DezB – Member

I actually think he used the word "audiophile" mistakenly. Be nice to hear from him!

Your right I did, it was my mistake in respect of the can of worms it was going to open. I didn't comment on the set-up I’m using as again it would probably generate disapproval from some in respect of wether I’d not spent enough, too much, wrong brand etc etc…..

All I wanted to know is what music has blown you away when listened though 'expensive' headphones, and yes they probably cost more than most people would spend, but I like music and I just wanted others experiences.

I am using them with a CD source. Headphone amp, one is a SS and one a valve. I’m not going into detail for the reasons stated above – it's just about the music ok (but played on very good kit)

Thanks thou 😀

On valve equipment if you really want to let the music breathe, but hat's just me! There are other web forums who specialise in this type of thing. Once you have heard music through a "reference" system you'll be amazed!

never heard this term before, does it have a numerically defined meaning (e.g. guaranteed max THD, freq response,noise floor etc) or is it just audiofool bollocks?

As a footnote, it’s worth remembering that some of what you might well own will be the right music in your system and room. I had some £150 Beyer headphones (I know, cheap sh"te, but I thought it'd be worth a try) but they don't come close to a system based on good speakers IMHO.

For example: I have an INXS album – I forget which one – where in one of my hifi systems Michael Hutchins voice is so incredibly it’s the only time I get the hairs on my neck standing to attention. I’d even go as so far as to describe his voice as “sexy”, and no, I don’t bat for the opposition!

That Pulse album is simply astonishing when played through electrostatic speakers.
That Una Mattina album is heaven-sent played through another system based on the Living Voice speakers.

So if you search out pure audiophile recordings from the likes of Naim, Decca and DG, you might actually find yourself not enjoying the music quite as much as you’d hoped, so I’d just tinker with the kit, buy your CD’s and tinker around the edges with the set-up (stands, speaker positioning, mains filtration etc) and you’ll find that old music you own comes to life in ways you’d not have thought possible, but just don’t break the bank in the process or get too hung up on pure audiophile recordings as there are some nuggets of gold in what you already own!

(hope your collection is not all "Now That's What I call Music" or "Their Greatest Hits all on one CD") 😉

shoefiti – As I said, if you like electronic stuff, you should have a look at the Soapsud City label, Justin and "dlay" in particular. My favourite stuff is "deep house", apparently (not being up to date on what all the sub-genres are without guidance!). 😀

On valve equipment if you really want to let the music breathe, but hat's just me! There are other web forums who specialise in this type of thing. Once you have heard music through a "reference" system you'll be amazed!

never heard this term before, does it have a numerically defined meaning (e.g. guaranteed max THD, freq response,noise floor etc) or is it just audiofool bollocks?

If I may, I'd suggest the "breath" bit is audiofool bollocks of the highest order, and sadly that kind of description is used far too much in the hifi world imho. I'll apologise in advance for this next bit though…

valve/tube amps do indeed tend to have a different house sound to solid state amps, to varying degrees depending on the specific design. Distortion is evident in any amplifier design, but valves produce what's called "even-order" harmonic distortion, even large amounts of which are generally less nasty (and even pleasant to some ears) than small amounts of "odd-order" harmonic distortion as produced by solid state circuits. Here's an example…a lot of guitar amps are still tube-based, and many are actually designed to easily push into overload distortion, which is what creates their specific house sound.

There are also other differences between tubes & ss, like higher voltage swing (can aid dynamics), but like anything there are good and bad examples of both.

Sorry, way off topic here, and these "audiophile" threads never end well 🙂

If I may, I'd suggest the "breath" bit is audiofool bollocks of the highest order, and sadly that kind of description is used far too much in the hifi world imho. I'll apologise in advance for this next bit though…

valve/tube amps do indeed tend to have a different house sound to solid state amps, to varying degrees depending on the specific design. Distortion is evident in any amplifier design, but valves produce what's called "even-order" harmonic distortion, even large amounts of which are generally less nasty (and even pleasant to some ears) than small amounts of "odd-order" harmonic distortion as produced by solid state circuits. Here's an example…a lot of guitar amps are still tube-based, and many are actually designed to easily push into overload distortion, which is what creates their specific house sound.

