Best heaphone for Vocal!

Discussion in 'Headphones' started by TheFighter, Nov 13, 2015.

  1. keanex

    keanex Martian Bounty Hunter - Friend

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    Interesting, funny how ears do that!
     
  2. OJneg

    OJneg The Most Insufferable

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    Yes personally, I don't like the vocals on any of the Audio Technicas (1v1 me keanex bro). The closed backs are bigger offenders to me than the open ones. There's a slight sibilance as has been mentioned, but there's also that sort of romantic, off-color, euphony presentation that I can't stand. With the opens there's just this persisting grain and greyness that I can only tolerate for short listens, and once I put a Senn back on my head I breath a sigh of relief.

    I really think when we're talking "best" headphones for vocals there needs to be a certain standard for neutrality and "transparency" to the input signal. You start getting into ye olde mixing and matching colorations based on what type of music "sounds good". Like the idea that Grados are really good rock music because they "produce guitars like nothing else". Well sure, they do sound pretty good with rock and they do add some bit of crunch that people like but that's something that's going to come and go based on the recording.

    So yeah, give me truth to the vocal performance over some weird Japanese, romantic, music-in-a-box, sound any day of the week. As has been said, the HD6xx render vocals with a sizable amount of fidelity and micro-detail while bringing a slight lower treble forwardness (3-4k). I think the ESP950 do the same thing although their forwardness is more in the uppermidrange (1-2k). By my judgement, the HD800 is the vocal champ due to unrivaled microdetail and volume gradiation resolution, although again, it has a discontinuity in the treble that can really throw off female vocals if mods are not implemented correctly.
     
  3. steve

    steve New

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    Yeah the ESP 950, how could I forget:eek:

    Talking about ATH stuffs, their old products deliver a better performance vocal-wise, new products are more natural but lose the uniqueness a little.

    Some best choices but nearly impossible to get: w11j > w2002 > w100 > ad1000prm > w11r > w3000 (Female Vocal-wise/none SQ speaking, personal opinion only). But in general w3000 is the best made by ATH so far.
     
  4. keanex

    keanex Martian Bounty Hunter - Friend

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    The only thing I'll 1v1 you in is in a drinking contest. That would be fun.
     
  5. OJneg

    OJneg The Most Insufferable

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    Perhaps we have differing definitions of "natural". Although I have not heard every X and non-X AT, I would disagree.

    When keanex sent me the 2000x it was Liam Neeson levels of "The Grey". I have relatively limited experience with the 2000 (meets and Merv's place) but it was way more natural although probably more bass-lite.

    The A900 I owned for a while was way more natural than the A900x I heard. They kinda raped the tuning on that headphone by boosting bass and treble. Those AT drivers just aren't capable enough to render deep bass at high SPLs and it just gets really messy when you try.
     
  6. OJneg

    OJneg The Most Insufferable

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    You'd win. I only sip the finest wine with crackers these days.:oops:
     
  7. keanex

    keanex Martian Bounty Hunter - Friend

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    I significantly cut back on drinking myself. That's why it'd be fun!

    As for the Ad2000x, bought them because I missed the Ad2000 sound and these were local/cheap. I kept thinking that maybe I was wrong about liking the Ad2000 to begin with, never grew a love for the Ad2000x. Bought an Ad2000 to test my sanity, still in love with them.

    Now I need to revisit the Ad900...
     
  8. steve

    steve New

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    Agreed. I was talking more about the general trends like from w10/100/1000/2002/11 -> w5000 -> w3000. The 2000 series are generally more natural than their previous products (ad100/1000prm/......). Also same applies to w1000x -> 1000z. I had such a great fun comparing and listening to these cans.;)
     
  9. Hands

    Hands Overzealous Auto Flusher - Measurbator

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    Grados and Rock: Crunch on top of Crunch! With Crunch for dessert! Don't forget the Crunch mint on the way out the door!
     
  10. Boops

    Boops Friend

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    Point taken about the romantic, euphony. Sometimes that's exactly what I'm in the mood for. But I may just have to pick up one of these new-fangled HD650s I keep hearing about. ;)
     
  11. OJneg

    OJneg The Most Insufferable

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    Yes, I see original AD900 as contender for best cheap "vocal" headphone.

