Headphones

[Daverz]

I recently got a Musical Fidelity V-Can headphone amp.  It sounds like a definite improvement on my Creek OBH-11 (but the headphone jack on the Creek was flaking out).  Excellent bass and "headstage" (or is that "soundhead") with both the Sennheiser 650 and the Etymotic 4.  It has both a 1/4" jack and a 1/8" jack.  But no on/off switch.  I suppose you are supposed to leave it on all the time, but I have it on my bedside table, and the blue LED it has is too bright.  The volume pot seems very basic, but it actually seems to be more linear in operation than the Creek's fancy one.

[George]

You are a top man George, that had me laughing into the night at this ungodly hour.  Brilliant.    

0:)

[DavidW]

I recently got a Musical Fidelity V-Can headphone amp.  It sounds like a definite improvement on my Creek OBH-11 (but the headphone jack on the Creek was flaking out).  Excellent bass and "headstage" (or is that "soundhead") with both the Sennheiser 650 and the Etymotic 4.  It has both a 1/4" jack and a 1/8" jack.  But no on/off switch.  I suppose you are supposed to leave it on all the time, but I have it on my bedside table, and the blue LED it has is too bright.  The volume pot seems very basic, but it actually seems to be more linear in operation than the Creek's fancy one.

I somehow missed this post.  I had been considering both for my 650, this might push me to finally make a decision in favor of Musical Fidelity.

[DavidW]

Speaking of

Nah, nah you got a good one they are pretty transparent and not overly muddy with flabby bass.  You won't hear everything you should be able to hear with those phones, but you'll hear most of it, and they are pretty neutral.  They are a good buy.

Speaking of el-cheapos, I got some that actually fit my ear well!   I have small ears and this has been a struggle.  It is cheap ifrogz, and they actually sound detailed with clean but deep bass.  In fact I'm kind of at a loss as to why so many think that the cans sound tinny, maybe it doesn't fit their ears well?  Anyway $10 well spent.

[DarkAngel]

I recently got a Musical Fidelity V-Can headphone amp.  It sounds like a definite improvement on my Creek OBH-11 (but the headphone jack on the Creek was flaking out).  Excellent bass and "headstage" (or is that "soundhead") with both the Sennheiser 650 and the Etymotic 4.  It has both a 1/4" jack and a 1/8" jack.  But no on/off switch.  I suppose you are supposed to leave it on all the time, but I have it on my bedside table, and the blue LED it has is too bright.  The volume pot seems very basic, but it actually seems to be more linear in operation than the Creek's fancy one.

I have owned Musical Fidelity X-Can V8 for about 1 year now, power left on all times.

I also use Senn 650 & Senn 600 headphones with upgraded headphone cables (Zu & Cardas)
Very nice combo.......

[DavidW]

Speaking of
Speaking of el-cheapos, I got some that actually fit my ear well!   I have small ears and this has been a struggle.  It is cheap ifrogz, and they actually sound detailed with clean but deep bass.  In fact I'm kind of at a loss as to why so many think that the cans sound tinny, maybe it doesn't fit their ears well?  Anyway $10 well spent.

Okay I was real excited to hear canalphones that actually fit my ear, but I was way, way, way over the top with praise I mean really they have very grainy highs those ifrogz are just terrible.

Here is my round up on bargain buds I've tried:
JVC Marshmallows-- very, sweet fluid mids and no course grainy treble, the best sounding in their class BUT those foam tips are so uncomfy that they are unusable for me
JVC Gumy-- mid-bass hump makes it sound overly muddy, thumbs down.
Ifrogz-- screamingly bright!  Pain in your ear, thumbs down.
Philips-- I don't know model # but they go over your ear, and not bad but no bass
Skullcandy Ink'd-- I got it for $10 at staples a few weeks ago, and actually it has deep bass, but no midbass hump (so it doesnt sound muddy), but it has a grainy treble feel to it.  Not great, but adequate and worth $10.

I know you could point out that altogether I could have just bought nice iems for the price of all that cheap junk, but until recently did not know that any would actually fit my ear.  Now I feel confident enough to buy something nicer and it will fit.

[DavidW]

Anyway I'm going to get headphones that will be better for mp3 player listening, my low impedance headphones either lack in bass or are too open, I'm looking for closed headphones (for pop and classical, so I can't settle for just excellent mids) with deep bass, no midbass hump, recessed upper mids, but extended treble.  Looks like (from looking up head-fi posts and peering at graphs) that Audio Technica's M50 will be the answer.  Anyone here own these headphones and have an opinion?

Oh yeah btw where do I find that Musical Fidelity amp, what online stores carry them?

[drogulus]

Anyway I'm going to get headphones that will be better for mp3 player listening, my low impedance headphones either lack in bass or are too open, I'm looking for closed headphones (for pop and classical, so I can't settle for just excellent mids) with deep bass, no midbass hump, recessed upper mids, but extended treble.  Looks like (from looking up head-fi posts and peering at graphs) that Audio Technica's M50 will be the answer.  Anyone here own these headphones and have an opinion?

      I'll have to check out those phones. It would be nice to have a more compact alternative to the 280s, one that could match the deep bass or at least come close. Most of the better closed 'phones don't fare that well at the lower limit.

