new headphones

You are lucky that the HD555 fell through. Just not a big fan of it after owning it for 2 years.

 

@tianxia...Yeah...the seller had a typo (power seller lol?), he had Klpsch, i even emailed him to ask about that and had an instant reply telling me that it was indeed a typo. Then I forgot to bid and only 1 person bided on it.

Update: I paid up and bought the AD700, should be coming in a week or two.

 

Decided to drop in.

Haven't been on NBR for over a year now. Too much schoolwork and stuff.

I just got my MS1i with HD414 pads and am loving them. Also have an Audio-Technica ES7 which is amazingly great for rock and pop. Love them both.

 

I tussled with the ES7 for a while as the sound was entertaining without being obnoxious. The main problem was the lack of isolation for meaningful portable use - and if you closed them up properly they'd likely end up sounding far worse than the Bose Triport.

The ESW9 and 10 were much easier to get rid of - not only do the lack any worthwhile features for portable use (and despite looking very cool to you, from a distance it actually looks like you have two chocolate cookies on your ears), their sound completely does not justify their price tag.

 

Coriolis, with all that stuff you got just go buy Westone UM3X. It will sound MUCH better than all of them, be better for all the functions, more comfortable.

You should lose the HeadSix, it makes no serious difference - if it does with your portable player, then you need a different DAP, lol. Now...what do you need interconnects for? Use Boa with computer, but with anything else just go raw.

 

Heh, pretty much all headphones in that group are inferior to IEMs for the money =). When ESW9 came out, it had a strange ability unattained by IEMs available to do 20-25hz range, and with a good kick, but everything else it did was just pitiful. Right now IEMs walked all over everything that's portable and good portion of non-portable.

 

Well - it depends on where you use it. My preference is for IEM's in portable use, but they're actually lower-quality than most headphones if you're making an absolute assessment of sound quality.

In terms of sound quality for the buck, similarly priced (and in this case, balanced-armature) IEM's lag far behind open or semi-open (like the Audio-Technica's, despite being billed as closed) phones. They might seem more accurate to someone unable to judge sound quality in absolutes because single-driver IEM's have to compromise on the bass in order to address the musically viable frequency response. Technology limitations in balanced-armature phones means a single driver has to work extra hard to address the musically viable frequencies, and this comes out in undesirables like distortion. The thing is, that the anaemic and 'crunchy' nature of the IEM sound leads some to believe it's more accurate than that from a 'full bodied' headphone.

If you own/ed a small brace of multi-driver IEM like I do which does a 'real headphone' sound better, it's especially noticeable where compromises are made in order to match 'traditional' headphones for musical frequency response. For example, my $1200 UE-11 Pro sounds like a good $2-300 open headphone at best (but usually not in terms of many attributes) when compared in absolutes.

What you're actually paying for, when all's said and done, with an IEM is the isolation which only a few very uncomfortable, or impractically dorky looking headphones go anywhere near matching and it means you can genuinely listen in decent quality anywhere regardless of background noise. To me, this is more valuable than giving up (in theory) ~$1,000 in sound quality. To the idiots walking around with Grados on their heads, it's apparently not an issue.

 

I am going to disagree, and here is why:
1. Top IEMs (not even custom ones) achieve better frequency response than almost all full-size headphones. Want it or not - the colorations offered by various model are garbage in the long run. There are older headphones that don't suffer from such issues that won't get bested so easily - but not much today. (famed "neutral" K701 for example has a whacky treble tilt and poor response around 8 khz, plus weaker-than-correct bas reproduction, without serious depth). The problem with IEMs is getting the fit, but once that's beaten, with certain models you deal with much better tonal balance.
2. Low-end extension. This area is just very poor in full-size headphones. Very few extend correctly: namely HD650, HD800, DT770, Omega 2. Everything else - falls short somewhere. Omega 2 is pretty godly, but very high price and amplification needs. DT770 has terrible response overall, HD800 has excess upper bass and upper midrange, and HD650 suffers from excess midbass and weakened lower treble.
3. Speed: balanced armature driver is much faster than dynamic and almost as fast as electrostatic. End of story. Do you need speed? If you want sound quality, then yes. It shows in reproduction of textural elements, spacial differentiation, showing different layers, and just plain giving you a proper drum hit.
4. Soundstage placement...this is generally an issue everywhere. I know upper tier Westones do a good job at placement, Triple.fi 10 pro does honorable job. Shure SE530 is a bit clumsier but still does the trick. Full-size headphones tend to suffer from smacking everything into one cloud - the sense of space between instruments is often lost - and when it is not, then other issues arise, usually treble issues. There are those that don't suffer from that: again HD800, Omega 2, AD2000, K701...that's about it.

