Which headphones would you buy for 1000$

[BoredErica]

No....but love is love.....love for money, that is.... :lol:

 

Nah, just messing around. But yeah, those 800 are superb. First comments that came out of my mouth when auditioning for those are, 'how the hell did they managed to produce something like this....??'

 

I'm wondering how the 700 would sound though. It got similar design, but never seen one in person, and never read reviews about them....

I think the HD800s are love it or hate it headphones.

I know a few people that think HD800s are the worst things on the planet, worse than Beats.

 

WHAT IS LOVE?!

BABY DON'T HURT ME

[MayflowerElectronics]

I think the HD800s are love it or hate it headphones.

I know a few people that think HD800s are the worst things on the planet, worse than Beats.

 

WHAT IS LOVE?!

BABY DON'T HURT ME

 

It's really because of the huge treble spike those headphones have. It's more or less if you like treble or not. I think those headphones do well because of the treble spike and people with a bit of hearing loss. It really brings out details to some ears.

[Andy Rooney]

AKG K-1000

 

...so much swag, here.

 

But seriously, I don't think I have the appetite for headphones that dear ($1,000).

[Goldilock]

I'll get speaker

[Whit3Rav3n]

It's really because of the huge treble spike those headphones have. It's more or less if you like treble or not. I think those headphones do well because of the treble spike and people with a bit of hearing loss. It really brings out details to some ears.

The HD 800 doesn´t really have a treble spike. The treble is elevated over a wide frequency rage. That doesn´t really makes it a brigt sounding headphone. The brightness depends very much on the recording. With good acoustic recordings it sounds very neutral. You have to consider that a neutral sound signature sounds too bright for most people.

[ShearMe]

You have to consider that a neutral sound signature sounds too bright for most people.

 

It's not neutral if it sounds too bright.  :rolleyes:

[Whit3Rav3n]

It's not neutral if it sounds too bright.  :rolleyes:

Neutral sound is not something you define based on the subjective impression of people. Depending on preference the sound some people define as neutral can be actually very far from actually neutral. You actually have to look at the frequency response. This is not that easy for headphones since you have to consider the transfer function of the ears as well. Still if you check the weighted frequency response of the HD 800 it looks pretty good:

 

HD 800

 

A treble peak would look something like that:

 

Beyerdynamic T1

[ShearMe]

Neutral sound is not something you define based on the subjective impression of people.

 

Actually...

[Whit3Rav3n]

Actually...

You didn´t seem to read the article. A weighting is used for noise measurement, not for caibration. For calibration you don´t want to use any weighting since the speakers should ideally reproduce the exact same frequency response as the original instruments. Any weighting would distort the frequency response.

[ShearMe]

For calibration you don´t want to use any weighting since the speakers should ideally reproduce the exact same frequency response as the original instruments.

 

Unless you want it to sound neutral to a human ear.  :rolleyes:

[Whit3Rav3n]

Unless you want it to sound neutral to a human ear.  :rolleyes:

No. Your ears apply the weighting not the speakers. It really should not be that hard to understand. If you listen to a live instrument there is obviously no additional filter applied other than the room, the instrument and your ears. So if you record the instrument and replay it on speakers you want it to sound like the original instrument. That means the microphone and speakers should ideally not modify the sound in any ways. If you would apply an A-weighting it would be actually applied twice, once in your ears and once with the filter. That would not sound natural at all.

[ShearMe]

That means the microphone and speakers should ideally not modify the sound in any ways. 

 

But, they do, so when designing either, you measure it, apply some weighting, and make adjustments accordingly. If it's too bright in the measurements after weighting, it's either not neutral, or the designers weighted wrongly.

 

"It really should not be that hard to understand."

[Whit3Rav3n]

But, they do, so when designing either, you measure it, apply some weighting, and make adjustments accordingly. If it's too bright in the measurements after weighting, it's either not neutral, or the designers weighted wrongly.

 

"It really should not be that hard to understand."

