i’m in the market for a new set of earbuds.
i go through them like soda…it’s embarrassing. i just wear them out at an accelerated pace.
i like earbuds with hard-hitting bass response the most.
i found some last time, very cheap (like 12 bucks)–JVC Marshmallows, i do believe.
the frequency range is listed as 5hz-20khz, and i think they sound great and have a thumping bass response.
i presumed it was because they start at 5 while most other earphones start at 20hz and go up to 20khz.
however, the more i look into this, the more i read that pretty much anything i listen to (lossy/lossless mp3s/ipod/etc) will never have anything outside the 20/20 range.
trying to be a savvy, informed consumer is both easier and utterly impossible in the age of the internet. i can find on bestbuy a range of user reviews rating a single product between 2-5 of five stars–it just depends on what color you click. that’s SO STUPID an inaccurate.
according to this article, even the value of sub/supersonic sounds is a contentious debate. maybe you can’t hear it but you feel it, or whatever else you want to debate.
so. how would one go about trying to make a well-informed decision on buying headphones i can’t actually just try out…? it’s between the same old marshmallows (or the JVC Riptidez), or earcandy’s Ink’d.
We can’t hear below 20Hz. That is pretty much a given. What we think of as deep bass actually isn’t, there are a lot of tricks that make us think the bass is deep, but a lot of music is mixed with not a great deal of true deep bass. With cheap disposable earbuds like you use the trick may be simply crafting a mild rise in the mid bass in just the right place, probably with a tweak to the Q of the bass response, or even allowing for some level of deliberate distortion in the bass to give you feeling of slam. The slam/punch of bass is in the mid-bass or even higher, not in the deep notes.
“Response” of earphones with no real qualifier is not the same as “flat” or “equal” reproduction of frequencies. It just means that the earphone does something at that frequency. What it does could be essentially inaudible.
Proper frequency response of earphones is very difficult to measure and quantify. Our ears are not linear when you take into account the shape of the inner and outer ear. Earphone measurements look all over the place, when they sound close to perfect in use. It takes some understanding of what is going on.
If really want good quality, prepare to spend sensible money. Or even not sensible money. I like very accurate sound, and the in-ear headphones I use are actually the same as are used in most audio labs for testing human audio perception. They will run you $300 and are also bulletproof. (Etymotic ER-4S). You don’t need to spend this amount of money, but if you do spend something reasonable you will get a durable headphone that sounds vastly better than anything you have been used to.
This is a commercial site that has what I consider to be a very good and even handed summary of the majority of headphones on the market. No connection, although I have bough one of their products in the past. If you are even tempted by the slippery slope of proper headphone listening the go to forum is here. They have a standard greeting for new users. “Welcome to HeadFi, sorry about your wallet.”
Let me be sure i got this right : using the JVC Marshmallows as an example–they list 5hz-20khz, but the trick is they have a larger decibel fall-off that (more than likely) falls in the audible range, where as nicer, higher quality phones might list a smaller “range” but actually have much less fall off and it probably falls outside the audible range anyway. is this the case…?
if i understand correctly, unless the db tolerances are listed by the hz/khz on the packaging, it’s pretty much meaningless to judge them on their hz range.
what makes a $300 set of earbuds better than, say, a solid $50 range set (in practical terms)?
by asking that, i’m considering facts like file format, file quality, and listening devices. Primarily, i’ll be using an ipod, and as much as i hated to do it, i had all files converted to 128kbps because i ran out of room on my ipod classic and really would like my whole library portable. i do have some extremely high-quality electronic music, but i’m not sure how much of a cost-benefit ratio i have going on that.
there seems to be two schools of thought: get the best you can afford vs cds and mp3s are limited by their design, so why waste money on sounds that simply do not exist in such formats??
the biggest concern for me is that i’m a full-time working freelance artist, which means i’m constantly crawling up and down ladders and scaffolding and play in paint. my last two pairs–both which have died since november–one pair got caught on the scaffolding rail and ripped the earbud off the cord. the second pair, i pulled out because the client came in to speak with me and the bud dangled down and fell into paint.
that’s the kind of wear and tear, luck and care earbuds receive in my world, so i’m not cotton to pay TOO much, but i do still hope to get the most bang for my buck.
^I’m just so dubious about stuff like that. Monster Cables and all…
Pretty much it for the value of simple specs on the side of the packet.
Well there is a spectrum of course. From what you say, cheap is clearly good. I will admit I do yardwork with my Etymotics - but that is partly because they are very effective earplugs too and so I can use them whilst using a chainsaw or brush cutter (or circular saw.) This alos makes them too dangerous to use in many other activities where for safety you need to be able to hear your surrounds.
For more money you do get more robust build quality. Cheap earphones have very flimsy cables - and damage to cables is the most common form of earphone demise. Falling into paint - well that would be bad no matter what - although strangely the design of the Etymotics would probably allow then to survive that - but that is luck.
The full size iPods (i.e. classic and its predecessors) are surprisingly good sources. The earlier iPods were actually better than the current ones. 128kb/s AAC is not too shabby, but you can tell the difference to 256kb/s AAC and if you have the right material you can tell that from lossless. But that gap is subtle to say the least - you are often listening for specific processing clues rather than the overall sound quality.
Monster cable and all that junk is just a way of separating you from your money. But I suspect you would quite stunned at the difference you can get with good earphones on an iPod. Moving out of the junk into the reasonably good makes the biggest difference, after that it becomes a matter of personal preference where your sweet spot is.
Increasing price really just gets you better design, better QA, better materials. Everything is a compromise. But if you are trying to get the best possible linearity, frequency response, comfort, and robustness, everything is going to cost. Really good earphones are miracles of miniature craftmanship. Cheap ones, one wonders how the damn things even work. Your $12 one probably cost less than 50 cents to manufacture. Everything about the design will be about being able to make them cheap easily, and anything that gets in the way of that (like making them sound better) will fall by the wayside.
When working with mine on I have a habit of threading the cable inside my shirt to prevent it getting caught. Mostly works, but nothing is perfect. Thus far I have not managed to kill them, although there have been some close calls. There are cheaper Etymotics than the ER-4, and there are a large number of competing brands now that produce similar earphones. It is a big area.