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Your generalisation is unfair. Most Audiophiles just want to listen to music the way the artists intended. This is not easy in a industry where colouring the so

Your generalisation is unfair. Most Audiophiles just want to listen to music the way the artists intended. This is not easy in a industry where colouring the sound is even celebrated, e.g. 'Beats by Dre'. I recently tried the latest noise cancelling headphones by Sony (1000XM3). The noise cancelling was excellent, but the bass was +5db overblown, boomy and drowned out most of the mids, the treble was dark to hide the NC hiss. It was unlistenable for jazz and classical without EQ. But the mainstream tech press think they are wonderful, even "WhatHifi" gave them 5 stars. An Audiophile is simply someone that cares about sound quality, most people don't.

dharma1 8y ago
As far a noise sound quality for cancelling wireless closed headphones go, the Sony's are the best along with Sennheiser Momentum 2.0 on-ear. There are of course much better headphones, and I wouldn't call them audiophile headphones, but I haven't found other wireless ones that do noise-cancelling and isolation as well and still manage to sound acceptable.
- smnscu 8y ago
  I swear by B&W PX. I prefer them to the more expensive B&O H9i, which are also not bad at all.
- randomfinn 8y ago
  If in-ear headphones work for you, you can find both very good isolation and excellent sound quality. I like my Shure SE530's for some peace and quiet on airplanes, and often find myself just enjoying the sound of them (or rather the original recording).
chadcmulligan 8y ago
Yes the noise surrounding headphones is incredible (pun not intended), even stranger I find the denigration of 'studio monitor' quality very odd. Recently I bought a nice pair of headphones, naturally enough I wanted the ones that colour the music the least, went looking in the headphone section at the nearest consumer electronic shop for the ones that were on their web site and couldn't find them. There were stands of beats, and Sony etc at crazy prices. I asked the guy where they were and they were poked away in the corner in a different section. I laughed - the best headphones that were cheap were hidden away and all the overpriced plastic nonsense were displayed prominently.
- seanp2k2 8y ago
  Right; and there are real studio monitors, like https://meyersound.com/product/hd-1/ https://meyersound.com/product/hd-1/ (popular for film) and the Yamaha NS10 https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/yamaha-ns10-story https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/yamaha-ns10-story , popular because it's so bad that if it sounds right on the NS10s, it'll sound right on anything. You don't always want a near-field critical listening device, and most studio headphones must be durable first, leak as little sound as possible second, be cheap third, and sound amazing fourth. Watch some videos of {your favorite artist} recording and look at what they use: it's probably something like a Beyerdynamic DT880 Pro (~$200), Sennheiser HD 280 ($100), or Sony MDR7506 (~$75). Professional musicians on-stage will use something like a Sennheiser ew 300 personal monitor system with custom in-ear monitors (JH, Westone, Sensaphonics, or something cheaper and universal-fit like Senn IE 40 Pro or Shure SE series). Aside from DJs getting paid to wear them at shows, most professional musicians aren't using gear from big-box retailers...they're using stuff from Guitar Center / Sweetwater / zZounds / Musicians Friend / that little music shop around the corner, who sell actual professional equipment.
- toomanybeersies 8y ago
  Well of course, you went to a consumer electronic store. The kit they sell there isn't really meant to be for "professionals". It's the same for everything they sell at those shops. They are there to upsell shiny shit to people who don't know what they want. Try finding a decent laptop for a decent price at one of those stores.
  - chadcmulligan 8y ago
    It wasn't so much that, sure, a consumer electronics shop wouldn't have professional equipment, it was the disconnect between reality and what was being presented as the best. I've been a bit of an audio enthusiast for about 30 years and back then the expensive stuff was definitely better (mostly). Now its the opposite, the more expensive the stuff is, the worse it is and the dialog surrounding it has become cargo cult mumbo jumbo. I find it disturbing. In general for laptops performance/cost is still vaguely linear, even in consumer shops, with audio its just a lot of noise even from supposedly professional shops.
