What does the massive growth and proliferation of the headphone category mean to you?
Hi Ian,
Congratulations on reading my last explanation without being bored to tears or slumber! Allow me to address the last part first, the ifi system and products.
I read through their web pages. They certainly prove that audiophile marketing has not changed in decades. A great design seldom if ever requires super expensive components (parts), but those parts will not improve the performance of a less than clever design. Employing silk in dielectrics, if I read that right, is a sure sign that the company is sales driven above all else (including above reason). Trust your ears if you get to hear the gear, but trust nothing they say or claim. Most of their pricy components address issues that would never be audible and many of the capabilities they brag about are worthless.
My main thought is why EQ is needed for headphones? I know many headphone fans collect them like baseball cards and might want to tweak their responses to bring then into line with their general preference. I assume you would not be into collecting cans just to have a variety, so no worry there. You want them to sound the way you want them to; so why bother with phones that don’t? I confess I am not a fan of having different speakers for different kinds of music, and that caries over into personal listening too. Now if you have major anomalies in your hearing, especially between ears, I could see wanting EQ for that. My bottom line on this is that you usually don't need a special, expensive amp just for driving dynamic headphones. For AV use I use a cheap Dayton (Parts Express) amp with a dedicated TI chip for the headphone jack. I admit the Sony I use with it is very efficient, but the 150mw chip is LOUD. The audio goodness is in the quality of the headphone, not the amp. Most amps today have very low disortion. I would try something much less extravagant and pricy first before investigating gear like this.
Which brings us to the state of our present personal listening landscape. For those less experienced than yourself – this is a speaker site after all - I will start with an overview of the gear available before moving on to what I think it all means, this personal listening thing.
There are actually only a few basic technologies in use despite the bazillion products being offered. They are Dynamic, Planar, and Electrostatic. The dynamic technology is well developed and mature. Balanced armature in ear drivers, for instance, may be a unique mechanical system but are still dynamic drivers. If you want a very accurate but still very pleasing dynamic phone, listen to the Sennheiser 800S. While Sennheiser may have a “house sound” in general, this phone is just plain truthful. The original 800 was quite flawed, having a hot treble response, but the “S” tweak completely addressed it. It is not laid back; it sounds crisp and, well, dynamic, but not the least bit harsh. Let’s just say you should sit down before you hear it. It is not cheap at $1800 but is cheaper than buying a collection of cans to try and match its performance for less. (Or EQ units to try to equal it, which for technical reasons will not get you there.) You can pay a lot more for a dynamic phone, believe it or not, but the thing to note is that it is moving towards the basic cost of a quality electrostatic phone. More on that later.
The planar (pronounced Plah-NAR) technology is a variation of driving a mechanical diaphragm that has the electrical driving element built into a mechanical diaphragm directly. It results in a heavy moving element. The result is very robust bass response but loss of finesse with other frequencies. It is simply not as high fidelity as the best dynamic or electrostatic units. If too much bass is not enough, go for it.
The Electrostatic drive system has only one disadvantage: cost. It is possible to find a lower, perhaps not reasonable but lower priced headphone using this system, but the amplification requirements to obtain the stratospheric performance you will be after are very pricy. The phones are very hard to drive; it is not just about power but also wildly varying capacitance and other issues. No company will be able to build an inexpensive amp for this. So why bother? The drive results in that elusive goal, an ideal driven element ideally driven. The moving element is practically weightless and is driven evenly across the entire face; further the drive is both push and pull and the system is fully balanced. The diaphragm is never free to rebound or drift, always moving in precise sync with a powerful electric field which is mimicking the music with unearthly precision. Among other qualities, this is also the fastest audio reproduction developed so far, absolutely incredible rendering of transients. If they ever figure out how to record a piano, this just might do it justice. It can keep up with any foreseeable microphone technology.
Digression Over “Looking at your narrative what does the massive growth and proliferation of the headphone category mean to you?”
Personally, liberation. The main effect of it is facilitation of “Personal Listening” and its doppelganger phenomenon, “Private Listening”. Every change it has brought improves the ways I want to listen to music in the first place. Both where you listen to music and what you want to listen to there have been put entirely in your hands as an individual. That the full spectrum of audio quality is now available anywhere, anytime is as wonderful as how streaming has made most music as universally available as the opportunity to consume it.
But the best part of the development for me is how it is changing music. Personal and private apply to both the listeners and the musicians. Content wise, more personal thoughts, ideas, emotions, and moods are making it into our ears. They know these things can and will be heard in private. Of equal importance, the musical expression can now be more subtle, which increases the range of expression possible in recording.
