Sounds Good

With the rise of MP3 players and smartphones, more people are listening to music on the go than ever before. While Steve Jobs influence is beautiful to see, it’s not necessarily as beautiful to hear. If you love music, and use Apple earbuds to listen to YouTube, then you are selling yourself short.

Let me begin by explaining my background and bias on this. I initially started making an effort to get higher quality sound after a friend harassed me about it for long enough. When my JVC marshmallow earbuds broke, I splurged and bought the baseline Koss PortaPro headset (which I would recommend for out of the house use against ANY set of cans) for $39. This essentially opened the floodgate.

I noticed a difference in the sound and truly enjoyed it; however, I didn’t think enough of the different experience to really care, though. So when those broke, admittedly because of me, I went back to some marshmallows. I made a bad choice.

While it didn’t sound bad, I couldn’t tolerate it. I had become acclimated to hearing clear mid range notes, crisp high’s, and a bass range that didn’t distort the rest of the spectrum. So when I couldn’t even make the difference between instruments, I went slightly crazy. I’m not honestly someone with a devotion to music, but I have learned to appreciate music on a much higher level by becoming an audiophile.

I’m a also a cheapskate, so let’s talk about how to get the best music experience, for a price that is not unbearable. Two pieces of initial advice, first avoid boutique headphones, and second, you don’t really need the best.

Let me start with the hardware. While I do give Beats by Dre credit for making people kind of care about sound, I also despise their abuse of consumers lack of knowledge, and the trend of celebrity endorsed headphones they started. Unless you find them for an incredible sale, or image really, really matters to you (they make a fine accessory for a certain sense of style), do not buy Beats, Skullcandy, Sol Republic, or anything in that vein. One specific reason for this is sound distortion. Boutique headphones usually have a slavish devotion to bass, but at a sacrifice. While the bass will usually have plenty of punch, it can actually ruin the mids and highs, which typically weren’t great to begin with. For the price, overall sound fidelity is deplorable.

I would also caution against certain other premium headphones. For instance, Bose, Sennheiser, Klipsch, and Audio Technica all make some really, really high end headphones that will absolutely give you the best listening experience possible, but is it really worth it? Even as someone who advises better sound quality, I would also argue these have poor price vs. performance. While those $300 Bose headphones will sound good, and certainly better than Beats at the same price, is it really better enough to justify the difference? I’ll discuss this more later, but for my money I’d say no.

Here’s what I advise: get headphones with an msrp of $40-$100, look mostly to Audio Technica, Sennheiser, Koss, and possibly Sony or JVC, and look for sales. On Cyber Monday a couple years ago I purchased some Audio Technica ATH-m50’s for a rock bottom price for at home use (they have a ten foot cord), but my focus here is out of the house, but let me get back to my focus, out of the house use. Currently, I have a new pair of Koss PortaPros and a pair of Sennheiser CX 686G running earbuds for when I don’t have space for headphones; I love my headphones, and they can get small, but sometimes they just can’t get small enough.

What’s great about PortaPros is they come with a limited lifetime warranty (I lost my first warranty card), and Sennheiser has really great build quality and sound quality for the price. Being as these are for out-of-the-house use, they are also remarkably comfortable, as a bonus. As a fair warning for Koss, they do look a little weird, for anyone concerned with appearances.

Now for the music itself. I won’t go into the technical details about meanings of this, but the measurement for sound quality is kbps. The higher the number, the better. Neither songs bought on iTunes, or listening to YouTube is ideal. Sound files from iTunes run around 256 kbps, and there is a wide variance for YouTube videos, though seeing below iTunes levels is, in my opinion, standard. CD’s, a thirty year old technology, almost always runs at 320, the maximum for the MP3 format. Numerically speaking, CDs provide a much more clear and true sound, which you grow to hear over time. Above that, there are lossless files, the most popular of which is flac, but there aren’t yet any practical phones or music players capable of using the files, and they’re also big.

So let’s stick to MP3. What’s the most affordable way? I would advocate using CDs. Here me out. Basically any computer can burn CDs, and if you’re really stuck on iTunes, it even has a ripping function built in. And if you’re into classic rock, you, your parents, and even your grandparents likely even have some ready on hand.

Retailers often have the album at a price that equals, or falls below the digital sale price. If you’re okay with going used (very low risk with albums), then Amazon has a great selection. Sometimes you can get the full album for less than the price of a few songs on iTunes. If you want to keep the CD, then you have a ready made backup. If not, then you can give it to someone as an unexpected present, and who doesn’t love that?

Do you need to do this for decent music? No, not really. However, if you want a far better listening experience, then low cost options are readily available to crank the experience up a notch.