"Tony Antoniou" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>I know several people who listen through cheap-ass speakers that
>I can't stand and yet they think that their speakers are the
>best because they got the sound they wanted without paying big
>bucks.
Which is exactly what I said ;-)
>At the end of the day, all audio-visual stuff is subjective no
>matter how convincing the objective side of it is. If you think
>what you have is the best money can buy, then so be it. But at
>the end of the day, the caveat to one and all out there asking
>about what's good and what's not is that you should only use
>other people's comments as guidelines and not gospel. Trust your
>own senses. They will be the only things to lead you to the
>product that suits you, but at least you got your starting
>point.
Believe me, I'm all for inexpensive audio. I completely agree that each
person needs to decide what *they* like, and that audio is highly
subjective. I love to find $200 speakers that to me sound as good as
$1000 speakers. And I think that there is often substantial overlap in
quality between audio products in different price ranges.
But I also realize that a) at the extremes, money buys vastly different
quality; and b) certain components can/can't do certain things. A pair of
$200 PSB Alpha speakers doesn't compare to a pair of $5,000 B&Ws. A $275
Yamaha CD player doesn't compare to a $3,000 Marc Levinson CD transport.
Similarly, a pair of $65 earbuds don't compare with a pair of $300
Sennheisers. In the latter, it's not only a matter of price and component
quality -- it's also a matter of the physical abilities of the
components. The drivers in a pair of earbuds cannot produce the full
range of audible frequencies properly. The only ones that have come close
have been the Etymotics, which do so by coupling to the ear canal to use
it as a sort of "port" for reproducing low frequencies. That's why a pair
of Grado SR60s provide much better sound than the 888s for the same
price. I strongly agree with those who vigorously advocate for subjective
evaluation in audio. I think that too many people rely on specs and
price. But there needs to be some realism in there, and there's nothing
wrong with us pointing that out. Heck, even Sony will tell you that the
888s don't compare sound-wise to their full-sized headphones.
And give me some credit -- I didn't simply slam the 888s. I tried to
point out that the downside to getting bigger, better-sounding 'phones is
that you lose out on the true benefits of the 888s: size, weight, comfort.
>Sorry, but you are being facetious about it all.
Not at all. Facetious means "to joke." I made a comment that only someone
who couldn't really hear big differences between different qualities of
headphones would think a pair of earbuds like the 888s are the "best
headphones you can buy." I was completely serious. There are lots of
people who can't tell the difference, and there is nothing wrong with
those people. In fact, it is often argued that those people enjoy music
more because they aren't worried about sound quality so much.
>Make your recommendations, but don't preach that it is
>impossible for a pair of headphones to be good just because you
>didn't like them.
I (and others) simply were not preaching at all. We were replying to a
post claiming that the 888s are the "best sounding headphones you can
buy." If the person had said "I really like these Sony 888s!" no one
would have said a word. Please keep that fact in mind. We replied that
the post a) sounded more like an ad than anything else; and b) really
wasn't close to being accurate. We explained why we thought so.
Is it the pre/post-holiday blues that's making everyone so pissed off the
last few days? ;-)
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