Headphones

[faizoff]

Funny how you use those three albums to get a feel of the headphones. I use Anemia, In Absentia, and Metallica to judge how the various players sound. Going to try Plexamp and see how that fares.

Do you already have a Plex server with music on it already set up? If not you will need to make one or set up Tidal through Plex.

Funny how you use those three albums to get a feel of the headphones. I use Anemia, In Absentia, and Metallica to judge how the various players sound. Going to try Plexamp and see how that fares.

Ænima and In Absentia are also great albums for testing out headphones/speakers. Tool and Porcupine Tree both do painstaking work on the production of their albums. I never would have thought to use Metallica (I'm assuming you mean the Black Album), then again I don't really care for that album.

I do have a Plex server all set up, I just never used it for music. Do you need to setup through Tidal? Can't you stream your music that you have on your HDD?

Yeah I do mean the black album. Try it out and listen to Enter Sandman through a nice pair of cans and hear how it builds and the bass & toms kick in and full track gets going. The middle part of Holier than Thou after the solo with the bass section and guitar on each side is awesome to listen to.

[King Puppies and the Acid Guppies]

Funny how you use those three albums to get a feel of the headphones. I use Anemia, In Absentia, and Metallica to judge how the various players sound. Going to try Plexamp and see how that fares.

Do you already have a Plex server with music on it already set up? If not you will need to make one or set up Tidal through Plex.

Funny how you use those three albums to get a feel of the headphones. I use Anemia, In Absentia, and Metallica to judge how the various players sound. Going to try Plexamp and see how that fares.

Ænima and In Absentia are also great albums for testing out headphones/speakers. Tool and Porcupine Tree both do painstaking work on the production of their albums. I never would have thought to use Metallica (I'm assuming you mean the Black Album), then again I don't really care for that album.

I do have a Plex server all set up, I just never used it for music. Do you need to setup through Tidal? Can't you stream your music that you have on your HDD?

Yeah I do mean the black album. Try it out and listen to Enter Sandman through a nice pair of cans and hear how it builds and the bass & toms kick in and full track gets going. The middle part of Holier than Thou after the solo with the bass section and guitar on each side is awesome to listen to.

Yeah, you can set up your own music to play in Plex. Tidal isn't necessary. I just use Tidal for checking out new stuff before I buy and it integrates with Plex fairly seamlessly.

I'll have to give the Black album another chance I guess 

Small world. Tool and PT both factor in heavily when I'm testing out new configs with my stereo. Rage for Order, as well. I'm not a big fan of the album, but Fear Inoculum (song) has a wonderful clarity at high volumes. It's fascinating to see which bands put great effort into sounding good.

I never thought to try Rage for Order to test headphones. I'm not quite as familiar with that album though. I'll give it a shot.

[faizoff]

I too never thought to test out Rage for Order, a fantastic album for sure with an old-school mix that was very unique at the time from what I recall using some cutting edge techniques and what not.


Guess while we're on the topic of it, how do you tune or EQ your headphones if using foobar? Plexamp seems nice but the equalizer needs some adjusting and I'm sure I can play around it, but I'm sure there's some established tuning mechanism in place for lazy asses like me.


Edit: Yikes they've hiked the 6xx price to $279 on Drop now.

[King Puppies and the Acid Guppies]

I too never thought to test out Rage for Order, a fantastic album for sure with an old-school mix that was very unique at the time from what I recall using some cutting edge techniques and what not.


Guess while we're on the topic of it, how do you tune or EQ your headphones if using foobar? Plexamp seems nice but the equalizer needs some adjusting and I'm sure I can play around it, but I'm sure there's some established tuning mechanism in place for lazy asses like me.


Edit: Yikes they've hiked the 6xx price to $279 on Drop now.

