Welcome to Incels.is - Involuntary Celibate Forum

Welcome! This is a forum for involuntary celibates: people who lack a significant other. Are you lonely and wish you had someone in your life? You're not alone! Join our forum and talk to people just like you.

Discussion Giga Earspeaker hate thread: audiophiles gtfih

svgmn1

svgmn1

Fat link fanboy
★★★★★
Joined
Sep 3, 2021
Posts
12,156
I HATE earspeakers!

they are legit the worst creation in the world of audio (besides diamond coated diamond dust snakeoil speaker cables or shit like that) and I will back this up by defininte proof:

in 1960, Stax dubbed it's first electrostatic headphone "the world first earspeaker" this is where the term came from, although the headphone looked essentially the same as current circumaural (or as referred to overheadphones, over the er, etc) headphones and it wouldn't be considered earspeaker by modern definitions. shame I guess? because it looks promising and beautiful for a headphone from 1960, not like the abominations that came after the earspeaker craze. it just looked well designed and nothing out of the ordinary.


Sr 1 768x1024

pic.1: stax sr-1, world's first electrostatic headphone

the premise of this headphone is using electrostatic speaker technology that debuted earlier in the state of art british made speaker (quad esl 57) in a headphone, since the technology looked so revolutionary and made speakers only a couple of centimeters thin.

so it was more or less an idea to design a headphone like a speaker, others have picked up this pattern.

the problem was electrostatic speakers required special needs, like a transformer coupling, dc bias voltage for the diaphragm and other shit. the normal estat speaker requires like 300 fucking watts and those 300 watts come with a bias voltage of like 1 kilovolts. now these speakers come with their own amps (systems) attached to the back of the unit, even if you take one you will need to lower down the bias voltage not to blow up your estat, and thus stax gave you the invention of energizers. yet a new class of amplifiers that we didn't need.



888jecklinpromo

pic.2: Jecklin floats worn by Jürg Jecklin

I'm not going to to critique this man and his designs, he passed away and to be honest I respect his ambition and motives, he in my opinion wanted success and wanted to make a headphone that stands out by performance, not looks. but this easily became the world's ugliest fucking headphone. it aced in ugliness. literally incel headphone and this picture became the biggest meme in the history of audio.

afaik, this got released in 1975 and the premise of this was making an electrostatic circumaural with a "chamber-like" design of soundwave dead material that doesn't reflect to reduce reflections and resonance from the wearer's head. I believe it could be that the man just wanted to make a bigger electrostats than the ones stax made for bigger headroom and soundstage and realized that making a headband strap was actually difficult to carry those drivers with the wiring and everything, but if it was really the first case then he was actually thinking ahead of his time because many headphones back then had little regard for resonance.

little did the designer realized that it would've been much better if he didn't try to replicate a speaker technology and go with dynamic drivers because ironically they would provide better soundstage, which is what he needed. it would've also cut down on the cost of making it.



2323500


pic.3: Pioneer se 700, world's first piezoelectric headphones

yeah you could say this headphone is normal looking, until you realize it's premise was also mimicking another speaker technology, yet another jap weeb like the ones who made stax picking up something and making another thing based on it, and spawning a horrific invention that sadly others will mimick as well.

in this case it was replicating the technology in the Electro-Voice SP12B piezo units made in 1958, which were not very popular choice for speaker drivers, only like five manufacturers chose piezoelectric materials for speakers. I assume it's the first one but it could be another product.
you would think this headphone is normal, until you realize it has an impedance of
5331.77 ohm. the designer probably thought

