I’d recommend a hearing test before any more time spent on this topic.
Cannot find perfect sound
I've been listening to supposedly some of the finest speakers that currently exist. These include b&w 800 Series, revel high end, vivid audio, Psi audio and kef blades.
None except the kef blades satisfied my high level standards.
When I play my reference tracks on cheap earbuds I hear timing accuracy that is missing on all the above speakers. Only the kef blades came closest to what I hear from cheap earbuds.
Explanations please?
I really suspect that none of these high end speakers are accurately reproducing the sound on my CDs despite all the marketing claims about accuracy and high quality sound.
What could there possibly be that my cheap earbuds can do that eludes these super high end speakers?
I'm not so eager anymore to spend any money until I have a good explanation.
None except the kef blades satisfied my high level standards.
When I play my reference tracks on cheap earbuds I hear timing accuracy that is missing on all the above speakers. Only the kef blades came closest to what I hear from cheap earbuds.
Explanations please?
I really suspect that none of these high end speakers are accurately reproducing the sound on my CDs despite all the marketing claims about accuracy and high quality sound.
What could there possibly be that my cheap earbuds can do that eludes these super high end speakers?
I'm not so eager anymore to spend any money until I have a good explanation.
147 responses Add your response
Room surely has a lot to do with your problem. Otherwise, earbuds are getting better very fast. If for no other reason, then because of market forces. People proudly listen to their 20-year-old speakers and they may sound as good as any today. How many people listen to their 20-year-old earbuds and can say the same? Even Apple earphones have improved a lot over the last ten years. That does not give any technical explanation, except that earbud manufacturers caught up. Also, don't forget that taste changes. The sound you may think you want may not be the sound you really like. It happened to me. |
Earbuds vary a bit. You can get the ones for babies which are excluding vat so are cheaper. They have I believe the same cotton bud on them as the others, so are suitable for cleaning ears gently. Once I did lose the cotton bit in my ear and had to get a doctor to extract. My hearing, until extraction, was I suppose of less quality than usual. Maybe lost a bit of midrange. There is possibly a tip there - if your system has too much midrange, just lose a cotton earbud down your ears. Cost would only be a few pence, if that. Also, if room correction is an issue, just try one earbud at a time. |
How would you wake up one morning and find out that the person you relied upon to evalulate speakers/components for several years turned out to have a severe hearing loss all along. It happens, but in spite of that she agreed with me on each evaluation which in turn made the final decision to buy my own! I think it's important to try before you buy especially with very expensive speakers. When you buy expensive speakers, using the finest components you are agreeing with the designer that his idea of what sounds good is yours as well. Doesn't it kill you inside when you go to another audiophiles house for a listen and his system costs half as much but sounds every bit as good as yours. Lesson learned! |
Dear Kenjit, This is my first post and enjoy going through all the different posts and often smile a lot. You need to take a step back, compare and try to understand the technical and acoustic differences between your two setups; the earbuds and the loudspeakers. Like other mentioned, you are more sensitive to “timing”, which most loudspeaker out there have coherence problems. Even the “coherent” design, to a lesser extent. Multiple driver integration is done at a certain distance from the loudspeaker front baffle (more exactly the voice coil alignment) to the listener. A good listening room setup will place you exactly in the sweet spot, not much right or left, nor front or back. A single driver, a coaxial driver, the magnetic and electrostatic planar design will get you closer to your preference. You need to look at your listening position, and where these speakers are getting integrated, the “sweet spot”. Also true, the room, its dimensions (room mode), its characteristics (liveliness to over damped), and how your loudspeaker’s placement (golden ratio…) is very important. The dipole loudspeaker with their figure eight radiation pattern could fair better in some rooms that the traditional “box” type. Also true, your loudspeaker match to the power amplifier, tube amplifiers have response problem with loudspeakers with complex crossover network, and large impedance variations, specially the lower impedance. Solid state with design will have to deal with loudspeaker back EMF, screwing the sound with a poor feedback design. You need a good match between your loudspeaker and your amplifier. So, loudspeaker coherency, their integration into the listening room, the seating and amplification are all components in your listening experience, and not in your listening path when you use the earbuds. There are some crazy good and expensive ones out there, but I don’t like that sound, I prefer the soundstage created in a proper listening setup. I have not found an electronic/DSP solution to poor loudspeaker integration. The “monitor” loudspeaker allows you to move much closer to them, and they are designed to integrate much closer to the sound engineer. But they also rely on loudspeaker like the B&W to judge for the sound, and believe me, these are at the right location. So, my proposition is to set back from where you are until you understand better what is happening. You are beyond experimenting, you need to benchmark where you are. And thrust what you hear, and your taste. |
