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Christmas 2007: I received a pair of Sennheiser MX550 earbuds. It wasn't something I'd asked for, and the ear buds I'd been using were fine, so I was confused. But I tried them, and I was actually quite impressed. Without knowing anything about their build quality, or expense, I felt they were significantly better than any of the cheap things I found around the house (usually remnants of other player's stock earbuds).
That was when I first realised there is a point in getting more than just the bare essentials in audio.
Late February 2009: I ordered and eventually received Sennheiser HD555 headphones. I was skeptical. I told myself even if people claiming there's a huge difference are wrong, spending $100 CAD on a pair of headphones that will last is better than replacing cheap earbuds every other month in the long run. When I first listened to them, I found I was not blown away. They were good, but it wasn't that coveted MIND BLOWING sensation I secretly hoped for. But I warmed up to them, and they were comfortable, and they were better than my MX550 earbuds. It wasn't nothing.
March 6th, 2009: Tragedy. My MX550's are destroyed.
+ Show Spoiler [MSN log of me complaining] +
[22:10] Ed: so I just finished a class at university, and it was really asinine and boring and I felt like taking an axe to my classmates, so I was already kind of ansy
[22:10] Ed: I'm on my way to my next class, and the building it's in is right in front of the bus stop
[22:10] Ed: and the class isn't that important
[22:10] Ed: so I'm like
[22:11] Ed: fuck... if my bus is there, I'm just gonna take it
[22:11] Ed: there's like 6 buses lined up, and I'm looking down them, but none of them are mine
[22:11] Ed: so I think
[22:11] Ed: FUCK
[22:11] Ed: I'll just go to my class then
[22:11] Ed: jeez
[22:11] Ed: I go to my classes door and it's locked and the room is dark
[22:11] Ed: so I'm like what the fuck? was it cancelled?
[22:11] Ed: I'm on my way out of the building to the bus stop
[22:11] Ed: and my bus is just exiting the station
[22:12] Ed: so I'm like :O god damn it
[22:12] Ed: then I'm waiting at the bus stop
[22:12] Ed: I pull out my ipod, and I'm just putting in my earbuds
[22:12] Ed: this guy walking by ... I dunno
[22:12] Ed: they must have caught on him somehow, even though they were like right against my coat
[22:12] Ed: they get ripped out of my ears and destroyed on the ground
[22:13] Ed: and he just disappears into the damn crowd briskly walking
[22:13] Ed: and I'm like
[22:13] Ed: :O
I'm back on cheap earbuds. For the next few months I use my HD555's at home a tonne, taking the place of MX550's that normally dominated my use. I find myself growing very fond of HD555's, feeling the difference to be very great. I let down my guard about them and some of my skepticism vanishes. I start feeling they really were worth it purely in terms of sound quality.
June 15th 2009: I decide it's time to get a decent pair of earbuds. All my cheap ones have crapped out, dead in one ear, missing certain frequencies entirely, and other bizarre malfunctions. A good excuse to buy new MX550s. But the MX550s are no longer in production. Instead there are 560s, the newer and 'better' versions of them. They aren't as pretty, they kind of look cheap, but I get them anyway. They'll be better than anything stock, at least. When I open them, the foam ear pads are missing. The instructions tell me that I MUST use the included foam ear pads to attain proper sound quality especially with bass. Fuck my life? I come in with negative expectations, and at first I'm not very impressed. But I do get foam earpads from an old pair of ear buds and my mind is at rest. I continue believing they're not as good as the 550s, but fervently believe they're better than stock. Fair enough. I get used to them over the next two months and enjoy them.
August 26th 2009: I have an itch for something new. I want to know what the next step to upgrading my audio setup is. What comes after big headphones? Other than bigger headphones? I remember February, when I was first interested in new headphones. I went to several sites, I looked at some threads on TL suggesting HD555's to be reasonable. I went to Head-fi.org and looked up their thoughts on it. It'd been useful enough, I guess. I go there again. I look at all the sections, and one is about portable headphone amps. I read a thread warning people against this fad, and it seems quite well informed. I contact who wrote it asking for advice, and he says a home headphone amp is the next best step. He recommends me to someone else, but I've already found a nice vintage amp before he can get back to me. An old amp from the 70s my dad used when he was my age.