"I like my headphones when they have an electrical properties of a fucking piece of glass"
(btw, piezo elememts are literally ceramic like cyrstals or quartz crystals, this kind of reaction, whether be it impedance in ac circuits or resistance in dc to current flow should be expected and not be used to make a wide range of frequencies like 16 fucking octaves. it should be used for a range of four order harmonics, at best)
after this headphone it started to be a competition of who makes or replicates the weirder shit. and it went downhill from this.
in 1979, stax decided it was a good idea to make this
Stax sr lambda a pro srm 1 mkii pro audiophile headphones with amplifier 1 600x600 crop center


pic. 4: stax sr-lambda
I don't need to comment on how ugly it is, it is so ugly, probably as ugly as the floats.
but none of these, not even the lambdas, take the cake of being the most overrated, most annoying, most cocksucking, soycucking, reddit circlejerking piece of audio product ever made besides:
DSC05059 web


pic. 5: AKG K1000. are you seething yet?
Ahhhhh this piece of fugly overrated dogshit. you'd be surprised how many soyboys rave and drool over this despite the fact that it has an unbearable thd and a bass extension of a super tweeter. you like 0 subbass and lower bass? the akg k1000 is for you, you like muddy upper and mid bass? the k1000 is for you. you like gutter sonic performance and resonance everywhere on the frequency curve? you like having the hardest headphone to drive with a bullshit sensitivity of 74db/mw because fuck you? (literally needs something like a gsx or a speaker amp outputting 8 watts per channel) you like to look like a truecel and decrease your smv till reaching negative values? no worries. this headphone has it all in one shitty package for you.
E06fec3a5a77e774a903065f1c500ca5ccc2a8c7

pic. 6: AKG K1000 raw frequency response


If I had to tell a child to scribble some shit on a paper, it would be the frequency response of Taket h2+ (another dogshit earspeaker) and the frequency response of akg past 1khz.

imagine how bad the thd measurements. finished? it's worse than you imagined.


Screenshot 2023 12 16 10 29 04 484 comgoogleandroidappsdocs edit

pic .7: AKG K1000 THD




here is the thd measurement of a hedphone that worths 4 times less by the same company and measured by the same equipment and the same guy:

Screenshot 2023 12 16 10 46 46 730 comgoogleandroidappsdocs edit


pic. 8: AKG Q701 THD
this should give you a perspective about what kind of products are these. you are essentially strapping a low power speaker (think of a table speaker or something smaller than a bookshelf) to your ears. this headphone is still sought after and people believe it still outperforms modern headphones, not only in soundstage but sonically too. JFL at audiophiles.

after this headphone, many weird inventions have been spawned

brace yourself for this:

29842 531C0DB3 0AA1 42F4 87E7 87393ECC56D1

pic. 9: the infamous sennheiser surrounder

you have to give sennheiser credit for being no.1 in everything. including making the ugliest audio equipment of all time, beating the jecklin floats is no easy feat.

imagine wearing this in public and approaching foids.



2


pic. 10: taket h2+ piezeoelectric headphone


Screenshot 2023 12 16 10 57 39 279 comgoogleandroidyoutube edit


pic. 11: frequency response of the taket h2+


I have never seen anything more horrific than this fr graph. it looks like utter fucking shit. the only kind of people who enjoyed listening to this "earspeaker" are probably currently deaf, or dead.



Modern earspeakers: have modern technology changed earspeakers for the better?
Lzmwkpcw2un31

pic. 12, from left to right: AKG K1000, RAAL REQUISITE SR1A, Mysphere 3
luckily earspeakers faded away, but we still got two contenders that are selling for a price point of $4000 dollars currently, intending to carry the earspeaker game in modern times:

mysphere 3 (3.1, 3.2 are only revisions of the same thing)which is the spiritual successor of the k1000 since it is made by the same guy that everyone jerks for heinz reiner.
the designer claimed this headphone will be easy to drive unlike the k1000, yet it has a sensitivity of 96db/mw. well I guess that's the best, most efficient figure in the world of earspeakers.


raal requisite sr1a, a ribbon "earspeaker" made by a company which makes and sells ribbon speakers.

now looking fugly like this, you guessed it, it requires a special amp to drive them, because of their extremely low impedance.

this one takes the cake from the k1000 for being the most piece of power wasting hot garbage ever, taking in a minimum of 100 watts to operate. sweet.

let's take a look at their sound clarity:

SR1a THD


pic. 13: raal sr1a thd measurements


Mysphere 31 L HD

pic. 14: mysphere 3.1 thd measurements






as you can see, the answer is clearly no. infact they both look worse than a k1000 in terms of thd.

the problem is those people don't only rave about these products but they critique anything else that is high end and deem it "boring"



