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Something alluded to but not said explicitly is that specs don’t tell you if an audio product is “good.” Very few people can look at a spec sheet for any produc

Something alluded to but not said explicitly is that specs don’t tell you if an audio product is “good.” Very few people can look at a spec sheet for any product and tell you if it’s “good” or “better” than something else. You need to listen to it. Impedance/sensitivity just tell you how well it will play with your system. Stuff like “high impedance == more clarity” is snake oil. I say this as a former pro audio specialist who has read and possibly written a bit of snake oil in their time. Headphone specs are not straight up horseshit like the rest of their product page, but they are next to useless. Take your daily driver and a reference track you know and listen to the cans before you buy them.

lmilcin 7y ago
There is a huge amount of unspecified details. I have recently changed pads on my Beyerdynamic DT990s from cloth to leather. I had to quickly revert back. The sound became very boomy, practically unbearable. I suspect the tight seal provided by leather to be responsible.
nradov 7y ago
Unless you do a blind listening test, most consumers will fool themselves into believing that the more expensive or attractive looking headphones sound "better".
- Waterluvian 7y ago
  Company idea (or maybe Consumer Reports is good enough): Don't hire experts to review products. Do a double blind study with like 100 participants. I pay you $5 to access this years study of 80 different popular/common headphones. But of course do this for all kinds of products that need this kind of review. I would happily pay for a sample of how the population feels about products and how they on average rank them. Let me x/y plot things like rating vs. Price/warranty/whatever Don't ruin your pages with advertising. Be annoyingly clear and repetitive that you only make money from the fee and everything else is done in a way that reduces bias wherever possible. And don't screw up the UX (looking at you, graphics cards and CPU sites stuck in 2003)
  - unlinked_dll 7y ago
    There are market research firms that do things like this, and their studies cost at least 100 times more than that. It's actually pretty lucrative to keep up to date on details like that if you consult for investment bankers on a particular product category/market segment but that can be difficult to break into.
- unlinked_dll 7y ago
  There's nothing wrong with people buying things that they like more than other things for whatever reason. Audio is especially subjective compared to other products, possibly one of the most subjective product categories in consumer electronics. Blind listening tests also aren't a silver bullet for headphones. Fidelity is just one factor in deciding whether the product is right for you, other things like headband quality, general fit, comfort, weight, etc all play into whether or not you'll like it. But the overall point I'm making is that none of this is obvious from looking at a spec sheet, you need to try it yourself, IRL.

lmilcin 7y ago

There is a huge amount of unspecified details. I have recently changed pads on my Beyerdynamic DT990s from cloth to leather. I had to quickly revert back. The sound became very boomy, practically unbearable. I suspect the tight seal provided by leather to be responsible.

nradov 7y ago

Unless you do a blind listening test, most consumers will fool themselves into believing that the more expensive or attractive looking headphones sound "better".

Waterluvian 7y ago
Company idea (or maybe Consumer Reports is good enough): Don't hire experts to review products. Do a double blind study with like 100 participants. I pay you $5 to access this years study of 80 different popular/common headphones. But of course do this for all kinds of products that need this kind of review. I would happily pay for a sample of how the population feels about products and how they on average rank them. Let me x/y plot things like rating vs. Price/warranty/whatever Don't ruin your pages with advertising. Be annoyingly clear and repetitive that you only make money from the fee and everything else is done in a way that reduces bias wherever possible. And don't screw up the UX (looking at you, graphics cards and CPU sites stuck in 2003)
- unlinked_dll 7y ago
  There are market research firms that do things like this, and their studies cost at least 100 times more than that. It's actually pretty lucrative to keep up to date on details like that if you consult for investment bankers on a particular product category/market segment but that can be difficult to break into.
unlinked_dll 7y ago
There's nothing wrong with people buying things that they like more than other things for whatever reason. Audio is especially subjective compared to other products, possibly one of the most subjective product categories in consumer electronics. Blind listening tests also aren't a silver bullet for headphones. Fidelity is just one factor in deciding whether the product is right for you, other things like headband quality, general fit, comfort, weight, etc all play into whether or not you'll like it. But the overall point I'm making is that none of this is obvious from looking at a spec sheet, you need to try it yourself, IRL.