There are also other differences between tubes & ss, like higher voltage swing (can aid dynamics), but like anything there are good and bad examples of both.

yes, indeed I agree – I actually meant the term 'reference' though 🙂

mains filtration

lolque

yes, indeed I agree – I actually meant the term 'reference' though

Oh lol 🙂

Reference is a genuine term often misapplied.

It refers to equipment that is QC'd against a known reference parameter before being used. LS3/5A monitors are a good example every unit was produced to a known reference standard so that pairs could be mixed and matched without issue by outside engineers in the field.

These days reference usually means stupidly over priced and has practically lost all meaning.

As for Audiofool recordings – Anyone who has their choice of music defined by the equipment they listen to it on is missing the point.

I listen to vinyl mostly and there is a growing market for Audiofool recordings that cost 40 quid and mostly sound worse than the original pressings.

Like all things focussed on a male target market of guys between 25-50 it's mostly bollocks and a good way of getting a fool and his money parted as quickly as possible, a bit like MTB kit..

I'm one of the fools having spent car money on a hifi, I justify it to myself by having spent expensive car money on music over the years..

Your right I did, it was my mistake in respect of the can of worms it was going to open.

I've quite enjoyed it really 🙂 It's amusing that some people listen to shite music on their super-expensive hi-fi system and kid themselves it's good, just because it sounds proper.

nickc – Member
Naim does sound more exciting to me

I've no idea what this means.

Oh come on – you don't think that a live rock band turned up to 11 doesn't do things to you in a way that a cheap midi system from the 80s can't manage whilst playing the same song? Getting as close to the feeling of the live performance as possible is what interests me more than the exact sound that was recorded – though that's important too. I have 4 music systems in my house from quite cheap to whatever my Naim/Kef kit is worth. Huge difference – even between the quite nice mini system in the study and the cheaper ones.

Oh yeah you asked about Zappa – try Hot Rats as a starting point or maybe Best Band you never heard in your live, Make a Jazz Noise Here and You can't do that on stage anymore 4. I've got about 60 of his albums….

Getting as close to the feeling of the live performance as possible is what interests me more than the exact sound that was recorded

Try throwing a bottle of piss at yourself for that authentic rock experence 🙂

For hifi, think pure class a amplification and horn design speakers. Electrostatic speakers sound very realistic and natural, but need bolstering with a subwoofer. Not many people have rooms big enough for these however.

Leaving all the hardware aside, Hell Freezes over by the Eagles is a good recording and so is Renee Olstead's album, Reneee Olstead. There are many others. If you have decent equipment, you'll find a lot of material thoroughly uninspiring and I find this quite frustrating at times.

I sometimes wish I was one of the iPod generation where one thinks those little players deliver great sound quality. Nothing could be further from the truth however. MP3 is destroying HD audio (as they have now renamed it).

Try throwing a bottle of piss at yourself for that authentic rock experence

I once had someone puck up on me in the crush at the front – lovely.

Other than that a deepish, fastish bass sound that you feel in your bowels helps get that the real rock feel….

OK computer always gets my system going nicely. Great mixture of instruments and electronics and of course some amazing vocals.

I do see the point in tspending money on hifi but personally think that beyond a point it get stupid.

My small system is a musical fidelity xa-2 amp, arcam cd72 and b&w 601 so absolutely nothing special. I have now however travelled to the dark side and got a squeezebox classic. Can i notice the difference – just but not as much as i'd have thought but my cd player is knackered so can rarely play a full album anyway! WHat is even more interesting is the difference betwen a lossless flac/apple lossless and 320kbs mp3s – not anywhere as much as i'd have though but hey my system isn't reference.

What amuses me about hifi snobbery is that the gear often used to record music on is less than perfect. Is there any point on people buying a £200 power lead when they protools rig it was recorded on is plugged in using cheap kettle leads? How about an amazing mastering job on a band using humming dreadful old cabinets. £100/m speaker cable etc. brilliant!

