Confused state of mind

[Rankman]

Good afternoon.
I don't know where to start. In general, I really like good sound. But I don't know what it is. Once, as a child, I listened to Koss UR-40 and some kind of player. It was very nice, clean and crystal clear. Many years have passed since then and I don't know how to feel it again. I bought DT770 LE headphones, listened to them. It turned out that these headphones have 250 ohms, so I needed an amplifier. I had little knowledge, so I bought an external interface Arturia MiniFuse 2. It rocked my DT770 a little. But there was no such wow effect. "Well, they play well" I thought. But nothing more. Then I decided to buy an "audiophile" player. It was a Fiio JM21. It also played normally, but again, I didn't feel that crystal elven musical magic. I will try to listen to Sandara CB soon, but I am more than sure that they will not play as I want. I will not be able to bathe in waves of vibrations, wrap them around me and smile blissfully with pleasure and satisfaction. And I have a strong idea that maybe I did not choose the right devices for myself? How can I feel that first kiss of musical happiness?
I have a growing idea of selling it all and buying something else.
Maybe I need to spend a billion on headphones and two billion on the device? Help me not to fall into depression. I need a recommendation on what to buy to listen to music in high quality.

 

[RayDunzl]

I don't know where to start

For me, it is less what I'm listening through than what I'm listening to.

 

[Apeiron]

Welcome to ASR, fellow newcomer!

How can I feel that first kiss of musical happiness?

Whatever musical magic we experience in childhood isn't necessarily linked to high-fidelity so you won't be able to bring back those feelings no matter how good your equipment. As a kid, I listened to 96kb/s MP3s on the school bus, using godawful earbuds, but the music still affected me in a way which can't be reproduced later in life.

RayDunzl is right; musical bliss is generated, first and foremost, by the music itself, hence ASR's focus on gear transparency. There is no musical magic in expensive DAPs, cables, tubes, discrete DAC chips and the like. (To the extent that these items do "improve" on the musical experience, they do so by coloring the sound, which, if desired, is done more efficiently with EQ)

I really like good sound. But I don't know what it is

For loudspeakers, the most important factor is a flat, linear frequency response: in an anechoic measurement, you want all frequencies to be reproduced at the same sound pressure level. Measured in an actual room, this translates to an even, but downward-sloping frequency response. Here is a textbook example, from Amir's review of the Neumann KH150:

Headphones and IEMs however shouldn't target a flat response because of how they interact with our ears. Harman OE 2018 is considered one of the best-researched preference curves, preferred by a majority of listeners. As such, it serves at the very least as a useful starting point for comparison and calibration of headphones.

Here is a textbook example, the Dan Clark E3:

It should be noted that you don't need to spend this much money; many cheap headphones get close enough to the Harman curve too.

EQ is especially important for headphones, for two reasons: most headphones (at any price point) have some glaring flaw or another in their frequency reponse, and the way they interact with our heads and ears may also differ from person to person. Measurement experts such as Amir and @solderdude point out that headphone measurements only tell ~80% of the story (for the reasons mentioned, and also because measurement rigs are quirky and resonant above 8 or so kHz).

I use a set of budget headphones (Hifiman 400se) with an equally affordable but transparent DAC/AMP. Out of the box, I find the sound tolerable but lifeless. With the help of parametric EQ, adjusting the reponse to the Harman OE 2018 (with some personal tweaks), I couldn't be much happier!

Of course there are more sophisticated headphones out there, both in terms of comfort and sound, or with interesting features such as angled drivers (i.e. Sennheiser HD800S), but they are way up there on the curve of diminishing returns.

Beyerdynamic's model range confuses me, but if yours is indeed the DT770 Pro X LE 250Ω, try @oratory1990's PEQ settings (PDF attached).

Arturia MiniFuse 2. It rocked my DT770 a little. But there was no such wow effect

ASR review shows your interface to not be state of the art and a bit short on power and voltage for high-impedance headphones, but if I have the specs right, still sufficient to power your headphones to loud levels. oratory1990 comes to the same conclusion in this reddit post.

As long as your 'phones get loud enough without obvious noise and distortion, my guess would be that your interface's mediocre measurements do not audibly impact sound quality much (if at all). Keep in mind though that the attached EQ will cost you another 6 dB of headroom.

will try to listen to Sandara CB soon, but I am more than sure that they will not play as I want

Closed-Back Sundara frequency response doesn't look too bad (see attached PDF) but once again, they will likely require EQ to shine. The same is true for the Open-Back Sundara: in his review, Amir described the effects of EQ as a "dramatic transformation".


I hope you will get some more feedback from established ASR members; take my newbie opinions with a grain of salt.

More resources:
solderdude's headphone reviews and tweaks
oratory1990's database of PEQ presets
squiglink measurement database
EQ Software for Windows, Linux, macOS, iOS and Android

 

[kemmler3D]

@Apeiron has given a good overview. With headphones it's hard to predict when you will hear "the magic" and whether they will "click" with your personal HRTF and preferences. It's necessary to try a lot of different pairs to find "the one" if you don't want to use EQ.

Alternatively, A good place to start is the Truthear Gate and a DAC capable of EQ. I use the Tanchjim Stargate II but there are plenty out there, or just do the EQ on your computer.

The Gate is a good choice because it's very cheap, close to a standard tuning and has very low distortion so you can be very flexible with EQ. You can explore a lot of different tunings until it starts to sound more " magical" to your ears. From there you can know what to look for if you decide to buy more expensive headphones.