    Gotcha, thanks for clarifying
     
  12. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    This is way too open ended. I'd say HD650 or Paradox for everything including vocals, but then maybe LCD2 for lush coloration, or W3000 or W5000 for a touch of class but weird coloration, etc. Really depends what you want. Also, euphonic to one person may mean craptastic to another.

    Thia is sort of like asking what kind of girl is good for specific kinds of sex acts.
     
  13. Tuco1965

    Tuco1965 Suffring from early onset Alzheimer's - Friend

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    Now that made me laugh. :D
     
  14. TheFighter

    TheFighter New

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    Thanks everyone, I know its hard to advise since its very open like purrin said, so don't focus on what to recommend because its very hard to describe preferences.

    I just hope you guys share your experience on what headphone you love on vocal and why, so maybe I can give them a try and maybe find the one I love too.

    ps. not any STAX so far? that's very surprise to me
     
    Last edited: Nov 13, 2015
  15. DrForBin

    DrForBin Friend

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    hello,

    copy pasta from the archives:

    "[​IMG]
    Re: Describe ideal Jazz headphones
    « Reply #45 on: August 13, 2015, 08:27:55 PM »
    The Changstar consensus: The ideal jazz headphone is also the ideal rock headphone is also the ideal metal headphone is also the ideal country headphone is also the ideal classical headphone, etc.

    The idea that any specific headphone is better tailored to a specific genre is completely foreign here. A more important variable might be who mastered it instead of what genre. I'd suggest HF as a better place to solicit such input. Not being mean, but just saying how it is."

    i would like to suggest that this is also true with any specific instrument, but i could be wrong.
     
  16. TheFighter

    TheFighter New

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    Just to share my experience, today I went to the store to try out some headphone that mention here, please be noted that I'm a noob and new to this headphone world.

    The headphone that I tried today are ATH-AD2000X, ATH-W1000(closed wood), stax-sr307with srm007tII amp, and HD650 (Silver).

    And out of those four I like HD650 and W1000 the most for vocal, the other two are very clean and clear sound but stax lack some sweetness in the vocal for me and AD2000X are a bit shouty at times which I think will be fatigue in long listen.


    So, between HD650 and W1000 its very hard to choose, both have a sweet euphony voice to me, but W1000 are cleaner and have more dynamic to the voice.
    While HD650 voice sound very smooth. The smoothness of HD650 is very good for long listening IMO, and you will want to listen more and more with it, while for W1000 are a bit more lively but on borderline of being shouty at times.

    ps. The guy at the store told me that if I like vocal he think that fostex TH900 is the best but I run out of time so I didn't give it a listen but maybe next time.
     
  17. kapanak

    kapanak Canucklehead - Friend

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    He was very wrong about that. TH900 is too bassy to be good for vocals. It definitely a v/u shaped sound with emphasis on lower mids and bass region. If you're new to Headphones, get the HD650, and build up from there. They scale in sound quality and details significantly as your source chain improves. Also, seriously consider the mods described elsewhere on this site for the HD650 in the long run.
     
  18. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

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    Yeah but then Grados sound awful with actually crunchy guitars. You know the dial in the razorwire buzzing crunch to your crappy practice amp as it sounds awful clean tone. The rocking out to Grados crowd always seemed to me like they were guys that just wished 70s rock had ultra high gain death metal guitars for whatever reason. They even like that Grados have no soundstage at all so the guitars end up frequency masking stuff just like some dirty death metal recording. Not that actual death metal (or any other genre) sounds good on Grados to begin with.
     
  19. Rex Aeterna

    Rex Aeterna Friend

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    i always loved the akg 240df's before they crapped out testing a guitar amp that decided to send straight dc frying the left driver. they were some of my favorite headphones i had for years. had good balance with very good midrange that i liked and favorite of all of akg headphones.
     
  20. Eric Farrell

    Eric Farrell Friend

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    HE60
    SR009
    LCD-3
     

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