Then you get the hifi mags and their take on reference speakers (shouldn't they be absolutely flat?) then you get recording engineers using monitors that they "prefer the sound of" over others even though they are definitely meant to be flat! It is all so very subjective (but fun!)

FSOL – Lifeforms would do it for me. Great album which is very well produced. Also dummy by portishead. For intimate vocals how bout pink moon by Nick Drake? Listen to black eyed dog with your eyes shut and tell me you can't see the devil….

Yeah good call on Nick Drake.

Lifeforms is a great shout – off for a ride and will listen to that with my post ride coffee – nice.

Mudshark, thanks for the recommendation, I shall go explore the world of Zappa…

I love live music the most, but the sorts of music I enjoy are so often vastly different live that trying to replicate them on any system is a waste of time TBH. You just can't recreate Passion Pit (for instance) as they're a different sound live to their album releases.

There's no such thing as hifi snobbery, just lofi stupidity. 😆

DezB – Member

I've quite enjoyed it really It's amusing that some people listen to shite music on their super-expensive hi-fi system and kid themselves it's good, just because it sounds proper.

As opposed to actually liking what you would describe as "shite" (by which I take it you mean "music I don't like") and enjoying it more than they would on a system that didn't perform very well..

A good HiFi system can enhance the enjoyment of any music – as long as it's music that you already like, of course.

And not "shite"…

+1 for Dummy.
The Cranberries seemed to employ high production values too, Zombie can be quite spellbinding.
Don't you also find a bottle of something cold also enhances the listening pleasure, lights down low and sitting cental to the music so it washes over you can be a very cathartic experience.

I've yet to give Florence and the Machine a good work out, but her voice should be telling on the system – she might just squeal at me!

"Headphone" music, when I were a lad…

Ra-pa-ti-ka: boo, boo chaaaaaaah (Silence in the studio….)

Easy, but then most pinkfloyd is recognisable..

Ahem, late to the party again…

But AFAIK this is the first headphone specific thread I have seen, do any of you Audiophiles have a useful upgrade path on the following?

Marantz CD7300 plus Sennheiser HD595's, I'm not shy of spending a 'bit', maybe up to £2k, but for that I would want a serious return in sound quality, I mean bass that would make my £1500 REL sub scared & my poor little eggs commit suicide, I'm not joking…

Cheers.

2unfit…do you mean an upgrade path purely along the headphone route?

If you have a £1500 REL sub, you don't want direct competition with another bass heavy main speaker.
Can you cope with an electrostatic?

You only mention the CD transport, or is it you're prepared to spend £2k on headphones & related kit?

Sorry for the confusion, I was talking about an upgrade on what I listen to music on, so just a headphone based system. The Marantz is one of only a few CD players that have a built in headphone socket, so I may be looking for new headphones/amp/CD player if I think there is a marked improvement for the money.

Cheers.

Headphones are a bit passé (my own, not HiFi Plus's thoughts) so you will not have that many options. Most people have speakers.
I imagine the step up amplification within the CD player might be the stage you have to look at replacing with an add-on box of tricks.

A good HiFi system can enhance the enjoyment of any music – as long as it's music that you already like, of course.

No way – some CDs are dreadfully mastered and a "good" system can really show this up. Over compressed pop is the worst (compression as in the engineering/production compression used in studios to limit dynamic range not digital audio compression to limit file size).

The best example i have heard was a Prince collection CD which sounded aweful – a shame as some of the originals can sound fantastic.

Some pop can sound fantastic however, take that's recent albums are very well mastered.

Well of course, "you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear"…

2unfit2ride – Member

Sorry for the confusion, I was talking about an upgrade on what I listen to music on, so just a headphone based system. The Marantz is one of only a few CD players that have a built in headphone socket, so I may be looking for new headphones/amp/CD player if I think there is a marked improvement for the money.

Cheers.

Don't know myself, but there's some opinions here:

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f7/cd-player-good-headphone-output-420176/

that might be useful.

