Headphones

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A community for discussion around all topics related to headphones and personal audio.

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176
 
 

One time I tried on a pair of very light headphones that I can't remember the name or brand of if you could tell me the name I would really appreciate it. They were black and green, very light and had maybe 3 or so adjustable lengths and a mic. I don't know if it supported Bluetooth. And I think the ear cup shape was square.

177
 
 

Love my $5 on ears, wouldn’t dream of replacing. Just looking for songs that harness that grainy and tinny sound well.

178
 
 

So during black Friday I bought a new pair of gaming headphones, I wanted to switch to wireless because I find myself having to take off the headset way to often when for example closing my door, window, having to grab something on the other side of my room etc etc

I have used 3 pairs of wired Logitech Pro X headsets, all wired, I love it, there is a faint static noise that can be removed by simply changing the volume on the headset itself.

On black friday I bought Logitech Pro X Lightspeed Wireless, and that static/white noise cannot be removed, I tried everything, until I realized that even without the USB connected the static is still there. I realize now that the noise is supposed to be there which I cannot stand.

Im planning to return them, I am very sensitive to noise which is why I like the wired version, its very good at noise cancellation, and I thought the wireless would be the same, but the static noise drove me to insanity in only 20 minutes.

So now I am looking for a wireless gaming headset that DOES NOT have any static or white noise, I want it to be complete quiet when no audio is playing

179
 
 

Just ordered a HD600 off EBAY from WorldWideStereo. It went out of stock for a bit on the Black Friday deal, but came back ten bucks cheaper for Cyber Monday. There's a checkbox for the 20% off coupon on the checkout page.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/394139212961

180
 
 

I’ve been daily driving the AirPods Pro 2 and thought I could get an upgrade. So I got the WH-1000XM5s, hoping for a better anc experience and audio quality. Ik audio is subjective and all but what I’ve found is that the AirPods have very noticeable better anc than the xm5s, leaving me very confused cuz I thought the xm5s will have much better anc given its size and it’s overhead nature. Also I’m using an iPhone so could that be the reason that I find xm5s r not significantly better than the AirPods in terms of audio quality? The xm5s sounds more mushed and has less clarity in the high freq zones

181
 
 

Unfortunately my ear buds are suffering from the infamouse problem since I updated the software a couple of months ago.I contacted the custommer support centre they refereed me to their repair shop and said that if the problem is with the software then I will be able to change the faulty earbud with a new one for a charge of 120e.

I was surprised by this because I saw a bunch of posts on here which said that they got new ones free of charge.

I am suspecting this is because I live in Serbia and we don't have customer protection laws.

Does anyone have any experience with this? Having the option to pay for a replacement and not getting it for free because it is pretty infuriating to have to pay for something after they broke the product.

Also have there been similar issues with battery drain with the new wf-1000xm5 and wh-1000xm5?

Thank you to everyone who shares any info.

182
 
 

I've been using a pair of Taotronics Soundsurge 46s for almost 5 years now, and recently there has been more people commenting on the music I'm listening to or other things of that nature a lot, when that almost used to never happen for the first several years I've had them. I almost always listen to about the second or third loudest setting in my phone so I haven't been turning it up over time. I listen to heavy metal and lately a ton of brutal death metal.

Since I've had them for so long and I'm overdue for some new ones, they are literally starting to fall apart and the stitching in the cups has come undone completely. That might be the answer right there idk.

183
 
 

I know they used to exist, and I really don't wanna have to consider getting new headphones. But all search results seem to have disappeared. Also I'm in Australia if that matters. They just kinda hurt my head in long sessions and open backs are too open, while I don't personally believe semi-open actually makes a difference.

Figured I shouldn't post this in the advice thread bc I think this question is niche enough that there might not even be an answer, don't want to muddy that pool.

184
 
 

are tbere any nois ecancelling/isolating headphones which work for noises up to 50-70 dB ?

185
 
 

I got my first kilobuck headphones with Focal Clears. Love them. Excellent.

BUT

I am finding it hard to actually listen to the music. What I find myself doing is bouncing my focus around listening to individual pieces and going "wow I can pick this out when I couldn't before!" However, this is both exhausting and stops me hearing my music at all.

It feels kind of like when you go to IMAX the first few times and your eyes are just constantly bouncing around until you realize the way to do it is just relax your eyes into the middle and stop worrying about the periphery. However, I just can't seem to figure out how to relax into my music.

Does anyone have any advice?

186
 
 

So after Tin t2 and hd599 I went ahead and bought Campfire Andromeda 2020 and Senheiser IE600 and sort of skipped the whole mid fi stage.