Full-size headphones will have bigger soundstage, but if you take the time to get used to smaller one offered by IEMs, you shouldn't have any problems. Scaling is not that major, and the quality of separation and placement turns out to be overall more important if you want to hear the whole picture.


If your UE11pro sounds at best as good as $200-300 headphone, that's a comment about UE11pro. My Westone 3 does alot of things better than almost all headphones under $1000.

Most IEMs suck just as much as full-size headphones, but select few offer alot. Basically a properly tuned balanced armature, properly fit into your ear - very very good yet small package.

 

Largely bollocks. Distortion is comparatively off the scale for the most fauxdiophile-popular IEM's, which is what lends the 'texture' that aforementioned fauxdiophiles talk of. With those tradeoffs, speed is an irrelevancy, especially when considered in the musical perspective. The closer soundstaging leads some to believe it's a more separated performance, but usually it's because they're listening louder - thanks to shortcomings in the tonality of the performance - than regular headphones.

Balanced-armature phones give half decent sound with outstanding isolation but are extremely poor sonic bang for the buck in comparison to headphones. You buy them for the isolation, and if a generic fit doesn't agree with you like me, you buy custom - which is even poorer sonic bang for the buck. It ends there.

The UE-11 doesn't form my sole IEM experience, just as neither the far-from 'godly' O2 (what I use - very seldom it has to be said - at the office since I've nowhere else to put it), nor my living room phone - the HE/V90 - forms my sole experience of phones. What I choose to have simply represents the best compromise for me.

 

Heh, HE90 is electrostatic and designed with diffused soundstage and extremely euphonic sound in mind. That's attained by messing with frequency response and high THD...

Spec where you found the THD issues? The only serious measurement I saw like that was involving Etymotics, which indeed have some strange problems.

The "far from godly" O2 (being the most accurate headphone available on the market, given you can supply it with voltage it needs) has virtually flat FR, with 3dB roll-off at 20 hz =), low distortion levels, if you want specs. On the other hand it is not euphonic and often won't sound like a live rock show...but live rock uses big dynamic speakers with associated issues.

 

I'm curious - Do you actually own, measure and listen to these apart from Westone, or just read/repeat what other people say about them? e.g. the O2 is far from flat in heard response and is pretty much a slightly more accurate HD650 in terms of tonality.

 

Whoa. MaloS. I do believe you are completely wrong.

First. Go out and buy a decent full-size headphone.

Then, compare it with your IEMs.

IMO. Any IEM under $500 can easily be bested by headphones under $250.

The only IEM that's "worth" your money when compared to headphones is the JH13, which is still unparalleled in certain respects.
However, in others, such as soundstage and imaging, the JH13 still loses easily to much cheaper headphones.

 

That remains to be seen - there are issues inherent in balanced-armature drivers that have less problems in dynamic and electrostatic drivers. Every time someone comes out with an uber-priced IEM, Head-Fi slobbers over it declaring it the best ever (in fact, uber-priced anything), regardless of its actual merits. Been there, done that, sold it on.

My UE-11's sound good, but not $1100 good for sure in any respect. What I have it for is the compromise of the practical attributes of a custom-fit IEM and sound quality and in that respect it's one of the better choices I could make. I'm sure the JH-13's are an improvement - no idea what they sound like, although if the UE's give out or meet an accidental end I might consider it - but I'm sure there will still be significant compromises compared to high-end dynamics.

