A plea to our LTT overloards on Headphone reviews

[LapsedMemory]

I understand Linus stated on the WAN show that LTT won't do reviews on old hardware, and I fully understand his reasoning.  However, when you are setting up your lab and deciding on baseline gear to compare new samples to, I would like to make one plea.  Judging audio quality on headphones by charts and graphs can be a bit confusing for the normal consumer who doesn't understand how those charts reflect the actual sound reproduction.  Having a few popular staples as comparison references will make it easier to determine a consumer's preferred levels for judging future devices.  Even if you don't use them on videos, having the data on the LTT labs website for comparison would be a huge benefit.  

 

To that end, I would like to make a recommendation for the first set:  Sony MDR-V6.  Their sibling, the MDR-7506 would also make an adequate comparison baseline (since the MDR-V6's are technically no longer in production).  The V6s were simply the best sounding headphones you could buy for $80-$100 for the ~30 years they were in production, spouting excellent audio clarity across nearly the entire spectrum.  These are the standard by which I judge every set I listen to, and I have yet to find any at even 2x the price point that match the reproduction accuracy.  

 

Other baselines that might be worth having: Airpods, as these are one of the most popular selling headphones in history and Beats so people can finally understand how garbage the audio quality actually is.

 

_{/I'm only slightly kidding about the Beats.  I've never listened to a pair of them that weren't overcompensating on the base to an absurd degree.}  

[Thomas4]

I see a couple of problems with all headphone reviews. You can skip to the last paragraph.

 

I realize that reviewers don't have the time to allow for a proper review, as there are some particular items that take longer than they have to review a new product. This is where I'd like to see the product re-reviewed after a month of use. Here, a simple comparison chart, with only major problems are pointed out works. And, yes I see most of the problems with such an approach as the cost-benefit ratio is extremely low. But its something to at least consider before saying no.In general everyone hears sounds differently.

 

While most people discern sounds in a similar enough manner that the sound quality produced its basically immaterial in a stand alone manner. This is where comparisons to other devices in a similar price range become important.

 

The companies user feedback - This needs to be taken with a little care as they'll receive 100 complaint for every congratulation. What IS important is both company response in both timeliness and the quality of their response. Also, the problems themselves, if multiple customers have the same problem or problems are reported along many of their products, this should bring up a red flag.

 

Cost - Need to know, but while it tell consumers how much they'll be required pay it kind of worthless without knowing the following.

 

Value - Here it gets a tricky, IF the overall Value, derived by the comparing the specifications of the device against other headphones in the same price category is different enough, this determines whether the cost of the device is there.  This includes any additional software and hardware that comes with the device in itself.

 

VALUE consists of, among other things:

 

Overall build quality - Very Important to consumers regardless of cost.

 

Comfort - Unimportant when only used by one individual, as people are too different from one another to make a worthwhile comparison, unless there are physical deficiencies with the device itself. And that the reviewer mentions that they themselves feel. 

 

Add-ons - Important, as this allows for customers to individualize components, such as larger/smaller earplugs, noise cancellation, etc.

 

Equalizer - Extremely important as this is what allows each user to customer to tune the phones to their liking. The finer the control levels available,the better.

 

Length of usability - The larger the battery the better as it allows you to use it longer.

 

Basically, what I'm saying is listen to more than one reviewer, compare their comments and, whenever possible, try the headphones before purchase. And while you're looking around at least try other headphones in both a higher AND lower price range than what you've decided on.

[rice guru]

11 hours ago, LapsedMemory said:

I understand Linus stated on the WAN show that LTT won't do reviews on old hardware, and I fully understand his reasoning.  However, when you are setting up your lab and deciding on baseline gear to compare new samples to, I would like to make one plea.  Judging audio quality on headphones by charts and graphs can be a bit confusing for the normal consumer who doesn't understand how those charts reflect the actual sound reproduction.  Having a few popular staples as comparison references will make it easier to determine a consumer's preferred levels for judging future devices.  Even if you don't use them on videos, having the data on the LTT labs website for comparison would be a huge benefit.  

 

To that end, I would like to make a recommendation for the first set:  Sony MDR-V6.  Their sibling, the MDR-7506 would also make an adequate comparison baseline (since the MDR-V6's are technically no longer in production).  The V6s were simply the best sounding headphones you could buy for $80-$100 for the ~30 years they were in production, spouting excellent audio clarity across nearly the entire spectrum.  These are the standard by which I judge every set I listen to, and I have yet to find any at even 2x the price point that match the reproduction accuracy.  

 

Other baselines that might be worth having: Airpods, as these are one of the most popular selling headphones in history and Beats so people can finally understand how garbage the audio quality actually is.

