CHANGSTAR: Audiophile Headphone Reviews and Early 90s Style BBS
Lobby => Headphone, IEM, and Other Audio Related Discussion => Topic started by: Marvey on September 18, 2013, 07:51:23 PM
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Poll: What, if anything, divides headphiles and audiophiles?
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As much as I want to come up with a clever reply...
Most of the " :-Z " faces I get from people when I talk to them about this headphone hobby is due to the concept of "okay... when you are listening to headphones, what else can you do??"
Being a bachelor and living in an apartment are two really good reasons why I don't have a bumpin' stereo system.
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Regarding Option #1:
You always hear people go on and on about how you can get a headphone system for a fraction of the price of an equivalent loudspeaker system. I for one think that's total BS. Especially if you're willing to DIY. Even if you set on buying finished, I think the options in terms of cheap loudspeakers (Audioengine, Vanatoo, those Pioneers) are only getting better and better while the headphone game seems to be going the opposite way in terms of value. What do you guys think? Where would you draw the line? Or is BS to even try to compare?
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Budget, living conditions and "preferences".
It all comes back to the music though...
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I voted all of the above but I only half agree with option 1. I use headphones because I'd simply cause noise complaints every time I work on my computer and listen to music. However I know could spend just as much/less on speakers as my headphone setup and have it sound just as good, plus not having to worry about comfort.
Room acoustics I approach as a hobby too, I love creating pretty diffusers and absorbers.
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dunno, thought speakers were too much fussing about with. different experience. I like the more intimate presentation of headphones. but an oddly phrased question, headphiles are technically headphone audiophiles? just personal preferences/priorities between speakers and headphones? plenty of good speaker systems for smaller rooms or at desks.
I've always lived compactly and quite minimal in owning stuff, so headphones seems like a given to me. though I do listen to Emotiva speakers sometimes too nowadays... just for background music when I'm not sitting by the desk.
and they seem to be an easy re-sell if I decide to relocate!
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I read purrin's speaker thread and well fuck that. I failed high school Algebra.
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In my case and in the beginning, I got into headphones as a practical alternative to speakers. Did not. Want. To wake up. The kids. And could only watch something other than Thomas the Train when kids where asleep.
I found out however that my HD202 could do things better than my Mirage lo-fi-sats (specially dialog) and liked how they sounded for a fraction of the $. Later learned that stupid expensive cans where less stupid expensive than some of the "Hi-End" speakers (perhaps less marketing BS)... Could get a taste of full range planar magnetics and electrostats for less and without taking over the living room, or having fears of a little one tipping over a heavy tower over him/herself. Electrostatic/planar-magnetic kid size flowtron speakers scare me when little ones are running amok (their Mega-watt amps too).
As far as price, speaker stuff is usually bigger than headphone stuff... and I guess bigger means bettar and more $... Uber-anaconda cables, thousand pound speakers, Mega-watt amps,...
Still, I many times enjoy my shitty $500 living room speaker setup more (specially with movies w the family) than my shitty headphones... Less soundstage issues too. I may upgrade my speaker setup with some DIY stuff. We'll see.
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There's really no difference. I've had headphones throughout my audiophile journey at various times, even very on with Sennheiser HD540s?, STAX, vintage RS-1, etc. from my college days on. Whatever I use most often tends to gravitate upon my situation. The system (headphone or speaker) which is best setup will tend to get the most use. Right now it just happens to be speakers.
"no room" also implies conditions such as noise... bugging other ppl.
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"no room" also implies conditions such as noise... bugging other ppl.
Yup. Audio solutions for different situations.
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For me, headphones are a compromise or sidetrack from the real goal. They suck up all my money in an effort to prevent me from reaching the real prize: A full-blown, kick-ass loudspeaker system.
