
 
But if you're talking about snythesized stuff, most of it in music is distorted in a sense. Clean sine waves, sawtooth waves, square waves etc aren't very exciting. A lot of processing needs to be done, and after it is it might have a clean sound, but it's very different from the source sound wave; and distortion is simply an alteration from the source.

 

[GrindingThud]

They just don't get it..... I find the quality of gear impacts ambient noise and metal far more than a piece of string tied to a rare wooden box.

 

[bustersgotavmax]

I tend to find the sound of natural instruments more appealing,perhaps it's the dynamics.
.Even electric guitar,but I'm more drawn to a non processed sound, a Les Paul straight into a tube head like a Marshall for example.add a little delay or reverb
On heavily compressed recordings  a snare drum loses it's sense of impact for me so even music I do like I won't listen to except in my car.

 

[razor5cl]

Having done a little bit of EDM production as a hobby, I can say that a lot of tracks use heavy compression, and almost every synth has some type of distortion applied,from overdrive to ring modulation. Compression is also very heavy, with all drums heavily compressed and even on the master channel, there is a lot of compression.

 

[marone]

I was perusing some high end headphone reviews(LCD3, HD800, T1) and none of them make reference to electronic tracks. They say that this jazz song sounds good, that rock band's music has good treble etc, but no house, dubstep, drum and bass, trance and so forth. Why?

It also has to do with music that is created by an instrument held in one's hand without electronic amplification. All electronic music does not exist without an amplification chain and thus one can never know how it 'really sounds' as the mixing, mastering, etc chain always enters into it.

Vocals, acoustic guitar and bass, all classical and chamber music exist regardless of amplification and thus have a reference vs. what one hears when it is played through an electronic amplification chain.

This explains why electronic music fans who have good headphones, almost always are obsessed with bass over all other considerations. Since you can never know how much bass was really intended, it's always a case of moar is better!