what is the most realistic headphone you’ve ever heard, its like if the singer/band was playing right in front of you.
Hmmm, this sounds more like a staging question rather than realism. Do you mean a headphone that always has this type of effect, or something that can recreate it if the track calls for it?
like your in the spot, I usual listen to classical music like Bach, Mozart I can’t recall the tracks right now. An effect would realism can’t real describe it.
like something with natural sounding timbre? but Aggreed with mon sounds very much like a staging question. feeling like your right in it can mean a few things. like your the conductor and different instruments are in front of you at different positions around a stage or soemthing that can just recreate sound very well and natural/
I mean right in front of you very natural sounding kinda headphones
In my collection, I’ve found Koss ESP 95X to replicate live recordings the best. Hifiman Ananda is my best realistic studio headphone
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I guess… Focal utopias on my end. probably the most natural but also the most expensive I’ve ever heard
I would think if you want realism a neutral headphone would be what your looking for. no frills just the music as its recorded. The Auteur is the first headphone ive heard were everything sound realistic and correct. My music sounds like what i remember. Its a neutral headphone with a lot of detail. live recordings sound good on it. but its expensive. im sure theres other neutral headphones out there that are good for cheaper. the Audio Technica’s seem to have a lot.
I wonder if wood chambers play a part in reproducing a natural timbre
I think it would be a mistake to read Derek’s question as mainly focusing on soundstage and imaging. Surely, just as important to creating a you-are-there illusion are a neutral FR, detail, dynamics, not to mention a lack of an obvious transducer timbre. Plus, we have to assume the recording studio gang hasn’t messed things up and an appropriate electronics chain is in place.
I mean personally I have heard some really excellent headphones and even if something has good detail, fr, detail, dynamics, timbre, etc, and there are still some headphones that don’t have as good of spatial recreation. Personally I think for what I have atm my shang does the best with this, but it’s also not as proficient as my warwick technicality wise, so I would say some headphones just have better staging capabilities by design. Of course as you say the entire chain is important to achieve this
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Crinacle’s FR graph for the Auteur teak is a beautiful thing.
Probably worthy of a thread of its own. Think Zach addresses this somewhere on his web site and I remember a discussion on this forum. But I suspect it’s more the Auteur’s biocellulose driver material that accounts for most of the naturalness of the timbre.
The biodynamics have pretty natural bass and midrange, nice stuff
it is? why is that?
Maybe cause its made of biomatter and not plastic or metal. I wonder what the tanks are like where they grow them.
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No elevation in the bass but no drop-off either. Textbook perfect slight rise in the mids plus perfect upper-mids shape and height. Treble is a bit brighter than textbook but should sound clear rather than piercing.
Interesting. I didn’t realize biocellulose is a different thing than regular cellulose but Wikipedia says it is.
you can get cellulose from anything. apparently most plants emit it
I think of cellulose as another way of saying plant fiber. It’s a primary component of paper and therefore the traditional material for speaker cones. Biocellulose is cellulose that is produced by bacteria and perhaps has a more random fibre matting structure or something. But the point seems to be if you want to get a natural timbre, the easiest way is to use a natural material. But of course other materials have other acoustic strengths.
Case in point. Zach went with beryllium to do the flagship detail thing with the Vérité. But I’ve heard it criticized as having a metallic timbre, while you raised no such issue with the Auteur.
Yeah I would say the verite isn’t the most natural, you can really tell with the beryllium drivers (the verite sounds kinda close to the utopia at times)
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Damn now we audiophiles with Beryllium or Cellulose intolerance? lmao.
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Could be. Wood is a common material for the resonating areas of many instruments, afterall. Brass instruments being the exception.