Headphones vs. loudspeakers

[Rubycon]

This actually sounds a little too warm bodied on my UE10's but on monitors (Mackie HR824's) the vocals sound absolutely beautiful.

Funny because this really stands out, most recordings are not nearly as black and white between listening medium. :Q

I still like the UE10 though since I can be anywhere and not be concerned with placement and delay lines.

 

[sdifox]

can't stand headphones. hate anything squeezing my head.

 

[PHiuR]

Oh Ms Dawn you are such a geek.

I currently use some oldschool Technics 3way floor standing speakers. Way better than headphones that limit me to a certain area.

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

I'll take a proper loudspeaker setup over most headphones easily. I like to be able to fill a room with sound rather than just next to my ears. When I hear a snare drum strike, I want to feel it, not just acknowledge that it exists. (maybe not the best terminology, but try and understand my basic point)

I've got some decent headphones (Sennheiser HD280's and Shure E3C's), but prefer to use my loudspeakers over them if I have a choice.

Edit: Another point - when you hear bass and feel it move the air, isn't it nice to be able to feel your pants vibrating against the hair on your feet and not just be able to acknowledge that it exists in your ears? I really don't give a damn if it's not exactly reference level, it's how I like to listen to it, which is what matters to me.

 

[potato28]

With my HD 555's at 30% the vocals seem very laid back, and the guitar stands out a little bit more than usual. Don't have speakers to compare with though.

 

[IAteYourMother]

Originally posted by: PHiuR
Oh Ms Dawn you are such a geek.

I currently use some oldschool Technics 3way floor standing speakers. Way better than headphones that limit me to a certain area.

headphones limit your listening experience? bwahaha

 

[Rubycon]

Originally posted by: AgaBoogaBoo

Edit: Another point - when you hear bass and feel it move the air, isn't it nice to be able to feel your pants vibrating against the hair on your feet and not just be able to acknowledge that it exists in your ears? I really don't give a damn if it's not exactly reference level, it's how I like to listen to it, which is what matters to me.

98% of the loudspeakers, subwoofers, etc cannot produce clean, undistorted bass at really low frequencies. (< 20Hz) If you like thump, sure but even those are going to be in the 5-10% range at high excursion levels. Unless you have deep pockets. Tiny motors in your head can deliver screwpile level bass that's tight with amplifier level distortion.

The best thing is you don't have to worry about the effects of the room itself coming into play which at low frequencies you most definitely will.

There's binaural recordings which sound mono on speakers but on headphones will put you in the middle of the action and raise goosebumps! Different strokes for different folks.

On the stage I'd much rather hear ~95-100 dB of my voice through IEM's than have wedge monitors blaring 120 dB in my face too but that's another story.

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

Originally posted by: MS Dawn

Originally posted by: AgaBoogaBoo

Edit: Another point - when you hear bass and feel it move the air, isn't it nice to be able to feel your pants vibrating against the hair on your feet and not just be able to acknowledge that it exists in your ears? I really don't give a damn if it's not exactly reference level, it's how I like to listen to it, which is what matters to me.

98% of the loudspeakers, subwoofers, etc cannot produce clean, undistorted bass at really low frequencies. (< 20Hz) If you like thump, sure but even those are going to be in the 5-10% range at high excursion levels. Unless you have deep pockets. Tiny motors in your head can deliver screwpile level bass that's tight with amplifier level distortion.

The best thing is you don't have to worry about the effects of the room itself coming into play which at low frequencies you most definitely will.

There's binaural recordings which sound mono on speakers but on headphones will put you in the middle of the action and raise goosebumps! Different strokes for different folks.

On the stage I'd much rather hear ~95-100 dB of my voice through IEM's than have wedge monitors blaring 120 dB in my face too but that's another story.

What if I'm happy with nice clean bass down to somewhere between 20 and 30hz?

I'm not advanced enough to even appreciate what I have as many others, I think I have more than I can appreciate fully.

And yeah, on the stage I bet you really do enjoy a good set of IEM's over those insane levels of sound pressure, that's quite a bit. How long were you doing this without the use of IEM's? Or have you always used IEM's, just not as good as what you have now?

 

[Rubycon]

Originally posted by: AgaBoogaBoo
What if I'm happy with nice clean bass down to somewhere between 20 and 30hz?

I'm not advanced enough to even appreciate what I have as many others, I think I have more than I can appreciate fully.

And yeah, on the stage I bet you really do enjoy a good set of IEM's over those insane levels of sound pressure, that's quite a bit. How long were you doing this without the use of IEM's? Or have you always used IEM's, just not as good as what you have now?

