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In Reply to: RE: Has anyone here been disappointed by "flagship" headphones? posted by Frihed89 on February 25, 2014 at 22:33:04
... chasing those last few percentage points of extra resolution. Many listeners have decided that some of these so-called "Flagships" are simply not worth the extra money.Surprise, surprise!
Most "flagship" headphones have significant - and sometimes unforgivable - flaws. Even when a pair of Flagship headphones performs superbly on the test bench, there is no guarantee that they are going to pass our own subjective listening tests. Flat frequency response and/or vanishingly low distortion figures cannot mask the types of flaws that only show up after long-term, "real-world" listening tests have had a chance to leave their indelible marks upon our brains.
In the headphone world, price-to-performance ratio often starts decreasing gradually after the $600 mark. "Value" status in headphones often begins dropping precipitously at or around the $1000 mark. Sometimes, all you get for your extra $$$ will be more exotic materials, better fit n' finish, and maybe even some bragging rights (within certain circles).
I will continue to maintain that many sub-$1000 headphones perform superbly so long as you match them up with recordings that showcase their own unique strengths. In other words, instead of spending $2000 on a single pair of headphones, I might prefer to buy three or four cheaper pairs. Each of these cheaper pairs might have it's own set of strengths (and weaknesses). But so long as I know which types of recordings to match each pair up with I can end up with an ensemble of "specialty" headphones. A group of less expensive headphones, used with discrimination, might surpass the overall capabilities of any single pair of "flagship" headphones.
Read all about it in this review (at least read the first few paragraphs of it), via the link provided below...
Edits: 03/10/14 03/10/14 03/10/14 03/10/14 03/10/14Follow Ups:
You wrote,
"... chasing those last few percentage points of extra resolution. Many listeners have decided that some of these so-called "Flagships" are simply not worth the extra money."
Hell, I got at least 30% more resolution just by removing the grills and the crappy foam pads from the Sennheiser HD600s.
I swapped out the stock, thick plastic grills on a pair of HD-580s with a pair of HD-600 grills and noticed a substantial improvement. I suspect that many headphones have grills that hamper the sound to some degree. I guess I am not quite ready to go without grills altogether, though...
Edits: 03/11/14
Yep, pretty scary, right?
;-)
It's relatively easy to pop off the grills and remove the foam pads temporarily, you know, just see to what it sounds like. You know you want to. :-)
If you understood how accident prone I can be you might understand why going grill-less would seem to be the "pretty scary" option for me. I believe that they put those grills on there for a pretty good reason.
Edits: 03/12/14
the drivers are well protected by the plastic frame that .. err.. frames.. their back.
It is a quick do/undo process, takes less than it took me to type this. About the same as it would take a semi-competent typist to complete the task.
KP
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