Why I like headphones

hibuckhobby · « **on:** 21 Mar 2012, 11:38 pm »

After having been in audio for almost 40 years, I've just gotten a bit more seriously into headphone in the last 3-4 months and it's been a riot! I spent a couple hours listening again today and decided to share my experiences and comment as to why I like headphones so much.

1. Great cost/performance ratio. I bought a used set of Sennheiser HD650's for $200 (a smokin' deal) and several used headphone amps from antique sound labs and headroom. While not the latest flavor of the month on head-fi, I bought (for example) a headroom micro stack with individual power supplies in mint condition for $230 total. Plenty of drive for any phone I've tried and since it has the desktop option, biased well into Class A. If I need lush...I have the ASL with nos tubes.

2. Having mild tinnitus and the associated HF loss that tends to come with my age (65) I found that I was not hearing as much detail as I used to and when I turn either of my home systems way up...they can shout at you...and it's good stuff...accumulated over the years. Audio Research..etc. At very reasonable listening levels, I'm hearing things I've never heard on some recordings. Case in point...Susan Tedeschi's "Just won't burn" album. You can easily recognizde the difference when she's using a fuzztone and when she's overdriving the tubes in the front end of her amp.

3. No room treatments required.

4. I can listen to music while my wife reads/watches television without having to be in different parts of the house. (yes...to me that is a plus)

5. I can listen to things I'm thinking about at local gatherings instead of trying to find a dealer and facing a sales pitch.

I'm not selling my other stuff anytime soon, but upon retirement, I can see myself looking into either some Hifiman He500's or Audeze LCD-2's. I'd have to spend a lot of money on home hi fi to equal the sound. Yes, the soundstage is smaller, but the tonality and detail without etch make up for that.

regards,

ajzepp · « **Reply #1 on:** 21 Mar 2012, 11:55 pm »

Good reading about your experience/plans! I'm happy to say I'm following in your footsteps and loving it

I've made a few additional tweaks/additions over the past week or two, and I'm really shocked at the sound I'm getting from this modest headphone rig right now. I will always love my Maggies, but most of my music listening has been on headphones over the last couple of months. The Maggies aren't collecting dust, though, as I'm a Maggie HT addict

This is the most fun I've had in audio in a long time, though...maybe ever

milford3 · « **Reply #2 on:** 22 Mar 2012, 12:46 am »

Zepp, I feel the same whey you do. I tell my girl friend to go to bed so I can enjoy my Schiit amp and Beyers. March Madness with the Byers is amazing.

eclein · « **Reply #3 on:** 22 Mar 2012, 01:06 am »

I think its a fantastic way to listen, the first time I heard my Hifiman HE-5LE's the clarity and dynamics they offered was astonishing and it wasn't even considered top of the line stuff....then I heard really good IEM's when I traded a guy at head-fi a pair of Coccobola Grado shells for Ultimate Ears UE700's....these were even further back down the IEM ladder then the HE's and I felt like I was standing in the middle of the bandstand like a ghost.

And all that fun was very cost effective...LOL...then I tried the little Fiio amp, the E5. That $25ish dollar outlay stopped me dead in my hifi tracks and started me into exploring everything I could in the portables area. The month long Hospital stay convinced me good headphones and portables can be....that was when I was going insane with Grado mods and started talking to people all around the world via head-fi that wanted to tweak the Grado's they had.

In an age it seems like when people do anything they can to make one another miserable I have corresponded with hundreds of folks all around the world with one common goal in mind to make listening to music better anyway they could and to help others do the same thing! I laugh more now then I used to.......lol....

ajzepp · « **Reply #4 on:** 22 Mar 2012, 01:59 am »

Quote from: milford3 on 22 Mar 2012, 12:46 am

Zepp, I feel the same whey you do. I tell my girl friend to go to bed so I can enjoy my Schiit amp and Beyers. March Madness with the Byers is amazing.

Heck yeah, TV and/or Movie listening is great with headphones...when my lady friend hits the sack or needs to study, I just use my Grado extension cable, plug 'em into the Onkyo receiver she has at her place, and I'm good to go

I haven't tried 'em yet with March Madness, but definitely will...sports and headphones go hand in hand

And I love your set-up, Milford...it not only sounds great, but has an aesthetic appeal!

dB Cooper · « **Reply #5 on:** 22 Mar 2012, 02:17 am »

I think hibuckhobby nailed a lot of the 'pluses' of headphone listening- cost/SQ ratio being a biggie. For a relatively modest amount, I can approach the definition and transparency of speakers I will probably never be able to afford. (Champagne taste, beer budget...) They will sound the same wherever I listen to them. No discovering that I need to move two 170lb behemoths an inch apiece to 'dial in' the imaging (which will itself vary according to where I happen to be sitting.)

The big drawback is the "straight-line-between-your-ears" stereo image. That is the reason crossfeed was developed. I use (in my computer based system) something called Canz3D, which does the same thing in the digital domain and gives MUCH "finer grained" control, essentially allowing you to create a virtual room with the acoustics you want and the "speaker" and listener locations you specify. It isn't perfect- what is- but it substantially reduces listening fatigue. It is available as a VST or Audio Unit plugin (requires a suitable host app) and costs a whopping $15 last time I looked. There is also Dolby Headphone which also sounds good but lacks any customizability (again, last time I looked.)

