burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

I often laugh when old farts like us start splitting hairs between this and that audiophile device. We probably lost the top octave of our hearing in our 20s! I know I did. I worked in too many radio studios, production studios, and sound reinforcement roles.

One thing to keep in mind as we wax poetic about our headphones is that for most music sources, a recording engineer is entirely likely to mix and master for cheap earbuds and car radio speakers! Most music is heard through very cheap headphones now, and if it sounds good on those, it sells.

Lots of folks love vinyl played through their tube amps. They swear they won't listen to anything solid state. Just know that the music has *already* been through quite a few tubes by the time it is pressed or digitized. It's probably been tweaked by a "knob master" who knows just what gear to use to bring out the character wanted by the artist or director or producer. The most popular classic studio tools used to pre-amplify, equalize, compress, level, limit, and tailor sound have been in place since the late 1960s, with a few exceptions.

Most studio booths have several sets of monitors, ranging in size from very large and expensive to very small and cheap. The audio source has to sound as good as it can on all of them, and that involves many compromises. The same goes for headphones. Most studio engineers have their personal favorites, but also listen through several models as a final check before releasing a master recording. If it sounds good on $300 cans, but flat and tinny on Apple earbuds, that's a problem, unless it's classical music!

I rely on an old professional standard: Sony MDR-7506. They have been sold for about three decades, and are as ubiquitous as Sennheiser 414s were in radio studios of the 1970s. I use them daily. They're rugged, accurate, and consistent from pair to pair.

BebuLamar

I have the AKG K240 bought in 1989 and it's a great one. I bought another K240 recently and it wasn't as good. It's kind of surprised to me too that with inflation the new one cost me less but it's definitely doesn't sound as good.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

When I listen to headphones, which is rarely, I listen to an old pair of Koss Electrostatic 9s. Cost a fortune when new and each “earspeaker” came with it’s own measured response graph. If you haven’t heard a pair of real electrostatics, the open, airy sound is a revelation. Without endorsing modern headphones, just a couple of comments:

If you find that having the soundstage in the middle of your head (instead of in front of you) is disconcerting, look for an early Carver Sonic Hologram Generator signal processor. Sounds hokey, but it “magically” move the soundstage back in front (like loudspeakers) when using headphones.

And consider the source. If your current source are MP3s, you can make a BIG difference in your listening experience by spending a couple of hundred $ on a good USB external DAC with built in headphone amp (such as one of the Dragon series or THX Onyx) and subscribing to Apple’s or Tidal’s Lossless high resolution music services. The single biggest improvement per $ you can make in your headphone reproduction system, and you don’t need to use the built-in amp if you have a preferred amp such as a tube type - the 2V max output js adequate to drive most any amp to max power. I use one to directly drive my tube amps. The quality is at least as good as CD/SACD quality and the services have literally any music you can think up available, often newly digitized from the original masters. I’ve A/Bd it track-for-track against the equivalent CD and LP and it’s always as good (and typically better) than either.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

My port expansion dock for my MacBook Air is a small and inexpensive CharJen Pro Universal Dock 2. It has a 96 KHz, 24-bit DAC in it to drive the headphone/audio out jack. It sounds far better than the headphone jack output from the MacBook Air. I use it for presentations on the road, running video through the HDMI and audio through the 3.5mm jack. It also does a good job with my 63 Ohm impedance headphones. It works with any Thunderbolt 3 or 4, or USB-C device.

Soul Dr. Loc: Beautiful Shenandoah Valley

I wouldn't use any headphones on a stereo system without at least a 10 band equalizer in it.
Everyone hears sounds differently and an equalizer allows the sound produced by a system to be customized for your individual hearing.

Will

MrBob Loc: lookout Mtn. NE Alabama

Opening up another can of worms Will ? Purists will frown on ANY equalization but after I inserted my little inexpensive Schiit Lokius into my humble system Synergy took a great leap forward... Sometimes recordings , equipment etc. are not matched perfectly and a little tweaking does wonders... Everyone perceives sound a little differently just as we do visually...

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Step inside any decent recording/mastering studio and you’ll find processor after processor — both hardware and software — imparting all sorts of tonal color and shape to recordings. Purists are silly if they whine about a little EQ.

Twist those knobs and slide those sliders! If it sounds right *to you,* so be it.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Yep, when I was listening to vinyl and on speakers with limited bass response, I used 2-3 signal processors in my reproduction chain - a Dbx 3Bx expander (likely the best expander available to the enthusiast) to enhance dynamic range, an equalizer to compensate for the deficiencies of the source material and loudspeakers, and occasionally a Carver Sonic Hologram generator to enhance separation. But now with the advent of remastered and oversampled sources combined with transducers capable of nearly flat reproduction of the entire musical spectrum, I go straight from the DAC to the (tube) amplifiers. I have, however, modified the crossovers in the speakers to add a bit of brightness to the high end to compensate for my hearing loss (which I have plotted). Whatever it takes to make one happy - none of the purist dogma for me - just what it takes to create a musical experience that brings you to tears. And if your system doesn’t, more work (or GAS) is required.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

A lot of modern music is mastered on a mix of analog hardware and digital software. The same is true for older music recorded on multi-track analog tape and remastered to digital formats and high grade vinyl.

