Headphones?

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Headphones?

April 25th, 2018

Awake Goy

Headphones?

April 24th, 2018

VERY OFF TOPIC!

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I’m going to give my Audio-Technica ATH-M50s to my wife to replace her 17 year old, nearly-dead-and-not-good-to-start-with ATH-M20s.

I was pretty amazed with the sound of the M50s when I got them back in 2010—at least for the first few minutes. After that, I went through multiple phases of modifying the M50s work for me.

First, I had no idea headphones could produce bass like that! It was actually too much bass for my taste. I wound up EQing the lows down a bit. Ahh. Now I could settle in and really enjoy listening…

Ouch.

The strong clamping force and the hard pads made the M50s very uncomfortable for me to wear for more than fifteen minutes.

I bent the hell out of the headband. I mean, I went past the point where I thought I was going to break the headband, and then I kept bending.

It worked!

But now that the cans weren’t stuck to the side of my skull, the headband started to feel pretty bad on the top of my head. I reached for the first aid kit, grabbed a gauze bandage roll and wrapped that headband up. Looks lame, feels good.

I actually lived with it like that for a couple of years—until my sweat and nerd grease disintegrated the stock ear pads. I replaced the stock pads with some softer and more comfortable velour pads.

Finally, bent to hell and fitted with a new set of pads and a gauze bandage wrap, my M50s felt great!

And sounded like shit.

Yep, the secret to the M50s sound was the hard ear pads that Audio-Technica supplied with the cans. Comfortable pads produce a hollow, tinny treble murder experience. I was feeling the highs in my eyes and teeth with the new pads. Cymbals were like a stun grenades going off in my room. Flinching, cringing, synesthesia inducing highs.

I went from EQing the bass down with the original pads, to boosting bass up, boosting mids more and then taking down the highs. I run a full system EQ in Windows with these levels to make the M50s with the soft pads sound good (to me).

Trying to figure out which headphones to get to replace the M50s has turned out to be a pretty daunting experience.

I want large, comfortable, over-ear, closed-back headphones with flat to slightly elevated bass, flat to slightly elevated mids and darker highs.

Under $200??? Possible? Not possible?

Look at the frequency response for the Sennheiser HD650:

Ahhhh. Look at those highs rolling away… Lots of people say that those Sennheisers are great, but even if I got the $200 Massdrop version, I don’t think I can do the open-back thing in my tiny house. And they would need an amp for sure.

I really liked the look of the Beyerdynamic DT 770, but there are a disturbing number of people complaining about sibilance with those cans. From all the ridiculous amounts of reading and YouTube viewing I’ve done to try to get to the bottom of this, it seems that, for every person complaining about sibilance/treble murder on the DT 770s, there’s someone else saying they’re fine, they’re just bright, any sibilance is the result of poor mastering or low bitrate source files, etc.

There are also stories of people stuffing them with paper towels, foam, etc. to try to cut down the highs. My hair stands on end thinking of my effed M50s after I put the soft pads on them to make them wearable on my fat head.

So, there it is.

I’m stumped on this one.

Does anyone out there in Cryptogon-land have the Beyerdynamic DT 770s (I’m thinking 80ohm)? How do you find they handle the highs? Are you EQing down the highs?

Actually, I’d be OK with EQing the highs down a bit. If I can make my modded M50s sound good with the EQ after what I did to them, I’m fine with using the EQ on whatever headphones I wind up going with.

I wish I hadn’t seen that Sennheiser HD650 chart, though…

The Massdrop version is $200 for the next several days.

For anyone who owns Sennheiser HD650/Sennheiser HD 6XX:

Could you watch, say, Apocalypse Now at a satisfying volume in small room with children sleeping on the other side of a wall in the next room over?

I’ve never owned open-back headphones before, so I don’t have any sense of how much that leaking sound will carry to another room.

Apologies to the non-audio nerds for this off topic indulgence, but there are many people reading this who make their livings while wearing headphones and/or people who have very nice taste it headphones. (I see what some of you are buying on Amazon!) Almost certainly, someone out there will be able to give me some good advice.

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4 Responses to “Headphones?”

RBNZ Says:

April 24th, 2018 at 2:07 pm

I have the 32 Ohm version so I can use without an amp.

Best headphones I’ve used. Can wear all day. Only issue is that they cut out too much sound and the missus has to yell at me to get my attention.

The fluffy pads are lovely on your ears. Can wear all day.

Dennis Says:

April 24th, 2018 at 6:08 pm

Not as slap-it-on convenient as what you’re after, but Shure make some very comfortable, customisable in-ear monitors which provide excellent sound isolation.

https://www.innerfidelity.com/content/shure-ear-series-se215-se315-se425-and-se535-page-2

Bluetooth and mic/volume control accessories are also available.

Kevin Says:

April 24th, 2018 at 7:28 pm

Re: DT 770:

What do you make of all these claims about the highs being annoying on the DT 770s?

The 32ohm ones are the newest model. Maybe they have done something to tame the highs on those???

Kevin Says:

April 24th, 2018 at 7:32 pm

Can’t do in-ear. Wow, I like those freq response graphs for those higher end units though. What is it about having to pay a fortune to get those highs under control!?