After getting headphones with some decent detail retrieval I was shocked that a lot of music I enjoyed has issues like sibilance or shoutiness I never noticed before. Also, some of the mastering choices from the 60s and 70s music I occasionally listen to I now find distracting but interesting, like strange panning in and out and glitches like I am hearing the engineer manually interacting with the board. I find it quite interesting and a way to test newer headphones for detail and which are better for hiding it. Can anyone suggest some tracks to check out with issues like this?
Do bear in mind that the sibilance and/ or shouty-ness may be an artifact of the headphone not the recording. The same recording could sound smooth and relaxed in another pair of cans.
1 Like
I usually change headphones if I don’t like how something sounds with one of mine. Detail retrieval isn’t necessarily the only thing you’ll get from a quality headphone.
Some of them (including Beyerdynamic, some of the AKG stuff and others) can be a little much in the highs. Sometimes that feels like greater detail retrieval, but it’s just making the start of the note/sound more noticeable because of the emphasis. Anyway, that’s what I found, particularly on my DT990 Pro, not that I’m saying it isn’t a good headphone with good technical ability overall. Anyway, they can be a little much in songs with a lot of high frequency sounds (cymbal and snare hits can be especially tiring).
Anyway, it’s not necessarily a flaw in the music itself. I do enjoy using headphones to pick out little details, like someone talking on the track that you never heard before, or a note in the bass that didn’t even come through on lesser headphones.
Edit: I usually like the busier tracks, like stuff by Mother Mother or the Strokes. More instrumental stuff can be fun trying to feel the room they recorded in too. Punch Brothers are good, Ezio Bosso. Nice recordings that still give little hints and details about the recording setting.
1 Like
a ton of the 54-40 stuff on Spotify is absolute shyte.
1 Like
High end portable audio destroyed completely my joy of listening of poorly mastered records like early Led Zeppelin or Arcade Fire and early Mountain Goats which I enjoyed a lot when all my gear was below 30$ total 
2 Likes
Apologies for the late reply…
Yea this is precisely why I ended up having to sell the DT1990 from Beyer. The high frequency sounds began to bother me and cause fatigue, which was too bad because I liked the bass and mids on that can. Anyway thanks I will check out some of that music.
@ Dzaw Indeed, I have other headphones that smooth over such details.
@ Marzipan, Interesting, I will have to check it out!
Yea, with cheaper equipment things did sound better in terms of just being into the music. That era of the 60s and 70s in particular had a lot of artifacts in the recordings I kind of wish I never heard or noticed, because they are hard to unhear even when you go back to the cheaper gear, sometimes. Regarding Zeppelin and others, I think I am just going to use cheaper headphones in the future. I also found an entire reddit thread discussing this in detail, a lot of f-bombs and the like are in those recordings it seems! lol.