View: https://youtu.be/-ekDifMmnXg?feature=shared



watch this indian guy reviewing the k1000
he stated that the earspeakers are the state of art and modern products from focal or stax that aren't earspeakers sound boring




Stax SR 009S electrostatic stereo headphone high end relative distortion THD measurement

pic. 15: thd measurements of the "very boring" (according to earspeaker fans) sr-009s

Screenshot 2023 12 09 05 25 28 418 comandroidchrome edit

pic. 16: thd measurements of the boring focal celestee, $3000 cheaper than those two modern earspeakers notice how it is better than raal sr1a and how the measurements of raal sr1a earspeaker, stax sr009 and focal celestee are done by the same guy.


ironically, this indian audiophile guy (aumkar chandan) started his own project (khaldas research) and made an electrostatic headphone that is completely the polar opposite of these "earspeakers" and more closely related to stax, focusing on clarity and resolution.

PSX 20201122 064404 690x467

pic. 17: the "not earspeakers" khaldas research rr1 conquest designed by an earspeaker lover.


if he liked k1000 so much and thought it was the best sounding thing of all time, that new headphone he made should've been a large electrodynamic driver like the k1000 with the signature large soundstage.


well well, objectively speaking it doesn't matter how much time passes and how much more technology you incorporate , because when you make a headphone with very large inefficient drivers with a huge coefficient of openness for something much smaller than a speaker like a headphone, you are ought to get unwanted results like shit thd figures, attenuation, huge crosstalk (which takes away the intimate feeling of headphone imaging experience) etc etc.


and you also waste your money.



what is the premise of all this? the premise is the soundstage and headroom. all these large stupid looking headphones aim to achieve better speaker-like soundstage than controversial headphones.

does that soundstage gain worth sacrificing all of the tonal balance, accuracy, detail, clarity and the imaging and the intimate feeling of a headphone? because an electrostatic can still have better details than those three?

the logical answer is no. I wish that all these designers focused on making traditional dynamic drivers or orthodynamics sound better than making these abominations, these are just Frankensteins, they aren't speakers by any means.

now we come to the most important question, the question that determines the meaning of existence for these products:


do those achieve their purpose of giving you a speaker like experience and speaker soundstage?

the answer is have you ever listened to a good speaker? fuck no. speakers have atleast 70% more soundstage than these. it's like comparing your bookshelf speaker to a chant performed in an orthodox church. there is absolutely no comparison. these can only give you 50%-80% more soundstage than the average headphone

probably 30% more than something elite at their price level, and well made like the Sennheiser HD800 or baby orpheus/shangri-la jrs/ DCA expanse while having 50% of their clarity and resolution. that 30% more soundstage and 50% less clarity is at best btw.



there's nothing more need to be said or addressed, finally I need to thank the reader, this is a long post, if you read everything I hope you had a good read. thank you for reading.
 

Attachments

  • Screenshot_2023-12-09-05-25-17-230_com.android.chrome.jpg
    Screenshot_2023-12-09-05-25-17-230_com.android.chrome.jpg
    525.2 KB · Views: 16
  • Screenshot_2023-12-16-10-31-47-093_com.google.android.apps.docs-edit.jpg
    Screenshot_2023-12-16-10-31-47-093_com.google.android.apps.docs-edit.jpg
    136.6 KB · Views: 13
  • Screenshot_2023-12-16-10-39-02-583_com.google.android.apps.docs-edit.jpg
    Screenshot_2023-12-16-10-39-02-583_com.google.android.apps.docs-edit.jpg
    394.2 KB · Views: 40
Last edited:
DNR this I am not autistic enough

But I personally use wireless bluetooth earphones because I can use them easily while I am excercising/ and even in class while a lecture is going on because they are so small and no one noticed u have them on if you put a hoodie on top

Screenshot 20231216 142758
 
@kay' @CruxGammata thots? :feelsaww:
 
@kay' @CruxGammata thots? :feelsaww:
Earbuds is the future nigga i aint wearing two ass cheeks on my head no matter how good the sound is.

