Which do you prefer - headphones or speakers?

bassiebassie 11,710 Posts
edited April 2005 in Strut Central
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  • Options
    I think time/place is an important parameter to this question. SPeaking from a histroy of 2 eveictions due to excessive noise, having a 18ft*18ft stack of speakers in your studio when you (and whomever else) come home from the bar is not a good thing. Well, it is but it isn't.

    K.


  • bassiebassie 11,710 Posts
    I know - context is a huge part of the answer...but you know.. if you had pick what gives more pleasure more often in your music listening experience...cmon pick one!

  • Both serve their purpose I suppose. I usually work on stuff with headphones on, and then play it through my speakers to see how it sounds... Thing about headphones, is that its so close that its hard to get levels right and stuff, because all the sounds are RIGHT THERE. Speakers always sound totally different. I dunno. You know, I bought those DJ headphones that RAJ recomended, and while I enjoy them for DJing, they seem kinda 'muddy' for monitering stuff that I'm working on. It seems like the bass is extra loud compared to what's really there. So that when I play it through my regular speakers it sounds wrong. I might need to invest in good studio headphones to work on music with. dammit, i dont want to spend money though.

    anyways, long answer short, they are apples and oranges.

    headphones are also good for when the significant other is trying to watch TV or something. "CAN YOU USE YOUR HEADPHONES????????" hahaha.

  • I know - context is a huge part of the answer...but you know.. if you had pick what gives more pleasure more often in your music listening experience...cmon pick one!

    Oh you gotta pick one?

    Shit, I'll pick speakers so I can walk around.

  • Options
    If I had to, it would be headphones just because I'm with them sooooo much. Also, images of a speaker stack give me both pleasure and pain seeing as I have to lug them around.

    K.

  • JacobWizzleJacobWizzle 1,003 Posts
    I like listening to music in the car speakers more than anything. When makin slaps I never listen in the headphones. I also have the volume pretty low, which always suprises people who come to my crib.

  • schnipperschnipper 528 Posts
    I like listening to music in the car speakers more than anything.

    Akin to this, my favorite time to listen to music is on my Walkman, walking to and from somewhere (usually school.) I have shitty ten dollar headphones and it's a cassette tape or the radio I'm playing, but it works fine and it's always so pleasant. I have no idea how many times I've listened to Hate it or Love It--->Since You've Been Gone---->Common/Kanye - Food---->Still Tippin---->Pistol Pete RUn remix then rewind or flip over and listen to Party and Bullshit---->Sex in the Kitchen--->North 2 The South (CASH A CHECK EVERY DAY BUT I DON'T GOT NO JOB)---->Maps---->Wait

    that shit is my routine! A certain kind of intimacy you get with the music over headphones

  • johmbolayajohmbolaya 4,472 Posts
    Speakers. Nothing like isolating yourself from the world with a good set of headphones, but I have to go with speakers.

  • djrdjr 511 Posts


    Speakers.

    Ogden's Nut Gone Flake was playing nice and loud on Wednesday evening.
    Lovely having the windows open and the music loud.

  • soulmarcosasoulmarcosa 4,296 Posts
    I only use headphones when I'm DJing. Fuck those.

    Speakers all the way.

    Neighbors and wifey can deal with it if they don't like it.

    Neighbors can deal with it if they don't like it.

    If wifey don't like it, I'll turn it down and shut the door so she can watch TV.

    Ogden's Nut Gone Flake was playing nice and loud on Wednesday evening.

    Shouldn't that be Sunday afternoon

  • KARLITOKARLITO 991 Posts
    If wifey don't like it, I'll turn it down and shut the door so she can watch TV.
    Welcome to my world. How many other of you married strutters find yourselves all ostracized to your little room to do music shit while the wife is watching some good awful crap on TV?

  • soulmarcosasoulmarcosa 4,296 Posts
    If wifey don't like it, I'll turn it down and shut the door so she can watch TV.

    Welcome to my world. How many other of you married strutters find yourselves all ostracized to your little room to do music shit while the wife is watching some good awful crap on TV?



    I don't mind for the most part. She can watch the umpteen-gazillion-fafillionth rerun of LAW & ORDER while I needledrop the new Joe Bataan, post on Soulstrut and make bhangra crunk remixes like this.

  • bassiebassie 11,710 Posts
    If wifey don't like it, I'll turn it down and shut the door so she can watch TV.
    Welcome to my world. How many other of you
    married common-law strutters find yourselves all ostracized to your little room to do music shit while the wife man is watching some good awful crap on TV?

    That???s what got me started on this thread. Usually I???m the person at the club saying ???Turn it up! Turn it up!???, but I got in trouble last night for playing the Royals too loud during some Gore Vidal documentary and when I put the headphones on, I didn???t take them off for a good long time - even after the TV got shut off. I was hearing small little things in the songs I had never heard before and that got me thinking...maybe a wall of speakers turned up to 12 is not always where it???s at?

    PS. I don???t think Gore Vidal is awful crap.

  • yuichiyuichi Urban sprawl 11,331 Posts
    wow, good question! i've actually thought about this myself.

    For me, especially during my college years, and since I didn't have any sort of system, I always listened to mp3s and audio snippets on websites through my headphones which was connected to my laptop. Even after i got some speakers, I always found spending latenights listening to music through headphones a more intimate experience.

    If i think about it now though, I think proximity has a lot to do with the satisfaction you get from the sound. When you're on the freeway, you gotta turn your stereo up a few notches, just to get the full range of sound. But with headphones, it's just right there, without having to blast it.

  • DenmarkVZDenmarkVZ 397 Posts
    I like headphones for prog rock. And speakers walls like you posted for jamaican dub.

    Everything else, I like a regular two speaker set up.

  • Options
    I was hearing small little things in the songs I had never heard before and that got me thinking

    After listening to the Queens Of the Stone Age "Songs For the Deaf" album only in my car for a year or so, I put it on the iPod and heard it through those Sony earbuds, see above MissB quote for rest.

    If I really want to HEAR a record I'll use headphones.

  • meshmesh 925 Posts
    Sony earbuds,

    im definitely liking these, too. they sound alright!

    but overall, if i had to pick, i would say i prefer speakers. i like how with speakers, it can be loud as hell and in your face, or you can just put it in the background and not even really listen to it, but enjoy the vibe it makes. of course you tend to miss all those little spots that are so easy to hear in the headphones,

    so nevermind, i cant choose, i like em both.

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