Speakers like headphones

[Covenant]

I spent a happy afternoon yesterday listening to my valve/mofset hybrid headphone amp fitted with a NOS Mullard tube and my Hifiman headphones. It sounded sublime; headphones have developed in the past few years and I wonder if speaker technology has caught up.
What speakers, in your opinion, sound as good as a decent pair of cans?

[Puffin]

Looks like these might be interesting?

http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i239/saxonsex/4abe2e6c_5c054ffc_strangecrap.jpg

[alan47]

I doubt if any speakers can sound as good as a pair of cans,to much air to move.The nearest i have got is nearfield studio monitors.
PS are the HE-400's that good,can i just make do with SR325i's???:scratch:

[Ali Tait]

Statics listened to in nearfield can sound like phones.

[alan47]

Can't argue with that Ali,i had some Quad electrostatics in a very small flat in the 70's.Didn't need phones,just some rizlas and something from nepal..
The only trouble is nothing i buy these days sounds as good as gear used to sound then.Still i keep on trucking..:lol:

[Covenant]

I doubt if any speakers can sound as good as a pair of cans,to much air to move.The nearest i have got is nearfield studio monitors.
PS are the HE-400's that good,can i just make do with SR325i's???:scratch:

Never heard the Grado's Alan, but the HE-400's sound better than a pair of Stax I heard a while back.On their own they are good but the valve headphone amp makes them excellent.

[Covenant]

Statics listened to in nearfield can sound like phones.

Don't they generally lack bass?

[alan47]

O Dear...Been fighting them off,but resistance could be useless.
Have to many phones allready,or so she says....

[alan47]

Don't they generally lack bass?

Not if you turn them up, in a small room.To get the best effect you need two pairs,one above the other..

[Yomanze]

I spent a happy afternoon yesterday listening to my valve/mofset hybrid headphone amp fitted with a NOS Mullard tube and my Hifiman headphones. It sounded sublime; headphones have developed in the past few years and I wonder if speaker technology has caught up.
What speakers, in your opinion, sound as good as a decent pair of cans?

Headphones have their own limitations just like speakers do, so I don't think it's a case of speakers playing catch-up. There are plenty of speakers that sound better than most headphones and vice versa.

[Covenant]

O Dear...Been fighting them off,but resistance could be useless.
Have to many phones allready,or so she says....

Get the velour pads with them! :)

[Ali Tait]

Don't they generally lack bass?

Many are perceived as so, but in fact they often go lower than you think. It's the lack of a box singing along and also the absence of most of the high levels of distortion often produced by a cone trying to reproduce low frequencies. People are used to hearing a big meaty bass produced by a floor stander and perceive that as bass, when in fact a lot of what you are hearing is distortion. When you hear a static doing bass, it's perceived as being bass light, when in fact it's actually a much cleaner signal than most are used to hearing.

You do need a large panel to get decent extension though. My Acorns are over two meters high and are in fact stacked panels, two per side. Many people on first hearing are taken aback by their bass abilities.

[Marco]

Statics listened to in nearfield can sound like phones.

As indeed can big Tannoys! The Japs are renowned for that ;)

Marco.

[DSJR]

Oh Marco, surely you forget the ONLY speaker that sounds as good as a decent pair of headphones and is promoted as such - AVI ADM9's - your second favourite speaker of all time :eyebrows:

[Yomanze]

Thinking about this I guess the speakers closest to the advantages of headphones are electrostatic / ribbon, time-aligned or single driver.

[northwest]

What speakers, in your opinion, sound as good as a decent pair of cans?

Quad ESL's. No contest.

[spendorman]

Quad ESL's. No contest.

Years ago I had Stax electrostatic headphones and Quad ESL 57's (still have these), they were close in sound quality.

[Welder]

I’m a bit shocked.:eek:

I’ve got two pairs of headphones here atm; Senn 595s and a pair of Beyer Dynamic DT 880s 600 0hm.
I power them with a World Audio HD 83 valve headphone amp.
Okay, the headphones are not the best but they’re decent and quite a few people tell me the HD 83 is a good amp; I’ve never been totally convinced personally. :scratch:
When it comes to outright quality of sound and listening enjoyment my speakers make the headphone set up sound broken.
I know some people like headphone listening and I imagine something like the Beyer Dynamic T1 headphones can sound very good indeed but to prefer the sound of a set of headphones over a set of decent speakers just suggests to me that there is something badly lacking in the speaker set up.

Oh well, put in the minority of one class again. :doh:

[Tarzan]

l often used the term ' its like listening to headphones' when l sometimes used to run an old Lynwood Emerald amplifier with my Harbs, this was in the nearfield.:)

[Covenant]

I’m a bit shocked.:eek:

I’ve got two pairs of headphones here atm; Senn 595s and a pair of Beyer Dynamic DT 880s 600 0hm.
I power them with a World Audio HD 83 valve headphone amp.
Okay, the headphones are not the best but they’re decent and quite a few people tell me the HD 83 is a good amp; I’ve never been totally convinced personally. :scratch:
When it comes to outright quality of sound and listening enjoyment my speakers make the headphone set up sound broken.
I know some people like headphone listening and I imagine something like the Beyer Dynamic T1 headphones can sound very good indeed but to prefer the sound of a set of headphones over a set of decent speakers just suggests to me that there is something badly lacking in the speaker set up.

Oh well, put in the minority of one class again. :doh:

There are times when I prefer listening to speakers John. I love the soundstage that mine create and I think I would need to spend quite a bit to better them but they don't have the pin sharp response of my cans. Possibly this is to do with diffraction. There again my speakers are twenty years old!

[daytona600]

love hiend headphones myself Main advantage is you don,t hear the room acoustics
only the drivers Just got a new set of phones recently
10hz-150khz Real full range stuff

[Marco]

Oh Marco, surely you forget the ONLY speaker that sounds as good as a decent pair of headphones and is promoted as such - AVI ADM9's - your second favourite speaker of all time

Yesh, I love 'em, especially the way that they burn nicely, under an open flame! :eyebrows:

Marco.

[Covenant]

love hiend headphones myself Main advantage is you don,t hear the room acoustics
only the drivers Just got a new set of phones recently
10hz-150khz Real full range stuff

I have just searched Google for a make of headphones called Hiend!:doh:

[DSJR]

Yesh, I love 'em, especially the way that they burn nicely, under an open flame! :eyebrows:

Marco.

Yeah, when you try to repair an older one and no parts are available.......

[daytona600]

I have just searched Google for a make of headphones called Hiend!:doh:

www.taket.jp
" the king of headphones " as they are known in japan
stunning they are diven from 300b monoblocks via takets TR2 transformer

[technobear]

Zu Druids :)

[DSJR]

Druids as headphones? yeah, I suppose that would work, but the bass disappears at low volumes so you'll need a loudness switch for playing that way :lol:

[Covenant]

Zu Druids :)

Always wanted to try Zu speakers, they get great reviews.

[flatpopely]

I listen nearfield to my ES14s and they give a very 'direct' sound not unlike headphones, its how I have always had my speakers located even from the days of my Diamond MKIs and I can't listen to speakers from a distance now.
I have Grado RS2s and I use them a lot late at night but they don't give the same 'physical sound' sound that speakers do and therefore are not as enjoyable.