Analyzing phones, headphones.

I was recently looking for a good pair of studio headphones to use primarily for mixing work.  I bought the Audio Technica ATH-M50.  They are fantastic and very reasonably priced.

What about Philips SHP 2700, claimed as very good for bass?
And AKG K44 ?

They have fine prices, specially Philips, but I want to know about quality.

Good phones that are not very professional, use to have better quality to bass or to treble, but usually not for both.  Am I correct?

I'm looking for this Philips Sbchn110, which I found in a good offer here. The seller claims it have professional quality.

Does anyone knows this phone, had tested?

Can't find any Philips headphones at this site:

http://www.headphone.com/headphones/full-size.php

I know that Philips has been a major player in electronics for quite a while, but I'm not familiar with any Philips headphones.

And they never seem to be mentioned in headphone discussions, so I would be careful about them.

Glenn

The ones that keep popping up as reference cans used in studios are the AKG K240.

Glenn

Neil, the fit problem with the Etymotic's can be mitigated with the right ear foam selection. There are three sizes available and you simply may not have used the right size foam for your ear canal. Comfort issues usually mean that the ear foam size is one size to big, leakage (lack of bass) means one size to small.

Also, I would agree that custom ear molds are the way to go with any earphone, and the cost factor is really quite low--less then $200. With an ear mold the fidelity of the bass response rises tremendously and the comfort it extraordinary.

As a psychoacoustics researcher, I can assure you that Etymotic is the only earphone company in the world that has provided an exact standard of fidelity for their earphone design at the eardrum. Whether that is important to your application is an open question, but for me the ER-4S earphones are my standard earphone for recording and work very well.

Pete

My Christmas present from my wife was picked up today.  I did it (because she didn't know what to get).

AKG K240 Mark II headphones.

First got to try them out at the store on the V-Piano - the piano has very good bass and midrange, but Pianoteq is as good or better.  The upper range is definitely not as good as Pianoteq.  And I could not get any sympathetic resonance to speak of out of it.  Pianoteq is much better here.

The action is very similar to my Roland KR-7 (no surprise here), but the finish on the keys is superb.

Then I compared the new phones to my Sennheiser HD340's.  The Senns are a bit brighter than the AKG's, but close enough that I can use them pretty well interchangeably - which is good.

The Senns' are open, and quite a bit lighter and will get used more for playing because of this (will be more comfortable for long sessions).

But it's nice to have the AKG's because Modartt uses them as a reference.

Now they are back in the box until 25 Dec 09.

Glenn

EDIT:  (not changing my opinion of V-Piano)  There was a terrible grammatical error in my comment about it that I corrected..

I have  a V-Piano (as well as Pianoteq of course) and allow me to say: a comparison between the two just can't be condensed into a single, blunt statement claiming that one sounds better than the other. The truth is a bit more complex than that.

Been playing the V-Piano for about two weeks now (and quite intensively so) and there's no denying that Roland delivered a really superb piece of work with this instrument. Some of the sounds are very, very impressive, the dynamics are simply stunning, and the keyboard itself is, in my view, the most satisfying simulation I've ever had under my fingers: wonderful feel and a very nice action. (The action takes some getting used to though, especially if you've been playing for years on less sophisticated keyboards. For instance: doing ultrafast single note repetitions on the V-Piano requires far more muscle than it does on any other keyboard that I've been playing.)

Having said that, the V-Piano is far from perfect in the sound department: both of its main presets (the 'Vintage 1' and the 'Vintage 2') have one area each where the instruments sound rather disappointing to my ears: the Vintage 1 has a fairly unconvincing high-mid range, and the Vintage 2 suffers similarly in its lower mids, where it sounds strangely hollow and phasey. The highest range on both piano's also feels a bit empty and unfinished.
And another problem with the V-Piano is that it doesn't do single note lines very well: playing single, isolated notes seems to reveal the artificial sources of the piano's timbre fairly quickly. The V-Piano does handle dense and intricate playing extremely well though. In fact, that's where these pianos really shine.

So, purely sonically speaking, is it better or worse than Pianoteq? Neither, I think. It's different, that's all one can say. For certain types of repertoire, Pianoteq is the much better choice, while for other pieces, V-Piano might turn in the most convincing performance.
If one gross simplification is allowed, I would say (very cautiously though) that Pianoteq is perhaps more of an introvert, intimate type of instrument, whereas the V-Piano is more of an extravert, in-your-face sounding piano. (No surprise that a player like George Duke feels so at home on the V-Piano. That's precisely the sort of player, I feel, for which the V-Piano was made.) But again: this is a simplification and as such, terribly unfair to both instruments and certainly inaccurate.

And ... is the V-Piano good value for money? Mmm, a difficult one. The answer to this question depends a lot on what kind of player you are, I believe. But if I'm totally honest, I would have to say: no. Not yet. Still needs some work. Nearly everything about the V-Piano is of superb quality, except for the unfortunate fact that the aforementioned timbral flaws in both of its core presets really should have been taken care of in an instrument of this price. A real shame this (and I hope that Roland will acknowledge these shortcomings and will be able to produce an update to fix these shortcomings).
The V-Piano definitely isn't worth its asking price if you're only an average piano player: the more accomplished the player, the better the V-Piano will sound, that's for sure (but that's true of most instruments, isn't it?).
Also: if you're not sensitive to the value of a good (physical) keyboard — and many players don't have a need for this — the V-Piano at once looses much of its appeal.
If you do value the joy of playing a really fine instrument however (I mean: the physical sensation of sitting behind an instrument and simply playing it), the V-Piano is most definitely a very satisfying and inspirational choice and, in the absence of the real thing, second to none as a piano substitute.

