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Has the headphone stuff (headfi) becoming ridiculously expensive?

Jimbob54

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Blujackaal

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The only two reasons I can't keep a Senn 600 series are the bass quantity and bass distortion. >5% is something unacceptable to my ears and with bassy tracks, you can clearly hear the distortion. EQ, if done to actually "flatten" their bass response, you start hearing distortion. Then, you have the likes of Grado that "tune by ear", and you know how that measures.

Also, if you see the top-of-the-line dynamic headphones, they are either biodynamic or a sort of tweeter (compression driver/ring radiator for the HD 800 and the Focal line uses pretty much a design extremely similar to their speaker tweeters but smaller). Revolutionary designs with dynamic technology have diminished, focusing on other technologies such as planar magnetics.

IEMs seem to be much better with THD than full size headphones. The ER2SE/ER4SR only peak at 0.3% for bass, Many others & some ER4SR's can be <0.3% from in all ranges. This is why find $400 dynamic full size headphones a rip off when the ER2SE still dynamic outperforms spec wise?. It can do +8db under 125Hz without distorting like crazy.
 

bigjacko

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IEMs seem to be much better with THD than full size headphones. The ER2SE/ER4SR only peak at 0.3% for bass, Many others & some ER4SR's can be <0.3% from in all ranges. This is why find $400 dynamic full size headphones a rip off when the ER2SE still dynamic outperforms spec wise?. It can do +8db under 125Hz without distorting like crazy.
Does er4sr got low THD? I thought people think er4sr got high THD.
 

Blujackaal

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Does er4sr got low THD? I thought people think er4sr got high THD.

My ER4SR chart sheet THD is 0.35% average at 1KHz, It always low for bass & treble.

B23U9jn.jpg
 

Jimbob54

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And apparently the headphone division (AKG) pays no attention to his work.

Well- by all accounts the K371 nails that thur curve- but thats a $150 . The high end crew maybe didnt get the memo- or maybe they did and just didnt get it right. Im far from convinced that building a HP that hits any given preference curve and is comfy is job done- in fact, just hitting the second criteria seems to elude many.
 

EJ3

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Why would I want a microphone on a hi fi headphone?

That's just stealing budget that could have gone into sound reproduction.

Perhaps true. Perhaps the'll sell more this way & they are really good at what you want out of them but the price is less than otherwise because they sell more of them due to them having this feature which is not useful to everyone.

But it may be that the sound reproduction features are strong enough to warrant purchasing it (or not).

Why do some people want receivers? I don't know. But many do want them. And many of them that do do not use all the features of them.

There are a number of things that I buy that have features I don't have a use for (in the first example I use here, I don't have much choice): a cell phone. I want a phone that has 4 features: 1. The ability to receive and make phone calls 2. the same for texts 3. a great voice audio quality transceiver 4. great range. 5. The ability to detect and block unwanted calls, solicitations, etc. That is it: I have never and do not use any of the other features.
Cars: 1. ergonomics 2. handling envelope 3. audio system delete. (because I want to put together my own or just not have one). But content delete, when available, many times costs more due to the manufacturing process for the mass market. Other times it's simply not available. Then I do like I do with a cell phone: don't use the features I did not want.

Here are some items that I can find exactly as I want them (or easily make them that way): Motorcycles 1. ergonomics 2. handling envelope. Boats too. Watches I can find exactly as I would want to have them. I guess it's a matter of different strokes for different folks.
 
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Blujackaal

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OMG I don't have that certificate...:eek:

I have no clue why reviews ignore them, since many keep showing 0.6% ER4SR's. Same with the ER4XR assume the whole headphone 1% then 180 when it only the 1KHz area at 98db. My ER4SR pretty much on par with most planar headphones despite being 1 BA.
 

KeithPhantom

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I have no clue why reviews ignore them, since many keep showing 0.6% ER4SR's. Same with the ER4XR assume the whole headphone 1% then 180 when it only the 1KHz area at 98db. My ER4SR pretty much on par with most planar headphones despite being 1 BA.
Modern full-size dynamic headphones that are not based in older designs also reach < 1% THD. Also, I use Bluetooth IEMs to work because they are small and portable, I don't care about the sound quality much with them. My Galaxy Buds+ do a great job at being portable, great battery life, and good sound.
 

bobbooo

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IEMs seem to be much better with THD than full size headphones. The ER2SE/ER4SR only peak at 0.3% for bass, Many others & some ER4SR's can be <0.3% from in all ranges. This is why find $400 dynamic full size headphones a rip off when the ER2SE still dynamic outperforms spec wise?. It can do +8db under 125Hz without distorting like crazy.

More like approaching 1% distortion in the bass for the ER4SR, primarily the more objectionable 3rd order as well (94 dB SPL @ 500Hz):

Etymotic%252520Research%252520ER4SR%252520-%252520thdr.png


And this bass distortion will be even higher when you inevitably have to EQ it up due to lack of bass response. These results aren't great in comparison to other IEMs, especially when you can get a pair of $10 Sony MH755's (to the ER4SR's $260) that have considerably lower distortion (and 2nd harmonic at that, with practically zero third or higher orders):

SONY%252520MH755%252520-%252520thdr.png
 
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Sean Olive

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So all of Sean Olive's work with headphones didn't help Harman make a super headphone??

Huh.
Those two models of headphones did not follow our research guidelines. The latest AKG K371 Pro ($149) does try to follow it Below is the average left/right frequency response curve plotted against the Target (green) along with the Error Curve (red) and the Slope of the Error Curve (dotted).
AKG K371.png
 

Sean Olive

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I don't think he owns nor runs the company... He only works there ...
That is true. I'm just a research scientist -- not a conspiracy theorist -- so no one listens to me :)
 

Jimbob54

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Those two models of headphones did not follow our research guidelines. The latest AKG K371 Pro ($149) does try to follow it Below is the average left/right frequency response curve plotted against the Target (green) along with the Error Curve (red) and the Slope of the Error Curve (dotted).View attachment 84138

I shall have to try the K371- It may be the most cost effective way to find out how badly messed up any of my "EQ to taste" settings are- or at least how far my preferences are away from something resembling the norm.
 
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