+ Show Spoiler [A beast] +
I listen to it. I feel like the change is dramatic. SOO much better. I listen to tonnes of full albums just grooving out to it.
August 27th 2009: I love the amp, but I haven't satisfied my itch. I don't spend money on entertainment very often. This has been a most unusual and frivolous year. Everyone seems to have their own thing they dump their money into to make them happy. Shoes... Shirts... Hats... Video games. I want something too. Why not high-fidelity? I spend time browsing Head-fi.org for something interesting. I read a review on the Amp3 Pro1, a product of a little known, slightly sketchy Chinese company. Designed in China. It looks cool. The marketing for it is obviously exaggerating its abilities, but I justify ordering the new model (Pro2) because I think it's quite a novel little thing. A single minded no frills device. I read Head-fi more over the next week. I become more and more unimpressed. I knew there were fads about the latest devices, that one should avoid getting caught up in, but it was absurd. Everything posted was so full of shit. 90% of the community seems to think anecdotal evidence is a good enough to prove anything. Even when conclusions are arbitrary and often contradict one another. I get skeptical again. Just where does the truth lie? Among all these tools complaining about the 'warmth' or 'cold and calculated' nature of one peice of equipment or another, testifying that leaving an amp on for 400 hours straight is not only fine, it 'burns it in' and makes it sound better! Nevermind objective tests, I know what my ears hear!
September 6th, 2009 Listening to The Smiths. They're good. A few hours ago I read a great paper about dishonesty, confusion, and Experimenter Expectation in hi-fi audio industry.
http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/ampins/pseudo/subjectv.htm
It's great. It leaves me with many questions, but it also gave me many answers I was not finding on Head-fi. It's also sad. Throwing money at hi-fi equipment will not get you as close to perfect reproduction of the original track at all. The amount of product research you have to do to make sure you're not paying extra money for some stupid fad in the pseudo science audio has become is insane. I almost always look fairly deeply into every purchase I make, but with the amount of misinformation in audiophile groups, you basically have to find an engineer to get a good idea of what's actually coming.
So that's where my Forray ends. I don't know if my amp makes my headphones sound better because I want it to (common, how badass looking is that thing?) or if something about the impedance of my headphones requiring more power to get where they want to be is really true. Amps increase amplitude... Why does it matter... Doesn't make sense to me, but I didn't pay for it, so I'm happy with believing it's better. I just don't want to find myself paying for something and tricking myself. Maybe one day if I find someone who really knows their stuff, I'll ask where the next step is again. But no way am I going to be one of those tools who claims their ears are so amazing they can hear differences in sound tested to be beyond human capacity.
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haha. i became an audiophile for a while last year. i ended spending like 300 USD on music gear (which is actually very little) before I decided that a decent and comfortable pair of headphones were good enough for me.
Right now i'm using a pair of audio technica ath-anc7 headphones. the sound quality is pretty good and the active noise canceling is a big plus. they are also a lot cheaper than those sennheiser qc3s which are practically identical.
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Pfft, philistines. I only listen to music played by million dollar instruments in million dollar concert halls.
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Great article...I was starting to get into audiophilia, but kind of got hassled by other things that took up my time. I also don't have the money for it (which is the point of your article).
Now that I've read your article, I'll be a lot more cautious when I go and read up on it like once or twice a month. -___-
haha.
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Ah, but can you listen to that music in only your underwear while scratching yourself at 3am?
Thanks PH. Next time you get tempted, spend the time reading "Science and Subjectivism in Audio." It really puts things into perspective.
