Is there a consensus headphone choice?

Piing said:
I correct myself. As I said at this post, I have replaced my broken Audeze LCD-2 rosewood ($1,100) with the Hifiman Ananda Nano ($500), and I couldn't be more happy. As good as the LCD-2, but more comfortable to wear.
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I have an old beat up to hell pair of LCD-2"s. Is there an area where the Hitman and the Audeze are better than the other?
 
Tonedeaf said:
I have an old beat up to hell pair of LCD-2"s. Is there an area where the Hitman and the Audeze are better than the other?
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I do not notice difference in audio quality, but there is a huge difference in comfort. The Hifiman with their lighter weight and the double headband are much more comfortable than the Audeze LCD-2.

With the LCD-2 you have to maintain the head straight as the Lady of Elche. I've dropped the LCD-2 few times when trying to reach the pedalboard or the cables at the floor. The Ananda Nano stays in place.
 
Piing said:
I do not notice difference in audio quality, but there is a huge difference in comfort. The Hifiman with their lighter weight and the double headband are much more comfortable than the Audeze LCD-2.

With the LCD-2 you have to maintain the head straight as the Lady of Elche. I've dropped the LCD-2 few times when trying to reach the pedalboard or the cables at the floor. The Ananda Nano stays in place.
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Thanks, you just saved me the money from buying the Hitmans, since they sound the same and I don't have have that much of an issue with my LCD-2's weight.
 
Hey folks, thanks for all the infos. I compares the measurements from https://reference-audio-analyzer.pro/ and https://www.kopfhoerer.de/ for

AT ATH-40X
AT ATH-50X
AKG-371
AKG K701
BD DT 770/880/990 Pro

from your recommendations and tried to find headphones which are flat, not more than +/5dB deviation, without ~10dB jumps from e.g. -5 to +5db and which have just 1 till 2 +dB edges over 100Hz which can be adapted in EQ easily. As soon as I get my FM3 additionally to my AXE FX III I will order these three ones and test it vs. my rig.

AT ATH-50X
AKG K701
BD DT 880 Pro 250 (Edit Changed 990 to 880 because BD writes in FAQ it's more linear. 700 is an alternative)

Additionally the recommendations for 40X and 770 were very different here. That's why I will ignore it, too. I also would like to test the Ollo headphones, but the price is too high for my simple FM3 usage on holiday trips. Also the frequency response measurments for Ollos looks different on both pages. I'm not sure if I really want to trust the measurements from Ollo on paper, it's not independent and I also learned, it is very difficult for headphones to measure it and every mic/ear is different. But I also needed a basis for decision.

Refer also to: https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/ollo-audio-s4.23307/
 
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A short interim result: The AT ATH-50X were the first to land right back in the box. Nothing really fits, and there's nothing you can do with the EQ either. I turned to the https://reference-audio-analyzer.pro/ measurements were oriented and it didn't work out. Stay away from it.

I was initially enthusiastic about the BD DT880, the sound was warmer/fuller, but nice highs weren't possible with the EQs. Perfect for blues but not suitable for playing AC/DC crunch. As if they had forgotten high-quality tweeters. Back to box.

The AKG K701 is currently still in the running, I wasn't impressed at first but I was very impressed with the EQ adjustments. More treble-heavy, clearer, little bass, but if you turn the bass in and turn the treble out, it sounds great, lots of details. I turned on the studio monitors afterwards and was disappointed :) How quickly you get used to it. I have now ordered the Ollo S4R for comparison. If they aren't 50% better, I'll stick with the AKG K701.

A mixture of AKG and BD would be perfect :)
 
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TheRedDevil said:
Hey folks, thanks for all the infos. I compares the measurements from https://reference-audio-analyzer.pro/ and https://www.kopfhoerer.de/ for

AT ATH-40X
AT ATH-50X
AKG-371
AKG K701
BD DT 770/880/990 Pro

from your recommendations and tried to find headphones which are flat, not more than +/5dB deviation, without ~10dB jumps from e.g. -5 to +5db and which have just 1 till 2 +dB edges over 100Hz which can be adapted in EQ easily. As soon as I get my FM3 additionally to my AXE FX III I will order these three ones and test it vs. my rig.

AT ATH-50X
AKG K701
BD DT 880 Pro 250 (Edit Changed 990 to 880 because BD writes in FAQ it's more linear. 700 is an alternative)

Additionally the recommendations for 40X and 770 were very different here. That's why I will ignore it, too. I also would like to test the Ollo headphones, but the price is too high for my simple FM3 usage on holiday trips. Also the frequency response measurments for Ollos looks different on both pages. I'm not sure if I really want to trust the measurements from Ollo on paper, it's not independent and I also learned, it is very difficult for headphones to measure it and every mic/ear is different. But I also needed a basis for decision.

Refer also to: https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/ollo-audio-s4.23307/
Click to expand...

I believe the Ollo audios are specific to each individual headset… Not a generic headphones/model plot.

I would be surprised to learn that they’re not doing this in-house, because they always have?
 
TheRedDevil said:
A short interim result: The AT ATH-50X were the first to land right back in the box. Nothing really fits, and there's nothing you can do with the EQ either. I turned to the https://reference-audio-analyzer.pro/ measurements were oriented and it didn't work out. Stay away from it.

