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Topic: ABX limit 128vbr, will new headphones make a difference? (Read 4441 times) previous topic - next topic
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ABX limit 128vbr, will new headphones make a difference?

Hi,

I can ABX up to AAC 128VBR, after that it's completely transparent for me. I don't believe people who can abx 256vbr:/ That's insane.

My question is: I want to get better headphones (400-500$). Will the newer and better headphones show the flaws of 128vbr?

I know my hearing won't change in one day...only get worse actually lol  But flat and analytical headphones show flaws in lossy codecs, no?

Thanks

ABX limit 128vbr, will new headphones make a difference?

Reply #1
Well, what people call "analytical" headphones, reveal for me flaws in the recording that are not necessarily linked to lossy compression:
- background noise or hissing  (making it worse)
- sibilance (making it worse)
- curiously some music with lot of loudness compression are more painful in some headphone than others too

Regarding lossy compression, well, it's not obvious for me. Perhaps when there's a tremendous amount of artifacts....

There's a distinction (at least at head-fi)  between headphone that seem artificially detailed by boosting the highs (some think, it what's beyer headphone do) ,  and the "genuinely" detailed (well,  the  hd800 has such reputation).

ABX limit 128vbr, will new headphones make a difference?

Reply #2
The ability to hear lossy compression artifacts does not depend much on headphone quality.
It depends on what you are listening to, and luckily, things usually are absolutely fine when using 128 kbps AAC.
If you want to hear things going bad on occasion you can listen to herding_calls as an example (long-stretched female voice). (I learnt about that when doing a personal listening test recently trying to find out what AAC, mp3 and musepack settings are acceptable to various degrees for certain problem samples of non-electronic music).
lame3995o -Q1.7 --lowpass 17

ABX limit 128vbr, will new headphones make a difference?

Reply #3
It can depend on the headphones as certain things can mask artifacts or make them more obvious.

ABX limit 128vbr, will new headphones make a difference?

Reply #4
If You want to play dirty a cheap headphones with an akward frequency response is a way to go.  They would unmask certain artifacts (which shouldn't be noticeble with more neutral headphones).

If You want to play fair way  a good pair of headphones with more or less neutral response and lower THD should help in spoting artifacts. Audio-Technica ATH-M50S, Sennheiser HD600, (neutral/reference)HD650, analytical/precise HD800, Beyerdynamic DT 880, Denon AD 2000, Philips Fidelio X1...
And good sound card: EMU line, ASUS Xonar STX,  and good flat and hell of a transparency dac like ODAC or even Benchmark . For the last one I have simply no words.

P.S. Oh, and have almost forgot about difficult samples which aren't transparent even at high bitrates. EIG sample ...

ABX limit 128vbr, will new headphones make a difference?

Reply #5
Another vote for the Philips Fidelio X1 when it comes to headphone selection. Great at a moderate price. Have blown my Grado SR80 out of use which I've loved so far for listening. I can confirm that they're also great for listening tests.
lame3995o -Q1.7 --lowpass 17