is Topping considered Chi-Fi? (I have the A90)
(subjective and uninformed) Klipsch makes too many subwoofers and most of them aren’t good compared to their competition.
Regarding Harman, yes and no imo. Even in Harman’s research, they found high variation in bass preference (iirc 20% prefer less, and generally trained vs untrained listeners). I personally find Harman bass of any revision way too bassy for my taste - and I listen to anything from classical to EDM.
However, I don’t think anyone can reasonably argue against the target curve for mids/treble is bad. The headphones most consistently praised for good mids and treble are stuff like the HD 600 series, K371, Starfields, Sundaras, KSC75 etc. are quite close to Harman. Stuff that deviates a little too much like the HD800S, Stax, K700 series, Grados, Audeze stock tuning etc can still sound good to some, but general consensus is tonality has some issues.
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Is this controversial?
I 100% agree with it as well.
As for my controversial opinion, too many audiophiles trust their ears alone. That is, not enough people are aware of how much our psychology affects what we hear, and not enough hold healthy skepticism for what we hear (or don’t hear).
The sound we evaluate is perception, not the pure sensation that beats on our ears. Before it enters our conciousness, it is already filtered by our brains - filtering with bias, focusing on certain aspects, ignoring others, filling in missing information, adjusting to volume etc. With how much signal processing goes on to create the perception of sound, I can’t believe a claim of “golden ears” without proper blind testing of some sort to prove it.
Not to say what one hears and the conclusions one draws are wrong - in fact they are very valid. But it seems to me some mistakenly believe what they percieve is objective truth, not a subjective one.
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Undisclosed essential prerequisite for any “speaker placement” video:
- have a huge house/apartment that allows you to move everything around, otherwise you’re fucked
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unfortunately
You and me both. If i dont like the sound of speaker its not bad its just different from what i like, right?
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yes, usually. there are well agreed upon things being considered bad and good, but most often it’s just different.
You really don’t need all these headphones.
Just get a dt880/hd600 and a good tubeamp/bottlehead crack with speedball and start tube rolling. Sell all the headphones! This is all you ever needed! You knew this from the start!
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Fun headphones are better then good headphones. I’d take the cascades over an he 1000 just because of how “fun” the cascades seem, while the he 1000 is just a very clean and accurate headphone. And to quote the one and only reggie, “if it’s not fun, why bother?”
Aside from other use cases like production and editing, in regards to listening to music for pure enjoyment a fun is definitely the way to go. But fun for many of us could be clean and accurate.
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For production I can totally understand the need for accuracy. I just see a lot of people who need the CLEANEST amp possible and only go for things with flat sound signatures.
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Here’s another one: you don’t need more then 3 hifi audio sources. Just get something good that can do almost everything and have some others that fill those other niches like Bluetooth or iems instead of multiple things for tiny things. It’s pretty wasteful.
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Absolutely, but I’d love to see some pros use better headsets and see how much better they could be. Those Logi G Pro whatever headsets are hot garbage.
Is it possible that some people get fun different than you do? Like, can they enjoy more flat sound for whatever reason?
I mean… I think preferences, in anything, are just like asses, everyone had its own.
Please, don’t take it wrong way, I just want to make a strong analogy.
Don’t you think that saying that other people don’t get fun because they achieve it in different way than you do - is kind of like saying people who like BDSM for sure don’t do it for fun because you don’t get fun out of BDSM?
I think we should be tolerant about it, as it’s just that, a preference. No one will harm anyone else by liking different things in headphones, music etc.
Peace
The way I see it, fun > clean but they are not mutually exclusive. If you can get fun and capable, why not?
Real talk; the difference from going from a headset to a DarkVoice (rolled tubes) and HD 6XX was 98% of all I needed. If I had done it from the beginning I would have been satisfied. I don’t really regret any of my purchases but the preferential changes have been minimal and probably not worth the cost. I’ve learned a lot about what sound signatures I prefer and which ones to stay away from though!
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I feel like I didn’t get my point across properly my bad. My friend was getting into audiophile stuff and wanted to get a new amp. He was running an HD 600 off a zen dac. The logical opinion was to get a tube amp as it makes a huuuge difference, but he INSISTED that he must get a flat amp as tube amps will make it “weird” even though he’s never tried one. He’s a beginner, so understandable, and maybe he didn’t want the change, but then I came across a guy who kept telling other new peoples that “the flatter the sound curve is, the better the headphone is”. I tried to explain that’s not how it works, yet he didn’t listen. As I kept exploring the audiophile world I found quite a few of those types of people who think only flat sound signatures are good and shun others who don’t use flat. They mostly lurk in discord servers which is funny.
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