Criteria for choosing headphones

[Steve1000]

Actually he designed and described how to build VERY low-cost passive EQ devices to get the EX71 and the ER-4S up to reference quality. Pretty interesting, I think.

http://www.linkwitzlab.com/reference_earphones.htm

I don't even care if he designed the space shuttle too, but his headphone recommendation stinks

The most impressive thing is that he can take three vastly different sounding earphones, and recommend all three as being reference quality.

 

[warpdrive]

You caught me before my edit, so I will repost it here:

I wouldn't be so bitter about it if I didn't already waste $100 on Shure E2's based on reading that "audio expert's recommendation".

 

[warpdrive]

I might as well post this too

There is still not a complete understanding about what makes headphones sound good to our ears, some of the best headphone manufacturers in the world, AKG, Sennheiser, Beyerdynamic understand that a headphone that measures perfectly flat do not sound good with music. Manufacturers design headphones design using modified target curves which are far from linear in any way. For example, in designing the Sennheiser HD650, the engineers found that EQ'ing the headphone in the design was necessary for most enjoyable sound, adding bumps and notches in the frequency response as necessary to ensure the sound is pleasing based on widely varying ear shapes.

This is where experience comes in. Lots of headphone listening with a wide variety of music is going to determine which headphone is most enjoyable to you. Because of the wide variety of ear shapes, and your own preferences, you have to be the final judge. You can either read one guys "expert" opinion and buy a "reference quality Shure E2" and be done with it. Or you can trust you own ears. You don't need an expert to tell you what sounds good. Unlike some other people here, I don't have to look at a graph to understand if I should like a product. I listen to recordings. Does that piano sound realistic to me? Years practicing on Piano and listening to them tell me what a Piano sounds like. I've also owned the other "reference monitoring headphone", the Sony MDR V6. Dunlavy tells me this tonally accurate headphone you can trust to monitor sound. Why don't I like it then? What is useful as a monitoring tool does not mean it's enjoyable for music listening. Tonally accurate doesn't mean it's perfect as there are aspects of its sound quality that are surpassed by other headphones IMO. This is also the reason why I say the E2 is doo-doo, it might even be a good tonal reference for monitoring, but it sounds like doo-doo in a lot of other aspects. Shure couldn't pay me enough to use these to listen to my music. I'll take my flawed UnEQ'ed ER4S thank you.

Anyways, I know you SteveNNNN and WmAx are joined at the hip anyway, and I really don't have the energy to continue refuting your posts together. Have a nice one.

For the original poster..... I hope you find what you are looking for. Good luck. If you have any more questions, contact me using Private Messaging.

 

[WmAx]

I don't have a need to respond concerning the MDR-EX71, as Steve1000 already did this for me.

I might as well post this too

There is still not a complete understanding about what makes headphones sound good to our ears,

Actually, in a control situation[same music, same levels, some conditions], the overwhelming majority of listeners[those with hearing impairments make the majority of the minority that due not conform with this] will tend to prefer a specific sound, as shown in perceptual research. This has been shown to be true for speakers[1]. The preference of sound of headphones is no mystery, and has been extensively studied and quantified. A preference among users of headphones, in control situations[as with speakers], [2]shows similar trends as with the speaker studies.

some of the best headphone manufacturers in the world, AKG, Sennheiser, Beyerdynamic understand that a headphone that measures perfectly flat do not sound good with music.

Interestingly, if a headphone was to be heard as 'flat' [in a proper comparison], it would not have a flat response due to well known and understood physical reasons, including (1) the headphone must induce a high frequency gradual roll-off to simulate the natural roll-off that occurs with objects in front of you due to head shape and ear canal angle in reference to such (2) bass is tactile with speakers and real events, with this tactile sensation missing, a headphone needs to add some bass audibly to compensate (3) headphones can vary in sound depending on the person wearing them due to physiology of the ear and how the headphone interacts with the acoustics of such, but this is phenomenon is known and understood[2], and products do exist that have little variation regardless of individual physiology, and it is understood how to make headphones with little variation regardless of physiology.

So why is the variety of speakers and headphones so high in number and preference? I believe it is important to consider that in real life, controls are not present, as were in the tests above. Music can[and does] have significant deviations of tonal balance depending on the preference of the sound engineer. There are NO standards in musical album production, after all. Also, some people just like different sounds, I believe. So of course no one headphone[or speaker] could possibly satisfy everyone. Warpdrive did point out [correctly] that an accurate monitor is not necessarily desired for musical enjoyment. I tend to agree, and I actually despise very accurate monitors[speakers or headphones] for strictly musical enjoyment purposes.

I've also owned the other "reference monitoring headphone", the Sony MDR V6. Dunlavy tells me this tonally accurate headphone you can trust to monitor sound. Why don't I like it then? What is useful as a monitoring tool does not mean it's enjoyable for music listening.

True. I have reproduced the same experiment presented by [3]Dunlavy, and found the results to be as he claimed. But I do not care for this headphone, personally, for music enjoyment purposes.

-Chris

[1]Loudspeaker Measurements and Their Relationship to Listener Preferences: Part 2
Floyd E. Toole
JAES, May, 1986, Vol. 34, pages 227-235

[2]On the Standardization of the Frequency Response of High-Quality Studio Headphones
Theile, Gunther
JAES, Vol. 34, No. 12, December, 1986, Pages 956-969

[3] John Dunlavy, MDR-7506 listening test(s) for monitoring accuracy
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=Dunlavy+Audio+Labs+7506&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&selm=6mts8f$507@jamesv.warren.mentorg.com&rnum=4