Canz3D is Mac-only but Dolby Headphone is an option for Windoze. Try whatever you use first if possible- I have heard some "spatial DSP" which was dreadful. The two mentioned help- to me- YMMV. I use Audio Hijack Pro which supports VST and AudioUnit plugins, can 'tap' any audio on my computer and has a 'wet/dry' slider which allows me to further 'dial-in' the effect. There are some Ogg Vorbis demo samples near the bottom of the Canz3D web site: http://www.midnightwalrus.com/Canz3D/

Tyson · « **Reply #6 on:** 22 Mar 2012, 03:24 am »

Movies and TV shows (if well done) are especially amazing on a good headphone setup.

milford3 · « **Reply #7 on:** 22 Mar 2012, 03:41 am »

Oh boy I conur. Listening to Therion on the Beryer DT 990 600 Ohm. My God!

hibuckhobby · « **Reply #8 on:** 22 Mar 2012, 03:41 pm »

Listening at work today with a pair of Fischer Audio FA-011's and a Headroom total airhead. Using my MacBook Pro running Songbird as a source. Plenty of space and impact!
Hibuck....

soundbitten1 · « **Reply #9 on:** 22 Mar 2012, 06:31 pm »

The Shure SRH840s just arrived today ... breaking them at the moment ... they sound pretty decent right out of the box. I decided to get a pair of closed cans so I wouldn't disturb my wife during late night listening. My other pair are the Grados SR60s ... love the sound but they leak.

Noseyears · « **Reply #10 on:** 22 Mar 2012, 09:54 pm »

Headphones are a more intimate way to enjoy music, or take the music with you without losing quality. That's the main reasons i love headphones!

@soundbitten1: try the grado magnums sometime.

milford3 · « **Reply #11 on:** 23 Mar 2012, 01:42 am »

Syracuse Orange does it again. Listening to the game is outstanding with cans. Every refs call, bounce of the ball, cheerleaders. God I love it.

sharpsuxx · « **Reply #12 on:** 23 Mar 2012, 02:42 am »

It is also nice to be able to take your hobby to work. I have my Fostex T50-RPs for work listening with FLAC files off of an Android with Poweramp. I will probably be buying a new can amp soon to really kick it up a few notches. I saw the Fiio E5 any good feedback on this guy, I haven't read anything bad. Does anybody have any good recomendations for a cheap portable headphone amp?

Chromisdesigns · « **Reply #13 on:** 23 Mar 2012, 04:23 am »

Quote from: sharpsuxx on 23 Mar 2012, 02:42 am

It is also nice to be able to take your hobby to work. I have my Fostex T50-RPs for work listening with FLAC files off of an Android with Poweramp. I will probably be buying a new can amp soon to really kick it up a few notches. I saw the Fiio E5 any good feedback on this guy, I haven't read anything bad. Does anybody have any good recomendations for a cheap portable headphone amp?

I've got an E5 that I occasionally use when traveling with my Sennheiser HD600 and iPod Nano 5G. The Nano is pretty thin by itself driving the hi-impedance HD600's; The Fiio helps (some) and makes it possible, but if I were doing it again I'd get something with more gain.

The Fiio is extremely portable (I velcro'd mine to the back of the Nano), which is very nice as the whole thing goes in a shirt pocket. For use at work, though, where portablility isn't a huge crieteria, I would get a different amp, maybe one of the small tube head-amps.

Or you could try one of the various Altoids can amps, which should drive hi-z phones better than the Fiio.

ajzepp · « **Reply #14 on:** 24 Mar 2012, 08:10 pm »

Here's another reason why I like headphones...they look awesome!!

hibuckhobby · « **Reply #15 on:** 24 Mar 2012, 09:08 pm »

Very nice!

ajzepp · « **Reply #16 on:** 24 Mar 2012, 09:22 pm »

Thanks

T1s came in today on my way to work...can't wait to fire them up!

hibuckhobby · « **Reply #17 on:** 26 Mar 2012, 01:38 am »

Break them in and give us a full report.
best,

ajzepp · « **Reply #18 on:** 26 Mar 2012, 02:03 am »

Quote from: hibuckhobby on 26 Mar 2012, 01:38 am

Break them in and give us a full report.
best,

You got it...so far they are exceeding expectations. The low end is ridiculous...I never knew headphones were capable of this sort of bass. Soundstage is good. It's not huge like I've heard reports about the higher end Sennheisers, but on the T1s it feels about right to me. Where the sound stage excels is in 3-dimensionality, if that's a word. I was nervous to pick them up since many people told me they were like "880s on steroids". They have the comfort and build quality of the 880s, but the overall sound signature doesn't remind me that much of the 880s. I ended up liking the Grado 325s more than the 880s, even though they are at the same price point. In the back of my mind I feared I would still prefer the Grados to the T1s, but thankfully the T1 is clearly a better headphone. It's so good that I may not even worry about upgrading to the "uber-Grado", the PS1000s, later in the year as I'd planned. The T1 is allowing me to understand what it means to be a reference headphone.

I also want to give a shout out to Grand Fidelity. I picked up their re-badged Yaqin tube buffer and this thing is a great little piece. You can turn it on and off while the music is playing, and the difference is clear as day. It imparts a little tube goodness on the overall presentation and is one of the great bargains I've come across in audio.

Still having a blast with all this stuff...

milford3 · « **Reply #19 on:** 27 Mar 2012, 01:13 am »

Zepp, please let me know how the T1's sound. Break in withstanding.