Honestly for music (notice the bolding) 40Hz is fine. Perhaps a pipe organ would be the exception. Electronica changes this of course and they'res nothing like a contrabass into at the beginning of the show with rows of 18's moving like the pistons in those 20,000 hp pushers we have below our feet. :Q

I've been around this for about 10 years on and off until about 4 years ago. Always used (hearing) protection in one way or another. Big cans like the Senns, Beyer or AKG just don't fly on the stage unless you're a bass player or drummer. I tried E5C's in '05 and really enjoyed them and got impressions made for UE10's. They take the cake. They make good bionic ears when coupled with a shotgun mic. I'd love to have a parabolic but it's too obvious. :Q

 

[spidey07]

Want live like performance - you use loudspeakers.

/end thread

MS Damn, you're vocals are probably close to your crossover. Hence the difference.

 

[Rubycon]

Originally posted by: spidey07
Want live like performance - you use loudspeakers.

/end thread

MS Damn, you're vocals are probably close to your crossover. Hence the difference.

The x is parametric in several axes.

Loudspeakers properly set up can be extremely revealing. Just thrown in a living room they can be scary.

I'm a musician so of course I'm biased.

 

[spidey07]

LOL, that's why you have a room that accomodates the speakers.

I already told you it took me close to 2 months to setup my 6 foot tall headphones.

 

[Rubycon]

Originally posted by: spidey07
LOL, that's why you have a room that accomodates the speakers.

I already told you it took me close to 2 months to setup my 6 foot tall headphones.

How long does it take to put cans on your head?

Most people don't take more than a few hours to set up their systems. And that's spent on getting the floor cleaned up, etc.!

 

[darkswordsman17]

For music, I definitely prefer headphones. If I had the money then yeah I'd have a nice speaker setup in an acoustically balanced room, however that is way out of my price range, whereas I can get close to that while spending a fraction of the price on headphones.

A few things I like about headphones over speakers:
Isolation. Much easier with headphones.
Much easier to own several headphones that have unique sound signatures (variety).
Portability. It's possible to have a very portable setup that sounds great.

As for the feel of bass, well you could probably get that by using some bass shakers. I'm going to try this out and see how well it does. For movies and games it'd be nice to be able to have the intimacy of headphones but the feel of a nice sub.

However, there's certainly no reason you can't have both. I would personally rather spend modestly to moderately on a combination of both than to spend even somewhat exorbitantly on either one singularly.

 

[spidey07]

darkswordsman,

Listen to a nice stereo. It isn't just bass that vibrates the body. Vocals/strings are what do it for me. Your whole body resonates with the tone. You can't get that with headphones.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Here's a probably stupid question. Soundstage is something that gets pandered about a lot in audio. My question is, if your speakers have say a very open soundstage, would it make even intimate situations seem too open (say someone whispering in an ear sounds like them speaking across a room) or is it possible to mix the audio such that it won't do that?

 

[Rubycon]

Originally posted by: darkswordsman17
Here's a probably stupid question. Soundstage is something that gets pandered about a lot in audio. My question is, if your speakers have say a very open soundstage, would it make even intimate situations seem too open (say someone whispering in an ear sounds like them speaking across a room) or is it possible to mix the audio such that it won't do that?

Soundstage can definitely sound different on the same system. This is up to the engineer. Some speakers will make the images fly all the way into the neighbor's yard!

 

[darkswordsman17]

Originally posted by: spidey07
darkswordsman,

Listen to a nice stereo. It isn't just bass that vibrates the body. Vocals/strings are what do it for me. Your whole body resonates with the tone. You can't get that with headphones.

I understand what you mean, I was just talking about the bass itself. Definitely if you have a nice speaker setup that is pushing a fair volume you can feel the energy in the air. I will give you that, as it would be very difficult (close to impossible right now) to recreate that.

I think that some companies have been trying to recreate that with some type of bone resonance audio stuff, I might be very wrong on this though.

 

[us3rnotfound]

No highs, no lose, must be Bose!

It must be said in every audio thread.

 

[Rubycon]

Same piece, much different sound stage:

the first blizzard

the second blizzard

 

[NL5]

Mackies tend to "soften" things up a bit. Def not my fav when it comes to monitors. I couldn't mix on them........

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: MS Dawn
Same piece, much different sound stage:

the first blizzard

the second blizzard

Sorry....for some reason any audio on my laptop has an overwhelming buzz of a wireless analyzer.

 

[NL5]

"the first blizzard" was pretty cool!

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

Originally posted by: spidey07
darkswordsman,

Listen to a nice stereo. It isn't just bass that vibrates the body. Vocals/strings are what do it for me. Your whole body resonates with the tone. You can't get that with headphones.

*nod*

/me bows down before those ML's

 

[Rubycon]

Originally posted by: spidey07

Sorry....for some reason any audio on my laptop has an overwhelming buzz of a wireless analyzer.

pssst! Laptop audio? :|

Head over to MOTU and pick up something like this and plug it to your system.