Why am I so picky about headphones?
Yesterday I bought a new pair of headphones: the Bose TriPort On-Ear. I already have the "around-ear" ones, but it's quite bulky to transport. Of course, I tried them before buying in New York's Apple store, and they're quite good. Actually, just that bit better than the previous ones in terms of frequency range.
So those are the ones I use for transportation (the case is pretty neat). As for serious listening and sound editing I'm planing to buy the Ultrasone Proline 650, but they're bulky and too expensive to just "carry around"
So, yes, why am I so picky? Am I now part of those elitist audiophiles?
I don't know... I guess I see (I mean, hear) music as if it was some kind of knowledge, and having headphones that can pick up a better frequency range and lower volumes in the background mean I am able to "learn more". Is it just me, or I can pick up all those details that most would not care about? OK, I admit, hearing the breathing and page-turning in classical music is annoying. But often you pick stuff that the author hoped you could hear, and because of your low quality equipment (unlike the author's, or if it's live) you can't.
Yet, it seems that, sometimes, some albums purposefully have incredibly high "production values", meaning that you will not get the best experience until you have the best sound equipment. That, or some genres, like most of my Global Underground albums, are made to be played on massively large speakers, with the ground shaking. And due to some flaw of my psyche of some kind, powerful speakers still freaks me out in strange ways, so being limited to headphones some genres are quite difficult to listen to.
Maybe that's how they create a market for audiophiles. Strangely enough, good audio mixing professionals would test to see if the song sounds good on the target headphones, like those crappy $10 ear buds (the ones with the iPod are not that bad anyways, but still...).
I still like my new headphones. It's like getting a new pair of glasses that matches your new prescription, and you look at the world as if you've seen it for the first time. This is quite an experience, worthy of the expense.
Published on May 7, 2007 at 16:50 EDT
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