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hello,
its all about the other people in the household.
i have t'weens, i listen to Trent (a lot). i don't think blasting "Closer" would be a stellar example of my parenting skills.
my spousal unit is addicted to television, so the mid-fi loudspeaker system i have is a 2.1 home theatre.
my spousal unit and i have VERY different tastes in music (there is the whole May/December thing goin' on.)
i would rather enjoy my tunes in my head, rather than get rolled eyes that what i'm listening to is "before my time."
so, yeah, i don't have "room" for a proper loudspeaker system.
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If I had more room for speakers I would definitely have a primary speaker set up. I listened to some CDs through my parents Sony integrated receiver and Paradigm bookshelfs a couple weeks ago. This is not a high end setup but the soundstage put my headphone rig to shame. Almost all aspects of the sound were lower quality, however it was very enjoyable to experience speaker presentation. I have not "lost myself" in the music like that when listening to headphones. With headphones, the fact that they are connected to my head stops me from being able to close my eyes and feel like I am there. To a lot of audiophiles this is very important. Maybe more important than any other factor. I would guess that headphiles value the detail retrieval and more intimate presentation.
In the end I think it is more likely a combination of all those things you listed. When I was younger I listened to headphones because I could carry them around with me and it was cheap (they came with my ipod :)p17 ). Now I listen mostly in my apartment where I don't want a speaker system to annoy my neighbors when I am up until 2am listening to music.
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Room, and the way they're used.
Headphones are great if you have limited space, or don't want to bother people nearby (or don't want them bothering you.) I got back into audio through headphones, because I was using them to isolate myself so I could do creative work (writing, etc.) Now, I use them in the office all the time. If you're in a dorm room, shared living space, open-plan office, closed-plan office, working, etc, they're great. I can also relax and enjoy headphones without doing any work, but in general, 90% of the time I'm working while listening to headphones.
After nearly 20 years of a marketing career, saving, moving into a bigger house, no kids, etc we have enough space and wherewithal to have two other systems. One is a planar-based music-only system, which I admit sits relatively disused since getting into headphones. It takes up a ton of room and isn't particularly pretty, but it does have a more realistic quality than the in-your-head presentation of headphones. Does that make it superior? Not necessarily, just different.
We also have a dedicated home theater with a projector and big, bombastic speakers and a giant--though elderly--Velodyne sub. Is it better than headphones for movie viewing? Absolutely. Headphones are great when you don't want to bother someone, but there's really no substitute for big impact when it comes to movies.
So, it really comes down to usage and space. If I was more space-limited, the stereo listening system would go first, then the home theater...but the headphones would always stay.
Just some rambling perspective here. Stereo speaker systems, home theaters, and headphones will continue to coexist, with dominance being dictated by space, practicality, and cost issues.
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I like how video games sound out of cans more than out of speakers. There is a sense of immediacy and surround sound unique to good headphones when gaming.
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I like how video games sound out of cans more than out of speakers. There is a sense of immediacy and surround sound unique to good headphones when gaming.
Do you use a Mixamp or something similar?
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What is this, Head-Fi? :P
I do it all when I can. Prefer headphones for convenience, portability, isolation (for myself and others), etc.
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I like how video games sound out of cans more than out of speakers. There is a sense of immediacy and surround sound unique to good headphones when gaming.
Somewhat related to this point is that headphones have become such a staple in young peoples's listening habits that lots of new music seem to be mastered for headphone listening. A lot of the new hip-hop and electronic albums I listen to sound much better on headphones, where different elements of the track seem to be coming from behind or around you. The traditional stereo imaging of a sound field in front of you isn't quite as prevalent as it was in years past.
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I agree with Schitt, it depends on the room and what you can do with it. I've heard a variety of active studio monitors and passives in desktop nearfield setups, and to be honest most of the time it's not that impressive. The sound stage is rarely any better and can often be worse than a great pair of headphones. When you're sitting 3 feet from a pair of speakers that are 12" tall, the image they throw at you basically exists within that 12" height, and slightly to the outside edge of each speaker. Some are better at this than others, but there's certainly no feeling of "being there" from basically anything on a desk, even $3K/pr actives. It's like you're listening to a band through a tiny window.