Kenjit; Have you been to an AXPONA show or something similar? You can hear lots of options all in a few short hours It appears you are a “ show me” type guy. If so, You have one option then! Read all you can with hifi magazines before you go & plan to cover all the “ kinds” of transducers ie) horn, planer, electrostatic, dynamic etc Jeff |
@frozentundra wrote:"It appears you are a “ show me” type guy... Ime "The Quest" can be an awful lot of fun in and of itself! In fact some people who already have their main system totally finished enjoy the discovery and creativity and rewards of The Quest so much that they embark on another Quest for an office/workshop/bedroom/kitchen/whatever second system. Duke |
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Since you speak of timing, have you tried horn speakers or similar that uses on driver for most of the frequency range? Like Avantgarde Acoustics. Should help a lot with timing. Some speakers like the Kii Three has some DSP functions that can be somewhat configured to your taste. Might also be worth trying. |
I know what you are saying. However much of what you are hearing is due to less than ideal speaker positioning within the room, room acoustics and listening position. The larger high end speakers demand a larger room and with that more problems. My personal solution is to setup a nearfield listening position within my larger room using speakers that are designed to be nearfield monitors (Harbeth) A nearfield setup allows you to place the speakers well away from side or back walls and the listening spot per the typical nearfied triangle is also well away from the wall behind the listener. My nearfield setup in a larger room is modest compared to many high end systems but the sound that I hear can better or compete with the best regardless of price. The only downside is that the room is somewhat sectioned off, basically you are sitting in the center of the room as opposed to along a wall. But for me the sound is more than worth it. The coherence and imaging are spectacular. |
Interesting - The Skullcandy does not come close to the clarity, deepness and crispness of my DYS Speakers I made myself. It is not the electronics or the speakers that are at fault it is your ears. You have apparently a very good ability to pick out details in music and you have your favorite things you like best to be brought out. Personally I have felt the kick of bass hit my chest and think wow! Ear buds cannot do that! You should audition many systems before buying again so you can get as close to what you call perfection. Perfection may not exist. At some point you may have to settle for "good enough for me." What you think is perfect the next guy might think it sounds terrible. I have a relative and everything sounds like a transistor radio. His ears really cannot tell. So he will not be spending thousands on a great world renown stereo but will probably buy a nice fishing boat. what ever floats your boat. :) |
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Get an old Nakamichi Receiver 1 or Receiver 2. They feature something the manufacturer called Harmonic Time Alignment. I find more focus and separation of instruments; not spatially - I mean I can separate their contributions to the overall sound of the music better - with my Stax headphones than with my speakers. However that is a trade-off for a three dimensional soundstage with my speakers. I'll tell ya, the realism of my speakers' presentation got a hell of a lot better when I applied the IsoTek Ultimate System Set-Up Disc for speaker placement. |
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I also hear major resonances from many high end speakers which the reviewers seem to ignore. Even my PMC speakers have horrific resonances. Despite this, they were highly regarded by all the studio engineers.I’d suggest your expectations are not realistic, but then having the opinion cheap ear buds sound better I find incredibly odd. I walk nearly everyday and though my earbuds are not inexpensive, I would never choose them over my 2 channel system. In addition, you state cheap earbuds which raise the question on cables, DAC and amplification. Most reference systems I am familiar with do not have that sort of connection. Easy solution is to be thankful you enjoy music through such a inexpensive medium and stick with that. However, if you insist on pursuing this hobby your issue may not be speakers. To be analogous to food, say cheese. If you dislike cheese and continue to post on forums your dismay on why others like this and that cheese seems odd. It seems this post suggests “I like Kraft singles over a cheese made by Wayne Hnitz, who I believe won several categories in cheese making world championships” and suggest everyone, including judges, has unrefined tastebuds. It may not be everyone else............... |
having the opinion cheap ear buds sound better I find incredibly odd. I never said earbuds sound better. I already said before that : I did not say I preferred cheap earbuds over expensive speakers. If that was the case, there would be no need to buy speakers and I could just continue using the cheap earbuds. |
regardless of the nuance of your question or post, I believe the rudimentary question remains, "why do I hear this and no one else does, or if they do why doesn't it bother them?" Again, it may not be the everyone else, or speakers if the complaint spans across many speaker manufactures as your post suggests. |
