Hi Robin,
While what you say is true regarding the value of a good pair of headphones,
and reading that makes me want to invest in some really nice ones, I think the
improvement in being able to listen to quiet material closer to its natural
level is typically only slight. Sure one can get closer to it with models of
headphones that are rated for the highest isolation, but those are not known
for comfort. Nonetheless the tendency will still be to turn up the volume to a
point where some subtleties of the played sounds come through over the
background noise, so I might as well master for that. Only a very lucky few
have access to very quiet playback listening environments.
John Hartog
rockscallop.org
--- In "Robin" <> wrote:
>
> John Hartog wrote:
>
> > There is probably a fairly narrow range of levels that work well for a
> > typical home listening environment. The material has to be loud enough to
> > be enjoyed over the background noise of the listening environment, and
> > quiet enough not to be disturbing.
> >
>
> I posit that we are in an advantageous position regarding listening in this
> millennium, for the simple reason that the vast majority of end-users
> audition with headphones.
>
> While these transducers are of varying quality, it is much easier to afford
> excellent headphones (a couple hundred clams) than good speakers plus room
> treatment (several thousand or tens of thousands of clams). Lately, consumers
> have shown a willingness to spend the necessary money on good cans. Yes,
> unfortunately they are misguided and succumb to Dr. DRE or some such
> marketing rubbish, but nonetheless the potential is there. Compare this to
> how many listeners (now or in the past) treat and isolate their rooms --
> close to zero percent!
>
> Besides fidelity, headphone listening provides larger dynamic range,
> excluding foreign sounds (depending on the headphone type of course). This
> gives nature recordists the latitude to be true to their source. By which I
> mean we do not have to use compression, amplitude boosting, etc. in order for
> listeners to actually hear the source material above their environment.
>
> Thirdly, the difference between stereo and binaural listening translates into
> the immersive experience consumers want from their media (film, game, music)
> in the 21st century.
>
> I would argue that the rise of headphone culture is directly responsible for
> the rise in interest in environmental recordings that we have seen in the
> last couple of decades. (In fact, this leads into my thesis work.)
>
> -- Robin Parmar
>
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