My birthday is coming up, so i got these headphones (they're amazing). It got me thinking about the way i consume music as someone who enjoys and also creates it. For me, headphones have always been my preferred means of listening to an album. There's nothing better than putting on a nice pair and getting completely lost in music you love.
So, I have all of my music on my computer in mp3 or FLAC, my computer is connected to my dad's old Kenwood amplifier, and my headphones are plugged into that. I have an iPod Classic and a couple more portable pairs of headphones for when i'm not home.
I couldn't imagine listening to anything else, but i know a lot of people don't do it this way. Lots of people on Hubski are into vinyl. I'm sure some of you have a great stereo setup (i don't even have speakers) with records or CDs or cassettes or whatever.
I'd like to know how you listen to music. When you put on your favorite album, what's the best way to do so and why?
It depends on my mood and the situation. If I'm at my apartment with my roommates we're likely to be listening to vinyl or cassettes through one of two speaker systems, nothing too high end but it still sounds great. If I'm lounging around and really decide to focus on music I'm going to throw on my headphones and eliminate any distractions, and chances are it's going to be something with depth and layers to be distinguished. Like Pink Floyd, or Ariel Pink, stuff along those lines. Most nights though, I'll just have some ear buds in since it's hard to to listen to music with headphones when you're laying down in bed. But other times, like right now, all I want to do is go for a drive in my shitty car and throw in a Rolling Stones CD and blast it. The best way to listen to music is whatever way appeals to how you're feeling and what you most want to be doing in a given moment.
My favourite was listening through my reasonably high end studio monitors, but they've been broken recently so it's been down to my headphones. After six months of near continuous headphone use for both composing and listening, they just don't quite cut it. Even though they're a £150 pair of great headphone that I love. You lose the stereo field. The music feels to much like it's being injected into your head. You don't get as solid a low end presence (my monitors had 8 inch woofers in). I can't get up and listen as easily. My monitors just sounded too good for any somewhat affordable headphones to truly compare. The ideal scenario is having both.
What headphones are you using? It's not impossible to get the same sense of space in a pair of headphones that you do with speakers. A lot of open headphones do that pretty successfully. you say "somewhat affordable," which is subjective obviously so i'm not sure what you consider to be beyond affordable. It's also interesting that you mention low end presence... I'd argue that headphones accomplish good bass marginally easier than speakers do. An 8 inch driver will push more air of course, but a smaller one right next to your ear can deliver some pretty serious oomph. I do like listening to speakers. Especially for professional releases, it's important to know how the instruments in a track fit in a physical room. In general though i find headphones to offer more detail and immersion, and that's what i prefer. Both headphones and speakers is probably ideal. But man, the ones i'm listening to right now have a soundstage on their own that is pretty damn impressive. I wish i could somehow send an aural sensation to you in a hubski comment.
I usually use headphones because they are convenient and I don't have a good stereo system but, I love how you can feel the bass in your body with a stereo as opposed to just in your head.
The headphones I'm using are Audio-Technica ATH-M50s, quite well regarded. I bought them for about £135 two years or so ago. Don't get me wrong, like you say the bass ouput is not to be sniffed at. However, there's still no getting around the sub bass presence that a larger speaker can deliver. I'd also argue that the detail my studio monitors output was above what my headphones could deliver. But they were £350 more expensive so you'd expect that I guess; I'd relish being able to listen on some Audeze LCD-3 headphones for comparison. Like I said, a combination is best. Headphones pick up things monitors might not, and vice versa. However, ultimately I'd choose speakers because I find it a more natural listening experience. Saying that, I'm not sure much can top long train journeys through beautiful landscapes with a good pair of headphones.
Those are great cans! I recommend them all the time. However, I'm not at all surprised that you're disappointed in headphones' versatility if that's what you're using for producing and casual listening. The v-shaped frequency response can be really tiresome and the ath-m50s have a mid bass bump that makes mixing a lot harder than it should be. When you have the chance, I think you should get a nice pair of open headphones for comparison. No need to go all out on LCD-3s (maybe one day =)), something like sennheiser hd600 or hd650s would be really refreshing, I think.
OtterSlick also pointed out that the sub bass presence in speakers is capable of consuming your whole body rather than just your face. Speakers can make you feel like you're at a show watching a band perform, and headphones can't physically produce that feeling. Some do a pretty good job at giving the illusion that they can, though.
Listening has become a test procedure for me, much of the time. I'm typically listening to learn about the wide variance of frequency response and stereo effects (or the lack thereof, for headphones) in audio systems and their environments. Especially when I'm working on a mix, it's incredibly valuable to try and optimize for every situation. There's many artists' songs that I like to jam on every system that I can, in every context I can, trying to infer the subtle changes in the audio (sometimes I actually succeed). Hah, I have to take care not to be obnoxious about wanting to listen to a calibration track on friends' systems. I actually don't have a good stereo setup that I have reliable access to. I mix in headphones (Shure SRH840, decent value) and then listen to it on my crappy monitors (name withheld, to spare me the shame), a mono tube speaker (yep), my podphones (yep), my car speakers (bad), and my monitors at work (c'mon, of course they're bad). If it sounds good on all of those, it's pretty likely to sound superb with a great stereo setup. When I'm casually listening to music, it doesn't matter near as much. Roll the windows down and blast it driving down the highway, it's already summer here. And if I couldn't listen to my music during a workout, well, that wouldn't be a good time.
It depends on the music. If it's an album I haven't heard before, I like listening to it the whole way through with headphones on late at night. If it's music I've heard before and enjoy, I like blasting it at high volume while driving with the windows down.