I was initially enthusiastic about the BD DT880, the sound was warmer/fuller, but nice highs weren't possible with the EQs. Perfect for blues but not suitable for playing AC/DC crunch. As if they had forgotten high-quality tweeters. Back to box.

The AKG K701 is currently still in the running, I wasn't impressed at first but I was very impressed with the EQ adjustments. More treble-heavy, clearer, little bass, but if you turn the bass in and turn the treble out, it sounds great, lots of details. I turned on the studio monitors afterwards and was disappointed :) How quickly you get used to it. I have now ordered the Ollo S4R for comparison. If they aren't 50% better, I'll stick with the AKG K701.

A mixture of AKG and BD would be perfect :)
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Mistake found: I still had an PEQ 70Hz Q 0.707 -12dB in my preset after the cab.
Now there are the low frequencies for the AK701 and it means the AT ATH-50X & BD DT880 would have additional low frequencies ... oh no no no.
The AKG K701 sound fantastic without EQ! Waiting for the Ollo.

Edit: I tested the DT880 again, sounds like death metal without EQ and that with a high treble AC/DC plexi crunch preset.
 
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I just tweaked my DynaCabs a bit for the AKG K701 and now they really sound better with my studio monitors, too. Perfect for mixing! And I thought that it's not possible to get great sound with headphones. I'm really nervous about the Ollos. I think they will be better, but for €320 instead of €130?

Edit: I decided to cancel the order of Ollos. After playing around with Room, Reverb and Enhance settings I'm also in heaven with FM3 and headphones. I don't need more. Just great!

From my point of view the cheap consensus headphone choice should be AKG K701.
 
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I have spent the past few days trialling the my Ollo S5X, which finally arrived, and if there's any consensus I can add to the thread, it's that these are exactly what I was looking for.

They require no EQ or futzing. They sound flawless outside of the box. Lots of stereo separation and lots of airiness to them. They easily sound as good as the Focals on my desk. They work without a DAC and plug straight into the headphone jack on my Mac, and I don't have to crank the volume on the Axe FX to hear them either.

There's no mud. All my presets sound exactly as I would expect them to based on how they sound in my studio through monitors and live through PAs. There are zero surprises.

The best thing I could say about them is that they sound how I would expect music to sound. Most studio headphones do not sound flat to me. Everything has compromise.

These do not.

These only have one downside: they sound so good that I turn them up too loud and really get into it. Then my ears ring later. That's my own stupid fault, though.

So yeah, I'll add my vote to making these the consensus choice. I like them much better than any of the Beyers I've tried (none of the high end weirdness), better than all the ATH headphones I've tried (none of the crunchiness that can't be EQ'd out), and better than the HD 650s (these lack Sennheiser's signature warmth, which sounds good for listening, but isn't great for judging how your music actually sounds).

The Ollos are winners, folks. Thanks to everybody who pointed me this direction.
 
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TheRedDevil said:
Currently I'm testing the different GEQ settings on https://github.com/jaakkopasanen/AutoEq/blob/master/results/INDEX.md with my AKG K701.
It really helps also if the target graphs are not flat (I'm still wondering, but I think the goal of Harman and test users was a HiFi like sound). Just give it a try. My choose see attachment.
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I use a curve. Sometimes I’ll be tweaking away on phones and have my stuff sounding great, only to realize I have the curve switched off. Dangit! Did it yesterday while trying out the new FM3 firmware. I got my curve off that site. It’s not perfect but does get me in the ballpark.
 
nathan_393 said:
I have spent the past few days trialling the my Ollo S5X, which finally arrived, and if there's any consensus I can add to the thread, it's that these are exactly what I was looking for.

They require no EQ or futzing. They sound flawless outside of the box. Lots of stereo separation and lots of airiness to them. They easily sound as good as the Focals on my desk. They work without a DAC and plug straight into the headphone jack on my Mac, and I don't have to crank the volume on the Axe FX to hear them either.

There's no mud. All my presets sound exactly as I would expect them to based on how they sound in my studio through monitors and live through PAs. There are zero surprises.

The best thing I could say about them is that they sound how I would expect music to sound. Most studio headphones do not sound flat to me. Everything has compromise.

These do not.

These only have one downside: they sound so good that I turn them up too loud and really get into it. Then my ears ring later. That's my own stupid fault, though.

So yeah, I'll add my vote to making these the consensus choice. I like them much better than any of the Beyers I've tried (none of the high end weirdness), better than all the ATH headphones I've tried (none of the crunchiness that can't be EQ'd out), and better than the HD 650s (these lack Sennheiser's signature warmth, which sounds good for listening, but isn't great for judging how your music actually sounds).

The Ollos are winners, folks. Thanks to everybody who pointed me this direction.
Click to expand...
Same for me with these, the headphones I was using sound really dead compared to Ollo's. The sound is really close to what is coming out of the PA speakers. I was using the Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro's but had to do a lot of work to get it to sound good threw the PA. I made a copy of my main patch and adjusted it using these and it translated really well to the PA and my studio monitors. (pretty much no changes needed).
 
I love my Ollo S5X and would not trade them for anything. Curious though if anyone who's had them for a while is experiencing problems with the red portion of the cables? I store my headphones neatly on a stand, but I've already gone through one cable after several months, and my replacement doesn't look like it's going to last much longer either. It seems to me that portion of the wire is too stiff and start easily getting twisted and crimped for lack of a better term.
 
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