The Beat story with Monster sounds about right to me also... as a long time friend of Noel's -- going back to before he went into audio. Monster has made a lot of money for its share holder. But never figured out how to grow as a company. Selling a product successfully is Not the same thing as growing a business. It should be no surprise to anyone that growing a business is a lot more profitable in the long run; That takes more than electronics skill or marketing skill.
Thx-RNMarsh
Thx-RNMarsh
maybe so, but it seems an evil tiresome word to you these days, mostly mentioned thus 'I have some measurements somewhere, if anyone is interested I will dig them up' and thats the end of it, if anyone asks. As others have said John, its not the stories of famous names, though that can be taken too far, its substituting the allusion to proof, or associating oneself with fame, fortune, success or unrelated technical acumen, given in place of the real and topical proof of the thing under discussion ...
you really think anyone but them will benefit? the winner of this fight will produce the best piece of marketing driven fap. real good quality headphones are more popular than ever as well and in enthusiast circles, Beats are recognized and ridiculed for the dross they are, but the battle for decent sound quality in the mainstream is lost. I reckon they are ugly as sin too, dont like the design at all, 100% plastic fantastic gimmick.
its funny theres a recent photo somewhere with Dre specifically NOT using Beats in the studio... can you imagine how a mix would turn out when using them as monitors? haha scratch that, with hip-hop it might turn out just right
Tyll is a legend!
1) No computer speaker can deliver the bass experience of these headphones. Should you want it.
2) Dr. Dre's system in his studio has something like 16 15" woofers in a custom Ocean Way system that probably has a similar balance to the headphones. It may be perverse but this could validate "hear what the artists hear" before they lost their hearing.
Headphone response is very complicated by the ear-phone interface. The in-ear phones are much easier to measure, the "cans" much tougher and subject to much interpretation of what constitutes typical pinnae etc.. There are some good discussions here and there, and there is still a fair amount of controversy iirc. A good start is Poldy's lengthy chapter in Borwick ed. Loudspeaker and Headphone Handbook, ISBN 0240515781 for the third edition.
Brad
EDIT: for those on a budget the 2nd edition is available used, much cheaper, and may have much of the same content from Poldy. His article btw is the only one about headphones in the whole book.
Brad
EDIT: for those on a budget the 2nd edition is available used, much cheaper, and may have much of the same content from Poldy. His article btw is the only one about headphones in the whole book.
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Hum... I just wanted to show how it is difficult to measure an headphone response. Need to compare several to get an idea of the measurements errors (common peaks between severall).So Christophe,
What you are showing there is that we are doomed to mediocrity if we listen to any of these headphones? I guess I can just put two transistor radios on a coat hanger on my head and get this kind of sound.
Even on your ears, the slightest change of position greatly change the response.
It seems that, apart a little excess in medium basses, and a little accident in medium, the cheap and nice Porta Pro is one of the best for few bucks, and the Beat obviously the worse..
I have top old AKGs, Sennheiser and Koss electrostatic at home, no one is perfect, and at least, the Koss Porta Pro is the one i prefer on daily use once equalized at 100 & 7000hz
I have too an old Stax, very analytic, found-it not musical for my taste, i hear the membrane..
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yeah HD800 arent as bad as it looks in the graph, I cant hack them anyway, due to peaky/piercing treble (sibilance is too kind a word) and impossibly large 'soundstage' unrelated to the recording, but headphone curves take a bit of getting used to, to look at.
beats are a travesty though, theres no way to put positive spin on their response and no way to do anything about it with tuning your amp, since they use onboard active 'equalization'
beats are a travesty though, theres no way to put positive spin on their response and no way to do anything about it with tuning your amp, since they use onboard active 'equalization'
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1audio,
I haven't talked to Allen Sides of Ocean Way for a long time but I would have to ask him about that sound system you are describing. Sounds like it was made specifically for hip hop. Allen always had old RCA Ubangi enclosures when I heard his older systems. He has always been a tweeker of audio systems and has been very successful in the studio business.
I haven't talked to Allen Sides of Ocean Way for a long time but I would have to ask him about that sound system you are describing. Sounds like it was made specifically for hip hop. Allen always had old RCA Ubangi enclosures when I heard his older systems. He has always been a tweeker of audio systems and has been very successful in the studio business.
soundstage isnt really the right word, I dont mean deep and layered, so much as sounding like everything is taking place in a stadium, even if its a jazz recording. the treble makes people think they are detailed, but its more en etched, dentist drill type quality to me.
detailed and deep, is SRM007 mk II, which are better than MkI IMO. I admit I (like many) like a tiny nudge more bass slam than 100% neutral on headphones to make up for not feeling it in my body. not a fan of the 009 though, aside from the superb build quality.
