Headphone Jazz

[Big Al]

What else sounds good listening thru the headphones? Lately, I've been diggin' the subtleties of MYSTERIOUS TRAVELLER and TALE SPINNIN (the slow songs, not the mind-blowing groove salvos scattered elsewhere on the albums!). I'm sure there are others, some I probably have, but none that immediately come to mind.

Except IN A SILENT WAY, the whole sessions. Man, what a trip THAT is!

[Brad]

Did you ever listens to Idle Moments through the headphone. It may be me but for some reasons guitars sound really good through headphones.

[Claude]

Albums that do not sound very good through headphones are those jazz recordings where instruments are hardpanned to one channel. Headroom uses special circuits in their headphone amplifiers that (optionally) compensate this:

Fixing headphones using electronics

"So here?s the problem with headphone listening in a nutshell: the sound in the right channel is only heard in the right ear and the sound in the left channel is only heard in the left ear. What?s missing in headphones is the sound going from each channel to the opposite ear, arriving a short time later for the extra distance traveled, and with a bit of high frequency roll-off for the shadowing effect of the head. "

There are also some studio recordings, mostly from the 70's or 80's, that sound very dry, without any natural reverb. They tend to sound even boxier when listened through headphones.