Getting as close to the feeling of the live performance as possible is what interests me more than the exact sound that was recorded

If you really wanted close to live performance, you'd not want fancy kit. Get yourself a bunch of probably quite bad quality but loud PA speakers, wire them up with 40 year old lawnmower cable, then up the bass to ludicrous levels, that'd get you much closer to the true live rock sound than some listening to a high quality reproduction of a 'live' recording that was taken straight off the desk at the gig and then has had the crowd noise added in.

Similarly, if you want the real studio recording sound, get hold of a pair of Yamaha NS-10s.

Although to be honest, if you need good quality equipment for a song to work, you're listening to crap music. Like that Johnny Cash – Personal Jesus someone posted up there, that is genius, and still sounds great on a pair of cheap laptop speakers.

Having said all that, the best music in my house comes from a yamaha U1. Nothing beats music that you're actually producing yourself.

Joe

Although to be honest, if you need good quality equipment for a song to work, you're listening to crap music. Like that Johnny Cash – Personal Jesus someone posted up there, that is genius, and still sounds great on a pair of cheap laptop speakers.

great article a while ago in the Word magazine (I think) about modern mastering techniques. Pretty much all modern music is compressed like crazy so that it sounds good on/ and the vocals can be heard clearly on/ a cheap mobile phone speaker or a transistor radio.

this definately means that quite a large slice of new music being produced now will not sound significantly better on an expensive system – because all that detail that the expensive system is deigned to pick out just isn't there anymore to be picked out

There are actually many options in the headphone market, depending on budget/perference, you just need to know where to look.

If you have a healthy £2k to play with and it were my money, I'd be looking at an offboard DAC for starters. Something like a Meier Audio StageDAC, or perhaps a CI Audio VDA2 are both excellent quality mid-range DACs. Your CD7300 should be fine as a digital transport for now, and I'm not convinced your money would be best spent changing it (unless you want to go with a streaming solution such as a Squeezebox linked to a PC or NAS box…let me know if that option interests you).

Next, amplification. Again, there are loads and loads of options out there to suit all sorts of budgets and listening preferences. Again, my money at this budget, I'd take a solid look at Woo Audio (if you like tube amps), in part because I already have one of their WA22 balanced amps & have been very impressed with it. At this budget you won't want to go balanced (expensive – think of it a bit like bi-amping speakers), and I've heard great things about the WA6SE amp, so you might want to look at that. So many other options too though…if you can get someone to build you a Millet Hybrid amp, they are superb for the money (a few hundred quid tops), and beat just about anything I've heard at that price. Mapletree Audio also make some lovely tube amps (Ear+ for example) that pair particularly well with Grado headphones in my experience. If solid state amps are your bag, Dacs Audio (a UK firm), are making some of the best I've heard. They're mainly a Pro audio company, but I tested a pre-production version of a consumer focused amp (based on their Pro "Headmaster" unit) and it was fantastic. I'd have one the day they are released (not sure when yet) if I were in the market for a new solid state amp.

Headphones. Ideally, again all imho, you want to leave a significant portion of your budget for the headphones. This is not a hard & fast rule, and can depend on the particular components you're looking at (eg Sennheiser HD800s really need great upstream components), but for the most part I think you'll find the best bang for your buck at the headphone end of the chain. Rather like speakers, the headphones will generally have more effect on the final sound that any other component in the chain, and therefore your choice will definitely come down to preference. Unfortunately, this is where living in the UK isn't ideal, as it's quite hard to get a listen to a lot of the stuff out there (applies to amps/dacs as well), and you may have already noticed that most of the companies I've mentioned are based in the USA. So, I reckon with this system you could be looking at spending between £600 and £1000 on headphones. That gets you into the ballpark of the Beyer T1, Sennheiser HD800 (careful with other components). I own a pair of HD800s and they are an amazing achievement…the sound isn't for everyone…very detailed, revealing, neutral…a lot of people like the more emphasised mids of something like a Grado RS1 or the HF2 (if you can find one). Definitely worth looking at the classifieds on the Headfi forum, as they tend to be quite busy & generally reliable.