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I wonder ... most recordings in fact have large 'soundstages' but you would never know it listening to them on normal systems. Typically, these squash the sound down to a "nice" picture between the speakers, which is not what is encoded. That peaky/piercing treble is the starting point to getting bigger sound, which comes across badly in this case, because of excess distortion. Good tweaking doesn't change the FR, but eliminates the nasties injected into the treble by the system playback.
A "polite" system will be much, much harder to "fix", the information needed for good sound has been discarded by the combination of components; the "roughie" has far greater potential ...
Frank
Frank: i've got some pretty wide experience with headphones, I work in the field, modifying and repairing the most expensive and vintage headphones on the market is part of my living. intimate jazz does not take place in a superbowl, hot treble/upper mids, is hot treble/upper mids and their boosting is a common technique to give the illusion of more detail. HD800 are fairly well known for these artifacts and I dont disagree.
its common for fans to say they (and similar speakers and headphones) are simply neutral and thus unforgiving, thats crap IMO, there are more detailed headphones that dont make me feel the music is exploring my brain, rather than me exploring the music, if you catch my drift.
its a large ring radiator that faces to the rear of the ear pointing outwards slightly, this is part of the reason for the stadium size sound.
its common for fans to say they (and similar speakers and headphones) are simply neutral and thus unforgiving, thats crap IMO, there are more detailed headphones that dont make me feel the music is exploring my brain, rather than me exploring the music, if you catch my drift.
its a large ring radiator that faces to the rear of the ear pointing outwards slightly, this is part of the reason for the stadium size sound.
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This is the real battleground in audio. As soon as people hear this they say that there is a fault in the recording. Wrong ... That recording is telling you that there is a fault in the playback system, commonly called "distortion" ...
Frank
That should come as no surprise to most of us, right? Some of you pros here must have worked Hip-Hop shows. They are all about getting as many 18" drivers banging with as much power as possible. Hard to imitate that with headphones. The Beats attempt to. Maybe they'd be good for Reggae, too.
Take a look at that FR posted by Esperado: I don't see hot mid/treble in that. Just about every speaker response shows more elevated mid/treble than that ...
Yes, I know that the responses are peaky -- every response curve, of the "best" headphones, I've seen looks a roller coaster mess, and differs dramatically from other, highly regarded units -- so what dictates a good headphone obviously is more than simple response curves.
All my experience tells me that the details are in the recording, but brash highlighting of them won't work, as you say. The ear/brain quickly tires of unnatural emphasising ... which is not saying that the details should be hidden, nor should it be said they aren't there. I suspect often the producers of the recording don't realise how much they have captured, so then what is the "right" playback ...?
Edit: Just quickly looked at a review of the HD800, sounds to me that they're doing the right thing: they give the impression that good speakers do, rather than sounding like headphones, a good thing to me. I was lent a pair of HD650s for a week, not my cup of tea. Pleasant enough sound and all that, but irritating after a few minutes or so, a claustophobic feeling. Much prefer listening to speakers ...
Frank
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Dan, ultrasone Edition 10? or Ed 8 ruthenium? tackily made pieces of very ordinary, crap plastic covered in various platings to look like something else. Yak leather pads are glued on (and cost $150EU to replace) no service manual available and no help from the manufacturer, I had to wing it working on a nearly 2K headphone... style over substance just like Beats for people with real money. the AKG 272 are very nice with enough power.
the active EQ and amp circuit looked pretty straight forward, think there are some pics in the head-fi DIY section somewhere, just a scattering of opamps that drive the transducers directly.
Frank, so youve just confirmed youve never heard them.... i'm aware of the effects of bad miking/production, but this effect is over everything, not just 'Jazz at the pawnshop' and as I said, i've heard much more detailed, yet less painful headphones. its down to the transducer material and impedance curve more than just plain frequency response, they probably need some damping in the amplifier, but I dont care for the Swedish vacuum cleaner styling enough to explore that.
the active EQ and amp circuit looked pretty straight forward, think there are some pics in the head-fi DIY section somewhere, just a scattering of opamps that drive the transducers directly.
Frank, so youve just confirmed youve never heard them.... i'm aware of the effects of bad miking/production, but this effect is over everything, not just 'Jazz at the pawnshop' and as I said, i've heard much more detailed, yet less painful headphones. its down to the transducer material and impedance curve more than just plain frequency response, they probably need some damping in the amplifier, but I dont care for the Swedish vacuum cleaner styling enough to explore that.
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