Headphone Heights

Avoid anything that sounds too bright...

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This Post Has Been Edited by the Author

In Reply to: RE: Best headphones for classical music posted by merlinus on February 28, 2014 at 15:14:49

Avoid headphones (or loudspeakers for that matter) that might accentuate the upper frequencies too much. Compared to smaller venues (jazz clubs, etc..,), the sheer size of symphonic halls tend to suppress the higher frequencies a bit. Headphones that throw a huge soundstage might seem to be the proper choice at first, but unless they have the type of frequency response which best portrays symphonic music I would not consider them to proper. Strings that sound too steely, horns with too much bite, etc.., will sound unnatural with good, large-scale classical recordings.
Chamber music might be better served by a brighter sounding headphone but you still don't want to be distracted by too much high frequency detail, unless the recording was specifically made that way.
Many seem to prefer some of the the "darker sounding" older model headphones from Audeze or Sennheiser for classical music, and I would tend to agree with them on this point.

Edits: 03/10/14

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