Thursday, March 25, 2010
A New Prospective in Sound (for me anyway.)
I recently went back to "Old School" when listening to portable music. After sampling in-ear headphones by Shure, Ultimate Ears and Etymotic I found the experience, while practical because of their size, less than pleasurable. In-ear is good for a quick fix (maybe half a S.I. Ferry ride) but, IMO, a major drag for extended listening. My Grado SR60i are excellent but a bit too big to carry around so Mrs. Baya bought me a pair of Sony MDR-V150. I know what you're thinking, Sony headphones, especially the lower end products suck. Maybe true, but pair these with the Practical Devices XM4 headphone amp and you will be pleasantly surprised, the sound-stage and balance are amazing to hear. A visit to JR Music World to sample higher end headphones confirmed its all about the amp. No iPod, or digital music player for that matter, can drive a set of quality cans alone, a headphone amp is not only logical but necessary.
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P.S. The Sennheiser HD800, 650, 600 and The Beats by Dr. Dre are useless without a headphone IMO.
ReplyDeleteNice.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what percentage of portable music players actually use an amp, and how many use decent headphones?
It is a real shame to spend a few hundred on an iPod, but listen with the stock crap headphones.
For you to be able to sample phones before buying is terrific, and well worth the trip to J&R.
Since I have had the chance to sample the Sony phones you mentioned, and if I recall they are relatively cheap, there isn't any reason for anyone to not broaden their listening experience.
I would say, unscientifically of course, that less than 1% of portable music players users use an amp and less than 5% make use of decent headphones. IMO, people are more interested in gigabytes than sound quality. A simple CMoy can make a great difference in helping $350 headphones sound like $350 headphones or $20 headphones sound comparable.
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