Put those same 12" tall speakers on 28" stands, move back to about 8 feet from them, and pull them 8 feet apart from each other, and in a room with a little thought to acoustics the result is radically different, and to my ears, still untouchable by even $5K headphones. The little 3' x 1' window that you were listening through on desk can become the size of most of the front wall, and musicians take on lifelike size.
The idea that buying a high-end headphone setup saves you a boatload of cash vs. a high-end speaker setup is basically total bullshit. I've heard $5-10K Stax rigs (I also owned one for awhile) and I've heard plenty of $10K speaker rigs. Assuming some real thought went into the speaker rig, it's going to win.
For the price of a T1 or HD800, you can get some very nice monitors, particularly from the factory direct speaker builders, you don't even have to go DIY to get a good value. For the price of the SR-009 or Abyss, monitors are approaching state of the art, and large floor standers will still be very, very good.
You can get this guy for less than a new 009.
(http://philharmonicaudio.com/philharmonicaudio/images/Philharmonic%203/DSC02184.jpg)
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Somewhat related to this point is that headphones have become such a staple in young peoples's listening habits that lots of new music seem to be mastered for headphone listening. A lot of the new hip-hop and electronic albums I listen to sound much better on headphones, where different elements of the track seem to be coming from behind or around you. The traditional stereo imaging of a sound field in front of you isn't quite as prevalent as it was in years past.
To my ears most new music just sounds like shit. It's blasted to hell with zero dynamic range, and a lot of it is frankly unlistenable on anything, headphones or speakers. Here's the new NIN for example at 320CBR MP3, CD on top, "audiophile master" on the bottom. Yes the "audiophile version" is clipped to absolute hell, because the engineers pushed it louder than the CD.
(http://www.metal-fi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/HesitationMarks-Everything-Comparison.jpg)
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X2 what Schiit says....I have the same setup. 2 channel area, Home theater area and HP's. 2 channel would go first if space was at a premium. No headphone can compete with my M&K's and SVS subs for movie night....
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^ x3 what Schiit says. Most of my "listening for fun" comes from Imagine B bookshelves that I've crammed into my square-shaped bedroom with terrible acoustics. I've placed an acoustic panel behind them and pillow bass traps at the corners to make the sound not horrible. I actually like them more than my headphones, but the headphones get more use due to being in the office for most of the day or telecommuting. I also have a PSB Alpha home theatre setup which hasn't gotten much use lately, but despite the lack of fidelity compared to headphones it's much more enjoyable for watching movies.
I'd be interested to read how the general users on HF respond though. It should be quite different compared to here.
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To my ears most new music just sounds like shit. It's blasted to hell with zero dynamic range, and a lot of it is frankly unlistenable on anything, headphones or speakers. Here's the new NIN for example at 320CBR MP3, CD on top, "audiophile master" on the bottom. Yes the "audiophile version" is clipped to absolute hell, because the engineers pushed it louder than the CD.
(http://www.metal-fi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/HesitationMarks-Everything-Comparison.jpg)
WRONG! It has higher dynamic range than the original master, so as long as your hardware can handle 0 dB, it should be better.
Hitting 0 dB is not clipping. *Exceeding* 0 dB is clipping and that you can't know. I bet they had a compressor there and a hard limiter too. The original version had a way steeper compressor, as seen in the tops being more squashed.
Note the parts where the top of the signal actually fluctuates in the audiophile one and not the plain version.
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WRONG! It has higher dynamic range than the original master, so as long as your hardware can handle 0 dB, it should be better.
Hitting 0 dB is not clipping. *Exceeding* 0 dB is clipping and that you can't know. I bet they had a compressor there and a hard limiter too. The original version had a way steeper compressor, as seen in the tops being more squashed.
