I have a problem sometimes when listening to music and I can’t tell if it’s my headphones, the music, or my ears.
Here goes:
so, sometimes I like to try to focus on and really appreciate each individual part of a song, separate out each piece and instrument in my head. Sometimes though, an instrument gets a bit blurry or hard to hear, and this makes me paranoid that my headphones aren’t producing enough detail, but in reality, it probably has more to do with volume mixing how people’s ears perceive that. Obviously, a much louder sound will drown out a quieter one, so it makes sense that the same would be true for music. I notice this more in some tracks and I get paranoid that maybe my daily drivers (Harmonicdyne Zeus) aren’t reproducing detail well enough, so I swap to other headphones I own (ath m40, some Moondrops, SHP 9500s, etc.) and I find that the “problem” still persists so I doubt it’s the headphones, especially since, if anything, my Zeus still tend to be able to reproduce those quiet sounds better than the other headphones.
I want you to listen and try to follow the electric guitar that starts at 28 seconds in this track Metroid Prime 2: Echoes - Title - Soundtrack - YouTube and tell me if after a while it starts to get drowned out a bit by other sounds for you. The answer is probably yes because I think it’s a human hearing thing, but who knows, maybe there’s headphones out there that have really amazing instrument separation that makes stuff like that easier to hear.
Well, starting at around 1:37 or thereabouts, I am not sure I’m hearing it anymore. However, at 1:56, the background starts dropping out, and the electric guitar is clearly not playing anymore, so yeah, sometime between those two time stamps (I am betting closer to the first one) it cuts completely. I am betting it probably recedes over several seconds into silence.
Just re-listened. The electric guitar riff in question repeats, but at a lower volume starting at about 0:45. Starting at 1:00 I can easily tell that it is receding in volume. There’s even breaks where the main line is quiet enough that it should’ve been shining through if it continued at the same volume it was at earlier. This guitar line is being faded into silence. I think by 1:38-1:39 its pretty much faded.
its still there till around 1:40 mark then im not sure i still hear it or if its just my brain telling me its there, because the chorus and ther bass rumble do really overpower the guitar then.
All in all think the zeus isnt the most resolving HP with the best seperation but that track certainly doesnt help it
just tried it again with my t1 and the guitar is cearly hearable till around 1:38 than im not sure if its simply overshadowed by the rest of the track or if it stops, think i can sometimes hear a nude in the treble but also could be my imagination XD
I see what you’re after now. The organ chords do resonate with the guitar riff and partially mask it starting at around 0:45. I can still hear it there, but there is a resonance between it and the organs, and there is also a volume cut in the guitar line starting around then too. At 1:10 the guitar is clearly still there, but at less than half its original volume. At 1:35, I need to start really focusing to keep it in my ear, as its getting pretty faint. Starting I think after it refrains one last time, at 1:36-1:37 the guitar cuts completely, but its original riff has already had its rhythm picked up by electronic percussion, which carries the rhythm forward. This keeps the cohesion of the music intact while helping it transform.
But yeah, even after it starts to fade at 0:45, I can still hear it pretty clearly until the 1:36-7 timeframe.