Man, I haven't used Foobar is years. I have no idea anymore

In Plexamp I leave the equalizer off, but depending on the headphones you use you might play around with it if everything sounds a little too lifeless. This also goes back to the whole Ear-of-the-Beholder thing I mentioned yesterday. How you EQ your music could be completely different to how I would (or in this case, would not ) I never use EQ for my music listening and instead opt for letting the headphones show what they can do to bring a balanced and natural sound out of the music. If the headphones don't do that for me, then I move on to the next set, which is basically how I arrived at the Denon's I have. Some headphones you can compensate for imbalances in the frequency response by EQing and in reality that is the only purpose of EQ.

I always point people to this article about How to properly EQ and why you want a neutral/accurate sound/frequency response when listening to music. It also goes into the tools you need to accomplish this. https://www.head-fi.org/threads/the-most-reliable-easiest-way-to-eq-headphones-properly-to-achieve-the-most-ideal-sound-for-non-professionals.796791/

[faizoff]

Nice! thanks for the share I'll try it out sometime.

[El Barto]

Edit: Yikes they've hiked the 6xx price to $279 on Drop now.

Holy fuck, they were $240 yesterday!

Rage for Order had a unique sound that just wanted to inject itself directly into your brain. It's one of the albums I most enjoy listening to at stupid-loud levels. Not sure, but it seems like the sort of album that would really benefit from a wide soundstage.

[King Puppies and the Acid Guppies]

Rage for Order had a unique sound that just wanted to inject itself directly into your brain. It's one of the albums I most enjoy listening to at stupid-loud levels. Not sure, but it seems like the sort of album that would really benefit from a wide soundstage.

I just listened to it on my Denon headphones today. It is a wonderful sounding album all the way through on headphones, it sounds huge. I may have to add this to my testing list.

[Stadler]

I'm the last person to ask on matters like this, but I generally use King Crimson's Discipline or Dire Straits Brothers In Arms to test systems.  I should check out Tool for that as well.  I imagine Empire would sound good too.

[El Barto]

This has been a fascinating experiment. I understand why people own multiple sets of headphones now. I picked up the Sundaras and HD-6XX to compare. The Sennheizers are down to $220 on Drop. They really couldn't bed much more different. In the end, as much as I'd love to save $80 right now, the HDs are going back. I can certainly see how people might prefer the HDs; they're much more lively. It's not like live music, but you can still feel them a little bit. Particularly on the low end, as there's still some air moving. You don't really feel anything from the Sundaras.

When I first listened to the Sundaras my first thought was "where's the bass." Turns out it's all there. You just don't feel it. They can actually reach down halfway deep, but it's a completely different thing than what you're used to. That having been said, once you get used to it they're wonderful. There's a fidelity across the entire spectrum that I haven't heard from typical speakers. You never hear frequencies step on each other, so you get great clarity even in busy music.

Listening to Eva Cassidy's rendition of Wayfaring Stranger you hear great tone on the bass, subtleties from the guitar, and still clarity from the high-hat and cymbals.
Listening to SATO/DoaM you can hear different aspects of Rhodes's guitar tone, including a bit of overdrive. Never noticed that before. And of course Bob Daisley's fine basswork
Take Your Whisky Home has a lot of vocalizations I'd never noticed before. Not surprising, but you're not used to Dave being subtle.
Interestingly, it was Deftones that really sold me on the Sunduras. The bottom end on White Pony is massive, but you still hear nuances all over the place. Also, I think I heard Chi Cheng playing a fretless bass. Never picked up on that before.

I'd love to find some cans that combine both qualities, providing that precision while still being a little palpable, but I suspect that's where the price goes through the roof. But, that's honestly what big-ass speakers are for. Not really an option for me right now, it'll be a few more months, but turning large speakers up to 11 is still the way I prefer my music. There's definitely something to be said for just listening like this, though. It's like having music injected directly into your brain, rather than being bombarded with it. The more I get used to it the more I appreciate it. At some point I'll get my big stereo back, but it'll still be nice to have these. A big reason for sticking with the Sundaras is that once headphones become complimentary, rather than primary, I'll want as much clarity as I can get from them.