But apparenty you still don´t understand. If you calibrate them flat with weighting applied you will obviously never ever get the same frequency response as the original instrument. You would just cancel out the weighting of the ears and that would not sound natural at all. So in that case you would hear the instruments as you would have ears with linear frequency response.

[ShearMe]

 If you calibrate them flat with weighting applied you will obviously never ever get the same frequency response as the original instrument. 

 

If you don't calibrate them with weighting, you wont be calibrating them to the Human ear, and then it wont sound like the original instrument.

 

Think of it like photography - if you just take a picture with any ole camera default settings, the picture isn't going to come out true to life.

[BoredErica]

This needs to be at HydrogenAudio or else you can basically say anything and everybody will nod their heads not knowing whether what you just said is bullshit, genius, or the obvious truth.  :unsure:

[Lays]

This needs to be at HydrogenAudio or else you can basically say anything and everybody will nod their heads not knowing whether what you just said is bullshit, genius, or the obvious truth.  :unsure:

 

 

hi how u doin

[Whit3Rav3n]

If you don't calibrate them with weighting, you wont be calibrating them to the Human ear, and then it wont sound like the original instrument.

 

Think of it like photography - if you just take a picture with any ole camera default settings, the picture isn't going to come out true to life.

But that is because the sensors and displays can not reproduce the picture the exact same way as seen in nature. 

 

To maybe understand the problem with applying weighting better let´s say we have a perfectly linear microphone. If you add Weighting to the microphone response it won´t be linear anymore. And it will mean sound recorded by it will not sound like the original as heard  by ears since it is not reproducing the original anymore.

 

Another example is noise. White noise is a noise with every frequency at equal amplitude in it. If you apply an A-Weighting and calibrate it to linear you will get pink noise. Again, it will not sound like the original anymore.

[Smoka]

Would definitely get the Audeze LCD-2

[mr moose]

You're all wrong, headphones are designed to take the weighting of an elephant, unless of course they are beats or headsets, in which case they are weighted with the fart from a baby bee, anything heavier puts undue stress on the headband.

 

Who cares? FR mumbo jumbo this or that,  when music is mastered it is mastered on a monitor designed to give a flat FR, not curved or weighted but flat. Headphone manufactures will bend and adjust their design to boost certain frequencies and avoid reverberant or shitty freq.  It's a trade off.  In this sense Shearme is right,  the human ear needs more bass if it is to be heard at the same level as higher freq. therefore some headphone manufacturers (Sony, Beats, All headsets, monster, etc) push the bass harder to offset this natural curve in our hearing.

 

 

Having said all that for $1000 I wouldn't buy one pair I'd buy 5 or 6.

[Whit3Rav3n]

You're all wrong, headphones are designed to take the weighting of an elephant, unless of course they are beats or headsets, in which case they are weighted with the fart from a baby bee, anything heavier puts undue stress on the headband.

 

Who cares? FR mumbo jumbo this or that,  when music is mastered it is mastered on a monitor designed to give a flat FR, not curved or weighted but flat. Headphone manufactures will bend and adjust their design to boost certain frequencies and avoid reverberant or shitty freq.  It's a trade off.  In this sense Shearme is right,  the human ear needs more bass if it is to be heard at the same level as higher freq. therefore some headphone manufacturers (Sony, Beats, All headsets, monster, etc) push the bass harder to offset this natural curve in our hearing.

 

 

Having said all that for $1000 I wouldn't buy one pair I'd buy 5 or 6.

The actual reason why headphones never have a flat frequency response is because of the transfer function of the ear geometry. The transfer function of the ears can be measured with speakers calibrated for flat frequency response. The frequency response of the speakers has to be then measured at the ear drums. The result is going to be the actual frequency response at the ear drums that is far from flat. Headphones direct the sound directly to the ear drums so the ear transfer function doesn´t apply for the headphones. For that reason to achieve the same natural sound that you would normally hear when listening to the speakers or live music the headphones have to imitate the transfer function of the ears. This is the target curve manufacturers use. But then again that has nothing to do with weighting. also boosting the bass so it will be heard at the same level as higher freq. is not a neutral sounding any more obviously.

