I love answers.com

R

Rolf N

Recurring Membmare
Veteran
After london-boy recently reacted kinda strongly to me calling people who'd buy high-end Hifi equipment "gullible fools", I thought I needed to recheck on my vocabulary and went to answers.com to look up "gullible".

I shurely could have fallen off my chair if it weren't for the fact that I was sitting on the couch.
You see, answers.com runs "sponsored links" on the result page, which are targetted I presume. The ads on the "gullible" page were these:

From a Famous Astrologer
Discover Your exclusive Zodiac Sign Forecast for 2007. Free Service!
www.shamefuldomainnamewithheld.com

What Really Attracts Men?
Learn The Secret Psychology You Can Use To Attract & Keep Men You Want
www.shamefuldomainnamewithheld.com

:D

Amazing, isn't it?
 
Ty said:
What's "high-end"? Perhaps you're better served with "esoteric".
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That's what I was wondering. I would think l-b would be the type of person to appreciate high end gear, with his love for high end display technologies. Now, I must admit I laugh when I hear about people spending $10k on cables, etc. But I've listened to some very very expensive headphones and I would say that they easily justify their price.
 
Ty said:
What's "high-end"? Perhaps you're better served with "esoteric".
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No, not esoteric. Not the pebbles.
Just regular "high-end" as in 10mm² oxygen-.free copper leads for digital signals or CD players where all moving parts are made of [strike]cast liquid unicorn teeth[/strike]special low-resonance ceramics.
 
Skrying said:
That's what I was wondering. I would think l-b would be the type of person to appreciate high end gear, with his love for high end display technologies. Now, I must admit I laugh when I hear about people spending $10k on cables, etc. But I've listened to some very very expensive headphones and I would say that they easily justify their price.
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I have good hearing, and I love music.
Headphones, in stark contrast to big speakers, are just very easy to make. You can cover a very wide frequence range with a single dynamic system when it's so close to the ear, there's no hassle with multiple axes with mismatching phase, no crossover circuits. It's neat.
Or put in a different way, nice heaphones are just much easier to come by than nice loudspeakers. Chances are that any random pair of nice headphones will sound quite impressive if you are otherwise used to loudspeakers.

I have a 50€ pair of Sennheiser PX-100 and quite frankly don't see much advantage in paying more. This pair can pretty much do everything I can hear and they are physically comfortable. I don't doubt that there are many kinds of headphones that sound different, and among those are a few that I personally find a little better, but my stance is that the difference either way will be so small that no human being can hope to be able to separate the objective difference from the subjective placebo effects, which are inherent to every expensive piece of kit you just paid for, let alone make a qualitative judgement.

That's roughly my opinion on super-expensive (>200, 300€) headphones. I grant a little more lenience on loudspeaker prices. But that isn't really what bugs me. It's things that I know can't make any difference to sound quality, like e.g. the kind of copper that a cable connected to a line-in is made from.
 
I tried expensive headphones years ago:
Sennheiser HD580 were the best bang for the buck. They sounded almost like the HD600s for half the price (~290Euros for the HD600). The highs and mids were a bit better one the 600s.
Some Sony 2000s had the strongest bass and they were a bit more expensive than the 600s.
All of these headphones sounded a lot better than cheap ones. :sleep:

Recently I had the money and bought the HD650s. They're like the 600s but with a lot bass. :mrgreen:
 
zeckensack said:
That's roughly my opinion on super-expensive (>200, 300€) headphones. I grant a little more lenience on loudspeaker prices. But that isn't really what bugs me. It's things that I know can't make any difference to sound quality, like e.g. the kind of copper that a cable connected to a line-in is made from.
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I don't really consider those "super" expensive headphones, those are more like mid-budget for someone just starting to get into headphones or someone who's really into them but on a tight budget (that'd be me). I've had the joy of experiencing phones costing $10,000~ (depends) in the Sennheiser HE90 at a Head-Fi meet, truly amazing experience and if I had the money and could find a pair I'd snatch up a pair and its matching amplifier in a second. I've also had the pleasure of a number of other high end headphones ranging from $200 to $3000. Once you do get to a certain point where its not exactly better reproduction of the sound, but the headphones characteristics, and personally music can take me places that I find it worth spending that money if I had it. To each their own though, its what I say about all hobbies. Me? I could care less really about new display technologies, I'm happy with current ones for the most part, sure a new much higher contrast, etc technologies rock and all but its more like "wow" the first time and just fine the next. Music and sound and especially headphones keep me coming back and enjoying it over and over.
 
The biggest advantage of expensive headphones is at handling higher volumes without distortion or damage, which is rather important for musicians in the studio. Also, mostly they sound more natural, lacking the artificial bass boost/mid cut (which is just a design decision, though). And last but not least, much sturdier/better build quality as well as higher quality cables used. Not to forget the varieties which cancel the environmental noise.
 
FWIW zeckensack, I agree with you.

Loudspeakers can get fairly expensive (in the few to ten+ thousand dollar range) to do the best job possible on sound reproduction, simply because the best drivers (that are measurably and audibly better) are fairly pricey, building a good enclosure isn't dirt cheap, and crossovers competently designed take a lot of R&D time to get right (well, the whole loudspeaker takes a lot of R&D time to get right). Surface area rules, which equates to complexity and cost.

Headphones... meh, couple hundred dollars covers what the human ear can cope with.

As for other components, power amplifiers are worth the extra expense so long as you're buying better (i.e., beefier and more stable) power supplies, rail capacitance, and a sound topology. $10-$20/watt is about the max I'd be willing to pay (which is still pricey IMO), as anything past that is paying for name/marketing/BS/etc.

CD players, yeah, having good jitter levels and clean analog circuitry (if you use that output) is worth investing a little more in, but players in the many thousands of dollar range aren't audibly better.

When you get to cables, or worse pebbles, I'm definitely in the realist camp. You need speaker cables that are sized for the length of run required, quality shielded interconnects (still very cheap), and AC cords sized for appropriate current handling capacity. That's it. IMO, industry standard coax for digital transmission (like quad shield RG6 or equivalent, there are many varieties out there) make the best interconnects are are pretty much dirt cheap. 12AWG cable from Home Depot or a bulk supplier is good enough for any speaker in practically any installation situation.

What is important? Things that produce massive audible differences. One obvious one is the speaker, but perhaps equally important but often overlooked is the signal processing. Algorithms like PLIIx and Logic7 really can do something worthwile to the sound, as can well designed and applied equalization for room modes, delay for placement, proper crossover management, etc. Those things are worth spending a little extra for (i.e., I'd opt for the Lexicon pre/pro and a run-of-the-mill amplifier before getting a "Hi-End" stereo preamp and uber-expensive amplifier).
 
what I don't like about headphones, you spend more than 100 euros on a pair, get fucked if you don't know much about them (as there's one that sounds the same but at half the price), they're more tiring for the ears and one year later only one ear works anymore, because that shit is so fragile.

that's what happened to me :).
 
Blazkowicz said:
what I don't like about headphones, you spend more than 100 euros on a pair, get fucked if you don't know much about them (as there's one that sounds the same but at half the price), they're more tiring for the ears and one year later only one ear works anymore, because that shit is so fragile.

that's what happened to me :).
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Don't be so rough on headphones? My Sennheiser HD580 are getting rather old right now and I'm the third person to own the pair. They are in perfect shape other than a slight paint chip on the head band, other than that they'd pass as new.

Of course there is Bose headphones. Pay $150 for a pair that sounds like crap and have a terrible head band design that breaks without even being touched.
 
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