I really like both of these but it seems from crinacle and everyone who reviews them the Airpods pro 2 and Samsung buds pro 2 both come pretty close and even do better in some aspects than these 2 I have.

Now I'm not rich or anything but music meant a lot to me last few years so I just went ahead and bought a couple of near endgame stuff knowing id end there eventually. I still wonder if I wasted a whole lot money for no reason.

I really like both the iems I have but they're obviously not without flaws, from thin bass on Andro to slightly sharp treble that needs to be eqd on ie600 and it's terrible cable. Maybe by next generation of products tws would start outclassing flagship iems.

As an aside, what's your favourite albums on Andros or ie600?

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188
 
 

Well, the question is in the title. Basically, i'm debating if i should forget about wirelessness and go back to wired even if i really hate wires. (Do not take battery durability into account please)

A bit of background, here's my personal experience regarding headphones and durability:

Sennheiser HD555 (wired): Still worked flawlessly after 10 years of 4 to 8 hours of daily use. Then they died of assassination after i rage-throw them on the wall playing an online PVP game.

Many "flagship" wireless "gaming" headset from different popular brand: Almost never lasted more than 18 months. (With very careful handling and no rage-throw)

Sennheiser momentum true wireless 2 (Earbuds): Two warranty replacement in 2 years. 2nd replacement died shortly after warranty expiration.

Sennheiser momentum true wireless 2 (Earbuds): Not learned from previous mistake. Warranty replacement after 1 year.. which died 3 months later. (Not even bothered claiming warranty this time).

Sennheiser momentum true wireless 3 (Earbuds): Assumed they were build better... Warranty replacement after 6 months.. which started showing left/right imbalance 3 months later. (Damn you sennheiser !)

Sennheiser Momentum 4 (Headphones): Looks like i'm pushing brand loyalty a bit too far, but i'm stubborn. Bought them this week, still working great...

I came to the conclusion (possibly wrong) that "gaming headset" are not durable in general, and that wireless earbuds (even sennheiser flagship ones) may lack durability because of how small those things are.

I'd like your opinions. Do you think my Momentum 4 is likely to die as fast as every other wireless devices i had ? Or can i expect great durability because they are sennheiser's headphones and not earbuds ?

189
 
 

Build - solid , hefty .

Drivability - can drive hd600 , he400se and superlux 330.

Sound - have good clean bass , extend bass / increase bass. very clean , analytic , smooth . Seperation very good , sound stage so so , I can say maybe the treble is quite high it can be piercing if pair with high treble headphone. Vocals shine.

Pairing - hd58x literally make the sound open , enjoyable , it tame the sound ,make everything smooth. Also make the headphone muffle gone. To my surprise. Sub bass is enjoyable . Good pairing. Superlux 330 also another good pairing. Smooth , clean. Fiio jt1. This is also bassy headphone , more on the bass side , treble too. But after using it with the topping. It tame the bass and everything is smooth very enjoyable. He400se it gets loud enough. Yes it's clean again. Bass tight. Seperation good. But tbh it's just sound smooth not really a big difference here. Hd600 to my surprise it added the missing bass that I was looking for . It make everything perfect. I seen review or people say it can't drive the hd600 to full potential and he400se. Imo. Hd600 is enough. It gets loud enough. Bass more emphasise. Clean etc just perfect. He400se. Just smooth. Bass tight

Ok imo topping pairing is lean towards bassy headphone , or more on a bass side. Or less bass like the hd600. It work well with most headphone except for treble headphone.

I have the Samson SR850 . It make my ear hurt I can't even listen to them.

Fyi all is stock sound from headphone no eq added.

Gain switch - first time using this thing. Imo nothing really special now I realized why most people say max out the pc volume. Low gain just volume lesser , high means louder. That's it no difference. Both port will run either high or low depend on the switch is set to high or low. Once the headphone get loud enough in either low or high same sound no difference.

Dac comparison ayima dac a 3. This dac I realised has more power in the sense that the ayima have no gain switch. Just pc volume and knob. Like the ayima dac a 3 Is using ess 9038q2m dac chip. And a op amp TPA6120D2 which I know nothing about except for the dac chip.

