Serious Compacts Podcast 10: Fuji X-T1 and More

Amin

Hall of Famer
what an enjoyable hour.

Amin, maybe you can share your experiences with some of the various headphones you've tried. I had a nice pair of AKG's 20 years ago, but would love something new. I like open backed headphones for the ability to be aware of my surroundings and I also feel like they sound more open, too. Not like you're not busy enough already.
 
Amin, maybe you can share your experiences with some of the various headphones you've tried. I had a nice pair of AKG's 20 years ago, but would love something new. I like open backed headphones for the ability to be aware of my surroundings and I also feel like they sound more open, too. Not like you're not busy enough already.

Hi Luke, I'd love to do a podcast just about headphones :). As far as open headphones go, I love the Sennheiser HD 239, 558, 600, Beyerdynamic DT880, and HiFiMan HE-400. The HE-400 are probably my favorite sounding though probably the least neutral and least comfortable of the bunch. I love the Beyerdynamic for their bass extension, sparkly highs, overall neutral sound, and open sound, but I like the Sennheiser sound as well - a bit more forward mids and restrained highs than the Beyers.

The HD 239 and 558 will work with any source, eg iPhone/iPod, whereas the HD 600 and HE-400 need a dedicated amp to sound their best. The DT880 comes in various impedances. I have the 250 ohm model, which sounds best with a dedicated amp.

Overall I'd probably choose the Sennheisers for rock music and the Beyerdynamic DT880 for rap/jazz/electronic, although either one would sound great with all of those genres. I just got the HD 239 to use in the office, and I'm frankly blown away by how good they sound for $60 headphones.
 
Hi Luke, I'd love to do a podcast just about headphones :).

Sign me up. A bunch of different headphones make a LOT more sense than a bunch of different cameras. (I can squeeze roughly the same image out of a lot of different cameras after a certain point, but different cans can sound totally different, but all good.) I may need to check out the forum and meet some of the crazies there.
 
I still use my Sennheiser HD 595 and Grado SR 395 for music with an open air head phone
I use an AKG K81 DJ or Sennheiser HD 25-1-II for closed ear headphones for recording stuff
And for travel I use my Shure SE535s or Etymotic ER-4p ear bud style headphones
Even though I have the big audio stuff in the house I find that most of the music I listen to these days are through my "Studio Monitor" speakers on my computer outside in my office
 
I didn't know you were an audio person too Amin! I was actually on Head-fi and audio forums years before I ever picked up a camera... Head-Fi can be a scary place. Totally agree with you there. Audio wars are even worse than photography ones because audio performance is so much more subjective. Debates will go on for dozens of pages about whether some pair of $400 pair of headphones is really better than that chinese OEM's $80 dollar set. And when Ray said "it's not like you're going to keep four pairs [of headphones] in rotation, and listen to one for classical, and one for jazz, and one for..."" I was just like... Umm, I can't tell you how many people do that on head-fi.

As to my own preferences, recently I've leaned more towards IEMs--just more convenient for gym-time--with my preference being the VSonic GR07s. Never quite the sound stage of full-size cans, but still wonderful phones; easily the best wonder They were the first headphones to cure me of my GAS (Umm, gear-acquisition-syndrome, that is). But then again, I bought them right before I bought my first camera... so that may explain things =P

Hoping I can join in on one of these podcasts soon.
 
Thanks for the post! It was great seeing you in the postcast and listening to your conversation. And it's indeed weird to see that you exist not only in the matrix world but also in the real world.
 
You need to start worrying about the audio obsession when you are

rolling tubes
20090326_49.jpg
Join to see EXIF info for this image (if available)


or auditioning multiple $100+ USB cables
usb2.jpg
Join to see EXIF info for this image (if available)


or opening up your amp to swap out op-amps.
kr002.jpg
Join to see EXIF info for this image (if available)
 
While I was in college, I worked as a laboratory assistant at Columbia's physics department, and was going to have my boss help me build myself a tube amp. One day, while storing equipment in one of the older rooms, I came across a humongous selection of ancient vacuum tubes. I was in heaven.
 
Thanks for mentioning the LX7

Always enjoy your podcast. It was nice to hear good things said about a small sensor camera - the LX-7. It's my go-to camera for most walk-around and travel shots.
 
Thanks for this. I hope to listen to it the soonest as I can. I am interested in the new Fuji tele converter for my Ricoh GR. I wonder if anyone had tried it, yet? I hope that it can be made to work. I am upset with ricoh for abandoning the tele converter after the grd2. They think the digital zoom / crop will do. The larger sensor size helps, but it would be nice to have a dedicated lens.
Thanks again
 
I think I'm protected against really bad audio obsession by way of having lacking "golden ears". For example, I bought a new amp that was supposed to be the successor to my old amp, and it sounds exactly the same to me as the one it replaced. I bought the new upgrade to a pair of headphones of the same brand, and they sound the same to me as well. I can only guess that cables are all going to sound the same to me too.
 
Back
Top