Headphones and recording quality

[Rockmeister]

Just a general thought thread. Just purchased a pair of Shure SRH1540's for the proper HiFi stuff. By 'eck I'd forgotten how in some ways, phones outclass speakers.
I find them almost too revealing of recording quality tho. Simple stuff is exemplary and well recorded simple stuff, astonishingly emotional (Mary Gauthier's 'Fish Swim' for example) but faced with even the best classical recordings, it's easy to hear the recording failing to pull apart full orchestral crescendos, so that a mass of voices and violins for example get a bit mushed up. After consideration, it doesn't surprise me, but speakers (unless you own 100g's worth of something maybe) don't reveal as much anyway so your not expecting it as it were.
Other weirdnesses.
Do all phones image just toward the back of your head? It sounds like front row, but sitting looking away from the stage! weird.
My ears get hot.
No real soundstage to speak of.
Voiced to sound best on a portable player I suspect. I find that, on the HiFi I need to roll off the bass a tad (tiny tad) but plugged into my iPhone they are perfect for those files.
That's it.
Otherwise they are fantastic...best I've heard bar electrostatics, but I'm no expert.

 

[SteveS1]

I have owned a pair and thought they were excellent, even straight out of a portable with decent source files. About as good as closed-backs get without a mortgage.

 

[Rockmeister]

no body find them too revealing of orchestral recording weaknesses?

 

[Arkless Electronics]

I use headphones for AV but I can't be doing with them for music. It has to be speakers for me, no matter how good the headphones.

 

[alanbeeb]

I use headphones a lot for big orchestral.... don't hear the problems described here. I don't think it necessary to spend squillions on headphone amps, you can get good results from headphone sockets on integrated amps and CD players (the one on my Sony 5400ES seems to do very well with a lot of headphones).... but what are you driving those Shure 1540s from?

 

[Thetiminator]

Image size can be more down to the amp than the phones often. Usually the better the amp the bigger/better the soundstage.

Headphones image in different ways for sure. My 800S’s have a huge soundstage that extends outside of your noggin, where my Utopias place the stage more to the centre and front....

 

[Arkless Electronics]

I use headphones a lot for big orchestral.... don't hear the problems described here. I don't think it necessary to spend squillions on headphone amps, you can get good results from headphone sockets on integrated amps and CD players (the one on my Sony 5400ES seems to do very well with a lot of headphones).... but what are you driving those Shure 1540s from?

With my Sennheiser HD580 cans I found no appreciable difference between the socket on my PC, laptop, CD player or a class A headphone amp I built. They are so easy to drive the amp seems to make little difference, which is certainly at odds with all the hype about headphone amps etc found on some sites.

 

[Mike Reed]

Headphones image in different ways for sure. My 800S’s have a huge soundstage that extends outside of your noggin, where my Utopias place the stage more to the centre and front....

Rather fond of soundstaging, and find my Senn. 650s okay through my Myriad can-amp. I do wonder what the 800s bring to he party (except a leaner, brighter balance ?). The amplifier makes an enormous difference, having gone from Naim Headline powered by 552 to the stand-alone Myriad with the same cans; vast improvement !

 

[Arkless Electronics]

Rather fond of soundstaging, and find my Senn. 650s okay through my Myriad can-amp. I do wonder what the 800s bring to he party (except a leaner, brighter balance ?). The amplifier makes an enormous difference, having gone from Naim Headline powered by 552 to the stand-alone Myriad with the same cans; vast improvement !

We have diametrically opposite findings there then. My HD580's are very similar to your HD650's and as I say I find any and all differences between amps so small as to not be worth worrying about.

 

[ToTo Man]

One of the biggest factors affecting the performance of headphones through a particular amplifier is the amplifier's output impedance. The lower the output impedance the cleaner and grippier the sound is in my experience. The higher the headphones' impedance the less it is affected by the amp's output impedance, but it can still be audible. I tested Focal Utopia (80 ohms) through the onboard headphone jacks of a couple of vintage hifi amps and the resulting presentation was very loose and muddy with overhanging bass. My Sennheiser HD600 (300 ohms) were much less adversely affected, but I still prefer the cleaner presentations afforded by amps with low output impedances. Having said that, I'm not ashamed to admit to often driving my HD600 and HD800S directly from lowly iPod Touch and MacBook laptop and being satisfied with the results!

 

[Mike Reed]

We have diametrically opposite findings there then. My HD580's are very similar to your HD650's and as I say I find any and all differences between amps so small as to not be worth worrying about.

Between selling the Headline etc. and buying the Myriad, I pressed my venerable Cyrus One into service for a few months, and that was very different again (if a pain to use). I'm not sure how different impedances (the Senn's are high-ish) affect the result, but when narrowing down my choices,just by reading copious personal reviews of (my selected) 3 can-amp's, incl. a valved one, indicated that synergy with different cans was all over the place. Some can-amp's have a fixed impedance, others can be adjusted and yet others (Beyer and their ilk) are designed to go well with a wide range.