By the way: I'm also enjoying Pianoteq even more than before, now that I can play it from the V-Piano.

I could carry on for a few more paragraphs describing my experiences with the V-Piano, discussing its strengths and flaws and comparing it with Pianoteq in some more detail, but I think we've wandered for much too long already far outside the topic of this thread - for which I apologize -, so I'll leave it here for now.

So, back to headphones: somewhat surprising that the Sennheiser's haven't been mentioned yet. The HD600 and the HD650 surely are among the most acclaimed and widely used headphones, no? I surely wouldn't want to trade my HD600 for anything else.

_

Pianoteq no longer sounds artificial to me - not really. Now, I feel that the sounds that I hear from Pianoteq *could be* produced by a recording of a real piano. However, I also hear recordings of real pianos that I know for sure could *not* be produced by Pianoteq.

Greg.

Piet has made a valid point about  the V-Piano and its appeal (I call myself a piano player, not a pianist)

I'm on my second Roland digital (the second of which cost almost what I could have purchased the V for - but that's water under the bridge), and would not disagree with his assessment of the sound.  As an engineer not a musician, I consider cost as part of the assessment, and personally I feel that it doesn't pass.

As he stated, Roland can (or should be able to) do better than this.

I was comfortable with the touch which (to me) seemed not unlike my KR-7 - which I like.

Headphones:  My ancient Sennheiser HD340s still seem to pass the test as I use them whenever I test drive a digital piano (never trust the speaker system).  My newer HD570s cost quite a bit more but don't match up.  I have no doubt that Sennheiser make excellent phones, but knowing that Modartt uses the AKGs (among others) did influence me on the latest purchase.

Glenn

I didn't have the time this afternoon to produce a complete set of audiofiles — comparing the V-Piano and Pianoteq side by side and in sufficient detail — but I did manage two improvisations, one on each of the V-Piano's main presets. They both last around 3 minutes and I'm fairly confident that they represent the V-Piano's 'factory sound' rather accurately (be it that I've focussed more on each preset strengths rather than highlight its weaknesses).

I've also included the midifiles for both pieces, so it should be fairly straightforward to compare these Roland instruments to Pianoteq.

Oh, and another thing: towards the end of the Vintage 1 audiofile, I've demonstrated the V-Piano's capability of damping gradually (it's not just 'on' or 'off', but there's half-damping as well). And there's also a short bit where you can hear the sympathetic resonances.

The sound of the V-Piano was captured straight out of its digital output and, via the RME Fireface800, into Logic and I rendered to audiofiles unprocessed, except for a touch of reverb with TC's VSS3. Both presets are in their default, unmodified state.

There's lots to customize on the V-Piano of course. Not nearly as much as what Pianoteq offers, but still plenty to make profound adjustments to the sound: tuning, all sort of resonances, hammer hardness, damper behaviour, decay length, tone character, equalization, ... But even with all that: I haven't found a way yet (and I don't believe there is one available to the user) to mask, let alone correct, the weaker aspects of the V-Piano's timbre. Everything that sounds unsatisfactory about the V-Piano remains sounding unsatisfactory, no matter what you do in the Editor.

V-Piano Vintage 1
audio: http://users.telenet.be/deridderpiet.be...ntage1.mp3
midi: http://users.telenet.be/deridderpiet.be...ntage1.mid

V-Piano Vintage 2
audio: http://users.telenet.be/deridderpiet.be...ntage2.mp3
midi: http://users.telenet.be/deridderpiet.be...ntage2.mid

_

Both my Rolands had/have continuous damper control output.  I was surprised to learn that so many DPs don't.  The KR377 dates back to about 2000 (nine years old).  Although I will confess that the values down around zero don't seem to have much noticeable effect.

http://www.rolandus.com/products/produc...ductId=328
http://www.roland.com/products/en/KR-7/index.html

Glenn

Very good mp3 demos.

Piet, be careful to do not broke any virtual string in the most powerfull chords passages.   ;-)

I could notice some notes sounding artificial on V-piano, and also with a metalic springy sound, specially in FF or FFF stikes.
Well I did never played a real Steinway-D, just listened recordings. But I supose that for a professional pianist, these problems would like that "say", "told" hin this is not a Steinway-D, he is not playing a Steinway-D sound.

Just my humble opinion.

And Piet, would you be up for a somewhat perverse experiment? If you posted one or two long decaying notes at various velocities, we might have a go at duplicating them in PT.

And if you had world enough and time, you might do the opposite, too, trying to duplicate a note or two from PT.

Emulations of emulations? (Cross-emulation?) Well, yes, but it might let us better determine the differences in the sound, and stretch our understanding of how to change a note in PT.

Thanks if you can, and if you think this exercise might be worthwhile.

Pianote  X   V-Piano

Round 1

;-)

Jake,
Here's one for starters:
http://www.purgatorycreek.com/mp3/Real%...0B-192.mp3

I expect an FXP by the end of the day. Chop chop........

Greg.

I asked for that, I guess.

(I wish that another, slower midi file had been chosen for that site. And I'd hate to guess how many times I've heard that *&^## file.  I hope we get those B samples soon. Chomping at the bit, here.

Hi there, please, could anybody upload the files from V-Piano? These are no longer available.

THanks a lot!