For me, the great example is the arya. The stage simply didn’t add to my listening experience. I mean, if you strum an accoustic guitar, the individual strings shouldn’t come from different spatial locations. That’s incoherent to me. (that’s a bit extreme as a description, but it serves the purpose of this illustration)
I think that’s too specific. I can’t create ratings for the naturalness of every instrument. But, on a general level, timbre is a driver here. So you can generally rate timbre. However your own appreciation of that timbre combines with that result.
So one rating might be a spectrum of natural timbre.
Are you on Head-Fi as well? Like I just receive a message from a guy that has the RSV but I also see he has the EJ07, DT3, Oxygen. Those people can be extremely valuable and they’re all happy to share and help you out, like here (says the newbie).
It’s not a sum/count situation. There will be a minimum number of responses to make data reasonable. I don’t know what number that is. Before that, results would be inconclusive. What matters is actually the % of ratings above and below the average. If data is all over the place (50% rate mest above zen, and 50% below zen) then this headphone is probably an interpretive red flag. At least reletive to the Zen. That’s a very simple explanation of the “math” behind this idea.
In most cases, there is consensus. So you will quickly identify headphones with similar, lesser, or greater capabilities than others. And the result can be order rankings. Even if there are 10,000 responses for b2 dusk and only 30 for mest.
That in lies the problem. I can say I haven’t had this issue until the dusk. And that’s all I know (no planar or dd over ear or iem has brought this up)
A non-returnable $600-$800 purchase is a big leap of faith.
I’ll share my “negative notes” as well in case it helps focussing on the right questions:
Cable not very flexible, slightly memory prone
Cable microphonics
Slightly deeper fit
2 pin connector
No chin slider
Thick nozzle, no covers, no lip
Larger shell
Fully sealed enclosure can create pressure
Slightly narrow soundstage
Lacks some sparkle, detail and clarity
Slightly thin vocals
Bit of a bass boost
Slightly less engaging because of tonal balance
Slightly laid-back
Subtle tendency to shout
In contrast there are lots of subjective rating analysis that do work. But, yeah, will it work? I don’t know. At least from an informational community capability, yeah, probably. Having a resource of aggregated “which headphone has the biggest soundstage” by itself seems pretty useful to me.
Don’t know if you’re special or not. I’m not a great timbre checker. Most people aren’t.
Do you have Mele + Blon? Test both and tell me which has better timbre. To me they are pretty close, but I know some people out there will say there’s a microdifference prolly. Also, you need to figure out what you hate about that timbre. Is it the mids, or treble?
No one is saying for you to buy anything, just answering the questions you raised. 90% of your problem is Dusk. But you might be sensible to the last 10%. Either way, if timbre is all you care, single DD will be your go to (oxygen).
Looks like something is wrong on the site? I’ll log out/in again as click on the Reply button of Dynamic’s comment and it ends up as an answer to you. If it happens again you know why, but I’ll do the logon thing first.
Sorry, I don’t have much budget experience. I’ll get GS Audio ST1 (single BA) in a couple weeks, but nothing I can rec so far. I had Lokahi but I can’t rec its timbre tho.