 

_{/I'm only slightly kidding about the Beats.  I've never listened to a pair of them that weren't overcompensating on the base to an absurd degree.}  

A big problem a lot of beginner and even more experienced audiophiles can run into are graphs. It is extremely difficult to judge headphones from charts and graphs a lone becyase they are not the end all be all to determining audio quality sure they are useful to find glaring issues with tuning or stuff like distortion. Or noise isolation otherwise it's hard tod determine stuff like timbre and staging performance out of measurements. Which depending on the listener could be more important over other things. And yes while one person may think something is garbage to most people if it works good enough it's good enough for them

[Stahlmann]

Graphs can be useful to look for problems, but won't be useful in finding headphones you actually like.

 

Gathering their data is just a matter of throwing money at the problem. The most important job LTT has with their labs content is to make it clear how to use the data they gather. Otherwise people don't understand it and jump to conclusions like "x is higher than y, therefore x is better".

[Psittac]

I've never been a graph kind of person for headphones, eyeballs and earballs don't consume the same data, there's just no real comparison between the two senses.  With that said I'd really enjoy going along for the ride and would love to see them explain what they are doing, perhaps I'll find a new appreciation for stat's and graph's.

 

I will say that when I started down the audiophile rabbit hole choosing amp's and dac's was so confusing that I just pulled the trigger on a $500 dac/amp just to make sure I could do what I wanted.  That did allow me to purchase almost any headphone but it's not at all what I recommend others do.  Nowa day's I have an overpowered class-a amp, over powered only tube amp and a "mid" end dac but that's because it's a hobby of mine, not because it's needed.

 

What I have found is that you need to hear a headphone to understand what thing's like sound stage, timber, imaging, bass control etc mean.  I got a couple pairs and found one reviewer that I agree with on every pair of headphones since I started this hobby so when he say's "this is amazing" I just pull the trigger if I'm looking for something.  I also know that some reviewers have different tastes than myself so while I like to hear what they have to say, I don't make a purchase off just their suggestions.

 

My point is that you don't need to buy a couple pair of headphones, but get a few hours on something that everyone has reviewed like the 600/650/6xx so you can pick up on catch phrases they use. (a point others made as well).

 

Maybe LTT could get some of the uber common less expensive headphones and headsets to give a baseline for people that may already have something but want to put words to their ears.

 

My go to recommendations:

phillips shp9600 (9500 is fatigueing with onboard, stellar with dac/amp)

phillips X2HR/X3

rode NTH-100 (my gawd I love these and they'll sound good on a potato)

Beyerdynamic DTxxx (pretty much any of them are good, only heard 770-80 and 880-600)

 

Something like the 6xx get's to the point that it really want's upgrades and onboard doesn't exactly do it justice.

 

and dac or amp I always suggest schiit products because their value proposition is really excellent, though "unattainable" outside of the states

fiio products are underpowered as far as spec's go and the dac chip factory fire has made it a crap shoot on finding dac's

 

Oh and DMS made an excellent point, that your brain adjusts to what your listening to.  So over enough time it's not exactly better or worse than something else until you change equipment around and can pick back up on the differences.  There is more of a lesson there that maybe a cheap solution isn't necessarily a worse solution so long as it reaches a certain threshold because your brain levels it out.  Buuuuut that's why I've gone through 20+ headphones and several amps and a few dacs, so I can change it up and keep tickling my ear pickle.

[spartaman64]

maybe they should get a HE1 also as a measure of the peak. though ive heard sennheiser hasnt been responding to requests so maybe they will have to settle for a susvara or something Kappa

[GoldenSound]

The problem is that the FR of a particular headphone model isn't much more useful as a baseline compared to any other given as the majority of the audience won't have heard it anyway. And even amongst those that have, they won't necessarily all agree on whether they liked it or not and why.

Generally, the accepted rule of thumb for comparing headphone FR is to treat the Harman curve as neutral, as there is significant research and reasoning behind it.
Though it's not a silver bullet and it'd be good if LTT/Labs did a bit of an explanation video as to where those limitations are.
Realistically though, it's not possible to simplify headphone measurements down to a point that anyone can just look at one and know how they feel about a product. Both because prior understanding is unfortunately a requirement, and because our knowledge about how to interpret the minutiae within an FR measurement and how they directly correlate to the subjective experience, is unfortunately still quite lacking.

 

4 hours ago, spartaman64 said:

maybe they should get a HE1 also as a measure of the peak. though ive heard sennheiser hasnt been responding to requests so maybe they will have to settle for a susvara or something Kappa

Tbh, a good Susvara chain is better than HE1 imo.