4 ms·
Of course not! For one thing, as one's earning power increases, one's high frequency hearing deteriorates. So market forces could well be emphasizing features a
by stcredzero 9y ago
Of course not! For one thing, as one's earning power increases, one's high frequency hearing deteriorates. So market forces could well be emphasizing features and capabilities other than frequency response. Fashion, build quality, social signals...these are all very significant factors in something you wear, the practical priorities of audiophiles and enthusiasts notwithstanding. In fact, those are probably stronger factors for that set of people! (Of which, I am a member.)
Headphones also have a serious empiricism issue. You can probably pass off one high end Sennheiser for another in an A/B test. But you couldn't pass off an Audeze for one and have a valid A/B test. Also, you will often read or hear an expert say, if the measurements say something is bad, but it sounds good, or vice versa, then it means we're measuring the wrong things. I'm not saying that the Harman response curve isn't valid. It's just not the whole story.
tl;dr -- Buy the cheapest headphones that you really like, and ignore whatever your coworkers say. ( Hell, there are actually Beats that are good headphones! https://www.innerfidelity.com/content/time-rethink-beats-solo2-excellent https://www.innerfidelity.com/content/time-rethink-beats-sol... )
Things are going to change in significant ways in the future as the price of signal processing, compensation, and active correction drops, however. Combining those with advances in the cheaper manufacturing of better drivers will result in the headphones of 10 years from now making the high end headphones of today seem "meh" and today's typical headphones seem trashy.
- Zenst 9y agoIf only there was a headphone maker that allowed you to upgrade parts (or offered the ability to) and break free of this cycle of obsolescence thru technological steps. More so when the ability to upgrade the processing is offered, or the easy ability to replace the various parts. After all how many of you have had to write of a perfectly good pair of headphones as you dropped them and one of the over-ear connections broke. But currently it is predent to go for something cheaper that works just as well and that way, later on when that price point offers you something better or you break the existing ones. You can spend the same token amount of money and still of spent way less than something with some fancy PR around it. So double win.
- stcredzero 9y agoIf only there was a headphone maker that allowed you to upgrade parts (or offered the ability to) and break free of this cycle of obsolescence thru technological steps. There is already a modular headphone out there: https://aiaiai.dk/headphones/tma-2 https://aiaiai.dk/headphones/tma-2
- PhasmaFelis 9y ago> After all how many of you have had to write of a perfectly good pair of headphones as you dropped them and one of the over-ear connections broke. Just for the record, I had a nice pair of headphones break at a very awkward location, and a packet of Sugru (https://sugru.com/ https://sugru.com/) fixed it up perfectly. I was really impressed.
- mmgutz 9y agoI'm approaching 50. I can't honestly tell the difference in sound quality between Senn HD598SE and HD650 even thought the HD650 is $200 more (actually $500 more if I consider the external DAC and AMP to drive the higher ohms HD650).
- stcredzero 9y agoAlso approaching 50. I'd have bought the HD600 or HD650, but I still have these old Sennheiser HD580s, and they're just as comfortable and sound pretty darn good. As for amp, I still have an almost 20 year old NAD receiver, and the headphone output of that is still the best sounding headphone amp I've ever heard, flat out.
- snvzz 9y agoIf your HD650 is new, I'd suggest using only it for some month or two. Then you'll hear the difference. In my case, what I've got is HD598 vs HD600, and the HD598 do now sound seriously bad to me.