Over
 
brutal. perished with no ascension, no ass cheeks for my face. truecel for life :cryfeels:
Delete this useless essay nigga its over
 
This entire wall of text should be in the dictionary for the word ''autism''. Literally the best written example of autism I've seen.
 
This entire wall of text should be in the dictionary for the word ''autism''. Literally the best written example of autism I've seen.
:lul::lul::lul::lul::lul::lul::lul::lul::lul::lul::lul::lul:
I wanted to read since I thought it might educate me into some obscure shit but then I remembered this is sheer autism
 
:lul::lul::lul::lul::lul::lul::lul::lul::lul::lul::lul::lul:
I wanted to read since I thought it might educate me into some obscure shit but then I remembered this is sheer autism
tbhngl that means you didn't read. I put like 4 or 5 fr graphs and thd responses with detailed spec for some of these headphones from trusted sources as a proof to back up my claims. it's not just an angry spergeout about a certain type of headphone.
 
StThumbnailPlugin



precide ergo was supposed to be the direct successor of the jecklin floats. it's 300 and uses electroydnamic drivers.
imo this is what the original floats should've been, without the unnecessary design complexity of the electrostatic headphone.

sadly they followed that by another speaker-mimicking design that had AMT drivers and costs two times the price.
 
Last edited:
tbhngl that means you didn't read.
tbh I don't feel like reading wall of texts and I blame the lack of teen years love since I wasn't like this mind you
 
tbh I don't feel like reading wall of texts and I blame the lack of teen years love since I wasn't like this mind you
IMG 20231223 091818


here's a pic of the latest gem I bought. hope the sheer beauty of it's sound and design soothes you :whitepill:
 
Why i would want a behemoth of earphones when I could use plain and simple BT buds
because they sound absolutely god sent in comparison to any bt earbuds ( I am speaking from experience with bt truewireless buds, I have the galaxy buds2 pro which are focused mostly about sound quality and tuning more than any commercial earbud, and they are absolutely nothing compared to this headphone)
 
literally who cares about how these little fuckers sound, as long as they play music
the difference in sound between one good made product and another one can be monumental.

before I tried the galaxy buds2pro, I had a pair of cheap knockoff chinese earbud. I can't use the chinese earbuds again today because they sound garbage to my ears compared to the galaxy ones.

also once you hear a well made audio product like a pair of good headphones or good speakers, you will never be able to go back from this route.
 
senn hd558
senn hd800
anything else is either shit sounding or crappy sounding
 
senn hd800
HD800 are well engineered, I admire them as one of the all time greatest headphones.
but to declare everything else as sloppy or crappy is too far fetched.
you said HD558 which are closed backs for the same price you can get a k371 or shure shr440s, both which are superior tbh
 
HD800 are well engineered, I admire them as one of the all time greatest headphones.
but to declare everything else as sloppy or crappy is too far fetched.
you said HD558 which are closed backs for the same price you can get a k371 or shure shr440s, both which are superior tbh
hd558's aren't closed back boya. and whether or not you believe in what i said, i don't care.
i've heard it all as far as what is available for demo in every music store in my country that i've been to.
 
hd558's aren't closed back boya. and whether or not you believe in what i said, i don't care.
i've heard it all as far as what is available for demo in every music store in my country that i've been to.
doesn't matter all of these oval senns sound the same tbh, they're all just cheap less quality 598s and they got tons of models lol. they have like tons of oval shaped closed backs and open backs based on the 598/599s then you got the massdrop models too. and they all sound very similar.

for an open back oval 5xx the x2hr murders them in that price range. way better imaging, flatter and more exciting at the same time.

I can tell because I auditioned the 598s and the 599. they were ok but for $200-250? I went with Q701s without hesitation.
 
Last edited:
doesn't matter all of these oval senns sound the same tbh, they're all just cheap less quality 598s and they got tons of models lol. they have like tons of oval shaped closed backs and open backs based on the 598/599s then you got the massdrop models too. and they all sound very similar.

for an open back oval 5xx the x2hr murders them in that price range. way better imaging, flatter and more exciting at the same time.

I can tell because I auditioned the 598s. it was ok but for 250? I went with Q701s without hesitation.
different ears. but the senns i got have a timbre very similar to my 804 D2 bought pre-owned.
 