 

[DVDdoug]

Some good news...

With headphones and in-ears there is almost no correlation between price and sound quality. But of course the more budget you have the more you have to choose from. You'll see that if you sort the reviews here by price or "recommended".

The $17 Truthear in-ears and the $150 AKG K371 headphones both got excellent good reviews. (The AKG headphones seem to have a reputation of being fragile but mine haven't broken yet.)

Either of these are good for "calibrating your ears" and to help you with what "good sound" should sound like. (The Truthear has very-slightly reduced bas,, but more than most speakers, and the AKG headphone has somewhat boosted bass.)

And if your phone (or whatever) goes loud enough for you with the particular headphones, you're good to go!

But as Aperion says, we hear headphones differently than speakers (or a band) in a room so usually flat frequency response doesn't sound right, and beyond that different people have different preferences. And if you start with a good headphone you can tweak the sound with (which is easy with a computer or phone).

Speakers are different. Flattish on-axis and "smooth" off-axis response is usually desired, and you can't build a good speaker cheaply.

 

[pablolie]

I am always horrified when I see the FR of headphones published in here, they *look* terrible even when they -in fact- are not (always).

As to the pricing, agreed there are very expensive headphones that -to me- sound very poorly (no names).

My needs for cabled headphones are perfectly covered, but I am now on a journey to find the ultimate in-ear headphones with ANC, very good music response and excellent voice pickup for me to participate in meetings. I had Sony XM4s, but the voice pickup was useless... and to top it off the batteries died within the year... so no more Sony. I now have $129 (regularly 99 on offer) Anker Soundcore Liberty 4 Pro, and they are fantastic despite the lower price point. But I keep on searching... one interesting thing reading the reviews of far more expensive in-ears is that their owners regularly make excuses for all sorts of shortcomings (and of course there are far fewer reviews).

 

[voodooless]

Really good advice given already! This is really want makes ASR such a great resource.

A few more thing: in general, electronics, unless broken have very little impact on sound quality. An amp for instance will be able to driver the headphones louder, and that’s about it. the transducers, headphones or speakers have way, way more impact. And in case of loudspeakers, the room also has massive impact. So focus on the transducer, less on electronics. Ignore fancy cables, other than their tactile feel or looks you like. There is no performance to be gained or lost there.

 

[Doodski]

I am always horrified when I see the FR of headphones published in here, they *look* terrible even when they -in fact- are not (always).

As to the pricing, agreed there are very expensive headphones that to me- sound very poorly (no names).

My needs for cabled headphones are perfectly covered, but I am now on a journey to find the ultimate in-ear headphones with ANC, very good music response and excellent voice pickup for me to participate in meetings. I had Sony XM4s, but the voice pickup was useless... and to top it off the batteries died within the year... so no more Sony. I now have $129 (regularly 99 on offer) Anker Soundcore Liberty 4 Pro, and they are fantastic despite the lower price point. But I keep on searching... one interesting thing reading the reviews of far more expensive in-ears is that their owners regularly make excuses for all sorts of shortcomings (and of course there are far fewer reviews).

I had the Samsung EarBuds2Pro and 3 times they went in for warranty replacement. The charger base unit failed once and the headphones failed 2 times and after warranty by one month they totally died and no warranty was provided so they where a cash grab waste of money. They sounded mediocre too. I now have the Technics EAH-AZ80. They are a bit larger but sound better than the Samsung. The charger/case is really good, Bluetooth connection stability is really good. To connect to a source open the source Bluetooth software and touch each Technics EAH-AZ80 with your fingers and they will beep and voice message you they are pairing(It's that easy.). I have 3 sources all connected at the same time and I believe that can go as high as 10 sources. They auto sense which source to connect to and auto connect. I have not had any serious issues with the auto connect but my softphone @ the laptop was a bit confused last night and I had to disconnect the laptop Bluetooth while I watched a big screen movie and used my desktop PC at the same time all playing audio simultaneously via Bluetooth. That is the first and only time I had a Bluetooth auto connect issue and it was easy to figure out. I did business with Panasonic/Technics/Quasar/Matsushita Electronics for 9 years when I sold gear and then for 15 years when I was a tech and repaired gear. The company hires the best, does really good stuff, had the de facto best/most reasonable parts prices, Has really well designed gear from a technicians viewpoint and is is very reliable. So I expect very good things from my Technics earbuds. The Technics earbuds have a software app that is used for cel tels and that software is not required for TV or PC use. I think you maybe see I am very gung ho on Matsushita Electronics and I am...LoL. It's a solid choice to consider.

Premium Hi-Fi True Wireless Earbuds with Noise Cancelling EAH-AZ80

Stay on top of your game with impressively powerful, noise cancelling AZ80 earbuds with reference-quality high-resolution audio. Like you, these buds work as hard as they play, with state-of-the-art noise cancellation so you can focus on your critical business. A must-have for high-priority...

us.technics.com

 

[Rankman]

Thank you very much for such meaningful answers for me. Now I understand that I require some kind of sound that will emerge from the inside of me. In this case, it is my imagination that destroys the pleasure of the current listening. Now I have decided to replace my Arturia and player with a DAC+AMP or with a topping e2x2. I heard that there is a good very powerful amplifier there, which should satisfy. I will install some kind of EQ on my laptop, and I will experiment.