Headphone recommendations for listening to Linda Ronstadt please.

You might have a look at the reverse of Karaoke, Vocal isolation
Vocal Remover and Isolation
If this works nice (haven't tried) mix both the tracks with the voice track substantially louder.

Another one
Tutorial - Vocal Removal and Isolation - Audacity Manual

 

I’m not sure I understand your question, but the new version of the Schiit Loki is getting a lot of love from people like Steve Guttenberg. It’s only four bands but supposedly it’s very effective in tuning vocals. If Linda sounds fatiguing, this might help.

 

OP, what did you decide on?

 

have you watched CNN Special, “The Sound of my Voice”? Amazing woman!

 

I've seen you make similar comments in the past. Why not get it over with and get isolated tracks of her singing if you care about the music so little?

 

The Loki to start with, but out of stock for UK plug.

Are the Sennheiser 560 headphones any good?

 

Where can I get those?

I do care about the music, but not to have it out-volume Linda's singing. Linda, individually, is the main attraction!

 

Anything that brings that AM radio sound.

 

Never heard what you're describing on any album. Sounds like you want her twice as loud as everything else which isn't the way music is typically mixed... thankfully! That would suck big-time. No idea why that'd be appealing to anyone.

You can find stems of some songs if you look for them where you could remove everything but her if that's what you want.

 

Youtube. Not sure if there's any Linda, never checked, but it's the first place I would check.

 

Agreed. The OP should just get some decent headphones and listen - her voice isn't drowned on any decent set. Try Sennheiser HD-600 as a minimum. Neumann NDH20 is a higher priced set that sounds very nice.

 

Mixing is what let tracks of Linda's earlier volumes down. What I want is not to be deafened by bass, drums, too heavy backing of any kind. So far, for CDs; BGO, Raven & Warner Japan mini-LPs are best. The WJ were re-mastered by Isao Kikuchi, who does mastering for Japanese female vocalists who have quieter voices. I imagine his talent in not having their singing drowned out, has benefitted the Linda albums he did.

MFSL are great for instrumental, truly a 3D sound, BUT priority often seems to be given to everything else EXCEPT Linda, and she sounds like she is singing from behind her band, as well as compressed & or muffled.

Linda's ballads with simple accompaniment, are much much better on the MFSL CDs, and her talent shines out unchallenged. Ditto for the Audio Fidelity GH1, but HLAW is better.

In her solo Nelson Riddle songs (ensemble are different), Linda is much better treated. She sings, orchestra plays, one after the other, structured and arranged differently. Having the spotlight on her in "Pirates of Penzance", gave Linda steer to what she should have had from the start, recognition as a strong female vocal talent, not just a "chick singer" to be fitted in to a smorgasbord of sound from a male band.

So my quest is to get Linda's singing, up to and including "Simple Dreams" album, as good to hear as at least "Living in the USA" and later.

 

Yes. I would have liked more Linda-herself input, but can understand why there was not much.

Hoping "Linda and the Mockingbirds" gets a DVD release, still looking for "La Pastorela".

 

600, 650 or 660? Which would be best for vocal & mid-range?

 

Are there any particular headsets that are renowned for vocal reproduction the same way some mini monitors are?

 

Again, never heard what you're describing. Good luck!

 

For what I want, Linda's vocals, the HD 600s seem great.

 

I have to ask, what are you using now to listen to your LR albums? I played the DCC versions of her GH Vol. I and II albums this morning switching between Sennheiser HD600 (dynamic) and Warwick Audio Sonoma Model One (electrostatic) headphones, and her voice is really easy to follow. She always had top notch people recording her, and, as one would expect, her vocal is the focus -- it is not buried in the mix at all! So I am puzzled by your comments.

As regards the discs you have, I feel I should warn you that Kikuchi is not highly thought of on this forum. I have not heard his LR titles, but have heard others by him, and they were almost universally awful. This is why I am curious about your current monitoring system.

Yes, traditionally Stax electrostatics would be the go-to option. I particularly like the Stax SR-009, especially when driven by something special like the Head-Amp Blue Hawaii amp and a good DAC. Forum headphone enthusiast @Ham Sandwich thinks the Blue Hawaii is beaten by certain amplifiers from Cavalli, but I have not heard that combination. I have also not heard the newer SR-009S.

The Stax headsets are renowned for their mid-range purity, lightning fast transient response and freedom from glare. However, they are slightly bandwidth limited, especially in the deep bass, so are not the choice for bass heads. I only have experience with the SR-009 in recent years, but @John Buchanan is something of a Stax expert and may be able to advise on some of the lower models in their range.

The Sonoma system I use is a true full-range system but with all the characteristics electrostatics are known for. However, it is a closed system (DAC + amp + headphone), so not the choice for those who like to mix-and-match.

As these systems are at least 10x the OP's budget, what are his best options? For many years the Sennheiser HD600 has been considered a poor man's Stax. It doesn't have the transparency of electrostatics, but it does an awful lot of things right, and is pretty neutral. @Ham Sandwich introduced me to this website, and you can see how the HD600 measures compared to a target response:

Oratory Grapher

If one accepts the target response to be correct, a perfect headphone would be a flat line at +30 dB. As you can see, the HD600 rolls off the deep bass, but is then pretty flat from 50 Hz to about 8 kHz. Despite a well-known bass bump when originally released, if you use the pull-down at the top to add the HD650, you will see that it largely overlaps the HD600 in current guise. This should also mean that the Mass HD6XX will have the same response as the HD650. I have to admit, I have not tried a HD650 in many years, but did hear the bass 'hump' when it was originally released.

