Best possible listening equipment.

[AngelCityOutlaw]

I'm no audio engineer. You know that.

What you may not know is that I recently got a pair of "in-ear speakers". Which sound fucking awesome. I can hear a lot more clarity and the punch of the bass hits my eardrums with near lethal, yet satisfying force. Now, my stereo system sounds so shitty by comparison that I can't stand to listen to music of any level of professionalism with it any longer.

What is the BEST kind of equipment, in your opinion, to listen to music with? What is the difference in sound quality between stereos and headphones? What about regular headphones vs in-ear ones?

[AngelCityOutlaw]

How the fuck did this thread get posted twice? My apologies.

[Yoozer]

In this order:

- a room with acoustic treatment. I don't mean eggcrates, I mean double walls, floating floor, asymmetric, diffusors, chock full o' Rockwool, the works.

- a set of Barefoot Micromains

- a Lavry DA11 or Cranesong Avocet or something else that is obscenely expensive.

Seriously though,you do not want thundering bass. You want honesty and your ears still functional after a day of listening.

What is your budget?

[Fishy]

I am an audio engineer . These are my views on monitoring equipment.

My favourite systems are invariable very large full-range soffit-mounted monitors. Where that isn't available large mid-field monitoring setups are usually great too. I'm really not a fan of small near-field stuff but that's all that works at home. KRK Rokkits are just about my least favourite speaker in existence.

Bower's and Wilkins all the way. The 300 series are awesome.

In-ear headphones are a bad idea in my opinion. They are simply too small to be anywhere near full-range with any degree of smoothness. Proper open-back headphones are definitely the way to go.

[lazygecko]

For the best, you'd probably have to get custom-built speakers by people who know what the hell they're doing.

[dannthr]

I am an audio engineer . These are my views on monitoring equipment.

My favourite systems are invariable very large full-range soffit-mounted monitors. Where that isn't available large mid-field monitoring setups are usually great too. I'm really not a fan of small near-field stuff but that's all that works at home. KRK Rokkits are just about my least favourite speaker in existence.

Bower's and Wilkins all the way. The 300 series are awesome.

In-ear headphones are a bad idea in my opinion. They are simply too small to be anywhere near full-range with any degree of smoothness. Proper open-back headphones are definitely the way to go.

Near fields are tough, it's usually all that you can get away with in a home studio.

I like Equator Audio's D5's--they're brutally even, probably about as good as it gets for 5" drivers and they're coaxial, so there's no phase distortion on the cross-over, which is great for near-fields and really necessary when you're dealing with messy stereo imaging in a small home studio.

[Frederic Petitpas]

KRK Rokkits are just about my least favourite speaker in existence.

Least but still in the favourites ?

[AngelCityOutlaw]

Thanks for the comments guys!