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As I write this, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has just published its long-awaited final guidelines for over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aids. There’s a lot of buzz about this development because it should make effective hearing aids more affordable. But it’s also going to revolutionize the headphone industry—and in ways that might not be good for the listener.

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I’m going to stray a little beyond the headphone beat this month, because I just can’t contain myself. Recording episode 12 of the SoundStage! Audiophile Podcast with Dennis Burger pushed me past my limit of tolerance for nonsensical claims that audio manufacturers don’t even try to back up with valid testing and meaningful data.

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You don’t have to browse YouTube reviews or audio forums for long before you encounter misconceptions about current. Many consider current to be the measure of an amp’s quality. We seldom see current in a set of amplifier specifications, but we often see marketing blurbs that mention current. There seems to be a general consensus among audiophiles that more current—even if it’s just claimed in marketing copy rather than directly specified—equals better sound. We sometimes even see current mentioned in headphone amps, even though headphones that actually demand lots of current (relatively speaking, of course) are rare.

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I’ve been writing regularly about headphones since the start of the headphone boom, back in the late ’00s. In those early days, good-sounding headphones were hard to come by. Sure, there were several great headphones available then—but as I learned when putting together headphone shootouts for Sound & Vision magazine, there were a lot more bad ones. That’s not so much the case today, thanks in part to the famous research behind the Harman curve. But what I consider the key finding in the Harman curve still often goes ignored—as I discovered last month in my review of the V-Moda Crossfade 2 Wireless Rolling Stones Tattoo You and some tests I recently conducted on the KRK KNS 8400 headphones.

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I’ve been writing audio product reviews for 30-plus years, and reading them for about 45 years, and there’s one question none of them have ever addressed—but that I, and many of my readers over the years, have often wondered about. Sure, the most dedicated reviewers can do thorough, informed evaluations of a product. But how do they know that what they heard is representative of what a reader buying that product will hear? We almost always get just one product sample—maybe, in unusual cases, two. But from Julian Hirsch to the 18-year-old reviewer who just started his own TikTok channel last week, we all assume—or perhaps more accurately, hope—that the sample we tested is representative of the ones our readers buy in a store or online.

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Through the last 44 years, David Chesky has revolutionized audiophile recording at least three times—once with his super-ambient stereo recordings, once with his unique approach to surround sound, and once with his Binaural+ technique targeted mostly at headphone users. Now he’s at it again with a whole new concept that owes nothing to his past work: Meta-Dimensional Sound, which delivers a recording in two different versions: one optimized for headphones, the other for speakers.

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Todd 2 days ago Recalibrating the Ears
Are you saying that reviewers "listen differently" than regular folks? Do they hear differently? Do ...
Doug Schneider 16 days ago Audeze LCD-5 Headphones
@HelloguyHello. As most regular readers know, Brent Butterworth left for a full-time stint at Wirecutter ...
u want to tune out the world around you for travel, the office, or at ...
Helloguy 27 days ago Audeze LCD-5 Headphones
Hello there's no link to the headphone measurement in this review and I don't find ...
@Brent ButterworthThanks both for your replies.. after tapping the post button a piece of my post ...
Brent Butterworth 1 months ago Beyerdynamic T5 (3rd Generation) Headphones
@Doug SchneiderYeah, and I moved toward the end of the pandemic and never was able to ...
When I hear music using MDR-7506, I tend to be more analytical then enjoying the ...
Doug Schneider 1 months ago Beyerdynamic T5 (3rd Generation) Headphones
@MauroI'll perhaps talk to Brent and see if he can answer. But as we know, ...
@MauroA big chunk of my take is missing. A bit upset by the website/Safari glitch. ...