Most headphones people actually use are crap. Yes you can buy studio monitors from sony. That isn't what people are listening to. They are using airpods which sound like earpods have always sounded: crap, absent lows, terrible separation. So you compress the hell out of the audio and make it loud so you can actually hear something with those headphones.

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Demiurge 16 hours ago | parent | next [-]

What AirPods are you talking about? The wired AirPods that sound pretty bad have been overtaken by wireless Bluetooth AirPods for many years now. The AirPod Pro 2 sound quality is a world of difference from the wired earbud style AirPods. In fact, most of the most popular TWS Bluetooth Earbuds have fantastic sound quality. The main issue with them is that they have a V shaped tuning, with various levels of bad. However, Apple and Samsung tunings are quite decent.

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asdff 16 hours ago | parent | next [-]

All of them, compared to over ear monitors. You can't out engineer physics advantages of a larger speaker. Airpods fall short of other in ear monitors too fwiw, so they are a poor choice in class.

	▲	Demiurge 7 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		There is no such thing as over the ear monitoring. There good headphones like HD600. It has good mids and great highs, however the base rolls off towards 20hz. Many AirPods, include AirPod Pro 2 have better low end than what people use for monitoring, which is what, by the way? I play electric guitar, and use different types of audio equipment, and I really wouldn’t care if I use BD DT770 for tracking, despite the fact that it has absolute terribly inaccurate response curve. Just because they call it “studio” on the box, doesn’t mean that it’s the pinnacle of audio fidelity. There are many IEMs, including Bluetooth ones that are better for listening to music for music sake, as opposed to trying to hear some exaggerated spikes in 8khz. Given that the highly vague cliche reference of your comments, this conversation is probably concluded, all the best. To all other readers, please enjoy your IEMs and TWS but make sure they have an EQ and try to turn down the boomy base and piercing highs of some manufacturers like Bose and Sony.
	▲	mrob 15 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Physics doesn't prevent reproduction of bass in IEMs. Thanks to inverse square scaling of sound pressure with distance, putting the driver within the ear canal greatly reduces the required output level to the point where even tiny drivers can handle it. Lots of IEMs can reproduce loud, deep bass with low distortion. You of course miss the whole-body tactile vibration effect of loud bass played on speakers, but the sound itself is there.

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ShinyLeftPad 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

AirPods Pro sound good but most regular people use shitty wired headphones.

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apercu 16 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

And you can buy replacement ear pads - breathing new life in to $150 Sony Studio Monitor phones I bought 30 years ago...

	▲	asdff 16 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Those things you can tear open and re wire yourself if you really needed. Ship of Theseus mdr7506 is possible. Meanwhile how long do those airpod batteries last before you need to pay apples pizzo for replacement you can't do yourself? Some people say only like what 2 years or so. Rich coming from the company that no longer ships chargers due to ewaste concerns.