Question: Most Revealing Cans?

[NwAvGuy]

I'm curious what cans some of you consider to be the most revealing of the signal chain and still have a 3 figure price tag?

I'm not looking for your favorite headphones for listening, but which ones you'd choose if you were evaluating say sources and wanted to hear the smallest of details?

I'm hoping "most revealing" is less of a wide open question than "favorite" and there might be some reasonable consensus on at least a few choices?

[n3rdling]

lambda sig

[blessingx]

JH13s on sale. Never heard sources sound so different.

[purk]

Qualia is the most revealing for me. Oh well, just saw the 3 figure price tag.

Edited March 24, 2011 by purk

[luvdunhill]

What do you mean by revealing? Best impulse response?

[NwAvGuy]

What do you mean by revealing? Best impulse response?

Revealing as in let's say you wanted to see if there was any difference between two different CD players... what headphones would you use to expose the most subtle differences?

[zippy2001]

I would second the JH13, but for 3 figures, the Ultimate Ears In-Ear Reference Monitors may be the most neutral and revealing. I haven't heard the In-Ear Reference monitors myself, but the engineers in the studios love them.

[Tyll Hertsens]

Haven't started measuring IEMs yet so I can't speak to that technically, but I do think the JH13 are awesome.

That said, the Ety ER6 may have the cleanest highs around. Mead knows his shit too.

Of the full size, tthe HD800 has the best impulse response and square wave.

The LCD2 has the same or less distortion, but I hear them as a tad slow. Prolly want a quicker sounding can.

If you want revealing the he6 will do that, but it's accentuating edges a bit; I would think you want to hear what's really there .... If you can. . (not easy, I miss a lot, measurements help a lot, IMHO) *tips hat*

Sooooooo many others are thought of as detailed, but are really just ringing.

I use the 800 for critical evaluation.

But it's not my favorite by a good margin.

Edited March 24, 2011 by Tyll Hertsens

[xand1x]

Haven't started measuring IEMs yet so I can't speak to that technically, but I do think the JH13 are awesome.

That said, the Ety ER6 may have the cleanest highs around. Mead knows his shit too.

Of the full size, tthe HD800 has the best impulse response and square wave.

The LCD2 has the same or less distortion, but I hear them as a tad slow. Prolly want a quicker sounding can.

If you want revealing the he6 will do that, but it's accentuating edges a bit; I would think you want to hear what's really there .... If you can. . (not easy, I miss a lot, measurements help a lot, IMHO) *tips hat*

Sooooooo many others are thought of as detailed, but are really just ringing.

I use the 800 for critical evaluation.

But it's not my favorite by a good margin.

Out of curiosity what is your favorite(s)?

[guzziguy]

I agree with Tyll about the HD800 being extremely revealing. Best? Who the hell knows what that is?

I must like revealing because the HD800 is my go to headphone. Of course, the fact that it's extremely comfortable does play a part in it.

[mypasswordis]

lambda sig

I would add to that the SR-X Mk3 Pro.

That said, the Ety ER6 may have the cleanest highs around. Mead knows his shit too.

I don't know how different the ER6 is from the ER6i but the ER6i has pretty terrible treble... lower treble peak and rolls off really fast, also sounds ringy. Maybe you meant the ER4?

The HD800 is pretty revealing but it's not really in the 3 figure price range unless you find a good deal on a used pair. The K1000 is right on the border though.

[NwAvGuy]

The HD800 is out of the price range. The SR-307/SRM-323S combo is a bit closer to $1K as are the JH13's. I'm curious if anyone here has both a pair of Lambda's and JH's and how they might compare the two? The last Stax I heard were (I think) the original 404's. I've never heard any of the JH IEMs but I've been curious.

[nikongod]

Second hand HD800 are only just outside the price quoted. With some careful haggling you could totally do it.

Im actually quite happy (confirmation bias?) about what Tyll posted above. I have really been enjoying my HD800, with a touch of EQ to calm the highs a little I think they keep the impulse. This goes back to something Chris posted a while ago: find the fastest impulse response you can, and EQ the rest to sound like whatever you want.

[manaox2]

Revealing of detail, the Lambda Sigs do an excellent job. As for judging sources on overall sound, your going to have to go up to something like the BHSE to tame the sound a bit first and there goes your budget.