Sound : it has much more of a noise sound . Meaning electric guitar for example this song. I feel like it has a good instrument seperation. I tested song in flac , 320kbps. Songs like new jeans , Taeyeon , IU , POP , KPOP , anime piano/guitar music , lofi , R &B . But this Japanese song have good seperation etc. and electric guitar so I use this as example. https://youtu.be/YbFSOlLemak?si=LPwnqZs16GSELGic

On the ayima starting it has good seperation. But when the electric guitar plays it makes like electric guitar noise. And everything else like push back a little. Seperation was there but not as clean. This concludes imo ABIT noisy also make it have more feeling to the music. On other song like Taeyeon song. Or vocals song pop , kpop, new jeans. It has more emotion I only can say that. But on certain track like new jeans hype boy it feels like everything a little push back muted. Bass is not as clean. But for like gravity for Taeyeon. And LOL Taeyeon. It feel like more emotion. Not as clean but just feels like more emotion to the song. Through every headphone is like this . But the Samson sr850 the treble doesn't hurt my ear it is still high but tolerable. Imo just beneath my threshold. It also increase the bass for some song and some headphone. Imo

Topping. New jeans bass pop, everything sound clean and well seperate . Same goes for the Japanese song. This is different on that song. Clean bass , electric not as forward. Every Instrument and vocals well seperate can hear clearly. Vocals too all balance. Bass is cleaner than ayima dac a 3, seperation is clearer too , soundstage about the same. Smoother than the ayima dac 3. Clearer sounding too. But after awhile it sounded like too analytic. The treble I feel like it is enhance on the headphone. Like the Samson headphone. I just put for 3, min I need to take them off. Tested with new jeans etc. the treble just hurt my ears too sharp. Samson stock sound the treble is quite high imo.

Ok which do I like better currently if pairing with the topping , hd58x , superlux 330 , hd600. Fiio jt1. All of these sounded great . I feel like those lack of bass , or bassy headphone pair well with topping. Can't pair is those stock sound already with high treble like Samson.

Is it better than ayima ? For me personally I like clean sounding stuff. So yeah. The ayima also have like channel imbalance. But I fix it through the window all by balancing it. So overall not bad.

Power : I feel like the ayima dac A3 has more power. Period. Do not know the measurements but it gets loud real quick quicker than the topping dx1 high gain.

Fyi maybe there's a sound different because of the bit rate.

Ayima is 24 bit 440khz I forgot. But I know it's 24bit.

Topping 32 bit khz I also forgot but I think also 440khz or something. But I can clearly hear the difference.

But if I compare the topping to the bvgp t01s dongle it also a 32, bit.

The sound tbh sounds very similar. The bvgp t01s. Tbh if it got a desktop version I will buy it. The dongle is like super cheap compare to topping . Sound wise almost the same. Just that it's not as clean as the topping.

But the bvgp is good with all headphone I tested even Samson's. Enhancing the bass , clarity , maintain the treble.

Enhanced the bass on hd600 too. Smooth. Etc.

Maybe it because of the bit rate so yeah.

Is it worth the money for the topping ? For desktops amp dac imo this is end game. I do not need anything higher. But for bvgp dongle yeah man. Maybe not as clean soundkng as topping but other aspect quite close. The sound on the bvgp is insane imo. It power my hd600 well it open it up like the topping as well .

So yeah that's my conclusion of the topping. All rounder except for treble heavy headphone. Good for bassy headphone for pairing. It just balance everything out.

Fyi the sound from the dac amp mentioned has 0 hiss or static sound. I ab the 2 dac I can hear the difference ess and akm chip. Both have their own strength. ESS has more emotion and noise(good noise) . Akm just clean sounding. Good seperate tight bass. Less emotional, more analytics imo. I can't believe anyone can hear anything beyond this point. If anything get even more analytic than this topping. It's just sterile sound. Maybe be good for a week or so but after that it's not enjoyable.

190
 
 

I am curious if I would benefit from a budget amp like the Monolith Liquid Spark for general mixing use. I generally have no complaints about the volume level I'm achieving with this combination, but I have noticed that I'm having a difficult time perceiving subtle dynamic characteristics like compression, especially in the airy high frequency areas that is complicating the translation of my mixes. I've never used a headphone amp, so in one sense I don't know what I'm missing, but I acknowledge that this may simply be a limitation of my listening skill and headphones in general. What do you think?

191
 
 

Even though you can't tell the differences.

192
 
 

Are the newer units still coming with that filter defect/failure?

193
 
 

I recently purchased the Momentum 4 headphones and initially enjoyed the sound quality. However, on the second day, I started experiencing discomfort due to the internal parts of the jack pressing against my ear. What can I do to address this issue, and if a solution isn't possible, should I consider returning them and opting for the XM5 headphones instead?