This is really just a taster…there are TONS of other headphones, amps, dacs, sources etc out there that might suit you better. Really, the Head-Fi forum is the best place to research the whole topic. As a final curve-ball, you may even want to consider a portable rig that you can also use at home. JH Audio are producing some absolutely amazing custom IEMs (in ear monitors, moulded to your ear), specifically the JH13-Pro or JH16-Pro, which have made a lot of seasoned Head-fi'ers give up their big expensive home rigs. If you go this route, you could get a really nice portable source and amp plus some custom IEMs for well within your budget, and of course you can take it wherever you go. Something to think about anyway.

Edit – re your comment about masses of bass…remember, this is a headphone rig, you're dealing with the limitations of small drivers. Whilst some headphones will give you the illusion of a lot of bass, don't expect the earth to move!

Meier Audio StageDAC

CI Audio VDA2 DAC

Woo Audio WA6SE

Mapletree Audio

Head Fi forum

JH Audio

So much effort for some headphones why it's actualy a no brainer.

V V V V V V V

For audiophile recs.

Spirit chaser > Dead can Dance
One Second > Yello

Try Easy Money off Ricky Lee Jones' 1st album – super clear sound &, more importantly a good song well played. Some of the single mike jazz recordings from the late '50's/ '60's sound great – Ben Webster meets Oscar Peterson comes to mind.
One good thing about headphones is that it removes the effect of the room from listening. They can also be great value – I bought some Stax headphones s/h for £50 in the '80's. you would still need to spend ££££ to improve upon how they sounded driven by an old Meridian CD player & power amp.
Spending on HiFi is a slippery slope – I have bought most of mine 2nd hand (Meridian & Quad fwiw), if you buy good quality British stuff the back up is generally good. A while ago the garage in garbage out (GIGO) argument was a good one, now with the advent of digital sources this argument is less persuasive – my front end is a meridian processor & 6 active speakers (775W in total) but the DVD player was £100 & I run music losslessly from my mac.
When you spend more effort listening to the equipment than the music you have gone too far IMHO.

yeah I think a nice Stax O2 would be out of the budget here, especially if you want to pair it with a decent (ie not Stax!) amp…imho :-)…and no money for source upgrade of any sort.

Stax's are awesome, very expensive though.
You can buy decent headphones for a lot less.
How good the soundquality of an audioset/ headphones has to be, also depends on how good your hearing is. Getting older and working in an industrial envoirment didn't my hearing any favours. Although it's not realy bad now, it isn't what it used to be 20 years ago either.
As in everything, some people seem to buy their equipment for the badge not for the way it sounds. Some components just don't mix, regardless how good or expensive they are.

Many thanks to those that have replied to my question, especially pedalhead for all the links. It seems the headfi forum is very technical & TBH a bit beyond me, but lots of research seems to be the order of the day, shame not many shops stock/demo headphone stuff.
One final question, will I ever be able to get the soundstage to apper infront of me, or will I have to live with vocalist being in the middle of my head?
Oh & sorry to the OP for the high-jack.

Cheers.

You need speakers!
My Martin Logans are elctrostaics, meaning the sound stage is quite unlike any traditional speaker.
You can physically point to musicians both front to back (which I have to say it the neatest effect) and side to side.
There is no source, it's very disorientating initially.
With the right sort of music it can be spellbinding and completely addictive!
"Now 45" especially!

Some 'phones are better with imaging than others, but the best way to achieve a speaker-like image is to use some kind of crossfeed…either hardware (built into some amps, or a separate standalone unit), or software (Foobar 2000 if using your PC as a source for example). Crossfeed essentially takes a little of each channel & puts it into the opposite channel (although that's a major simplification, most use some quite clever algorithms), which has the effect of bringing the soundstage more forwards & out. The Meier Audio and Headroom implementations of crossfeed are quite highly regarded. I used to own a balanced Headroom Ultra amp with crossfeed and it definitely does what it says on the tin. Good thing it's switchable though, as I preferred most modern music without crossfeed…I find many earlier stereo recordings tend to have very left/right imaging…early Beatles stereo stuff for example, and these benefit greatly from crossfeed imho.

Edit – Ti29er is right…headphones can never match the imaging offered by a good set of speakers. But then, I'm pretty sure the question is about headphones 🙂