So, the OP could go for the Mass HD6XX, and then use the remainder of his budget for an amp (+DAC?) that will be able to drive the Sennheisers properly. There are a lot of Schiit fans on the fourm, so that could be an option.

I think it is hard to argue against the Sennheiser models: they are light, comfortable, durable (my HD600s are nearly 20 years old), still in production (so can be serviced/find spare parts), can take cable upgrades (from using 650 cable on 600 to exotic cables costing as much as the headphones), and will grow with improvements to source and amplification until you are into the many thousands of dollars per source or amp component. What's not to love?

 

Stax always stood out back in the day. On the lower range AKG then Sennheiser HD 600 and 800’s. I’d be looking for circumaurals if I were in the market.

 

@heartbreaker if you are commenting on sound quality, please fill out your profile with your equipment, as requested by our host. It helps to give us an idea what may be going wrong if our experience is not the same as yours when you are asking for help. There are many knowledgeable people here who have wide experience of headphones. @Ham Sandwich and @Black Elk are two already contributing here - listen to what they say and take action. If you want a cheaper version of the suggested Sennheiser phones try the Drop version. US$220 for something that is the same as the Sennheiser version is a bargain.
Drop: Passions lead here

Putting Isao Kikuchi up as the "go to" man for mastering suggests that something is wrong with what you are listening through. His masterings are classic examples of what not to do with mastering, IMHO. Boomed and tizzed AND compressed. I give you the Yes masterings he did for the HDCD series as an example. Awful sounding.
I've never heard a muffled or compressed MFSL CD. The Simple Dreams set on MFSL sounds very nice, despite the use of the Aphex Aural Exciter when recording the album.
Regarding Stax, my very favourites were the Stax Sigma Pros. They simply sounded real. Unobtainium except at thousands of dollars for a 30 years out of production headphone!! I bought two of these before their prices went berserk. A good Stax combination would be pairing the latest and cheapest Lambda based headphone - say the L300 - with the best of their headphone amplifiers that you can afford.
I currently listen to an old (1995) Stax Lambda Nova Signature via a Stax SRM-Monitor (amongst the headphones and amplifiers listed in my profile). It sounds excellent, but the good dynamic headphones are very close. AKG and Beyerdynamic do some nice headphones - the AKG K812 or the Beyerdynamic T1 2nd Generation (rather than the 3rd, which is apparently bass oriented) should do nicely. I lucked into a relatively (!!) cheap AKG K812 recently and it's my favourite phone ATM.

 

Trust me to drop the wrong half of Massdrop!

 

I have the 569 closed back, which gets excellent midrange reviews. The 600 series is better though. The 569 will only set you back like $139 US.

At worst, this headphone is competent. There's nothing really "special" about it. In my opinion. Senns get "special" in the 600 range if you've got some power behind them with a decent headphone amp.

I'm going to bet the 560, as an open back, will sound a tad better than the 569. I don't think Sennheiser makes any crappy headphones, as far as I know. You may want to search for reviews of the 560.

 

I see a lot of comments about the HD650s/6XX. I've got the 6XXs and while they sound nice I wouldn't use them for audiophile listening. Soundstage is the biggest issue and as the OP has top quality recordings I'm sorry but the HD650s are never going to do them justice. For the same price you could get something like the Audeze LCD-1, HiFiman Sundara or if planars are not an option the previously mentioned Focals.

 

Currently Bose QC25s. I am being lent a pair of Sennheiser HD560s to try out before a big bucks decision.

Kikuchi is better for my speakers, Wharfedale 9.1 Diamond shelf, from my home cinema set-up until I find ones with good mid-range, more mineshaft than rabbit hole! The Kikuchi remasters have a very vinyl sound to them, why I like them.

For some Linda albums, I have 4 or 5 different releases, they all sound different played & relayed on & through different hardware! All I want is to hear Linda's singing clearly and as separated as possible from her backing. Reviews of the HD600s suggest they do that....

 

Other than being lifted in the bass region, the frequency response of the QC25 doesn't look too bad apart from a 7 dB dip at 3.2 kHz. Maybe the combination of those two factors is masking LR's vocal?

I'm very surprised by your comment on your Wharfedales. Stereophile's measurements show them to be pretty much spot on through the mid-range:

Wharfedale Diamond 9.1 loudspeaker



(BBC bass 'hump' noted in review and measurements)

What Hi-Fi was also impressed with them, but did not do measurements:

Wharfedale Diamond 9.1 review | What Hi-Fi?

Maybe you need to look at your source/amplification or speaker location instead.

@John Buchanan is going to be having kittens at the suggestion that Kikuchi's remasters have a vinyl sound to them. On what sort of turntable were you playing your records? "Boomed and tizzed AND compressed." is how John described his mastering style, and many here would agree with that. Are you engaging tone controls or DSP sound modes at all?

As I wrote above, LR's vocals are easy to follow on HD600s when listening to the DCC CD remasters, but they will simply expose the issues with compromised remasters, so you will definitely need to try before you buy. You should also check out the HD650, because, if you find that that model works for you, you can save money by getting the Drop HD6XX instead.