mbell 8y ago
> Your generalisation is unfair. Most Audiophiles just want to listen to music the way the artists intended. That is not my experience at all. Audio gear that is 'flat', in that it outputs as close a representation to the recording as possible is largely shunned in audiophile circles. They mostly want to listen to something that 'sounds good', with all the psychoacoustic baggage that comes with such a statement. As an example if the end goal is accurate reproduction then a tube amp is objectively worse than almost any other amp built in the last 30 years, yet they sell!
- seanp2k2 8y ago
  >audiophile circles >They mostly want to listen to something that 'sounds good', with all the psychoacoustic baggage that comes with such a statement TL;DR the technology is so good and so cheap now that what you get from a $150 set-up today rivals stuff costing much more from a decade ago. I still recommend spending 90+% of your budget over a few hundred dollars on better actual reproduction equipment, be it speakers or headphones. Not in my audiophile circle (which is mostly head-fi). There are all different price points, and different goals within those. Most reviews I've read in the past decade talk about if the headphones / IEMs are more targeting accuracy or a "fun" sound, but most of the reviews I've ever read on head-fi are very concerned with accuracy and true-to-recording representation. FWIW I'm very much not alone in my interest in things like super low distortion class D, solid-state headphone amps with digital volume control (so you don't introduce a potentiometer / stepped attenuator / LDR into the signal path), ear measuring mics (e.g. https://www.minidsp.com/products/acoustic-measurement/ears-headphone-jig https://www.minidsp.com/products/acoustic-measurement/ears-h... ), digital parametric EQs to adjust for not-perfect frequency response, room correction, etc. The technology in modern decent (decent = what most people would call "high-end", but I'm talking few-hundred-dollar Class D for amps and something along the lines of a properly-engineered ESS 9018-based DAC, maybe $100-200, OR a ~$200-300 headphone DAC+AMP combo, think Oppo HA2-SE level) equipment is so good IMO that headphones / speakers / IEMs make a MUCH MUCH bigger difference than jumping to equipment 10x the cost at the DAC or amp level does. $200 headphones are not bad, but $1000 headphones are damn amazing comparatively. I've owned a dozen pairs of IEMs, and while my gaming 'phones are Shure SE215s, they're not in the same league as my Westone ES60s. Even with that said, most people who have never owned any serious music gear would likely be blown away by just how good the SE215s are, coming out of something like a Fiio K1 or a smartphone / laptop / desktop with a decent DAC+AMP. Tube amps are still fun to play with, but maybe aside from some 300B snobs, I don't think many people really believe that they're more accurate than modern solid state. Some people also still like vinyl, and will happily spend $10k+ on a record player. There are also the high-sampling-frequency crowd and the high-bitrate geeks. It's fun to think about, but I personally can't hear a difference between 192kHz/24bit and Spotify "high quality" 44.1/16 with an RME ADI-2 Pro and HD 800S headphones or the ES60s (both balanced, which does sound slightly better to me in both cases). I actually showed up to a headphone meet in Tokyo and pulled out Spotify to demo some flagship IEMs with, and the guy was trying to explain to me how that was like ~eating caviar on a donut.
stinos 8y ago
The noise cancelling was excellent, but the bass was +5db overblown, boomy and drowned out most of the mids, the treble was dark to hide the NC hiss Had pretty much the exact same experience with some noise-cancelling in-ear pair of Bose. I was actually amazed at how good the noise cancelling was, but sound reproduction even in absence of any outside noise was very sub-par. Now I can't imagine the engineers didn't measure this thing, so I'm assuming it was done on purpose, maybe aimed for pop music or so?
- willtim 8y ago
  Yes I'm sure it was done on purpose, just like over-saturated colours on TVs and cameras.

