Serious hate on fun headphones

Hahaha. @brencho And I gave each other a "f**k this shit" look in the Vox suite at LAAS and were in and out in under 2 minutes flat. True story.

 

Yeah it felt like tiny little angels with little paper dildos were f'ing me in the ears and paper cutting my eardrums. Glad bazelio was also down to bounce after exchanging a few courteous words with the germans that put the room together.

 

The Voxativs really shine when paired with some old school 15 inch woofers as in the PureAudioProjects Trio 15 Voxativ or on @Serious setup. I listened to the Ampeggio Due and Zeth several times and for long periods in Munich. They definitely couldn't keep up with macrodynamics at high SPLs I pushed through. The sound was lean unless paired with subs that just created bloated disjointed bass. Treble was really good as speakers were not toed in and we chose our listening positions carefully. This contrasted with the AER driven Josound Horus speakers that were crazy bright.

Listening to @Serious setup and the PAPs was a complete and utter delight. Neutral sound with bass to die for (similar tonality but way better than my Yggdrasil-Rag-Utopia or ZX2-Andros.) Resolution is mind blowing. Strange how Voxativ didn't opt for an open baffle solution and let DIYers or third parties to complement their drivers.

On another note, I hope Serious finds a way to resolve this situation. I spent 3 days with him at Munich high end and he is a really nice and intelligent chap. That said, different tastes in sound signature within this community is to be expected and makes this hobby more interesting. Bassy, neutral or bright headphones can still be excellent or horrid. Finally, listening to a piece of equipment before making any valid judgement call is a must. Otherwise we get lost in a myriad of speculative noise.

 

@Muse Wanderer agreed, different strokes for different folks, @Serious is a knowledgeable dude. And in my mind folks should always speak their minds, especially to provide a different opinion or negative feedback when warranted (and when based on actual hands on experience). But there are probably productive and not productive ways of providing such feedback. Probably better to learn how to provide feedback that's useful to the community rather than the approach Serious took in his posts. Regarding this case, I heard it's just a few day ban to allow some jets to be cooled.

 

While @Serious came on a bit too strongly, I don't think piling on him post-ban was the best display of civility. Also the name calling was cringe-worthy.
He is quite knowledgeable and has a good track record of contribution to SBAF.
I hope Marv and Serious can resolve the issue privately in due time.

 

Well, I wanted to stay quiet because... this is just noise, but "a bit too strongly" is an understatement. I'll break it all down @Serious style so you will get it too because you guys are not seeing the problem here.

This is speculative at best if you haven't heard the headphone, but it's stated definitively like he knows everything inside and out. Strike one.

HD700 was a horrible headphone. Period. Literally one person on Changstar liked it IIRC.

Also, this situation isn't exactly "if you don't think you'll like it, move along" but more like... "why the f**k are you writing about shit you don't know?" This is strike two.

I strongly disagree. The fact that there are enough people loving basshead/bassy stuffs (I personally don't like a headphone that's too bassy so this is not even something coming from me as an opinion) means they are good. Period. You can disagree all you want but the fact is that there are more basshead/bassy headphones that are well-received than there are treblehead headphones. Also, this also counts as "talking/writing about shit you don't know." Strike three.

Again, this is talking about shit you don't know. Marv did note during his measurement that airplane flew overhead. My room is sometimes quiet enough at night that a cat meowing fux up everything <5KHz. Airplanes should do even more than that. And this is banking too much on objectivity, which you yourself knows better than to pull out as a "card" here.

Cool. But I'm sure there are a lot of people who would disagree with you, though. And what you think/feel doesn't make what you want to say factual.

Again, nobody knows. Do you? I said the R10's drivers might well have been made by Foster, which makes basically everything, including the TH-X00, a clone of the R10, right?

That's not a bad thing. There are people who think some of the headphones you mentioned are actually good, and they would take those over the HD800 (and again, this isn't about me either, as you know I dislike all of the headphones you mentioned, especially TH900, and I'd totally take HD800 over them, but that's just me). The fact is that within this community, more people like the mentioned headphones over something like, say... a stock HD800, or a not-properly-modded HD800.

At this point, you're just bitching about "why isn't there another headphone like HD800 being covered here?" But see... the thing is: there ain't another headphone like HD800. Nothing coming out is like the HD800. I get that it's frustrating but... do keep in mind that companies are trying to please the majority, and the majority of people now seem to like something like HD650/Elear/the HP-3. Historically, brighter and more technical headphones like the HD800/Utopia have been more polarizing, and people either love/hate them, whereas basshead/bassy headphones like HD650 are at least well-received by a lot of people. So there's that.

