An Audio Allegory

Outside of photography, I am also interested in music and audio. It was a Hi Fi system I bought first with my Saturday job, based around the Garrard SP25, rather than a camera. Fast forward to today. I won an unused Astell and Kern SR25 on Ebay for a silly price on an auction. I just needed some earphones. I listen to music al lot with headphones, but I wanted something portable.

After reading a ton of reviews of a seemingly infinite number of products, all with contradictory opinions, I bought a pair of I Sennheiser IE400 ear monitors. Everything sounded OK, but the bass that the reviews talked about was missing. So it was back to the internet. and I bought the runner up in my previous selection to see if it was better. I also got immersed in the world of earbud tips and how they alter the sound. The Shure Aonic 5 earphones looked like fun. Interchangeable nozzles that alter the sound and a good choice of tips including the Comply Foam tips. Whilst I was waiting for the Shure to arrive, I discovered that using the bigger silicon tips, improved immensely the IE400 and the bass was much improved.

Now for the point of my post.

The more customisable Shure earphones do sound better than the Sennheiser earphones, but only if I use the Comply foam tips. Foam tips need a particular procedure, they need to be squashed flat before inserting into the ear, and it takes a few seconds for them to expand ad fill the ear. They also only last a few months if you use them a lot. So they are good for serious listening sessions. I use normal silicone tips with the Sennheiser's and I just pop them in and out of my ears. Due to the practicalities of family life or when I use the Astell & Kern for travel, it is the Sennheiser IE400 earbuds that are getting the most use.

Now what has this got to do with cameras and photography?

its so you can imerse yourself in a photography walk after a few coldies and listern to some awesome music 😊 or while your away with your wife you can
drown out the nagging 😁 "are you finished taking photos yet " I just bought a really neat headphone preamp to plug into my new acoustic guitar. as a bonus it has all the effects built in so now I sound like a rock god 🤔😎

I use only Sennheiser HD600 headphones and am terrified of putting things into my ear, fearing that it will compress the wax, or worse. I only listen to music in the car when out and about, from FM, DAB, or wav files on a USB stick. That said, I get superb sound from my Thorens TD 125 and Oppo player at home. I cannot work up any desire for streaming services.

David

I also have a pair of Beyerdynamic Amiron over ear headphones, which I use with my proper audio setup, and of course they sound maybe better or maybe just different to the Astell and Kern with in ear phones. I do not stream. If you buy a CD or LP on Bandcamp, you can download a Wav file. Or if I buy a CD locally, I just rip from a CD. It is pretty fantastic that the finger nail sized Micro SD that I have in my player can hold about a 100 CD's

Chasing perfection or going for utility. I was prompted to write this, after reading a lot of comments on a lens I recently bought.

Headphones have been a bit of an odyssey for me over the years, I have never found the perfect pair, over ear or in ear. I think it also dependent on the LP/CD source sometimes.

I think I prefer in ear, I often sit on my balcony to listen to music. It gets hot here in summer, and over ear are a bit fastidious in the summer heat.

My Shure in ear headphones are the civilian version of their professional stage monitors. I love the crisp detail that these phones convey.

from my understanding studio monitors are used for studio recording/mixing and not actually used for final playback recording. I bought my daughter a pair of HS7 Yamaha for her recording studio.

They are those earphones you see performers wearing, as I understand it.

most professional studio monitors and headphones are very flat sounding so all the tonal ranges can be heard equality, very little bass response.

when i was buying equipment from my daughter she had strick criteria. i was amazed how different speaker and micophones were in a recording stuidio, she likes recording her guitar sessions in stereo and i had to buy a matched pair of rode pencil mics i think the were M5 and had to be placed in exact positions. the result was so much better than just a single mic that you see the majority of people using on utube.

I just buy Grados and be done with it. I like the 125e's I have right now.

It is quite interesting to try different headphones. They often sound very different.

But my post was about earphones, a much harder piece of equipment to do well.

I've always used "headphones" and "earphones" interchangeably. Do you mean earbuds (in-ear devices)?

Yes, in ear.

The audio/ photography allegory, does not end with just earphones.

I am ripping a whole lot of CD's to my Astell & Kern, it is amazing how many CD's I can fit on a thumbnail sized Micro SD card. Most of my modern Jazz recordings sound pretty good, but an old CD from 1980 (Pat Metheny 80-81) seemed problematic, when I played it back. I remembered that recordings have dynamic range too. Maybe that was the problem.

This article points to a site where you can see how much dynamic range your favourite discs have. The disc in question is fine for DR, it just needs the volume turned up quite a bit. Its interesting that some remasters have worse sound quality than the original CD thanks to dynamic range compression. I presume that there are other factors to consider with how a recording is mastered to the media that we are listening to.

my sony a7iv has default compression that cant be turned off, its just a guess where the sound is peaking.

You would be amazed how little trouble is taken in remastering many recordings for digital media!

David

I was looking for something else, but got side-tracked into the analogue verses digital debate

It all comes down to the quality of the recording and mastering. One takeaway is that digital wins with deep bass, whilst analogue wins at high frequencies. One of these links (London Jazz) makes some interesting points about perception of high frequencies we cannot hear, but in pushing his favoured format forgets about bass.

Here are some opinions (some of the comments are worth reading):

www.soundguys.com/vinyl-better-than-streaming-20654/

worldofturntables.com/real-reason-why-vinyl-sounds-better-than-a-cd-detailed-explanation/

londonjazzcollector.wordpress.com/for-audiophiles/cd-or-vinyl/

globalnews.ca/news/10326673/cd-vs-vinyl-sound-quality/

blog.discmakers.com/2019/06/cds-just-sound-better/

I think the digital - analogue debate in photography is far more clear cut in favour of digital.

a few months back a friend bought a house sight unseen for a bargin price. when he got inside the guy use to own a record shop there was 20,000 records stored and about 30 high end stereo systems as well. he couldnt give away the records and they all went to the tip. same as the stereo systems, so i backed my truck up and loaded them in. i couldnt even get one bit on the stereos all sony yamaha pioneer ect. so i tested the lot which none of them sounded any better than my home made stereo i build when i was 16 45 years ago so i sold the lot to the local cash converters for $50 a peice. even the mint tascam 133 tape deck was sold for $50.