Context: I told a friend to listen to Daft Punk‘s RAM because he had never heard the album before. After recommending to use a pair of headphones he‘s proceeded to tell me that he was actually listening on his tablet. The headphones in question are the AKG K371s. Marketing does what marketing does I suppose?!
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I don’t know… Depends. Let me explain. I have proper Dolby Atmos setup 7.2.4 (4 speakers in-ceiling) and it’s awesome. Impossible to achieve with headphones but I have to say, Airpods Pro 2 are very good and you can enjoy movie a lot with Spatial Audio on. But what totally blew me away was speakers on my 16" M1 Macbook Pro. I watched a bit of Stranger Things which supports Spatial Audio through Safari and holy s*it. It sounds pretty good and I honestly couldn’t believe what I’m hearing. Not sure if iPad tablet or other tablet can do something similar but those sound engineers are doing some cool stuff lately.
Its as other said, sure great headphones are great but great speakers are too, and my samsung tablet speakers always surprise me everytime i play something on it
LPT: don’t make recommendations unless people are asking, even then don’t
Yep. 99.9 times out of 100 no matter how much advice you give someone on any subject, they will end up doing whatever they feel like at the time.
friend: hello, my audiophile friend. any recommendation for a headphone under $500 for music and movies on my home computer?
you: i don’t fucking know. just google it
So he didn’t even try the headphones? Because that sounds like he didn’t try the headphones.
Dolby atmos is Psudeo-Surround Sound. But they STILL need decent equipment to tell the difference. A tablet’s speakers simply won’t compare.
How does a pair of headphones with one driver per ear achieve Atmos surround sound?
So you gave your friend some cheapo headphones and asked them to listen to album they’ve never heard before and are surprised that they couldn’t tell a difference. Jfc the condescension in this sub is cringe. You need to understand that some people won’t hear a difference or simply don’t care.
The problem is elitists imo. I‘ve used headphones anywhere between 50 and thousands of euros but to degrade a decent pair while the post is about headphone vs. tablet speaker is missing the point.
I mean, if he likes it that’s all that matters. It’s not necessary to be a hifi person
Geez OP, you dont have to try that hard to be special.
I still use my h3 gaming headset over my hifimans for most use cases tbh I just find myself enjoying closed back headphones more for most music/games/videos tbh
He probably isn’t listening for it, you’d be surprised how many people don’t actually listen to their music, a lot people just play and don’t pay attention and try and discern any details not heard or noticed before.
I think it’s more often the other way round. That many audiophiles listen less to the music and more to the quality of the sound.
To be fair… Samsung and Apple do a ton of black magic fuckery with their Atmos audio implementation on tablets, including dynamic head tracking via the front facing camera and sound shaping (as limited as it can) based on the distance and direction of the listener.
That virtualised spatial effect can, for a complete beginner, sound better than a pair of quality headphones with no spatialisation. It gives a different effect, and emphasises a number of aspects people associate with “better sound”. It does not make the output better from a purely technical point of view, but it does trick people into thinking so. Kinda like adding a good bunch of MSG to an average steak - the steak remains average but the combination with the MSG tricks you into thinking it’s SO. MUCH. BETTER.
Update: Half way through he changed to the headphones and indeed realised that they had way more bass extension and sounded ‘much clearer’.
More context: He asked me for a nice album recommendation with a good mix and sound, plus we‘ve had the discussion about tablet speaker vs. the headphones before. Bottom line: they lived happily ever after.
See, that’s your problem. Trying to convince people to care is futile.
I get that you feel excited, feel like you learned something everyone should know about, but sadly they mostly don’t care.