Is Klipsch doing anything bad? I don't think so. They aren't even known for creating HD800-like/Utopia-like gears so you can't expect them to suddenly turn around and do something like that now. When the news came out that these headphones were created by Klipsch, the expectation should already be 100% that they're gonna be bassy in some way. It's just their signature.

If you want a bright headphone or something else, then really, go look elsewhere. This is just ranting about the state of the industry while picking on a single vendor, and I think you should know better than that.

I was one of the bigger proponents of visible auditory cues from measurements as well, but I have learned better, and right now I only look at FR mostly to see if there's any tonal change. The rest don't matter to me.

Why? Because there are setups on which I have plugged the Eikon in, and in which Eikon sounds thinner/less bassy than my HD580 or even a modded HD800. Can you point out exactly where in Eikon's measurements that that problem manifests? No?

Then honestly, dude... you really are just ranting about something you don't know.

To me, Eikon consistently sounds brighter/thinner than its measurements imply. Even HD800 is more listenable to me in some cases. Closed/semi-open headphones are just a difficult beast like that and I suspect require a different compensation curve altogether. But that's my opinions, not fact. I'm just using my own subjective impressions to point out where you may potentially be wrong.

Now we're getting somewhere but then the problem is that we don't know if you're hearing the exact same thing that Marv just received. Even in the scenario where it's the exact same thing, the only thing we can conclude is that this headphone just isn't for you, and you could have said just this:

"I heard a pre-production/prototype of this headphone at the beginning of the year, and it sounded like arse with too much bass, recessed midrange, and not enough treble smoothness. Basically not that much better than a TH-X00, and I didn't think that thing warranted a price tag higher than TH-X00. So I'll remain skeptical, especially now that I'm also seeing measurements coming from you that rouse my suspicions. Maybe I'll check this out again but I strongly suspect I'll disagree with your findings, Marv."

And that would have been fine. WTF was all that above?

And HE-5 is indeed the better basshead headphone IMO. Love my Code-X, and all Code-X's in existence. But that's just me.

Honestly, leave Marv alone. Maybe one day he'll realize the awesomeness of midrange like @CEE TEE and myself. Or the awesomeness of delicate/detailed treble like you. There's enough room in here for everyone, I think.

Anyway, all that aside, name-calling was cheap. I'd prefer that @Serious wasn't banned so that I can continue this conversation with him here. But then again, I also understand that he might explode given that his messages read a bit angry to me. Seriously, I get it. There ain't enough gears coming out that's catered toward midrange-heads and treble-heads. Hopefully manufacturers will re-think their strategy moving forward, but... the way I look at it, this is the way the industry is now. You can't change it by bitching to one dude online. Marv ain't omnipotent and he can't tell manufacturers to make HD800-like headphones, ya know.

It's easier for a midrange-head and a treble-head to go toe-to-toe than a bass-head and a treble-head to go toe-to-toe. Or at least that's what I'm seeing from this conversation.

 

So much drama.
Bill, wanna put that inside a spoiler?

 

LOL that was super long bill but the bits that I skimmed seem like reasonable advice

 

Hehe, just wanted to get that in there because there are voices of dissent regarding serious' ban that I'm detecting, but they gotta see that the situation wasn't about calling Marv out on something, but that serious was on the verge of breaking down because of the excessive presence of basshead/bassy headphones on here.

I have also sometimes wanted to crap on some threads about the lack of midrange-head headphones, too, but I'm 14 years old now, and my mentor @zerodeefex has taught me how to control my teenage tendencies.

 

well, uh, thanks i guess...

 

Take it as a complement. It's better than "I think of you as on old man in on older man's deteriorating body".

 

So how did you become a "level 42 wizard"? You must be a natural...

 

Since it was brought up. And this seems to be a multiple subject thread, any suggestions on good midrange headphones, currently in production?

 

HD600
K240
DT250-250
KSC75

 

Well I guess that definitely makes me a mid-range head since I have two of the 4 you listed. Need to take a look at the K240 and DT250. Think I might have heard the 250. Not sure. HD600 is a great headphone. Mine is on loan from a friend. I will have to acquire my own at some point. Thanks!

 

Perhaps will be my favorite in another 15 or 20 years!

Modded HD800 and Paradox still my regulars. But I like to mix it up. Although I am finding I like a little more bass as of late. I blame those damn M1060 and MDR-Z1R's.

Edit: Had a brief moment of memory. Checked it out. The DT-48's came out in 1937. Should be my go to can about 2047! Folks at the home should like them too. Probably will still be in production.

 

Skip the K240 and K7## family, get the K612Pro instead.