194
 
 

Hello, i just got the WH-1000XM4 thanks to the black friday and my brother advice. I bought it principally for listening audiobook. But i'm a bit overwhelmed by all the settings, especially for the equalizer it's my first time meeting something like that. And i was wondering what would be the best equalizer settings for audiobooks. I'm asking here because it seem a lot of people are really full of knowledge when it comes to headphones, thanks in advance!

195
 
 

I have a bad tendency to turn up the volume of music super loud when it gets to the exciting bits during the chorus etc. I use the Sony XM4 over ear headphones and have this setting switched on to limit to 75dB. My question is, is this setting actually going to reduce the sound to that level even through my non-Apple headphones? I want to be sure I’m still protecting my hearing even when I feel like blasting my music. It doesn’t sound super overwhelmingly loud to me at max volume and this is coming from someone who sometimes gets sensitive with certain loud sounds, but it can be difficult to tell a lot of the time.

196
 
 

Should I play only aac files on bluetooth headphones that support aac? Or can I play any?

197
 
 

Apologies if this isn't the right sub to ask this in, but I was thinking it likely would be.

Recently I got a pair of Soundpeats Air4 Pros for just $29. I'm finding them to be pretty amazing for what their normal price is ($80~) let alone what I got them for, but that's not what this post is about - I just wanted to throw them some love.

Anyway, I am very sensitive to audio latency in games/videos and these buds support aptx adaptive and also have a game mode that can be turned on and off, which reduces latency by an amount I am unsure of. When using my phone (Galaxy S10), I can see in developer settings that it defaults to regular aptx as I believe that is the best codec my phone can support besides aptx HD, which is unselectable (I guess because the buds only support adaptive and not HD? Not an issue I'm concerned about). SBC is the only other option I have. Both options have terrible latency and turning game mode on with the buds cuts it down by maybe 25-50%, but that's not nearly enough and is still really bad for games or videos. aptx only seems to be very slightly better than SBC.

Then I have an ipad, which is several years old now. I want to say 6th gen maybe? I am unsure what codec it uses, unfortunately. However, I get pretty noticeable improvement here for whatever reason. Without game mode, latency is probably only a little worse than with game mode on my S10. With game mode on the ipad, the latency becomes only slightly noticeable to the point that I can say it's actually not that bad. For the bit of gaming on my ipad, I really don't mind it. I assume latency is so much better here than my S10 because of whatever codec is being used perhaps, but I don't know.

Up next is my PS5, which I just got a bluetooth adapter for that supports all aptx codecs and SBC. What's nice is that with this adapter, I really don't know that I can tell there's latency there at all, so that's great! However, I'm really confused because I don't notice almost any difference between codecs here. aptx LL and HD are unsupported for my buds, so it defaults to adaptive, which seems to work very well except weirdly game mode doesn't seem to do anything with adaptive on. It almost doesn't need to, though, luckily. BUT, if I set the codec to SBC or normal aptx and turn game mode on, the latency becomes just as good, if not BETTER, than adaptive. If I don't turn game mode on, the latency feels as bad as it did on my S10 or so.

Then I've got my Switch with it's normal SBC bluetooth. Connecting my buds without game mode is probably the worst latency out of any device here... but then it becomes virtually unnoticeable once I turn game mode on.

I'm really confused about this... why would the game mode function on my buds be pretty much fully fixing SBC/aptx latency on my PS5 and Switch, but not on my S10 or ipad? And how could it be improving the latency so well on my PS5 and Switch to the point that it seems like the better option compared to aptx adaptive?

Are there probably just way too many variables at hand and a straight answer can't really be given?

198
 
 

I've never had a DAC/AMP before because as far as I know, I'm completely fine without them, I'm curious and would want to start somewhere cheap so I know whether to add them to my set and if the benefits are good enough to warrant an upgrade.

edit: if a decent sub $50 exists, I might go for that first

199
 
 

I wish I hadn't have discounted iems, since I now use them much more than my over ears, even when I'm at home. I also wish I had have had a better understanding of the type of sound signature I preferred, would have saved myself a lot of time and money. That being said, I did enjoy the journey itself to finding my end game 🙂

200
 
 

https://preview.redd.it/6v9dbw0l8u2c1.jpg?width=4080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ff73e13d6cd604c694d3d424748d859212215cfb

IE600 came with scratched right grill, 'Y-split' also had minor scratches. I don't think they are counterfeits, but perhaps was lightly used previously, or had minor damage in the manufacturing process?

Since they were heavily discounted on eBay ($559 AUD, Sold out): https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/385698446520

Contacted customer support and they just offered a refund, with no explanation. Though, considering the price, I doubt it's a major issue.

Has anyone else seen similar issues before?

Thanks

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