Note the parts where the top of the signal actually fluctuates in the audiophile one and not the plain version.
WRONG! It does have slightly more dynamic range than the original master, however, the peak levels in the "audiophile" version are *higher* than the standard version. In uncompressed PCM neither version sets off Sound Forge's clipping detector, but after MP3 encoding its a very different story - the sustained higher peaks create a mess of clipping (the detector goes off after 3 continuous samples at 0dBFS). Regardless, both versions sound like shit and the "audiophile" label is a complete joke. The only one worth listening to is the vinyl.
http://www.realhd-audio.com/?p=1535
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Clipping can occur with CD's. I have several that were overdone when burned. The difference is that whatever clipped turns into a 0dB plateau for a while and sounds exactly the same as any non-mechanical clipping you've ever heard.
The way to tell if it's messed up is to zoom in on the waveform and see if there are flat spots. If so, it's ruined.
EDIT: Also know that if clipping occurred somewhere in the chain before the final burning process that you may find flat spots below 0dB. I have a few of those in my collection as well. It royally ticks me off.
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Yes, peak level looks to have been increased, I bet by normalization after less agressive compression. It actually might've been an audiophile mix if there is no better recording...
Vinyl one is compressed a lot too, just quieter for the most part. Digitize it and see! (DR8 vs DR6. It's that bad.)
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I took some production classes in college and all the analog equipment could handle higher voltages than a 100% signal and the high quality tape we were using (type 4) along with the recorders could go several dB passed 100% without any problems. So they always pushed their VUE meters a bit passed peak because everything could handle it and it gave a better SnR.
In digital there is no headroom. So I suspect that old school sound guys may not have adapted to the new ways of doing things and don't realize that red doesn't mean you're in the zone but that it's destroyed. I also suspect that the signal monitoring when burning is often at a point in the chain where clipping isn't discovered. I further suspect that they never go back to check and reburn. It's all unionized so when you hand your stuff over to the guy who burns the master, they make only one run and that's the end of it.
I learned on my own to do everything in digital with peak indicators on and record everything to peak in the range of -3dB or do it again if it's out of spec. If I'm recording live then I make my best conservative guess and try to have a second copy coming in at about -12dB just in case. That way I never have a problem and I just normalize to -0.1dB in the end. I only use Adobe Audition so I don't know if other softwares do what I described as easily as mine does. If they don't, then studios need to make the switch or we're gonna keep dealing with clipped garbage.
Then again, I only produce spoken word and training material so it's much easier for me because I don't build all my different levels in reference to one track, possibly over-blowing one of them along the way. The solution is still the same: monitor your peak meters always.
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Vinyl one is compressed a lot too, just quieter for the most part. Digitize it and see! (DR8 vs DR6. It's that bad.)
WRONG! If you got DR8 from your vinyl, you're doing something very, very wrong with your needle drop.
http://www.dr.loudness-war.info/details.php?id=45217
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In digital there is no headroom. So I suspect that old school sound guys may not have adapted to the new ways of doing things and don't realize that red doesn't mean you're in the zone but that it's destroyed. I also suspect that the signal monitoring when burning is often at a point in the chain where clipping isn't discovered. I further suspect that they never go back to check and reburn. It's all unionized so when you hand your stuff over to the guy who burns the master, they make only one run and that's the end of it.
Except for the fact that up until about 1993, most CD releases were nicely dynamic and generally mastered no higher than about -0.10dB, often much lower. Then everybody decided to be louder than everybody else, and that was the end of that. If you look at dynamics in recordings from 1992 until 1998 or so, you can watch them go down, year by year, one or two dB at a time. By 1998 everybody was at DR6 or below, with many records smashing into 0dBFS in every track. That wasn't because it was old dudes mastering who didn't understand how digital works. It was because executives wanted it, and bands wanted it, and all anyone gave a shit about was how loud they could get it, clipping and sound quality be damned.