MQA synopsis:


I have tried MQA and I own several DACs with MQA decoders and I'm sharing my experience with tidal overall and with MQA format specifically.


for those who don't know, MQA is a lossy (yes, big surprise) audio format meant to deliver super high audio quality in a streamable little package that's below 100 megabytes usually for your average 5 minute track.


I tried these albums:

Automatic for the people by R.E.M.
The division Bell by Pink Floyd.
Molecules by Sophia Hunger.
and various other stuff and singles.


all of these were MQA studio with a base sample rate of 96khz (which in theory should unfold to 196khz) I compared the quality with that of the SACD counterpart, or atleast what I found SACD of them, the rest is just comparison with 96khz LP rips or blu rays.


tl;dr: they just sound like trying really hard at the ultra frequencies to give off a "quality" effect that isn't there. I really found the resolution and noise of them compared to that of a 24 bit 96khz let alone a 192khz. also the dacs with MQA decoders aren't cheap or readily available. the cheapest one is the su-1 and you can barely find other proper MQA DACs for that price anywhere, besides, it's barely functional with the very limited connectivity options.


furthermore, Tidal is gradually replacing MQA by the regular formats as "hifi" and it makes sense, no extra production is necessary.


I do not recommend MQA unless your only source of music is tidal and you really want to conserve space.
 
Last edited:
different ears. but the senns i got have a timbre very similar to my 804 D2 bought pre-owned.
you're either lucky or rich. I never had a proper set of floor standings in my life like this. the best thing I gave a listen to was a bookshelf by jbl.
 
you're either lucky or rich. I never had a proper set of floor standings in my life like this. the best thing I gave a listen to was a bookshelf by jbl.
speakers have a soundstage that can't be replicated by any headphone including those abominations in my original post trying to mimic speakers and fail horribly.

I'm surprised you mentioned that they remind you of such speakers because I found the hd 598/599 to be a bit smaller than competing headphones in that price on the soundstage part of sound.


I guess they remind you of how they sounded and their tonality.
 
The headphones with the best sound stage that I have tried were the Audio Technica ATH-AD900x, I liked them. Right now I am using Sennheiser HD660S2.

Comfort and Sound stage wise I like the ATH-AD900x were better. It was so good certain sound effects like door knocking or water and air sometimes I would take off my headphones to check it was not actually happening around me.

But overall sound quality the HD660s2 is better, it does clamp a bit more which can cause headaches.
 
Last edited:
you're either lucky or rich. I never had a proper set of floor standings in my life like this. the best thing I gave a listen to was a bookshelf by jbl.
bought it for 1,800usd (converted) from craigslist. its owner passed away and the wife didn't know how valuable those speakers really are. yes it may still be expensive for a pair of speakers but thought 3k was already a bargain since i couldn't afford it brand new and to me, it's an end game. all my audio stuff happened to be pre-owned also besides my two headphones.
 
The headphones with the best sound stage that I have tried were the Audio Technica ATH-AD900x, I liked them. Right now I am using Sennheiser HD660S2.

Comfort and Sound stage wise I like the ATH-AD900x were better. It was so good certain sound effects like door knocking or water and air sometimes I would take off my headphones to check it was not actually happening around me.

But overall sound quality the HD660s2 is better, it does clamp a bit more which can cause headaches.
I heard this AT specifically is good at that they have other models woth such a soundstage as well

but yeah HD600 series is flatter and has more transparency to them.
 
bought it for 1,800usd (converted) from craigslist. its owner passed away and the wife didn't know how valuable those speakers really are. yes it may still be expensive for a pair of speakers but thought 3k was already a bargain since i couldn't afford it brand new and to me, it's an end game. all my audio stuff happened to be pre-owned also besides my two headphones.
I bet it worthed every penny. I was mind blown how crisp monitor speakers can be
 
speakers have a soundstage that can't be replicated by any headphone including those abominations in my original post trying to mimic speakers and fail horribly.

I'm surprised you mentioned that they remind you of such speakers because I found the hd 598/599 to be a bit smaller than competing headphones in that price on the soundstage part of sound.


