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In past editions of this series, I’ve interviewed professionals from Dan Clark Audio, PSB, Focal, and HiFiMan to learn their philosophies about voicing headphones. In those articles, the focus was on headphones rather than earphones, simply because earphones are at most a sideline for those companies. This month, we’re focusing on companies that specialize in earphones—which may seem similar to headphones, but in actuality, are radically different from an acoustical standpoint.

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In the latest round of debate about MQA, I was dismayed to see the company once again tout its endorsements from mastering engineers. This is an “appeal to authority,” a common logical fallacy. It’s often seen in ads for audio products—the advertiser uses the endorsement of an authority figure (such as a musician or recording engineer) to supplement or substitute for marketing claims based on demonstrable features and benefits. Appeals to authority are even more common in promotions for things like books, movies, and countless consumer products.

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Headphones and smartphones have brought good sound to more people than high-end audio could ever reach. (Also, depending on the headphones, bad sound to more people than high-end audio could ever reach.) But headphones are also exposing billions of ears to sound—often very loud sound—for many hours a day. “Average people are now exposed to as much loud sound in the course of a day as audio engineers have been,” Jodi Sasaki-Miraglia, doctor of audiology and director of education and training for hearing-aid company Widex USA, told me.

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A longtime audio-industry friend of mine, whose job straddles the consumer and pro audio realms, called me up a couple of days ago to thank me for my review of the HiFiMan HE400se open-back headphones. After seeing the review on Facebook, he bought a set out of sheer curiosity—they’re only $149 USD—and he actually considered my rave review something of an understatement. “I have headphones that are close to $2000 that don’t sound anywhere near as good as these,” he raved.

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The recent closing of New York City’s Lyric HiFi—for decades, one of the most esteemed high-end audio dealerships in the US—portends a dicey future for the high-end audio industry. This doesn’t surprise me, because high-end audio has changed radically in the last 30 years. As I see it, the industry, while certainly capable of producing exciting products that deliver real improvements people would be happy to pay for, focuses too much of its resources on creating products that chase fads instead of pursuing innovation. I think high-end audio writers (and podcasters and YouTube influencers) are mostly to blame.

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Watching a segment of John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight made me think a little deeper about the products I review. As Oliver reported, half of all plastics ever produced were made since 2005, and fewer than 9% are ever recycled. As I walked around my house later, perusing the piles of headphones, speakers, soundbars, and other tech doodads either coming in for review or waiting to be packed up and shipped back, I realized that most of the products I review—and the thousands or tens or hundreds of thousands of them bought by consumers—will end up in a landfill in ten years.

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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 ...
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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, ...
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