Headphones let us listen whenever we want, whether we’re on the go, or when we might disturb others, or they may disturb us. They provide a pleasant background for our daily activities, connect us to our music, movies and games, and shut out the noises and distractions that beset us. However, headphones can be much more than just a convenience. High-end headphones offer a true high-quality listening experience, delivering superb sound that’s wonderfully immersive, and provides deep insight and a strong emotional connection.
A high-end headphone system provides low noise, low distortion sound, that ranges from the deepest bass through to the highest treble, with a wide dynamic range and wonderful detail. Rather than trapping the sound between your ears, it presents the voices, instruments and other sounds of the recording in a wide, deep soundstage. This requires high quality headphones, preferably driven by a good headphone amplifier or DAC/amp. While there are quite sophisticated and expensive headphone systems, there are also quite affordable ones, including those, which provide superb sound without sacrificing portability.
Whether full-size or in-ear, high-end headphones are superior to their mass-market counterparts in all aspects of sound, and in build quality. They focus on offering the best sound possible at their price, rather than concentrating on brand image and cosmetics. They also emphasise robustness and comfort. All of this adds up to a very satisfying high-end listening experience, comparable and complementary to a good loudspeaker-based audio system.
Headphones are often used with laptops and portable devices like smartphones and tablets, connecting to their minijack audio outputs. However, these are typically low-quality outputs, intended to provide usable sound at minimum manufacturing cost, rather than being designed to deliver a high quality listening experience. With their low noise and distortion, and the power to drive headphones properly headphone amps and DAC/amp elevate portable headphone listening to a new level, delivering quite outstanding sound. They also add a new dimension of listening to home audio, home theatre and gaming systems.
High-end headphone listening provides a different experience from listening to a loudspeaker system. The sound is coupled directly to your ears, unaffected by the acoustics, and acoustic deficiencies, of a listening room. You don’t need to sit in the sweet spot of a carefully set up loudspeaker system to get the best sound. It is easier and much less expensive to deliver the very lowest bass, powerfully, tunefully, and with low distortion, using headphones than with loudspeakers. High-end headphones also deliver higher levels of detail. However, a well set up loudspeaker-based system will offer a larger soundstage, and will allow you to experience the sound, especially the bass, with your whole body, not just your ears. Another major difference is that while headphone listening is a solitary experience, loudspeaker sound can be shared. Notwithstanding these differences, high-end headphone listening offers as enjoyable and satisfying an experience as listening to a high-end loudspeaker-based system, typically at a more affordable price.
Whether for music listening, to enjoy movies or to immerse yourself fully in your games, you should definitely check out high-end headphone systems to hear what they have to offer, and experience high quality sound that is much better, more accessible, affordable and convenient than you might imagine.
Check out Serious Music’s high-end headphones, DAC/amps and amplifiers. and contact us for more information and to arrange a demo.
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