"why do I hear this and no one else does, or if they do why doesn't it bother them?"Because most speakers are incapable of accurate phase response, the vast majority of people have never heard a minimum phase error system. Manufacturers and sales people prattle on about frequency response, XOver order and other irrelevant attributes. There isn't a system in a hundred that can accurately image a DI bass or align a kick point and heft. The 'image' presented is a nebulous bucket of mush. Some eat at McDonald's. Others prefer to go hungry. |
Hi, check out Bache Audio- Tribeca 001 model My review below: 5 stars ! Positive feedbackWOW ! Simply the Best speakers that I have ever owned or heard. And after 30 years in this hobby I've heard plenty. I have owned NOLA, Paradigm, Splendor, Harbeth, KEF reference 3, Salk Silks etc etc Bache speakers are simply better especially at this price point. Clarity and detail is so amazing. I am hearing detail in my music that I never thought possible. Bass to my ears extends well below the specs and closer to 30hz. Important to note that it is simply tight and detailed. no sense of softness/muddiness. Midrange/vocals are actually the best I've ever heard. so accurate and clear. Sounds as though the artist is in the room closest to live performance than any other system. Highs are detailed due to the excellent fostex tweeter perfectly integrated w/ a specific methodology that I feel will be the future of speaker design. 2 issues- 1 is I now can’t stop listening to music. 2- this speaker is revealing if recording is poor you will hear it. This of course is positive and really see no flaws in design or sound. Sound stage is expansive and deep. As far as finish; super high level and process was so cool. Greg was accessible for entire build. His passion and love for his speakers comes through not just in the finished product but throughout the process. Like everything there is a sweet spot and as far as audio reproduction this is IT. Simply I have not heard better and I am driving them easily with the Exogal 100 watt amp. Which is a perfect partnership and to my ears audio heaven on earth. So much gratitude for Greg and his innovative design, passion and implementation. Do yourself a favor and hear them today. Much Peace through happy listening, Ken |
I would like to suggest a little different take on this discussion. I believe that our brain gets accustomed to hearing music in a certain way when we listen to the same "system" for long periods of time. The sound we hear is what we establish as our own "reference". When we change a component we hear a change and it takes time to decide if we like that change or it’s simply different. I know I have done this with various components and always have to get accustomed to the new sound. Going from ear buds to a floor standing speaker is a huge leap in listening. I would suggest that you need to spend a good deal of time with whatever speaker you decide upon to re-orient your brain to the new reference. Does this make sense? |
Taking room acoustics out of the equation and use of crossover-less headphones/earbuds, along with eliminating certain requirements such as transformer and capacitors, translates to more coherent, cleaner, less distorted sound. This is especially true for portable players such as that used by your humble narrator inasmuch as House AC power is eliminated from the equation along with attendant power cords, fuses and interconnects in one swell foop. |
"None except the kef blades satisfied my high level standards." "Only the kef blades came closest to what I hear from cheap earbuds." "What could there possibly be that my cheap earbuds can do that eludes these super high end speakers?" "I never said earbuds sound better." No wonder that mindlessminion got confused. |
@kenjit The earbuds is full range, crossoverless design small speakers is
going direct to you ears . The Majority high end loudspeakers is 3 way and get complicated crossover with a lot a capacitors and induction coil.This is answer for you question for timing and etc. Another hand i cannot recommend you to looking for famous brand full range crossoverless design . Nobody can not make driver to cover 20-20000hz , is there are dreams which never come trow yet. We make speakers are based around wide-band drivers, which cover the range from about 100 Hz to 10 kHz, without crossovers in the critical range to which the ear is most sensitive. |
Here’s your answer, giant earbuds. eclipse td712zmk2 http://www.eclipse-td.com/uk/products/td712zmk2/index.html Well maybe, worth hearing in any case, preferably on the end of a system that doesn’t mess up the timing of what they’re fed. |
Yes but only at a dealers when I went to investigate a turntable. I found them very engaging and not as obviously band width limited a I’d expected. The amp used was relatively low power so there were no grand symphonies involved and we didn’t blast out Metallica (something to check at home) but they are on my short list if I have to replace my current speakers (along with audio note Es and some lesser MBLs), I’d need to try a pair in my own system. Perfection in all areas doesn’t exist, no matter how big your budget, the room will always play a part but it’s important a speaker can communicate, impressive can get tiresome after a while if that’s all there is. |
I personally like the persona. Unfortunately I demo them a week apart, Money was a reconsideration. The wind won me over with high powered amp. Not sure what the amp is. Got a great deal on 2 yr old wind and had to have it. Love it. Once my bat vk 200 comes back, i will drive eith it. Im sure your ears are fine. Probably just wrong equip matching. |
Most of the recordings I listen to have great sound, and I'm happy that my rig allows me to hear that...if the sound is a little less "great" but the music is brilliant, I can enjoy that also. Example...I like the early Bill Evans live stuff...Scott LaFaro et al, panned for extreme stereo, sort of an evenly dull piano, crowd noises...brilliant! |