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i just upgraded from random earbuds to a sennheiser 202 and i was a bit skeptical about them, but they were cheap (only $20) and i was tired of earbuds. i gotta say, i dont think anything can beat them in quality for the price, they are pretty awesome.
i dont plan on paying $100 for headphones though o_O
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motbob
United States12546 Posts
The default earbuds for any music player are terrible... if you go one step above (to the $20 dollar range) for headphones or earbuds, you'll see a big difference. The difference between $20 and $100 isn't that much, though.
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I like my music to be good quality, but I'm definitely not an audiophile o.o
the Sennheiser 560s are decent, I don't think you gave them a chance 
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i have denon AH-c351 earbuds. i do not know what that means. they sound better i think because they are in-ear, compared to ipod earbuds, so it was worth the price. i want to get nice sounding headphones, but i dont know where to start....
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I wouldn't say that I'm a Audiophile, but I have always been very picky when it comes to audio.
I have always included a sound card in my computers since I was 10 years old, and it does makes a HUGE difference. Along with a set of Logitech Z5500 speakers right now, I doubt that many people could complain at all.
On-the-go wise, I have always stuck with Sennheiser built-in ear buds (unless I'm driving, which I use a Bose 9 Speaker Satellite Stereo system).
I just flat out hate headsets, no matter how "amazing" they sound; They're just very uncomfortable for me.
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i always thought people exaggerated the improvements they gain from a better amp/source/cable
i firmly believe the transducers make the most difference
if you want to upgrade, i recommend getting a new headphone
you should be able to snatch up a used hd650 for around 200 bucks or less
just wash the pads once you get them
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I'm an audiophile, out of profession and passion. The only advice I can ever offer people is to trust their ears. There's no point spending a penny more if you can't hear (or don't like) the difference.
I used to rage at people that would go on about how great their latest pair of Bose (for example) headphones was, and think to myself, "but Bose don't make good stuff! They make terrible, poor-quality, artificial pieces of garbage! They don't make accurate, studio-quality stuff", but then I realised that, to them it sounds good. It pleases their ears.
And that's what it all comes down to. Even at the very top, audio engineers can't agree on what's 'best', because it's too subjective. It's too relative.
The air is an instrument that's played by a pair speakers. The listening room is an instrument that's played by the air. This chain goes all the way back through all the components in your system, right to your power supply, each one being unique and having it's own characteristics. Your ears are instruments that are, in turn, played by all of those.
What does that all mean? Well, in short, it means that everyone's listening experience is unique and different.
Did most people know that already? Probably, yes.
What was the point of this post? I'm not sure. I just wanted to get that off my chest.
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You're wrong though, high fidelity has nothing to do with opinions. In terms of audio it just means the accuracy of which a sound is reproduced. Which is completely measurable. You take the signal the original sound produced, you take the signal the equipment tries to reproduce,you subtract them, and what's left that's audible to the human ear is how far you are away from perfection.
You're right everyone has different preferences, and may appreciate different kinds of distortion or whatever, but you don't need expensive equipment if you want distortion, you need equalizers. The difference is in your head, not your magic ears.
This kind of wishy washy everyone has their own opinion, cherish everything doesn't make sense and is why people will believe ridiculous subjective claims. People will spend 300 dollars on each recable and claim it's the best thing they've ever heard, when that's entirely impossible. The cables used to record and mix the original music were not super stupid cryo whatever cables, they were ordinary and if any information has been lost, it was lost before it even got to your source. But somehow you're not allowed to criticise this cause 'everyone has their own ears and everyone is a fairy!' No, they got ripped off cause they let their head get so far up their ass they think the smell of bullshit is normal.
I'm not saying that there isn't good high end audio (possibly expensive) equipment out there, I'm saying there's too many scammy things like 'if you change this part of your settup into GOLD it will sound better!' that can be objectively proven to make no difference on your audible experience. What you experience is in your imagination because you think in such a scientific field, more money should be more good. When it's really about knowing what you're buying.
