A grossly overgeneralized headphone guide

Alright, so obviously one of the big problems when choosing headphones is the sound. No it's not the biggest problem, only a fool chooses a headphone for nothing more than it's sound, but that's another article. That said sound is still a very important part of choosing a good set of headphones. Now I could try and give a detailed description of how each set of headphones sounds and this and that, but that's what reviewing the headphones by themselves is for. What I've decided to do here is list various genres that a particular set of headphones do well and do not so well. It's very overgeneralized and probably not a good resource, but it's fun to write.

ATH AD700
Good for: Ambient
Not good for: Drum and Bass

Alessandro MS1
Good for: Hard Rock
Not good for: Solo Piano

Grado SR 60
See: MS1

Koss Portapro
Good for: Synthpop
Not good for: Speed Metal

Yuin PK2
Good for: Eurobeat
Not good for: Dub

ATH M50
Good for: French Touch
Not good for: Grunge

Sony 7506
Good for: Dub
Not good for: Drone Ambient

Yuin G2A
Good for: Trance
Not good for: Noise

M Audio Q40
Good for: Bass frequencies
Not good for: Everything else

Sennheiser HD 25 1-II
Good for: Anything that happened to be produced with them
Not so good for: Wearing all day
(Yes that's sort of cheating, honestly the HD 25s don't really have any strong or weak points as far as genres go IMO)

And that's about it. Yes we have a bit of a shortage of factual information as of late, we're still working to find a solution to the problem.

Sleep should help.

-HF

Mail update

Oh man nothing like stuff in the mail. I got my not-T50RPs-but-they-will-do-for-now Sony MDR 7506s in the other day and a korg microkorg in today. Not sure if I'll ever review the microkorg but there will be a review of the 7506 after a while.

That's about all I have to post really, thought I'd get it out of the way while finishing up that portapro review.

-HF

Flavor of the week: Koss Portapro

I thought it'd be appropriate to have the portapros as the first headphone to go over here, as they was the first good  set of headphones I owned. Even though I've gotten more expensive and better performing headphones, these are still pretty special to me. They come in a rather unflattering box, as most cheap koss products do.

Picture taken from the internet

Your basic plastic shell with cardboard backing. Nothing special indeed. Then it gets even worse when you take them out. I distinctly remember looking at the drivers (the parts covered in foam that the sound comes out of) and thinking "This is going to sound like shit isn't it?", or at least thinking "Man this isn't going to have any bass at all". That added with the basic construction consisting of a metal strip for the headband and interesting plastic bits  holding the drivers on, not to mention the cheap cord, makes it a very underwhelming set of headphones to look at.

But of course all of that changes once you start listening to them.

I also have a very clear memory of my first thoughts when I started listening to them. After listening for a half minuet or so, I took them off to make sure they were the same things I put on. They were, and I put them back on. I spent a good hour or so being impressed by how much bass they put out. Of course back then I didn't have much appreciation for sound quality, but I did have appreciation for "hurr lots o bass!". The portapros certainly don't fall short there. What kept me listening after that though, was the detail in the rest of the spectrum. The mids and the highs had more detail than anything else I had heard, literally a case of "Hear parts of music you've never heard before".

Of course in context of what I've heard now, things are a bit different. The midrange seems a slight bit 'honky',   the highs are nice in some parts and recessed in other, and I've heard much more (and less) as far as bass goes. They seem to focus the sound right around where the highs start, and although a bit weird if you are used to fancier headphones it's a very nice sound coming from your usual sub-par set. The sound signature does also have the benefit of not having any real weaknesses as far as genres go, just a hatred for bad quality files. You should really get rid of those anyway though. They do rank as some of the least comfortable headphones I've put on my head at times, It takes a bit of adjustment to get them comfy. On top of all of this you can always do the kramer mod, basically a technique of drilling holes in the grill first done by a person on head-fi (named kramer, obviously). Defiantly a mod worth doing.

Taken from the original 'kramer mod thread'.

So where does that leave the portapros? Well, for 30$, they are a pretty good deal. Getting good sound quality in that price range is difficult, but the portapros deliver. The only thing better I can think of in the sub 50$ range would be the KSC 75, since it's more or less clip on portapros. If you have less than 50$ to spend and don't want KSC 75s, then get these. Don't like the portapros for some reason? Comfort? Isolation? Save up and get something better then. It's also worth nothing that most koss products (KSC 75 and portapro included) have a lifetime warranty, so although they have their build quality issues you can send them back and get new ones every time they get destroyed.

I've always been one for fixing them myself though.

-HF

Some thoughts about (pop) music/setup list

Well I happened to end up listening to some pop music the other day, although I never was and still don't like mass produced pop music too much, it is worth knowing 'what all the kids are listening to nowadays'. I found it very interesting that a lot of it is heavily electro influenced. Really, some songs just need to swap some vocals for instrumental parts and they'd make a perfectly normal electro track. There is plenty of pop that isn't electro influenced but it seems there is a very large chunk of it that is. What all of them seem to have in common though is auto-tune. I personally have no qualms with auto-tune since I'm a fan of the overly auto-tuned vocals anyway, much more so then what your average pop track employs. Still, what seems to get me is that the average listener doesn't quite notice or care. I could easily go into a long brick of text about pop music is just a face and person on a song and how watching a half hour of MTV can make you loose all hope for humanity, but I probably shouldn't.

As for things headphone related, guess it'd be a nice idea to list off my current setup. I'd take pictures, but the combination of a bad camera and my terrible photo skills makes that a bad idea.

Headphones:
Audio Technica AD700
Audio Techinca M50
Grado SR 60
Grado/Alessandro MS1
Sennheiser HD 25 1-II
Koss Portapro (Not quite working)
Yuin G2A (Also not quite working)
Yuin PK2 (Yeah this one is missing a cable as well)

Amps:
Nuforce Icon Mobile (Ugh)
Fiio E5 (In the floor somewhere)
Little Dot MK2 (Space heater)
Fiio E3 (Broken, actually)

Sources:
Cowon X5L
Sony D33
Sony D2 (Skip.....skip......skip....)
Sony PS1 SCPH 1001

Yes a PS1, yes it's probably as good as a CD player costing a few grand, no there isn't a damn audible difference between it and my D33, or my X5L really. More on all of that in a later article.

Sansa Clip+
Sansa Fuze
Cowon Q5W (Awwwe yeeeerr)
Native Instruments Audio 2 DJ

Music:
Oh dear much too much. I'm listening to bonkers volume 10 right now if it makes any difference to you though.

Looks like enough text for today, I'll try and make new posts every other day if possible.

-HF

And a blog begins

Hello guys and welcome to heard fone's place. Lots of talking about headphones, good bit of talking about other stuff. Lots of talking in general.

I'll save the gear for another post.