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WRONG! It does have slightly more dynamic range than the original master, however, the peak levels in the "audiophile" version are *higher* than the standard version. In uncompressed PCM neither version sets off Sound Forge's clipping detector, but after MP3 encoding its a very different story - the sustained higher peaks create a mess of clipping (the detector goes off after 3 continuous samples at 0dBFS). Regardless, both versions sound like shit and the "audiophile" label is a complete joke. The only one worth listening to is the vinyl.
http://www.realhd-audio.com/?p=1535
Reaching 0 dbFS is not clipping. As someone mentioned in that link, the "audiophile" version does not seem to have the plateaus at max amplitude that the standard version has, indeed if what the guy says is true the standard version is more heavily limited, which would mimick clipping.
If you convert to mp3 or another floating point format then you will indeed get clipping when you convert back to integer due to rounding errors, unless the decoder applies some attenuation (not sure if any one does this).
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@DaveBSC, you know, you're right. They did get it right during the CD's first decade. I wonder how the job role was once effective then later turned into what I saw and described.
There is something to that time period. I've got recordings from the 90's that were clearly of their time because they've got some clipping while still being nicely dynamic. The odd thing is that I never noticed until I got quality listening gear. It makes me wonder what it was like in the studio.
You do need to wonder what some teenager's reaction would be to a properly dynamic recording when they're so not familiar with it. It would definitely be harder to listen to in a car or on the street.
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All of the above. The points about speaker rigs not being as expensive by contrast to high end headphone setups have mostly ignored the room. Unless you purpose built you room (a significant cost on its own) you have to concede that you are starting out with a very flawed canvas. Trying to fix a flawed canvas ends up being rather expensive as well.
In the end, most of the gear is interchangable. Same sources, same transports, same interconnects, trade high end headamp for high end speaker amp. Speaker and headphone cables and the actual radiators themselves are the only real differences in gear. Where headphone rigs pull way ahead in cost is by providing its own room.
There needs to be a solution to the venue dilemma. If you mix for speakers, it sounds less good on headphones, if you mix for radio/iTunes mass consumption, you have to build in the compression, if you mix for quality, you can't listen easily in the car or anywhere there is noise (restaurant, etc), if you mix for headphones, it should ideally be from a binaural master, which doesn't sound great on speakers.
It's as if we need several different versions of the song stored on our media to play when we are needing different things. Perhaps this will be possible as capacity continues to grow. Another possibility is taking the highest quality master and baking in dsp in products that know what they are. Such as a car stereo would process the master and normalize the volume, or a headphone output would first be dsp'd to sound binaural. Or perhaps there would still exist the need to have a speaker master and a headphone master, then let the device dsp the normalization if appropriate.
The problem with all of these solutions is they require extra work by everyone involved, and 'all' we, the general public, get is better sound quality, something society has already demonstrated they don't care enough about to pay extra for.
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@DaveBSC, you know, you're right. They did get it right during the CD's first decade. I wonder how the job role was once effective then later turned into what I saw and described.
There is something to that time period. I've got recordings from the 90's that were clearly of their time because they've got some clipping while still being nicely dynamic. The odd thing is that I never noticed until I got quality listening gear. It makes me wonder what it was like in the studio.
You do need to wonder what some teenager's reaction would be to a properly dynamic recording when they're so not familiar with it. It would definitely be harder to listen to in a car or on the street.
Yep. IMO the best mainstream CDs are from the early '90s. A-D converters had improved quite a bit compared to what was available in the '80s, so transferring from analog master tapes to digital didn't require as many sacrifices in sound, and the loudness war hadn't really started yet. Pearl Jam's Ten on CD was DR10. By 1996 and No Code, they were down to DR7 overall, with several tracks at DR5. That's basically where we still are, even the HDTracks version of Ten is DR6 poop, while the vinyl redux was DR11. Thankfully vinyl has managed to stay out of the war.
