Need a direction?
A.N.T. Amber 3T SE is an inexpensive headphone amp by Creek's ex technical designer Alex Nikitin. Amber 3T SE features FET-based Class-A operation in a small and simple box with an Alps pot. As far as I can judge, the sound Amber 3T SE produced via AKG K424 headphones was not bad at all: no noise, extended treble and extended full bass, and as always, very very very spacious sound.
It is that last characteristics that bothers me. Not just with Amber 3T SE but always with headphones. For me, ie. for my mind and for my brain, the sound needs to have some direction. It should come from somewhere, and with the headphones it doesn't.It already is in my head at the start line. It is as if one aspect of the sound were missing.
When I go to a concert the musicians are on the stage,and the stage is in front of me at some distance. When the musicians start to play, the sound starts to spread in the hall. I know where the sound comes from. It reaches my ears, I perceive it, and things are as they should be. Nothing of this is present when I listen to music through the headphones.I'm not saying that music through headphones could not be pleasant. But weird it is.
The headphone sound has nothing to do with the surround sound. In the concert hall (home theatre) it feels as if the sound were surrounding the listener but it still has a direction. With the headphones the sound is surrounding in my head with no obvious point in space. No arrival, no reception. No there, no here.
There is a deeper sense in which the headphone sound is wanting. With a hi-fi system the sound has a direction, and the direction implies that someone somewhere is presenting something to someone else. Janet Baker is singing to me, and I'm listening on the sofa. With the headphones the music feels impersonal, it feels as a commodity. The connection is lost. With the headphones, anything goes as long as there's something that sounds.
It is for reasons like these that the hi-fi system will always be my primary means for listening to music. But that's just me.
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