HEADPHONES have been getting a bad rap lately and it's all because of iPods. Solet's pause for a moment and recall why we were attracted to headphones in the first place: headphones sound fantastic.
The reason for this isn't rocket science. When you listen to music through conventional speakers, you're very seldom in the sweet spot, that hallowed position out in front, exactly equidistant from each speaker. So their stereo image is less than perfect.
But slap on a pair of headphones and you're there, plumb in the middle of the orchestra, with instruments on the right and left and the conductor dead centre of your head. And you can hear all the fine detail of the high notes because these fragile, highly directional soundwaves aren't breaking down before they reach your ears.
Spend $200 on headphones and you'll get the sort of sound quality that costs thousands of dollars with conventional speakers.
This is why so many first-time headphone listeners discover stuff in their recordings they've never heard before. Pretty soon they start understanding what classical music buffs are talking about when they use the word nuance.
No matter how much you jump around - and with many cordless headphones you can jump clear into the yard - the stereo image is perfect because the speakers remain right there at each ear. Nor is the sound affected by harsh reflections from hard surfaces like glass and wood, and soft furnishings won't muffle it. And the neighbours won't be banging on your door and demanding you turn down the music.
This great sound quality leads people to turn up the volume on headphones - and that's a bad thing. It's a quirk of human hearing that louder music sounds better, and so many people with portable digital music players have the volume cranked up either because it sounds good or to drown out the grind of public transport. But everyone from old rock stars to otorhinolaryngologists (they're doctors who specialise in the ear, nose and throat) advise we're on a short path to deafness.
While iPods use those tiny in-ear speakers called earbuds, these things, worn properly, can provide exactly the same musical realism and at least some of the amazing sound quality of proper, full-sized headphones. And they can be played loudly. So loudly that continuous exposure can send a listener partially deaf, experiencing trouble discerning some frequencies, completely deaf to others.
Pete Townshend of the Who attributes his partial hearing loss to continued use of studio headphones. Sting, Mick Fleetwood, Neil Young and Phil Collins have problems, too, and so does Sir George Martin, who produced much of the Beatles' music.
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