 

[Matty297]

I do most of my listening with headphones as I work shifts and also have a toddler running around the house! I have been using a set of Beyer DT150s and a Millett Butte Amp as the HD650s and Bottlehead Crack have been put away so the little one doesn’t break them but the wife and child are a way for a few days so the HD650s came out of the box and with the Butte they are very good but with the Crack they are a totally different experience. I’m sat in the front row of a live but intimate venue.
I would disagree that all amps are a much of a muchness. Even valve rolling makes changes that are far from subtle.

 

[Arkless Electronics]

Well I didn't expect anyone to agree with me as there are forums for headphones which feature long debates on the "huge differences" between headphone amps... I even tried virtual A/B comparison between the phones output on the CD player and the same CD player through a class A headphone amp of the finest quality (one of mine) and although there were audible differences I thought them very slight...
Obviously if using can amps designed to erm... shall we say "add their colour to the mix", valve ones etc, then differences will be much more obvious.

 

[Rockmeister]

I find amp make a difference, but headphone stages , if well designed, can be very close to each other.
I'm straight into the Luxman's (L505uX) own head amp and it seems FINE.

I use headphones a lot for big orchestral.... don't hear the problems described here. I don't think it necessary to spend squillions on headphone amps, you can get good results from headphone sockets on integrated amps and CD players (the one on my Sony 5400ES seems to do very well with a lot of headphones).... but what are you driving those Shure 1540s from?

There's no problem with the source...it's just that good cans are SO revealing that super complex mixes can now be heard to sound not super complex. I mean can one (or five) mics, trying to hang on to a 50 piece orchestra and large choir, have a chance of ever hearing everything that's going on?

 

[Hipper]

Your ears getting hot is a comfort issue. Perhaps you should try other headphones for this. It's clearly important to get the comfort right.

I have HD800 - yes expensive - and they are the most comfortable headphones I've ever used. They don't crush my head and the ear pieces are bigger then average so don't flatten my ears. Of course they sound rather good too.

I have never heard a sound stage from headphones outside my head - maybe that's just me. It can move a little forward or backwards depending on the headphones position on my head.

Until recently, headphones have always been superior to speakers for me as far as detail and clarity is concerned. I found nice rhythmic bits of percussion which, whilst coming from the speakers never reached my ears. However with very careful attention to positioning and also room treatment, I've got the closest I've ever been to headphones on my speakers, if not actually there.

I can't really comment on orchestral because I play mellow stuff and it sounds mostly good to me.

 

[djftw]

I use headphones for AV but I can't be doing with them for music. It has to be speakers for me, no matter how good the headphones.

I found I could not get along with conventional headphones when I had no option but to use headphones. Ended up with Stax Earspeakers, which I found hugely better, but they quickly started to gather dust once I could use speakers again!

 

[alanbeeb]

I find amp make a difference, but headphone stages , if well designed, can be very close to each other.
I'm straight into the Luxman's (L505uX) own head amp and it seems FINE.

There's no problem with the source...it's just that good cans are SO revealing that super complex mixes can now be heard to sound not super complex. I mean can one (or five) mics, trying to hang on to a 50 piece orchestra and large choir, have a chance of ever hearing everything that's going on?

Think it might just be your expectations then... Obviously it's a lot more difficult to capture the sound of 150 acoustic musicians in a large space designed for public performance vs. 5 amplified musicians in a purpose built studio. But not all recordings and not all recording engineers are as good as each other.

 

[pianoman]

Just a general thought thread. Just purchased a pair of Shure SRH1540's for the proper HiFi stuff. By 'eck I'd forgotten how in some ways, phones outclass speakers.
I find them almost too revealing of recording quality tho. Simple stuff is exemplary and well recorded simple stuff, astonishingly emotional (Mary Gauthier's 'Fish Swim' for example) but faced with even the best classical recordings, it's easy to hear the recording failing to pull apart full orchestral crescendos, so that a mass of voices and violins for example get a bit mushed up. After consideration, it doesn't surprise me, but speakers (unless you own 100g's worth of something maybe) don't reveal as much anyway so your not expecting it as it were.
Other weirdnesses.
Do all phones image just toward the back of your head? It sounds like front row, but sitting looking away from the stage! weird.
My ears get hot.
No real soundstage to speak of.
Voiced to sound best on a portable player I suspect. I find that, on the HiFi I need to roll off the bass a tad (tiny tad) but plugged into my iPhone they are perfect for those files.
That's it.
Otherwise they are fantastic...best I've heard bar electrostatics, but I'm no expert.

Did you go purely on reviews or did you have a chance to try them out ? I only ask as I'm doing a lot of can listening at the moment so might push the boat out for a more expensive pair, if I can justify it...

 

[Rockmeister]

Oddly Pianoman, I never heard them. I had heard the competition (or my vague ideas on that) from Beyer, AKG, and Sennheiser and anyway already had owned older Senns and Beyers so had some idea of the sound. I bought them on ebay too, so! NOT my normal policy but I'd read such good things about them. Currently available around £370 they turned out (thankfully) to be the best of all I'd heard.

 

[pianoman]

OK thanks - they do tick a lot of boxes on paper at least, so I might take a punt !