this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2024
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That's if you buy the marketing. You can find very good headphones in the 200-500 range. Hell, for portable audio you can get an akg k361 and a Qudelix 5k for $230 and that'd be a pretty good setup.
I personally use either that akg headphone or the Moondrop Aria hooked up to my phone and I think it's decent enough.
For a home setup I have a Topping DX3 Pro+ and the Hifiman Edition XS. In total that would cost around 550 I think and the quality (to my ears) is phenomenal.
And that's already a whole lot of money for next to no value for 99% of the people.
Let's be honest, most people listen to Spotify in a room that's not ideal for listening. And I'm also very very certain that most of the higher end stuff (and I'm counting everything over 200€) is esoteric. You can't hear a difference in quality. Maybe a difference, but not objectively better or worse.
Problem is, where exactly is the line? It's almost impossible to tell whether this one speaker is garbage with a markup or actually high quality.
And more fundamentally: I can buy a brand new smartphone, with absolute top notch technology for 200€, but speakers and amplifiers, technologies that existed for decades and should be out-scienced by now still cost that much without any guarantees for quality? Sound should be a solved problem.
I've yet to meet a person that isn't blown away by how much better my headphones or iems sound compared to their earbuds/laptop speakers. However, I do have to admit that several just don't really care that much. And some of the ones that do care, can't afford it or justify the cost.
Your comparison doesn't make much sense and I honestly don't even know where to begin explaining exactly how different they are. From design to production process, to shipping differences and market size. Lifespan is wildly different as well. Headphones can last you 20+ years whereas a smartphone will need to be replaced after 3 or 4.
This is why I buy used audio gear. The basic guts of the stuff hasn't changed much in the past several decades.
I bought a nice used head unit and speakers 10 years ago. They're 30+ years old now and still work perfectly well.
I’m not sure you read the comment fully, they suggested headphones, not speakers. Just a quiet room is enough for that. Speakers are more expensive because they have to move a lot of air in a room. I’m no expert, but I think it’s the mere physics of doing so accurately that keeps it above 200. A technology can be more or less solved without becoming sub 200.
Anyway, what’s the price range you’re looking for? I’m sure someone can recommend headphones for any range if you’re interested in those.
I strongly believe those people should not be thinking about audiophile gear. Thankfully, audiophile companies don’t really advertise. The claims most of those companies make are targeted towards people who are into audio, and often feature lots of solid snake oil that 99% of people would not understand. Companies that do advertise heavily tend to emphasize vague things like “deep, rich bass to accurate mids and crisp, clean highs” instead.
What makes you “very very certain”? There are some quantifiable quality differences, like accurate positioning of sounds or perceived distance from the listener. It may not be necessarily worth the price, but I’m not seeing how you’re “very very certain” everything above 200 is esoteric and that it’s impossible to discern quality.
Audiophile communities never suggest blind buying because even a high quality product may not have the sound signature you like. It’s similar to how a Rolls Royce, a high quality vehicle, may be too slow and comfortable for someone who would prefer a cheaper Corvette. Those in cities likely have multiple dealers who would be happy to have you come in and sample the stuff, or Best Buy. Pick something you like, regardless of price tag or recommendation. Those not in cities can get on lists of free samples that are then sent to the next listener, or buy and return from stores. Headphones.com has a 365 day return policy intended for this, though there is a restocking fee. Amazon is an unethical company and you can return large dollar quantities without fees before being blacklisted.
Speakers are harder to test if you do not have audio stores or Best Buy. I would still suggest listening when next in a city if possible. I can’t think of anything for those in areas without Best Buy and never enter one, but there might still be something.
if you use a good equalizer, you can equalize pretty much any headphone to your ideal frequency response, as long as it has a loud enough maximum volume and doesn't have distortion (so any half-decent headphone over $50 should do fine. Some would say you can go even lower)
That's quite a stretch. You can use an equalizer to improve the sound of a headphone but there are literal physical limitations to it. Not all drivers are equal in size or speed. Not to mention that there's a difference in the size of their enclosures as well as the technology they use (electrostatic, planar or dynamic for example). There are lots of sound characteristics that will never change regardless of how much eq you use.
So no, a $50 dynamic headphone will not sound as good as a planar magnetic $500 one. If you think otherwise, please provide a source or at least an example.
The thing is, distortion (maybe more accurately called nonlinearity) is the only known objective way to measure the difference in sound quality between two headphones EQ'd to the same target. (there are some other measures like signal-to-noise ratio but they are even more useless) And the difference in the value becomes very small for a technically good $50 headphone and the best headphone ever made. (technically good eg. the natural frequency response isn't crazy far from your target and the nonlinearities are competitively low)
Now, two headphones EQ'd to the same target, even if both are measured to result in the exact same sound, won't actually sound the same to your ears because the "head dummy" used for the test doesn't have the same ear shape and characteristics as you do. But unless there is some strong evidence that the headphone manufacturer has a better methodology than what is publicly available, then there's no reason to think they are somehow able to account for your specific ear's needs without custom designing the product just for you. - You're left with having to either EQ yourself, or using dozens of headphones and testing which you like the most. And the EQ route is going to be much faster and cheaper
for sources, these discussion seem the most useful
https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/144yaiq/why_dont_we_measure_headphone_resolution/jni4z70/?context=5 (whole thread is useful)
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/is-there-any-way-to-objectively-measure-headphone-resolution.17684/
you can say that most people who spend a lot of time and money trying to achieve "perfect audio" seem to think that EQ is only a supplement to already good headphones, but given that there has been no success at objective measurements of quality and that many people swear the thousands they spent on insulated golden cables improve their audio quality, I err on the side of saving my money.