 

I've owned more than merely decent headphones. Also I've at various points heard almost every single well-known full-size headphone. The only ones missing are MS-Pro, Stax Omega 1, Denon D7000, Ultrasone Edition 8, HD800, PS1000 (the last 4 came out after I stopped bothering).

Full-size headphones under $500 have mediocre frequency responses and/or detail retrieval. Actually, with regards to detail retrieval and tonal accuracy they all get bested by Stax SRS-005a (which is a $150 electrostatic earphone and $250 amplifier).

I did agree that soundstage on full-size headphones is bigger even the best IEMs - but I have yet to hear a system using a full-size dynamic headphone under $500 that can best imaging of some specific IEMs (and I am not talking about custom-fit ones - I have not heard a custom IEM).

Look, I am not a head-fi hype-machine. I can point out a serious flaw with every single headphone that I've heard, and most of the time more than one. There are flaws with the IEM I use also, but so far I can't find any reason to sacrifice other aspects in favor of having larger sound stage.

 

what are thoughts on the RE0's vs the RE2's and RE1's?

on ebay, this guy, head-director, is selling the RE2's much cheaper than the other 2 (~$30 for the RE2's vs ~$100 for the RE0's and ~$130 for the RE1's - all not including shipping, which is only $15 to canada)

I'm thinking of buying the RE2's off him, but if the RE0's really are that much better then I may consider going with the RE0's

link to the guy's ebay store: http://shop.ebay.ca/head-director/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p3686

 

Never tried the RE2 but I have the RE0s now and they're pretty awesome. Sound is a personal thing though and you really have to listen to it yourself to judge. Head Direct has a 30 day full refund trial period if you wish to get the RE0. I got the RE0 for $79:

http://www.head-direct.com/product_detail.php?p=38

 

how much do they charge for shipping? i can't seem to find that on their website

 

Sorry, failed to answer...

To just tick along with your example - I heard O2 with several amplifiers:
With Stax 007t it is just plain worse than HD650. The heard response resembles the graph that used to be on headroom...peaks and valleys...very strangely shaped ones...
With SinglePower ES1 it is extremely midbassy, dry. The treble seems to be inexistent.
With Dared VP-20 through SRD-7 Pro: The sound is the best I've heard of O2 (have not heard Blue Hawaii or KGSS), fairly large image with sense of vertical separation, even tone with slight strength in treble, and somewhat uncontrolled lower bass. In this iteration it is actually the best I've heard any headphone sound.
With Stax SRM-717: most clear sound, very liquid and controlled, but bass power/impact are lacking, seems somewhat dark due to some treble issues.

I have drastically different opinions about most headphones compared to majority of head-fi, I won't reiterate what others said without actually specifying that the words are not mine.

 

Cheesy wotsits to you too.

Effectively contradicting yourself is never a good start. Happens with all 'read and regurgitate' or '30-second audition for authoritative opinion' types.

In terms of the fundamental character:
007 out of 007t = 007
007 out of 717 = 007
007 out of KGSS = 007
007 out of HEV90 = 007

Happy new year

 

Effectively disregarding difference between contradicting self and contradicting another person is not a good practice in the long run. ^_^

Enjoy the last of 2009!

 

I've got a set of RE02s. Nice headphones, but it depends on what you're listening to. The RE0s are meant to be a decent bit better, but Im quite happy with my RE02s for mobile use. Certainly far nicer than equivalently priced headphones in the UK. As I dont have the RE0s and no way to listen to them easily, I unfortunately can't offer a direct comparison.

Seen them compared against the Shure's costing about £100 but obviously prices are different here to the US.

 

What are some reliable places(i.e. not places selling knockoff crap and are not dealers) to buy headphones online?

 

If you're in the US, try headroom/headphone.com

 

$5 to USA, $10 to rest of the world. It will tell you when you click add to cart.