[Demiurge]

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.

[asdff]

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.

[mrob]

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.

[Demiurge]

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.

[asdff]

>There is no such thing as over the ear monitoring

Uhh, what? You go into any recording studio its is probably going to have a set of mdrv6 or mdr7506. Most of what you listen to are probably mixed and mastered with these same cans and its been that way with these same cans for like 4 decades now.

[Demiurge]

You're wrong. Here is the ranking based on aggregate sales to studios:

1. Audio-Technica ATH-M50x 2. Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro 3. Sony MDR-7506 4. Sennheiser HD 600 / 650

These are used in different situations. Most of the time headphones are used for tracking, which is listening to the live recording of one track. What most people call "monitoring", which is listening to the studio mix, is done on speakers, not headphones. Furthermore, items 1-3 represent quite distorted and inaccurate sound signatures, and people only buy these because it's their reference headphone, something they're used to. They're not actually the best sounding or accurate headphones, like say >1k Focals.

Most of the music is absolutely, definitely, is not mixed and mastered on headphones, let alone Sonys. Any decent mix requires speaker monitors for proper soundstaging. Mixes done without speakers sound quite wrong. This has been true since stereo recordings existed.

I'm sorry, but you're regurgitating cliches, and probably don't have deep knowledge of this subject.

You should get some Airpod Pros, you might like them.

[asdff]

>I'm sorry, but you're regurgitating cliches, and probably don't have deep knowledge of this subject.

>You should get some Airpod Pros, you might like them.

Talk about some nominative determinism between your prickish take and your HN username.

[Demiurge]

Have you tried the AirPods yet? I just want you to relax.

[ShinyLeftPad]

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