Taylor Kasony

As I continue my transformation into an “audiophile” on a student budget, I continue to get excited over listening to music. I own two pairs of “audiophile” headphones and one headphone amplifier/dac combo. My equipment is not the most high-end, but they are mid-level. Research suggest that no single set of headphones “does it all.” Audiophiles also point out that high-end headphones need high-end source material (lossless music files, CDs, or Vinyls), clean signals (obtained through DACs), and amplification (to power them). Discussions about audio get complicated really fast with the thousands of options available and our ever subjective taste in sound. Arguments about improving sound quality by recabling headphones with silver and other minute details can make my head spin. Today, though, I’m going to offer my thoughts and experiences on realism using some design-related metaphors!

I own two pairs of headphones by two very different sounding and well-regarded companies – Sennheiser (I own their HD-598 headphones) and Grado (SR-225i) – and I’ve noticed two different planes of realism that each provides. I’ll use digital photography to help explain. With a dSLR we have control over depth of field. A photo can be completely in focus or can use a shallow depth of field to make only some areas in focus. Photos with a wide depth of field, or all in focus, can be described as “flat” while photos with a shallow depth of field, or selective focus, can be described as “artistic” or in better words, they have depth and create an atmosphere. Both are appropriate and dependent on the work they’re used for. Cheap cameras only offer wide depth of field and tend to produce less quality images due to distortions in color and compression. Same with headphones, only in a musical sense.

With Grado, realism comes from its razor sharp clarity. Audiophiles would describe Grado headphones as having forward mids (vocals and other mid-frequency sounds that are “on top” or the most emphasized), excellent highs (sounds/instruments that produce high frequencies), and a fast, tight bass (opposite of “muddy” bass, or bass that sounds distorted and bleeds into the vocals and is too “boomy” or thumps too much – another fault of low quality headphones). They provide details that make it sound as if you’re there in person listening to the artist sing on a mic. With Grado, the sound is convincing enough to make me feel like I am in the same room as the artist and watching a live performance, perhaps a few rows back. All of the musical details are in front of me with stunning clarity. With Apple earbuds and other low quality equipment, the sound quality is not even comparable due to cheap devices’ lack of clarity and major distortions when the volume increases (poor scaling).

With Sennheiser, realism comes from its layering. Audiophiles would describe Sennheiser headphones as having a wider soundstage (perceived distance between individual instruments/depth of sound), forward mids (similar to Grado, but with less clarity), and accurate bass (neutral, neither too much or too little, but present). They have more bass than the Grado variety, but have less clarity (yet are still leagues clearer than cheap models). When I listen to my Sennheiser (598) headphones, I feel as if I were in the center of the music because of the way they place instruments in space, because of the soundstage, which seems spherical. From the center (me) out, there are some highs (jingles and other such sounds depending on the track), closely followed by vocals, guitars, drum hits, and then bass guitars. In this way the sound is convincingly “real” in that I’m surrounded by music or in a fabricated world of music.

Overall, Grado headphones are crisper, but like with images, if everything is sharp then the image is flat. Sennheiser adds depth of field, sacrificing some clarity for perceived distance, the overall aesthetic, or in this case, musical impact. I enjoy listening to both sets of cans (jargon for headphones) because Grado headphones are stunning for Rock music and feelin’ the energy of a song while Sennheiser works really well with orchestrated pieces and relaxing.