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Quality when applied to speakers and headphones is typically demonstrated by frequency response, with a perfectly flat response being the pinnacle. Headphones

by bherms 12y ago

Quality when applied to speakers and headphones is typically demonstrated by frequency response, with a perfectly flat response being the pinnacle. Headphones like Beats appeal to people who have only had bargain headphones (think a few bucks), and they do this by having attractive packaging and just basically amping up the bass response because bass has a "wow factor".

baddox 12y ago
A flat response is rarely desirable, or at least rarely intended, except for equipment designed for audio production.
- bherms 12y ago
  Typically you aim for as much of the audible spectrum as possible with as flat of a response as possible... From there you adjust for personal listening preferences. Some cans tend to accentuate bass a bit, others mids or trebs. Flat headphones are preferred for mixing/mastering of course. That's about as objective a measure as you can find.
- SwellJoe 12y ago
  This is simply untrue. The best headphones, speakers, and amplifiers, are designed to faithfully reproduce the recorded signal. Anything that does something other than that is a poorly designed product, or a product that is intentionally misleading the consumer. Most cheap products accidentally fail at this goal. Beats products are intentionally designed to be cheap to manufacture, while being bass-heavy and overly bright on top, to disguise their poor quality. A flat response is always desirable to the listener (whether they know it, or not). If the listener desires EQ (for a bass-heavy and bright experience), they can apply it before it goes out to the transducer. Old stereos used to have a "loudness" button to slap this kind of curve onto the audio, but all modern playback devices have EQ and such available. But, I'd recommend using good quality headphones and listening as the engineer and artist intended.
  - stcredzero 12y ago
    This is simply untrue. The best headphones, speakers, and amplifiers, are designed to faithfully reproduce the recorded signal. Have you seen the actual frequency response curves of headphones? They are by no means flat! They can approach flat from 20-20k, but there are always trade offs, at least until you get to certain price points. What is good or bad sound is largely subjective and socially conditioned. The expectations around binaural recordings of natural sound are very different from highly produced studio production. What is bad in one context is good in another and vice versa. And while I'd go for headphones with better frequency response, it's not the be-all end all measurement either. Then again, maybe Beats are a tragedy, since we are getting to a point technologically where every headphone could have reference class performance, if that is what the market wanted. That's not what the market wants. Maybe that's the real tragedy.
    - SwellJoe 12y ago
      "Have you seen the actual frequency response curves of headphones? They are by no means flat!" Yes. And, as I said: Most cheap products accidentally fail at this goal. It costs a bit of money to produce a quality transducer that is stable, reliably mass-produced, and lasts a long time. Not as much for headphones as for larger transducers, however. For $100 you can buy any of several models that are extremely accurate (compared to what $100 would buy you in speakers). Sennheiser, Shure, AKG, and Audio Technica all offer several models in the $50-$100 range that will destroy Beats offerings at even much higher price points. Nonetheless, just because most people's cheap headphones suck doesn't mean that a company producing expensive headphones that suck should be given a pass. In a world with good products in a field I care about, why wouldn't I encourage people to choose them over a clearly inferior product? Beats is a demonstrably inferior product with good marketing.
      - curun1r 12y ago
        You don't even need to go to the $100 level to get better than Beats. I've convinced a bunch of Beats owners at my work by loaning out my $30 Sonys. Not only does everyone agree that they sounds better, but there's near universal agreement that they're more comfortable to wear as well. I'm not saying a $25 pair of headphones is particularly good, but it gets past the "obviously bad" test that Beats headphones fail and allows me to leave them at work without worrying about losing or breaking them.

by bherms 12y ago

baddox 12y ago

A flat response is rarely desirable, or at least rarely intended, except for equipment designed for audio production.

bherms 12y ago
Typically you aim for as much of the audible spectrum as possible with as flat of a response as possible... From there you adjust for personal listening preferences. Some cans tend to accentuate bass a bit, others mids or trebs. Flat headphones are preferred for mixing/mastering of course. That's about as objective a measure as you can find.
SwellJoe 12y ago
This is simply untrue. The best headphones, speakers, and amplifiers, are designed to faithfully reproduce the recorded signal. Anything that does something other than that is a poorly designed product, or a product that is intentionally misleading the consumer. Most cheap products accidentally fail at this goal. Beats products are intentionally designed to be cheap to manufacture, while being bass-heavy and overly bright on top, to disguise their poor quality. A flat response is always desirable to the listener (whether they know it, or not). If the listener desires EQ (for a bass-heavy and bright experience), they can apply it before it goes out to the transducer. Old stereos used to have a "loudness" button to slap this kind of curve onto the audio, but all modern playback devices have EQ and such available. But, I'd recommend using good quality headphones and listening as the engineer and artist intended.
- stcredzero 12y ago
  This is simply untrue. The best headphones, speakers, and amplifiers, are designed to faithfully reproduce the recorded signal. Have you seen the actual frequency response curves of headphones? They are by no means flat! They can approach flat from 20-20k, but there are always trade offs, at least until you get to certain price points. What is good or bad sound is largely subjective and socially conditioned. The expectations around binaural recordings of natural sound are very different from highly produced studio production. What is bad in one context is good in another and vice versa. And while I'd go for headphones with better frequency response, it's not the be-all end all measurement either. Then again, maybe Beats are a tragedy, since we are getting to a point technologically where every headphone could have reference class performance, if that is what the market wanted. That's not what the market wants. Maybe that's the real tragedy.
  - SwellJoe 12y ago
    "Have you seen the actual frequency response curves of headphones? They are by no means flat!" Yes. And, as I said: Most cheap products accidentally fail at this goal. It costs a bit of money to produce a quality transducer that is stable, reliably mass-produced, and lasts a long time. Not as much for headphones as for larger transducers, however. For $100 you can buy any of several models that are extremely accurate (compared to what $100 would buy you in speakers). Sennheiser, Shure, AKG, and Audio Technica all offer several models in the $50-$100 range that will destroy Beats offerings at even much higher price points. Nonetheless, just because most people's cheap headphones suck doesn't mean that a company producing expensive headphones that suck should be given a pass. In a world with good products in a field I care about, why wouldn't I encourage people to choose them over a clearly inferior product? Beats is a demonstrably inferior product with good marketing.
    - curun1r 12y ago
      You don't even need to go to the $100 level to get better than Beats. I've convinced a bunch of Beats owners at my work by loaning out my $30 Sonys. Not only does everyone agree that they sounds better, but there's near universal agreement that they're more comfortable to wear as well. I'm not saying a $25 pair of headphones is particularly good, but it gets past the "obviously bad" test that Beats headphones fail and allows me to leave them at work without worrying about losing or breaking them.