So how much do you think the placebo effect impacts our listening preferences?

@mahgister,
"Headphones and speakers present sounds with different results for sure..."


Finally something we can all agree on, I hope.
For the past few years I’ve been trying to find a neutral pair of headphones exclusively for monitoring purposes and comparing various masterings.

After reading around various sites (Head-Fi, Ken Rockwell etc) I eventually narrowed it down to around 5/6 candidates including the Sennheiser HD600s, Audio-Technica ATH50Xs, Beyer Dynamic DT880s, or the Sony MDR 7506s.

Rather surprisingly, after a fair bit of reading, it became clear that none of these tried and tested designs had a ruler flat frequency response.

In the end I decided upon the Sony’s as they seemed to be the closest to truly flat. Their minor aberration was claimed to be a slightly elevated mid treble response which is said to be of great help in detecting any potential issues in the all important presence band, I think.

Perhaps there is a good reason after all for why they have remained a largely unchanged industry favourite for quite a few decades now.

However, the surprises didn’t end there. I later read on Sound on Sound website that although most mastering engineers do use headphones for mixing or mastering, in practice they still prefer to use loudspeakers. I can’t remember the reason given, but I think it was claimed that loudspeakers gave a more predictable result.

So, given the differences between headphones and even monitoring loudspeakers, it’s hardly a surprise that audio’s notorious circle of confusion as described by Toole, Olive etc continues to this day, is it?

Without any commonly recognised worldwide industry references, it also looks like it might remain with us for some time yet.

Yes, the truth might well be out there, but finding it seems to be quite another matter.
https://www.soundonsound.com/mastering
https://seanolive.blogspot.com/2009/10/audios-circle-of-confusion.html?m=1

@cd318 I know your response was to @mahgister but you mentioned wanting a more accurate headphone.

For that, the Sony M1ST (newest iteration) is a strong candidate.

Influencers are the bane of society and most social media sites aren't that far behind.

As millercarbon rightly points out, be honest and don't feel compelled to agree with the garbage you are being bombarded with on a daily basis.

Headphones and speakers are just different. In terms of raw performance (value for the money) headphones are going to outclass speakers.

Where speakers win is with visceral bass that we can feel within a room.

What site do you think you’re on? This is not a Reddit or head-fi thread. Do you even know how ridiculous this sounds? Have you even heard a well-constructed, high-end audio system, or have you just listened to headphones your whole life? — because that’s sure what this sounds like.

Really good headphones at their best sound sound like a good audio system in a really, really small room. And no headphones can come close to everything a high-end audio system can provide. Case in point — I can assess 100% of the quality of a recording on a good home system whereas I’m limited to about 80% with headphones. Soundstage size, depth and dimension, spatial cues, image placement, etc. are all laid bare in a good home system yet merely hinted at relatively with headphones. So if you think the only place speakers win is with bass you have no idea of what you’re talking about or missing.