Tough to say this on a speaker site, but the frankly higher fidelity available with personal listening makes this possible. Headphones and especially the best in ear monitors, playing in the predictable and controlled environment of our ears instead of our rooms, are like scalpels. By comparison speakers are chainsaws.
All this is made possible and happening because of that “massive growth and proliferation of the headphone category”, and I am so grateful for it. I have too small a mind to foresee all the other things that will result from great sounding music being available to anyone, anywhere, anytime, but it has to be good.
Final Notes on Hardware Since headphones and in ear monitors have so much more bang for the buck (an unfortunate term from thermonuclear weapons, I know), some good news is that a fortune is not required to get great sound quality. One thing they have in common with the audiophile trade is that much (nearly all) of it is overpriced and underperforming due to the way the business works. Headphones also usually suffer from a bling factor, which of course adds nothing to the sound quality. Luckily it is not difficult in most places to get a demo listen to the gear. There is a lot of it out there, as compared to expensive stereo installations. Listening to recordings you know is infinitely more instructive than reading ads. In that respect it is like the rest of the audio business. What is different is the ease of getting that demo. Chances are good that your friends – or your kids’ friends – are wearing something you can try out. They will be eager to show it off.
This highlights another of the best results of this “massive growth and proliferation”. This gear has MULTIPLIED the number of current audio enthusiasts. What’s new is they are wearing it. One fact of audio life bears mention here. The very best headphones will not lend themselves to walking around outside listening. Their size and (in most cases) power requirements are not readily portable. For this in ear monitors are the ticket. Choose carefully and there will be no sound quality penalty.
I do have a specific recommendation for in ear monitors. While there are electrostatic models available, so far this has not been a good fit or at least has not demonstrated superior results in my limited experience. On the other hand, the best company in this arena is Etymotic. Now owned by a parent audio technology corporation, Lucid, Etymotic came from hearing research and builds professional equipment for that industry as well as doing its own work. Its owner has also purchased Westone, another venerable legit concern not founded by audiophiles.
Etymotic has always used a scientific system to rate the quality of audio equipment. It yields a percentage of accuracy re: the source. Their best in ear monitors are something like 96+% accurate. They comment that the only thing ever measuring better was electrostatic (meaning Stax) headphones. They use truth in advertising, something else different about them in the audio field. They make a variety of monitors, mostly of balanced armature construction. Their “Flat response” category contains both the ER4SR and the ER3SE. The ER4SR is their flagship and is $300. The World’s best under $2400. The ER3SE is like my older hf5. $149. Sounds about as good and is very, very efficient. Something like an IPod Touch will drive it way louder than you would ever want to. Most audiophile brands cost several or more times as much as these. They are outstanding bargains. https://www.etymotic.com/flat-response-earphones/
With headphones, the traditional brands around before the current market explosion can offer good value. Sony, Yamaha, Sennheiser, Beyer. You know, the brands you trust for audio. I definitely like Sony, best audio company in the World IMO. They all make cheapies too, but their good stuff IS good. The Japanese Audio-Technica has some very nice sounding stuff but most of it is very cheaply constructed - fragile in the end. No experience with their very high end, if they have one. If you like Pro gear Fostex might be your game. In electrostatics, hard to beat Stax unless you have 50K for the top Sennheiser.
I should list what I use myself to reveal any resulting possible bias on my part. I think I have largely avoided it, but here goes.
Dynamic Headphones - Sony MDR-1R for music and home theater, Sony MDR-ZX600 for my computer "speakers" (This is a DJ model from Best Buy, nothing fancy)
In Ear - the aforementioned Etymotic hf5. I have two identical pairs. I much favor the new two flange seals over the three flange pieces, or third party foam seals like Comply. I have used tham all. Seals determine bass response, almost completely. They are also responsible for isolation from the outside environment. Etymotic supplies replacable filters to keep dirt, moisture, and ear wax out of the drivers.
Electrostatic phones - Stax SR007 Mk II. The amp is a custom no holds barred build of a KGSS solid state design. It was the personal amp of Birgir Gudjonsson, the World expert on Stax gear of anyone not working for the company. I have some other Stax phones and gear, but that is my main music player. If anyone wants to know what this all means, I could explain it.
I currently use Amazon Music HD to stream. For portable streaming, an Apple 2019 iPod Touch. Sadly discontinued. This Spring Apple discontinued all iPod products and - the bastards - all support. The 2019 was the latest and the last.
For streaming at home I use a laptop via USB into a Cambridge DacMagic Plus.