I guess they remind you of how they sounded and their tonality.

oh my bad that makes sense now.
soundstage is really just a phase issue. if it's slightly out of phase, it may produce a sound similar to combing filter (some may like it as it has a 3d effect to it) and it's typically not inherent to hp since it uses a single transducer for each side. timbre is how all the drivers sound when they blend together at a specific distance away from it and all the time delay and frequency response non sense will be of no practical significance as even if the measurements are flat, tonality will remain constant bec it's caused by the build quality of the drivers.
 
soundstage is really just a phase issue. if it's slightly out of phase
soundstage to me is just how the driver deals with spaciousness, air/openness and it's own size. the headphones that had the biggest soundstage that I tried were orthos and orthos have dead to the line phase response. but there are dynamics that had fluctuating phase response and they had big soundstage so it's a probable factor. to me however it's a combination of many things.


. timbre is how all the drivers sound when they blend together at a specific distance away from it and all the time delay and frequency response non sense will be of no practical significance as even if the measurements are flat, tonality will remain constant bec it's caused by the build quality of the drivers.
:yes:
but it's worth mentioning that FRM have gone forward so much. I've read an article by crinacle about this new rig that everyone is eyeing the b&k type 5128 and read about it's ability to accurately compensate for several factors and also measuring beyond 10 or even 20k and they're spending over 50k dollars on such rigs.
 
soundstage to me is just how the driver deals with spaciousness, air/openness and it's own size. the headphones that had the biggest soundstage that I tried were orthos and orthos have dead to the line phase response. but there are dynamics that had fluctuating phase response and they had big soundstage so it's a probable factor. to me however it's a combination of many things.



:yes:
but it's worth mentioning that FRM have gone forward so much. I've read an article by crinacle about this new rig that everyone is eyeing the b&k type 5128 and read about it's ability to accurately compensate for several factors and also measuring beyond 10 or even 20k and they're spending over 50k dollars on such rigs.
my understanding is a bit more on the subjective side of things now. back then, i was also chasing flat response and then i noticed that despite having nearly ruler flat graphs between two non-identical 40mm drivers of the same impedance, they still sound different from one another driven by the same amp. it is then that i concluded that spaciousness and soundstage are all affected by the SHAPE OF OUR EARS and that tonality comes from how the drivers are manufactured (ie., size of the magnet, coil winding count, thickness of copper, type of paper).
 
my understanding is a bit more on the subjective side of things now. back then, i was also chasing flat response and then i noticed that despite having nearly ruler flat graphs between two non-identical 40mm drivers of the same impedance, they still sound different from one another driven by the same amp. it is then that i concluded that spaciousness and soundstage are all affected by the SHAPE OF OUR EARS and that tonality comes from how the drivers are manufactured (ie., size of the magnet, coil winding count, thickness of copper, type of paper).
you're not wrong by any means. soundstage perception differs from one person to another. I once got someone who's also an audiophile and a professional to try the edition xs which sounded very spacious for me, a bit more than my Q701s, then got him try my Q701 and he said the AKGs had bigger soundstage and explained that the edxs was tighter and more confined despite having a bigger coefficient of openness.

I hardly agree on what you mentioned, I had similar experience with nearly identical measuring headphones made differently (the Q701s sound close to the Edxs / 990s vs 660s etc and tried para-eqing them equally to sound the same if there are minor differences) I found that any given pair of similar headphone still sound different besides soundstage. I could feel that the edxs had superior resolution to the Q701 and the Q701 sounding more engaging somehow, and the same for the 990s against the 660. it's something amazing
 

Similar threads

FuckNoNutNovember
Replies
13
Views
298
gymcellragefuel
gymcellragefuel
RechargedSamsung
Replies
11
Views
185
RechargedSamsung
RechargedSamsung
NoNiggerNovember
Replies
2
Views
101
NoNiggerNovember
NoNiggerNovember
Balding Subhuman
Replies
16
Views
161
Da_Yunez
Da_Yunez

Users who are viewing this thread

shape1
shape2
shape3
shape4
shape5
shape6
Back
Top