My job at the theatre has the benefit of listening to music through a NEXO-Geo line array with extra sub and infill speakers. The venue is for 435 people and when there's nobody around I can play as loud as I want. It has also an artificial acoustic array of many little speakers throughout the walls which can be used as surround sound for movie screenings. The best way of listening to music there is when there is a dance performance. It's always loud and seeing movement on music makes you focus on it much better. A nice light show also helps.
I have to agree with you. While it would be nice to have an astronomically expensive music system, headphones are a nice, and most of all, cheaper alternative. I'm a bit of a newbie when it comes to cans, only because I am limited by my pockets; I have read countless reviews and opinions on music and sound theory, but I never thought I would own more than one "nice" pair of headphones. I currently own Beyerdynamic's DT 770 Pro LE, as well as their DT990 Pro 250 ohm. I also have a set of Sennheiser Momentum Bowie limited edition I won in a giveaway. I drive them with a Fiio E17 Aspen DAC/amp. Eventually I want to get a set of Planar Magnetic headphones, but for now, these "will do". Music wise, I have a 160GB iPod Classic with about 32,000 songs in an assortment of bit rates as well as two backups on external hard drives. I also procure vinyl, which I listen through an AudioTechnica LP120-USB. Realistically, the vinyl is for nostalgia; the collection of music, is the hoarder in me; I find myself using Spotify more than I'd like to admit for the convenience.
I also have the dt770s, and I'm quite jealous of your other equipment. How do you like the fiio amp? A decent dac/amp is next on my list but I'm having a hard time finding something because I want one capable of also powering speakers and a turntable (at the same time) when I eventually get them. The headphones in the picture are a planar set and if you like the dt770s, I would strongly recommend them. The amount of added depth and detail is insane, but they still have the kick to them that open headphones sometimes lack. Yeah, when I bought my first "nice" headphones, the V-Moda M80s, I didn't think I would need any more. In fact, I recall saying "they're expensive, but I can use these for the rest of my life." Little did I know...
I use Ultrasone Pro 750 headphones with a Traktor Audio 2 for computer listening. Usually just mp3s. I used to use my headphones all day long when I worked a desk job from home; nowadays they are collecting dust and I hardly seek out new music. I guess it's part of my music listening cycle... I listen to a genre until I get tired of it, then have a null period until some other type of music catches my interest. I've never been a fan of iPods. I've had several but have never really used them. I will bring them on rare occasions if I'm going off the grid for a while, but in those cases I usually prefer to listen to silence or the normal sounds of the world sans humanity. It's pretty refreshing. Otherwise, I don't really enjoy tuning out during daily stuff. In my car I just load up a USB stick with all sorts of random stuff and plug it into my car's USB port. Thank god for that thing. If it wasn't a gross exaggeration I'd say it changed my life. No aux cables or satellite radio necessary. I also love (like everyone else, apparently) to listen to music while driving. Screw you Google, I will never get your driverless cars for this reason alone.
My favorite way to listen to music is to do so in bgood79's living room. He's got a great set-up.
It is 100% situational. I spend a lot of time in the car and therefore listen to a lot of music while driving. The stereo in my car isn't that bad, but it's not great either. I also listen to music with crappy ear buds on my phone often. This could be while running, or just walking around town. One of my favorite things to do is to walk around an unfamiliar city while listening to music. Another favorite thing to do is to walk around airports while listening to music. When I'm really lucky, I'll use my headphones, my nicer (nothing too fancy) headphones at home while listening to vinyl. Lately been using the Sennheisers but I also have those Sony's and some Audio Technica's. 
I really like the HD280s. I use them for school all the time. How would you say they compare to the Sonys? Whenever i'm in the car, there's music on, but i can't really listen to it actively. Same with when i'm walking around somewhere. I have travel headphones but i use them mostly on my hour long train rides to and from class. I tend to have a hard time listening to music passively. It either gets 100% of my focus or zero. I would like to at some point get a nice record player (and some records!) for those nights when i'm feeling romantic.
I prefer the HD280's but it could just be because they are new to me and bring a new perspective and frankly, they're more comfortable. I'm probably able to give music my full attention while driving, in the same way you are able to on the train. When I drive it tends to be easy-going freeway driving and not much thought is needed. That said, I'm also able to treat music like a soundtrack to my life. I LOVE doing that, like I said in airports or new cities, it's a blast. my favorite music listening experience ever was with a crappy pair of stock iPod earbuds.
If I'm traveling, I use my Jays in ears, I usually have Klipsch Image headphones but I managed to break 3 in a row and as such decided to explore the hifi in ear bud space. At home, I have a Dayton sub and 2 floorstanding monitors, behringer 5-channel mixer, crown amp and an old gemini turntable. All left to me by my father. Digital audio I playback from my laptop [.FLAC or .wav preferably now, existing catalog of 320 .mp3.] and records on the turntable obviously. The setup isn't all it could be, I'd like better speaker cables from the monitors to the amp so there's less noise. I also want to run Female XLR to Dual RCA from the mixer to the Amp and sub, but it doesn't seem like many people make a good quality cable in that setup. That said, it sounds freggin awesome as is and it's so much fun to spend evenings and weekends just belting out old Bob Marley and the Wailers alongside Seth Troxler and Ida Engberg. P.S. the car I have access to drive also has a sweet Fosgate setup in it.
If your ears are good enough and know what to listen to, any output is just as good as the next.
Headphones, most of the time. Mine are super cheap. Putting an album on and lying in bed is probably one my favourite activities. I also listen to music when I'm working, usually complete albums because I find that having to change track really disrupts my concentration. Oh, I also listen to music when I'm travelling. My current pair are quite good at sealing out ambient sound (I take the train a lot and it can be noisy).