Once again, high fidelity has nothing to do with opinion. It's just the pursuit of accurate reproduction, regardless of whether the original sound is 'best' or not. Yet even if fidelity isn't your concern, and you really believe there's a point in buying equipment to distort your sound, there's still a tonne of potholes. Equipment updates that don't make any humanly audible change from before and after. You can't just say 'if my ears hear, it's real to me.' You might as well wear a crome triangle on your head and spontaneously believe it changes the uv-rays around you and makes the sound better! It might be less expensive if you make it yourself.
+ Show Spoiler +My computer just gave me the blue screen of death... Thank fucking christ firefox saves everything until you shut it down purposely
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Lol! You read into my writing some very wishy-washy meanings there; that there's no such thing as truly accurate or hi-fi audio. On the contrary, my meaning was that in my frustration at noobs and wannabes, I've had to come to the conclusion that everybody hears something different.
Of course you can scientifically measure accurate audio reproduction. This is my area of work. If I didn't believe that, I wouldn't have a job. What I'm saying is - if you put one of those dudes that think their ipod earbuds are the best things ever, in front of a studio-grade system, they'd probably still prefer their earbuds. Which is why it's all down to personal preference. (I'm talking from a consumer point of view, not a professional one.)
The thing is, I'm sure we both agree on many of these issues, but, probably because of my communication skills, somehow I'm not getting that point across.
I'm certainly not saying that there aren't better systems than others, nor am I saying that it's not worth spending good money on them IF you can appreciate the sound.
edit - by the way, you're wrong about the cables issue. It doesn't matter what the original was recorded on, cheap cables or equipment can further colour or distort the sound. The aim is accuracy. If a piece of audio equipment isn't capable of reproducing the source accurately, then it is changing the sound.
Your system is only as good as it's weakest component. Which is why people spend a lot of money on 'seemingly' ineffective upgrades, like power cables.
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6: THE LENGTH OF THE AUDIO CHAIN.
An apparently insurmountable objection to the existence of non-measurable amplifier quirks is that recorded sound of almost any pedigree has passed through a complex mixing console at least once; prominent parts like vocals or lead guitar will almost certainly have passed through at least twice, once for recording and once at mix-down. More significantly, it must have passed through the potential quality-bottleneck of an analogue tape machine or more likely the A-D converters of digital equipment. In its long path from here to ear the audio passes through at least a hundred op-amps, dozens of connectors and several hundred metres of ordinary screened cable. If mystical degradations can occur, it defies reason to insist that those introduced by the last 1% of the path are the critical ones.
This makes sense to me. Obviously really cheapy cables are no good, but they're not using a million dollars worth of cables during recording.
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I'd have invested in a decent portable media player long before high end headphones or amps. The music is only going to be as good as the source device, and MP3 is not a format that is well suited for high quality audio.
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Most new DAP's have lossless support. mp3 320 kb/s isn't bad at all either. Anything with RockBox can play flac.
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United States4796 Posts
I like my FLAC's on my AKG K181s.
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On September 07 2009 05:50 Chef wrote:Show nested quote +6: THE LENGTH OF THE AUDIO CHAIN.
An apparently insurmountable objection to the existence of non-measurable amplifier quirks is that recorded sound of almost any pedigree has passed through a complex mixing console at least once; prominent parts like vocals or lead guitar will almost certainly have passed through at least twice, once for recording and once at mix-down. More significantly, it must have passed through the potential quality-bottleneck of an analogue tape machine or more likely the A-D converters of digital equipment. In its long path from here to ear the audio passes through at least a hundred op-amps, dozens of connectors and several hundred metres of ordinary screened cable. If mystical degradations can occur, it defies reason to insist that those introduced by the last 1% of the path are the critical ones. This makes sense to me. Obviously really cheapy cables are no good, but they're not using a million dollars worth of cables during recording.
That says nothing of the quality of the components though. Of course the length of the audio chain is going to have less of an impact on the quality, but that's a different issue.
While I can easily hear the difference between your average £5 p/metre speaker cable and your average £10 p/metre speaker cable, it's not as easy to hear the difference between 5 metre and 10 metre speaker cable. Two very different issues.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/5380/sr20402.png)