 

So my point is still valid, neutral sound is defined by flat frequency response for speakers, and the headphone target curve frequency response for headphones. No weighting is involved, that is only interesting for noise level measurements.

[BaconComputing]

If I could find them cheap enough, possibly the Beyerdynamic T1.

[NannerBeans]

You're all wrong, headphones are designed to take the weighting of an elephant, unless of course they are beats or headsets, in which case they are weighted with the fart from a baby bee, anything heavier puts undue stress on the headband.

 

Who cares? FR mumbo jumbo this or that,  when music is mastered it is mastered on a monitor designed to give a flat FR, not curved or weighted but flat. Headphone manufactures will bend and adjust their design to boost certain frequencies and avoid reverberant or shitty freq.  It's a trade off.  In this sense Shearme is right,  the human ear needs more bass if it is to be heard at the same level as higher freq. therefore some headphone manufacturers (Sony, Beats, All headsets, monster, etc) push the bass harder to offset this natural curve in our hearing.

 

 

Having said all that for $1000 I wouldn't buy one pair I'd buy 5 or 6.

How do you find the time to listen to them? I've owned like 4 headphones at a time in the past and found that I only really listened to 2 of them so I sold the rest. 

[Lays]

How do you find the time to listen to them? I've owned like 4 headphones at a time in the past and found that I only really listened to 2 of them so I sold the rest. 

 

 

Same, but all the headphones I've owned were quite different.  AD900X then bought HE-500, prefered the he-500's comfort, but the 900x's were lighter on my head. Prefered the high notes and open-ness of 900x's vs the he-500.. Then sold 900x's because I barely used em, returned 500's because I remembered how much I love lcd's in the store, bought them instead lol

 

In the like 3 weeks I had my 900x's+he-500's at the same time, I maybe only used the 900x's for like 5 hours

[JR1911]

How do you find the time to listen to them? I've owned like 4 headphones at a time in the past and found that I only really listened to 2 of them so I sold the rest. 

 

Personally I use four headphones, all Sennheiser:

 

HD650 for listening to music at home

HD598 for computer use

Momentum for when I go for a walk etc.

IE80 for when I travel.

 

 

Back on topic, if I had about a 1000 dollars to spend on headphones I'd probably look at the Sennheiser HD800, Grado RS1i and Audeze LCD-2.

[mr moose]

The actual reason why headphones never have a flat frequency response is because of the transfer function of the ear geometry. The transfer function of the ears can be measured with speakers calibrated for flat frequency response. The frequency response of the speakers has to be then measured at the ear drums. The result is going to be the actual frequency response at the ear drums that is far from flat. Headphones direct the sound directly to the ear drums so the ear transfer function doesn´t apply for the headphones. For that reason to achieve the same natural sound that you would normally hear when listening to the speakers or live music the headphones have to imitate the transfer function of the ears. This is the target curve manufacturers use. But then again that has nothing to do with weighting. also boosting the bass so it will be heard at the same level as higher freq. is not a neutral sounding any more obviously.

 

So my point is still valid, neutral sound is defined by flat frequency response for speakers, and the headphone target curve frequency response for headphones. No weighting is involved, that is only interesting for noise level measurements.

 

what? your reasoning is all backward,  headphones remove room acoustics, that's all, they are not designed to cater for auditory processing even though by their nature they have a different effect on it.

 

http://www.musicradar.com/news/tech/monitors-vs-headphones-which-is-best-for-mixing-574584/

 

 

How do you find the time to listen to them? I've owned like 4 headphones at a time in the past and found that I only really listened to 2 of them so I sold the rest. 

 

I rotate through them depending on the music I am listening to  and the mood I am in (I may only use one set once a month or even twice a year),  I could not settle for one set of headphones no matter how good they are, I need different characteristics for different situations.