Normally I wouldn't ask but since you're a Stax user I have to... You guys don't seem to quite get "reference" levels and don't seem to be bothered by the lack of bass impact

Use A weighting, not C weighting. And pink noise, not white noise. Also, was the noise signal at 0dBFS? -20dBFS? Obviously a 0dBFS signal at 98dBA isn't going to give you dynamic peaks above that. Best to drop any scientific tendencies and go by ear. If you know what a kick-drum sounds like in real life, you want to be playing back at that level.

I used to be more bothered by lack of bass impact, but eventually I gave up and got used to it because no headphone can ever have impact like speakers or RL.  I think it was the time my car got buzzed by a medevac helicopter at the scene of a crash and I realized that kinda thing just wasn't goinna fucking happen without a subwoofer half the size of my bedroom.  (I use my headphone for movies/TV/anime just much as music.)

That's just my preference though.

Anyway I normally use A weighting, but I picked C weighting this time since presumably we were talking about the bass and nothing else is going to make a transducer reach maximum excursion anyway.  For some reason, I just happen to prefer white noise a a quick and dirty test of a transducers so that's what I normally use out of habit.  It was at 0dBFS.  Since we were talking dynamic range I assumed we were talking peak, not average.  Average is dependent on the track anyway so specifying anything other than the peak isn't very useful.  Also, I never drop the scientific tendencies.  It's the best way to get things right.  If Anax wanted to say at whatever level is live I'm sure he would have said that, and one of us could have looked it up or something.

One last thing, I DON"T want to listen at live levels.  It's bad for your hearing over the long run and I like my hearing the way it is.  I have no musical talent whatsoever, but my brother plays acoustic and/or electric bass in several different bands and wears these while practicing specifically so that the drummer doesn't deafen him.  The idea of wearing earplugs under my headphones doesn't exactly appeal to me...

I'm not yet convinced that such a thing can even happen with anything short of a BHSE cranked to the max, but even assuming it can I'd say it's still irrelevant to the majority of listeners.

Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if a 252 or other lower to mid tier Stax amps can't swing it.

So that means we need to go louder than the 252S can even play in order to replicate the effect.  My T1S has higher voltage swing, but the 252S already goes too damn loud so we've already reached the point irrelevancy.  If you need it to go that loud, I'm pretty sure you're louder than 'live' and into amplified rock concert/wall of sound territory...

No, I was talking average for 'live' effect as I usually do. Drums are loud, so peaks on the big drops and slams are going to be quite higher than 90dB. That track is a test track for reference. I question ones judgment more than their ears if listening to it on repeat hours at a time.

I think myself, OJ and others have mentioned our philosophy is to replicate the live musical experience as much as possible. Even the best sounding headphone at 50dB will never be able to accomplish that. To me, that's just trying to reproduce the best background or elevator music possible. I would never be able to be transported spiritually to a concert at 50dB. That would require some serious psychoacoustic and psychological adjustment for me.

Mav you need to hear my rig before you give up on headphones never sounding like RL. It doesn't have a Sub but you could add one and that's a rather narrow range to compensate for. I'd take my headphone rig over 99% of the speaker rigs out there for RL effect.

Mav you need to hear my rig before you give up on headphones never sounding like RL. It doesn't have a Sub but you could add one and that's a rather narrow range to compensate for. I'd take my headphone rig over 99% of the speaker rigs out there for RL effect.

You must be using some pretty fancy DSPs you haven't told us about or listening exclusively to binaural recordings to get around the headstage/soundstage issue...

 

Mike, we'll have to recreate the effect on my rig next meet. 

Normally I wouldn't ask but since you're a Stax user I have to... You guys don't seem to quite get "reference" levels and don't seem to be bothered by the lack of bass impact

Use A weighting, not C weighting. And pink noise, not white noise. Also, was the noise signal at 0dBFS? -20dBFS? Obviously a 0dBFS signal at 98dBA isn't going to give you dynamic peaks above that. Best to drop any scientific tendencies and go by ear. If you know what a kick-drum sounds like in real life, you want to be playing back at that level.

I listen to pretty low levels usually, but I wouldn't lump all other Stax users into that group just because I do.  Again, usually.  Sometimes I pump it up.  I don't listen to every single track at exactly the same volume at all times and apply dynamic compression so that I don't ever listen louder or quieter than some certain dB level.  A lot of music I listen to has very large dynamic range, which means I can (and often do) listen from 'quiet' to 'loud' and everywhere in between over the course of 30 minutes.

It's also important to note that dB level isn't the same for all ears.  So many old dudes walk up to a rig at these large meets and BLAST the music.  Are you telling me they're just "trying to listen at reference levels" or that they're just fucking deaf?   I take good care of my hearing and always have.  I don't want to be one of those guys that has to listen at 90 dB out of necessity rather than as an option.

Btw, what is even reference level?  I have some issue with this.  You're supposedly trying to reproduce the sound of an instrument at a concert.  First, most concerts/music have amplified sound.  In those cases you're leaving all judgement to the sound engineers or performers or bartender on what constitutes 'reference', not to mention it's going to largely depend on the size of the venue and where you're sitting.  In the case that you're using unamplified acoustic instruments as your reference, you still haven't overcome the variable of distance.  Everybody already knows volume will depend on how far away you are from the source.  Are you standing in back of the venue?  Are you in the middle of the room?  Maybe you got good tickets and are in the first row?  Are you in the band and on the stage?  Perhaps you're the drummer/pianist/whatever yourself?  There are even more factors than just distance but I'm just trying to illustrate that there are major issues with claiming "reference" levels - and this is only going by mic, not by ear (not all ears are equal as I said earlier).

This isn't even getting into things like venue acoustics, listening angle to soundwave origination, instrument models, playing style, etc.  The "reproducing live music" thing isn't a particularly bad goal to aim for, I just find that most people who use this catchphrase aren't really aware of just how variable it is.  It could mean almost anything.

I think I basically agree with everything Mav is saying, including HPs being unrealistic due to soundstaging, even for the best stuff.  The only stuff that has been way more convincing in terms of spacial repro duction is binaural/Smyth.  Even then, you still run into severe issues with bass reproduction on headphones, be it a Stax Lambda or Abyss.