My man, do you have ears? Have you personally confirmed your theory? Because I (sort of) did. I've used earpods, earbuds (cheap sennheiser models like mx365 and mx200 and akg k312p), various headphones (AKG k44, k361, k712 pro, ath-m40x, sennheiser hd518 and hifiman edition xs). I've also always used eq when I can. Usually the ones from Oratory1990.
There are tangible and considerable differences between all of those headphones/iems. For example, no amount of eq is going to make a 5mm driver sound like a 50mm one. On top of that, the tonality characteristics of the driver can't be perfectly equalized to make all headphones sound the same. Soundstage is also not something you can eq for. No amount of EQ would make an Audio Technica ATH-M20X sound like a Sony MDR Z1R.
Additionally, have you considered usability? Not all platforms have a way to eq your headphones easily. Even if you can do it, it's not something integrated to the OS, most people don't even know what a low-pass filter and they do not know how to set it up. In other cases, such as android, you can use eq in your music player (I use poweramp for this) but it's not a system-wide eq. If one headphone is significantly better than another one out of the box then yeah, that has value.
So again, I ask, do you have any real-world examples for this theory of yours?
"tonality characteristics" and "soundstage" are subjective words that have no concrete definition. Other similar words are "grain", "speed", "separation", "resolution". They can't be objectively measured, and are most likely just another function of frequency response.
The differences between headphones are most likely your ear having a different shape from the reference ear used to make the eq targets, leading to a different final perceived frequency response. (or limitations in the accuracy of the measurements, most targets I believe are "smoothed")
I'm going to trust the (claimed, who knows, maybe oratory1990 is a liar) consensus of audio engineers over your anecdotes. As I said there are plenty of audiophiles whose "lived experience" is that $2000 golden cables are necessary and that they can tell the difference between any $200 and $1000 DAC (even though a decent DAC in that price range already has a dynamic range and signal-to-noise ratio of 100-120dB which should be totally indistinguishable from perfectly clear audio for all humans
personally the only decent-ish headphones I have are DT 880 600 ohm and a JBL 760NC. The latter kind of fills all the boxes of being a wireless headphone and has poor reviews and a poor default sound profile. But after EQing both, I can't really notice any difference except when very carefully doing side-to-side comparisons (besides the much better comfort of around-ears vs over-ear).
In contrast I believe I can tell, with some songs, the difference between 320kbps mp3 and flac (just 44.1khz), but even there I'm not sure it's not just placebo
Usability is kind of secondary, android should have jamesDSP and the venn diagram of people that know the best headphones to buy (instead of beats by dre) and who can setup an EQ (install an app and follow written instructions) should have a lot of overlap
I will say though that more expensive headphones are probably going to last longer and are probably much more comfortable
No my dude, tonality characteristics are about how each driver responds to each frequency signal. There's tons of research that goes into the materials and construction of headphone drivers, they're not all the same. Soundstage is also not subjective. Although I do not know how you can measure it, I've played audio through my open headphones to people and they genuinely cannot tell if the sound of an opening door for example is coming from the headphones or if it's real. That's the type of efect soundstage gives you.
So you've only tried a very siblant headphone (dt880) which isn't necessarily bad and a JBL wireless headset? Instead of reading so many forum posts, go to an audio shop and try the actual headphones before trying to lecture other people in things you have never experienced yourself. I'm sorry if it sounds harsh but you're trying to give advice on something you've never tried and have only read random forum posts about.
I am not one of those people. Even though there is snake oil in the industry, that does not mean that everything is snake oil. If a cable passes the continuity test then that's good enough. And regarding dacs, a lot of the advice I've read also says that going beyond $100 you won't find a big difference in sound.
Usability, my friend, is king. When you get older and have to do tons of stuff, adding more things to the list ends up getting very annoying. Not just that, if you were to migrate to iOS for whatever reason, you'd lose the ability to eq your headphones. So an app existing and being maintained today and for 1 mobile os does not guarantee that the problem has been solved forever. You're depending on a random third party.
step 1. Try presets that have already been calibrated to some target for those specific headphones. There are hundreds to thousands of headphones included in the bigger preset collections.
step 2. tweak the EQ values by yourself by ear if you want to. There is no objectively best sound, so it comes down to your personal preference anyways, and you can't measure that in any practical way (and I'd say neither can the companies making expensive headphones, which is why there are hundreds of different headphones both cheap and expensive with different frequency responses and more getting made all the time)