dharma1 8y ago

As far a noise sound quality for cancelling wireless closed headphones go, the Sony's are the best along with Sennheiser Momentum 2.0 on-ear. There are of course much better headphones, and I wouldn't call them audiophile headphones, but I haven't found other wireless ones that do noise-cancelling and isolation as well and still manage to sound acceptable.

smnscu 8y ago
I swear by B&W PX. I prefer them to the more expensive B&O H9i, which are also not bad at all.
randomfinn 8y ago
If in-ear headphones work for you, you can find both very good isolation and excellent sound quality. I like my Shure SE530's for some peace and quiet on airplanes, and often find myself just enjoying the sound of them (or rather the original recording).

chadcmulligan 8y ago

Yes the noise surrounding headphones is incredible (pun not intended), even stranger I find the denigration of 'studio monitor' quality very odd. Recently I bought a nice pair of headphones, naturally enough I wanted the ones that colour the music the least, went looking in the headphone section at the nearest consumer electronic shop for the ones that were on their web site and couldn't find them. There were stands of beats, and Sony etc at crazy prices. I asked the guy where they were and they were poked away in the corner in a different section. I laughed - the best headphones that were cheap were hidden away and all the overpriced plastic nonsense were displayed prominently.

seanp2k2 8y ago
Right; and there are real studio monitors, like https://meyersound.com/product/hd-1/ https://meyersound.com/product/hd-1/ (popular for film) and the Yamaha NS10 https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/yamaha-ns10-story https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/yamaha-ns10-story , popular because it's so bad that if it sounds right on the NS10s, it'll sound right on anything. You don't always want a near-field critical listening device, and most studio headphones must be durable first, leak as little sound as possible second, be cheap third, and sound amazing fourth. Watch some videos of {your favorite artist} recording and look at what they use: it's probably something like a Beyerdynamic DT880 Pro (~$200), Sennheiser HD 280 ($100), or Sony MDR7506 (~$75). Professional musicians on-stage will use something like a Sennheiser ew 300 personal monitor system with custom in-ear monitors (JH, Westone, Sensaphonics, or something cheaper and universal-fit like Senn IE 40 Pro or Shure SE series). Aside from DJs getting paid to wear them at shows, most professional musicians aren't using gear from big-box retailers...they're using stuff from Guitar Center / Sweetwater / zZounds / Musicians Friend / that little music shop around the corner, who sell actual professional equipment.
toomanybeersies 8y ago
Well of course, you went to a consumer electronic store. The kit they sell there isn't really meant to be for "professionals". It's the same for everything they sell at those shops. They are there to upsell shiny shit to people who don't know what they want. Try finding a decent laptop for a decent price at one of those stores.
- chadcmulligan 8y ago
  It wasn't so much that, sure, a consumer electronics shop wouldn't have professional equipment, it was the disconnect between reality and what was being presented as the best. I've been a bit of an audio enthusiast for about 30 years and back then the expensive stuff was definitely better (mostly). Now its the opposite, the more expensive the stuff is, the worse it is and the dialog surrounding it has become cargo cult mumbo jumbo. I find it disturbing. In general for laptops performance/cost is still vaguely linear, even in consumer shops, with audio its just a lot of noise even from supposedly professional shops.

mbell 8y ago

> Your generalisation is unfair. Most Audiophiles just want to listen to music the way the artists intended. That is not my experience at all. Audio gear that is 'flat', in that it outputs as close a representation to the recording as possible is largely shunned in audiophile circles. They mostly want to listen to something that 'sounds good', with all the psychoacoustic baggage that comes with such a statement. As an example if the end goal is accurate reproduction then a tube amp is objectively worse than almost any other amp built in the last 30 years, yet they sell!

seanp2k2 8y ago
>audiophile circles >They mostly want to listen to something that 'sounds good', with all the psychoacoustic baggage that comes with such a statement TL;DR the technology is so good and so cheap now that what you get from a $150 set-up today rivals stuff costing much more from a decade ago. I still recommend spending 90+% of your budget over a few hundred dollars on better actual reproduction equipment, be it speakers or headphones. Not in my audiophile circle (which is mostly head-fi). There are all different price points, and different goals within those. Most reviews I've read in the past decade talk about if the headphones / IEMs are more targeting accuracy or a "fun" sound, but most of the reviews I've ever read on head-fi are very concerned with accuracy and true-to-recording representation. FWIW I'm very much not alone in my interest in things like super low distortion class D, solid-state headphone amps with digital volume control (so you don't introduce a potentiometer / stepped attenuator / LDR into the signal path), ear measuring mics (e.g. https://www.minidsp.com/products/acoustic-measurement/ears-headphone-jig https://www.minidsp.com/products/acoustic-measurement/ears-h... ), digital parametric EQs to adjust for not-perfect frequency response, room correction, etc. The technology in modern decent (decent = what most people would call "high-end", but I'm talking few-hundred-dollar Class D for amps and something along the lines of a properly-engineered ESS 9018-based DAC, maybe $100-200, OR a ~$200-300 headphone DAC+AMP combo, think Oppo HA2-SE level) equipment is so good IMO that headphones / speakers / IEMs make a MUCH MUCH bigger difference than jumping to equipment 10x the cost at the DAC or amp level does. $200 headphones are not bad, but $1000 headphones are damn amazing comparatively. I've owned a dozen pairs of IEMs, and while my gaming 'phones are Shure SE215s, they're not in the same league as my Westone ES60s. Even with that said, most people who have never owned any serious music gear would likely be blown away by just how good the SE215s are, coming out of something like a Fiio K1 or a smartphone / laptop / desktop with a decent DAC+AMP. Tube amps are still fun to play with, but maybe aside from some 300B snobs, I don't think many people really believe that they're more accurate than modern solid state. Some people also still like vinyl, and will happily spend $10k+ on a record player. There are also the high-sampling-frequency crowd and the high-bitrate geeks. It's fun to think about, but I personally can't hear a difference between 192kHz/24bit and Spotify "high quality" 44.1/16 with an RME ADI-2 Pro and HD 800S headphones or the ES60s (both balanced, which does sound slightly better to me in both cases). I actually showed up to a headphone meet in Tokyo and pulled out Spotify to demo some flagship IEMs with, and the guy was trying to explain to me how that was like ~eating caviar on a donut.

stinos 8y ago

The noise cancelling was excellent, but the bass was +5db overblown, boomy and drowned out most of the mids, the treble was dark to hide the NC hiss Had pretty much the exact same experience with some noise-cancelling in-ear pair of Bose. I was actually amazed at how good the noise cancelling was, but sound reproduction even in absence of any outside noise was very sub-par. Now I can't imagine the engineers didn't measure this thing, so I'm assuming it was done on purpose, maybe aimed for pop music or so?

willtim 8y ago
Yes I'm sure it was done on purpose, just like over-saturated colours on TVs and cameras.