Most studies have shown that when people are exposed to more dynamic music, they prefer it. I hear that argument a lot, that you need to compress the hell out of music so it sounds good on a car stereo or crappy iPod earbuds. It's a bullshit argument, always has been. The only thing you have to do with a dynamic record is turn it up a bit. That's all. Level match and you get something like this. The only thing the loud version does is smash all of the life out of the music.
(http://www.metal-fi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Witherscape-Matched.jpg)
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if you mix for quality, you can't listen easily in the car or anywhere there is noise (restaurant, etc),
Bullshit. Slayer albums used to be DR14. Nobody complained that they couldn't hear them in the car.
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So, Dave, you listen to non-normalized classical while on the highway?
I thought not. In order to hear the quiet passages, you have it turned up enough to blow your ears off when there's a sudden dynamic peak. You are constantly messing with the volume. This can easily happen with other genres like folk, jazz, among others. Some genres are so stereotypically normalized, you can't easily imagine what they would sound like uncompressed. Pop and rock would actually be hard to listen to in a car if it wasn't smashed to hell. Not as hard as classical, for sure, but there are often quiet parts of these songs that would be too low to hear with a high noise floor in effect.
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if you mix for quality, you can't listen easily in the car or anywhere there is noise (restaurant, etc),
Bullshit. Slayer albums used to be DR14. Nobody complained that they couldn't hear them in the car.
Let's not use an exception to prove a rule. Slayer stuff is designed to be blasted.
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So, Dave, you listen to non-normalized classical while on the highway?
I thought not. In order to hear the quiet passages, you have it turned up enough to blow your ears off when there's a sudden dynamic peak. You are constantly messing with the volume. This can easily happen with other genres like folk, jazz, among others. Some genres are so stereotypically normalized, you can't easily imagine what they would sound like uncompressed. Pop and rock would actually be hard to listen to in a car if it wasn't smashed to hell. Not as hard as classical, for sure, but there are often quiet parts of these songs that would be too low to hear with a high noise floor in effect.
You didn't say "you can't listen to non-normalized classical in the car." You said "if you mix for quality, you can't listen easily in the car or anywhere there is noise." That is 100% wrong. So is this: pop and rock would actually be hard to listen to in a car if it wasn't smashed to hell. Wrong.
What you're basically saying is that prior to about 1995, no one could hear any pop or rock music in the car. Man that must've been rough, not being able to hear music in the car because it was all too dynamic. Good thing DAW compressors and brickwall limiters came along and saved us all.
You're saying that the new Daft Punk can't be heard in the car, or the new Steven Wilson, or Nick Cave, Mumford & Sons, or Jack White. All mixed for quality, all can't be heard in the car. Nonsense.
http://productionadvice.co.uk/daft-punk-mastering/#more-6380
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If you listened to highly dynamic music without normalization in a car, you truly are not hearing everything. That is a fact you can't dispute. For that fact, I actually am glad normalization came long. I listen in the car at about 60-70db so I appreciate being able to hear the full song, not just the loud parts.
Also, if you are cranking it up high enough to hear highly dynamic music, I hope everyone else in the car likes the music and doesn't need to talk to you.
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So, Dave, you listen to non-normalized classical while on the highway?
I thought not. In order to hear the quiet passages, you have it turned up enough to blow your ears off when there's a sudden dynamic peak. You are constantly messing with the volume. This can easily happen with other genres like folk, jazz, among others. Some genres are so stereotypically normalized, you can't easily imagine what they would sound like uncompressed. Pop and rock would actually be hard to listen to in a car if it wasn't smashed to hell. Not as hard as classical, for sure, but there are often quiet parts of these songs that would be too low to hear with a high noise floor in effect.
You didn't say "you can't listen to non-normalized classical in the car." You said "if you mix for quality, you can't listen easily in the car or anywhere there is noise." That is 100% wrong. So is this: pop and rock would actually be hard to listen to in a car if it wasn't smashed to hell. Wrong.