      Reviews look good....they don't need an amp! They might pass the Caractacus test.*

    _{*This is the test: At one point in this Elgar oratorio there's a deeep note on the pedal, very powerful. If your phones can render this you're OK. If not, life is flavorless......get thee to a nunnery.}

[DavidW]

That's a powerful musical moment too Ernie!   Based on FR I kind of expect it to sound like a step up from the 280s but hopefully more comfy (that was my problem with the 280s is lack of comfort).

[drogulus]

    Yeah the 280s have to be extended waay out so they don't hurt your head, which means they look so stupid I can hardly bear to be seen with them. Once you do this though they actually aren't that bad.

[DavidW]

hehe I'm using to looking stupid with headphones-- Audio Technica ad700 used to be what I used in the office, and they are purple, for real they are purple!!

[drogulus]

     

       Ah...I see. Those would definitely damage your manhood.


       Notice how they don't show a full frontal view! Also, it's a woman so you can't properly laugh at her.

     

[Coopmv]

Oh yeah btw where do I find that Musical Fidelity amp, what online stores carry them?

I saw Audio Advisor carrying it not long ago ...

[drogulus]

       OK, no one will believe this but I had the original X10-D Tube Buffer (I know, ha ha ha ha......).

       

       It's still around here somewhere buried under all the junk.

[DavidW]

I saw Audio Advisor carrying it not long ago ...

I saw the V-can but not the X-can and that along with the entry level Creeks look good at driving low impedence cans but not high impedence ones.  But the Rega Ear they had there looks like it might be promising... I'm going to see what head-fiers have said... thanks for the link.

[mahler10th]

Sennheiser HD228

I bought these yesterday...working my way up to get a REALLY decent pair...still, these are great.  Nice detail.  £50.

[DavidW]

Haha John you totally took off that avatar from head-fi, I've seen it before!

I ended up buying the M-Audio Q40 headphones for my closed choice due to some head-fiers saying that it's bassier than the M50s but more controlled.  And heck yeah they are amazing!  I finally have that deep end that I wasn't getting with my Senns and isolation.  Music (as per my Handel listening) sounds full bodied yet detailed.   I'll actually use them for my home cans now because...

The Klipsch S4 is more comfy than I thought an IEM could be and are a perfect match with my ipod touch.  Deep bass, sparkly highs but no sibilence that I can hear (despite what others have said to the contrary) and a very smooth, warm, dark sound.  Haven't tried them with classical yet (I was listening to Marilyn Manson ) but sounds wonderful and is comfy.  Good enough for full time office listening and not just for exercise phones.

[mahler10th]

As I haven't a clue about these things I looked up M-Audio Q40 headphones, and it turns out they are about £80.
Right then David...thanks for the tip!  They are my next target - at least I can get them knowing from a learned source that for Classical Music, they are great.  It is stuff like this I'm greateful to learn.   

[DavidW]

Ah cool beans.   Word of warning though some are more sensitive to bass than others, and consider what I would think of as bass anemic to be neutral.  And what they consider to be neutral, I consider to be bright (I'm sensitive to upper mids).  And I what I consider neutral they consider to be dark or veiled.  Those people gravitate towards akg for classical, else they gravitate towards Sennheiser like I do.  I'm saying this because you need to know your preferred sound signature or you can spend alot of money and still not be satisfied.

It's hard when there are not shops to go to (I live in the middle of nowhere) but I actually found something geeky that actually worked.   I'll post it in a second.

[DavidW]

Okay check this out, I had this idea that if headphones had the right frequency response curve for your ears then it should sound equally loud (and thus balanced or neutral) across the board.  Assuming a neutral source and amp this site (when you use headphones):

http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/jw/hearing.html

does not just tell you your equal loudness curve, it tells you your equal loudness curve when using your headphones.

Alright suppose we took your headphones frequency response graph on Head room--

(see http://www.headphone.com/learning-center/Build%20A%20Headphone%20Graph.php)

That curve should tell you the relative frequency response (from 1 kHz) after subtracting a generic response for a person.  Your equal loudness curve will not match this even if your ears are as generic as they get!   But considering that the first graph is always built around you + your headphones, and the second graph is always built from dummy person + your headphones, you can consider the first graph to be a quantity of how much different the second one is from perceived neutrality.

So this is what I did:
(1) find my equal loudness contour on that website
(2) look up graph (and print) for the headphones I used (in my case Senn 555)
(3) draw points on that headroom graph printout to match loudness contour.  For example if I find that 12 kHz needs to be 5 dB higher, then I mark a point 5 dB above the corresponding point on the curve at 12 kHz on the Senn 555 graph.
(4) trace out the new curve
(5) look for headphones (on head room) that match the curve you drew, those should sound neutral to you
(5') narrow peaks in the FR graph, no matter how tall are unimportant, only wide curves are audibly funky
(5'') if considering iems consider how relative the response is to the seal with the ear canal
(6) cross reference with posts regarding those headphones on head-fi
(7) adjust for personal preference (maybe you don't want neutral)


That sounds like alot of work, but when you can't go to a store and just listen it's a good way to blind buy off the internet, and it worked for me.

Edit: I should also point out that musically most of the sub-bass is not heard but felt and can't be done right by headphones anyway, and our ears are so not sensitive to high treble that unless you're young that is also not really important.  Really you just want to focus around 60 Hz - 16 kHz.

I know nobody asked but I was excited that that nerdy weird method actually had payoff!