The process of mastering for vinyl is actually much harder than mastering for digital, because of the physical limitations of the stylus riding in grooves. Usually, more compression must be used to get above the noise floor, as well as to limit peak modulation to prevent distortion. Then there is the RIAA pre-emphasis/de-emphasis EQ "curve" that has to be applied. All that processing can be tricky to get right, so an LP sounds clean and has life.

That's one of the reasons some folks initially complained about "raspiness" or excessive brightness in digital. It is more accurate, can be less processed and less colored, and as a result can sound "sterile." Running a turntable through a tube pre-amp and tube amp adds a bit of musical distortion that most folks find warm and appealing.

It's amazing to me that there are digital plug-ins for audio recording software that add "tape hiss, wow, and flutter" of specific tape machines, and simulate the sound of certain recording consoles and pre-amps! It's equally amazing that in 2022, the basic circuitry of a Teletronics LA-2A Leveling Amplifier, a UREI 610 tube preamp, and a UREI 1176LN compressor/limiter — all tools of the 1960s and '70s (!) — are still key tools in most major recording studios. Universal Audio still sells the originals in both hand-made hardware and software forms, and many others (Warm Audio and Waves are examples) sell hardware and software knock-offs of the same original hardware. Nearly every decent recording engineer is familiar with them, and many use them often. They are as important to music recording as a Stradivarius is to violin performance. Thousands of hit songs and albums were recorded with them, and still are. Two of the best examples are Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon and Supertramp's Crime of the Century.

Smokin' Joe

Grado headphones by Grado labs. Made in USA, hi quality. Can find used on ebay or buy from Grado.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Lot to be said for the ancient vacuum tube if it is used correctly (DC on the filaments and appropriate negative feedback - emphasis on the word “appropriate”). The overload characteristics are much more linear than solid state amps or preamps - you’ll find the venerable 12AX7/12AT7/12AU7 in many professional preamps in recording studios for exactly this reason. Vacuum tube power amps, depending on the configuration, have different distortion characteristics form solid state amps, and having examined both, in depth, on both Bruel and Kjaer spectrum analyzers and Tektronix distortion analyzers while designing amplifiers, my observation was that the solid state amps, while lower in THD, IM and TIM, tended to have more odd order (3rd, 5th, 7th) harmonics, while the tube amps tended to display more even order (2nd, 4th, 6th) harmonics, which those of us accustomed to western music may find more pleasurable. Although, inexpensive tube amps may exhibit hum and thermionic emission “hiss”, that is by no means necessary with good power supply design. A really good tube amp can exhibit S/N ratios in the 90 db region, which is inaudible. i spent a few years designing cost no object/no compromise tube amps just to test the typical audiophile idea that they sounded “better” than solid state (without any preconceived idea as to the result), and all I can say is that now, after extensive testing and development, and most importantly listening, I only listen to vacuum tube power amps.

BTW, I don’t listen to vinyl - too many sonic limitations, especially noise, which for me, destroys the musical experience. Plus, no matter how carefully handled and cleaned, they are degraded with each playing. When I used to listen to good vinyl such as the Command series of recordings, the first thing I did with a new disc was record it onto Dbx encoded tape (and later using a Sony 14 bit DAT recording onto video tape), which could be played many times without noticable degradation or added noise. I’ve recently compared vintage pristine vinyl, played on a good turntable and cartridge to a remastered oversampled digital recording, and frankly, it’s surprising how much better the remastered digital version is, and reproduced on tube type amps, it’s just as “musical”, but with MUCH better frequency response, distortion, channel separation, stereo image, dynamic range and most importantly (to me), noise. But your opinion may differ, and that’s perfectly fine.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

I actually agree with you on digital vs. vinyl. I have a lot of vinyl records purchased mostly before 1990. I bought my favorites on CD, and listen to them instead. The vinyl album covers are usually more interesting, but the CDs sound better to me. Tube distortion IS more musical, which is why every guitar amp worth a damn is all tube circuitry.

Yeah, the 12AX7/12AT7/12AU7 series is most common in the pre-amp stages of many guitar amps and is used in audio processing gear all the time (12AX7 and 12AT7 are in the legendary 610 preamp designed by Bill Putnam over a half century ago, among dozens of tube based studio components).

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Thai is one channel of my final quad push-pull parallel KT88 design (6SN7s for preamp, phase inverter and drivers which are hidden behind the KT88s). The DC filament and B+/bias supplies (which weighs at least 50 lbs) are on two separate chassis - no AC anywhere on the amps - that big transformer is the output transformer. Each side (2 parallel tubes) of the push-pull output has seperate metering and bias adjustment for balance.

I know this is off topic - sorry - just love to talk audio.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Nice! Separating the power supply is a great practice to reduce noise. Separating the stereo amps practically eliminates cross-talk. Gorgeous. Are you using two separate power supplies, also?

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Thank you. No - a single 12VDC regulated (20 Amp) filament supply, and a single HV supply that provides 525VDC to the output tubes, 225VDC to the preamp, page inverter and drivers and a -100VDC bias supply, all with 2 section (LCLC) choke input filters. Each of the 8 output tubes (which are wired in Ultra linear configuration) is set to idle at 40ma. There is a proprietary design adjustable negative feedback network that is optimized for power vs distortion.