What you're basically saying is that prior to about 1995, no one could hear any pop or rock music in the car. Man that must've been rough, not being able to hear music in the car because it was all too dynamic. Good thing DAW compressors and brickwall limiters came along and saved us all.
You're saying that the new Daft Punk can't be heard in the car, or the new Steven Wilson, or Nick Cave, Mumford & Sons, or Jack White. All mixed for quality, all can't be heard in the car. Nonsense.
http://productionadvice.co.uk/daft-punk-mastering/#more-6380
QFT. I was into car stereo in the early, early days (think Spectron days), and I can absolutely say there was no problem with the tape, (and later) CD sources with uncompressed (or less-compressed) music of the 1980s, even with a non-quiet car. Sausaging out the mix is not required.
Classical, maybe--but Mike didn't have problems in his admittedly higher-end, quieter cars with classical, either.
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QFT. I was into car stereo in the early, early days (think Spectron days), and I can absolutely say there was no problem with the tape, (and later) CD sources with uncompressed (or less-compressed) music of the 1980s, even with a non-quiet car. Sausaging out the mix is not required.
Classical, maybe--but Mike didn't have problems in his admittedly higher-end, quieter cars with classical, either.
Same. I've been into metal for about as long as I've been into music, and all of my old metal CDs are DR10+. My first car with a CD player was an old Taurus which was definitely noisier than my current A6. I could hear everything without a problem. I'm not talking about classical with massive dynamic swings, I'm talking about metal which used to be mastered at -10dB RMS and is now mastered at -5dB RMS. You know what you get with the extra dynamics and headroom? Kick drum. Bass guitar. Cymbals. And what do you get now with the wonders of brickwall limiting? No kick drum. No bass guitar. No cymbals. You do however get some nice, over-driven garbage that sounds like shit and makes you want to turn it off after 10 minutes. You can have it.
http://youtu.be/iyk09cSU2kE
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That's interesting that I have to fiddle with my volume knob a lot. My friends always had the radio blasting too loud for my ears, so maybe I have a narrower range of acceptability with loud road noise. My tolerance ceiling isn't that high so I turn it down when it's too loud, which might not be too loud for some of you. Maybe that's why my hearing is still as good as it is.
One thing that's clear to me in the headphile vs. audiophile debate is that I prefer speakers but because it pushes my tastes on the household, I'm walking down the headphile road instead. Being a headphile is much harder for me with more varied outcomes in experimentation, so there's a lot to the overall pursuit.
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The pod I live in precludes me from listening to speakers. Otherwise, this:
Put those same 12" tall speakers on 28" stands, move back to about 8 feet from them, and pull them 8 feet apart from each other, and in a room with a little thought to acoustics the result is radically different, and to my ears, still untouchable by even $5K headphones.
However, a side benefit of the headphone thing is being able to own an array of stuff. For me, I look at audio reproduction as a performance in itself. Different speakers are like a different venue. They all have their own sound- some I like more than others, etc. It satisfies my ADD to be able to hear the same music in different ways. Of course, there are limits to this. Also I think MuppetFace said it before- audio being functional art and a cultural artifact. That said, more often than not when I sit down, relax, and listen, I tend to forget what equipment I am listening to after the first 5-10 minutes.
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Heh… I just picked up on the car audio part of this thread. It's been ages since I was into this (and I was pretty hardcore). But I seem to remember some decks and/or DSP units having adjustable compressors in them. It might have been either the Fosgate Symmetry or some Sony ES product. Outside of that, it seems the options have either been cranking it up to dangerous levels, risking hearing loss and not hearing the traffic around you, or having something like a Lexus. Since going from a reasonably quiet Honda Accord to a Mustang GT, I gave up the battle of noise; though I still have a decent system in the later.
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Hm, the turntable is fine. It's the record - apparently damaged by overplaying. Pity.
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facepalm