As we seem to include the price of amps in the figure for stats and I know they make a difference with most phones, I'm leaning toward picking a phone that doesn't need a high-end four-figure amp and power to retrieve a ton of detail and stay fairly true to the source. I've only heard the JH13 and JH16 demos and owned the UE11, but would third or fourth the JH13 recommendation. Tyll knows his stuff.

Edited March 24, 2011 by manaox2

[mypasswordis]

This goes back to something Chris posted a while ago: find the fastest impulse response you can, and EQ the rest to sound like whatever you want.

It just doesn't work that way, I wish it were that simple. The CSDs show large variances of decay for each given frequency which make up its decay profile, doesn't matter how fast an impulse response (at what frequency?) you can find. There's just no way you can get EQ to make one headphone sound exactly like the other, or even exactly what you want. At least there isn't any way for me, I have tried EQ multiple times in the past. Even when I forgot that I had EQ applied, after awhile I would feel the sound to be unnatural and wrong so I never use EQ anymore.

[Asr]

I had to check to see if I was still on Head-Case and not Head-Fi.

[dsavitsk]

That said, the Ety ER6 may have the cleanest highs around. Mead knows his shit too.

The auditory neuroscience community uses Etymotic, if that means anything.

[Tyll Hertsens]

Maybe you meant the ER4?

Doh!

Uh ... yeah .. I meant ER4.

ER6 is good for the price, but yeah, not anywhere near reference, my bad.

I'm gonna press you to get the HD800, cuz they really do it, but I'll give you a back door too.

The Denon D2000 is a bit of a bright bitch, but measures pretty good for the price. I'm gonna get me a pair and work on tweaks for it to publish. I think it's almost there and with a little change in padding or something it might be really cool.

A Beyer DT880 600 ohm might work. AKG 701 also. Both bright, but not uncontrolled. Impulse response on both look pretty much as good as the 800. "Looks like" and "sounds like" are two different things though.

Back to the ER4, it may be a pain in the butt inserting them all the time but I think they'd work for you while you save up for the 800s.

Oh ... my favorites ... LCD-2, JH13, and Skullcandy Aviators.

Only half kidding on that last one, they're a lot of fun.

Edited March 24, 2011 by Tyll Hertsens

[Dusty Chalk]

DT800? Or do you mean DT880?

I think you've been typing '800' a lot, because of the Senns, that's all.

[Tyll Hertsens]

Geebus, Im really fucking up the numbers today...dt880.

Ill go back to my corner now.

[agile_one]

ok, I can't resist a couple of purely subjective entries into this derby. When I want to really hear what a source change or new CD sounds like, I reach for the HP2s or Sony SA5000. If I had Qualias, I'd grab them, but alas ...

[atothex]

So does this include amp or not? If you need an amp, then I like IEM and Staxen suggestions. Well, I actually don't like Lambda Sigs, but that opinion isn't particularly relevant.

Edited March 24, 2011 by atothex

[NwAvGuy]

Thanks for all the input. Lots of good suggestions. Used HD800's are worth thinking about. They're new enough I would expect few to be around unless people are dumping them for better options? I suppose some may just need the cash.... It's worth checking out.

The point about the cost of an amp is well taken. Where accuracy is concerned I'm relatively happy with the headphone amp in my Benchmark DAC1 Pre. But it obviously doesn't do me much good with a pair of Stax. So if I go that direction I have to include something like the SRM323 which costs more than the SR307's.

I already have Ety ER4's and Denon 2000's. They both have their strengths. I bought the Denon's mostly on a quest to find some closed cans I really liked. They're by far the best closed cans I've yet tried, but on top of being bright, they sound a bit "closed" in the midrange to me. I also hate the cable that's about as flexible as a garden hose in Antarctica.

I think the ER4's reveal more detail than the Denons. Perhaps it's just my ears, and the fit (or lack of it) with various tips, but they seem to sound significantly different every time I use them. They're the most "fit sensitive" IEMs I have and that makes them poor reference phones for me.

And, regardless, I was hoping for something that's significantly more revealing than either the ER4's or D-2000's (or my HD590's). If that's going to require a 2nd mortgage perhaps I'll reconsider?

[The Monkey]

When I was churning through all of those DACs, I found myself wishing that I had an ATH-AD2000. That headphone always struck me as kind of relentless in terms of detail.

[blessingx]

I thought the Lambda Sigs (and Pros for that matter) coupled with a decent amp were incredible bang for buck in the enjoyment department, but I never thought they were particularly strong in detecting DAC differences (if that's what we're measuring). In fact they sound much better than they deserve to out of mediocre sources.