Is it normal to have vocals just be completely unintelligible?

[fuzzybabybunny]

So now I'm second guessing my purchase of the W60s. They sound good on some tracks but absolute shit on others, but I'm not sure if it's because the songs are just badly mixed.

For example, Lovers in Japan by Coldplay is almost completely unintelligible.

The lyrics in Time by Pink Floyd seem very recessed.

I want my vocals to stand out and be clear, but I'm unsure if the lack of clarity is due to my headphones (maybe a defect?) or if the song's just mixed and recorded badly to have overbearing instruments and muffled vocals.

I find that female vocals cut through the noise way way better than male ones. Male voices, due to being thicker, blend in and muffle much more....

I just sometimes listen on my headphones and can't imagine a song sounding the way it sounds if the singers were actually in person in front of me singing, unless the acoustics of the venue are just horrible. And then I compare the vocals to shows like Blind Audition or whatever it's called and the vocals on there are always crystal clear.

 

[Fardringle]

I had not heard "Lovers in Japan" before so I just pulled up their official video on Youtube and listening to it on my cheap crappy earbuds and on my shelf stereo the instruments sound great but the vocals are subdued and hard to understand. I wouldn't know what he was saying in most of the song if I didn't have the lyrics also pulled up to read them while listening to the song. The balance isn't bad, but he's just hard to understand in that song...

In my personal experience, ALL in ear phones sound bad because I get a lot of extra noise from the buds being squished inside my ear canal and even some mid range ones make it sound like I'm under water. I haven't tried really expensive ones like your W60s, but everything that I have tried from cheap $5 garbage to stuff in the $150 range has the same effect for me so I can't stand to use them and stick with the kind that just sit in my outer ear and cover the ear canal.

 

[HutchinsonJC]

Lovers in Japan by Coldplay

Played this on an ~$80.00 bluetooth speaker at work just now at a moderate sound level, and my assessment is that there are parts of the song where he's singing rather quietly and other parts where he's singing obviously louder.

It's hard to quantify my listening experience with words such that another could 100% understand what I want to convey, but basically I feel like there's only small portions of the song that I would identify as unintelligible. I think it's a combination of his voice going quieter and his voice being lost in the instruments.

 

[giantpandaman2]

There are articles about this. In ear phones always give up a little in vocals due to the way they bypass your pinna. Being closed also limits the soundstage. Of course you get massive convenience using earbuds. Just the nature of the sound. I prefer the sound of open headphones...but I don't walk around them stuck to my head very often.

 

[DaveSimmons]

I had not heard "Lovers in Japan" before so I just pulled up their official video on Youtube and listening to it on my cheap crappy earbuds and on my shelf stereo the instruments sound great but the vocals are subdued and hard to understand. I wouldn't know what he was saying in most of the song if I didn't have the lyrics also pulled up to read them while listening to the song. The balance isn't bad, but he's just hard to understand in that song...

In my personal experience, ALL in ear phones sound bad because I get a lot of extra noise from the buds being squished inside my ear canal and even some mid range ones make it sound like I'm under water. I haven't tried really expensive ones like your W60s, but everything that I have tried from cheap $5 garbage to stuff in the $150 range has the same effect for me so I can't stand to use them and stick with the kind that just sit in my outer ear and cover the ear canal.

I'm the same way. I stick with my Sony MDR-V6 over-the-ears at home.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

There are articles about this. In ear phones always give up a little in vocals due to the way they bypass your pinna. Being closed also limits the soundstage. Of course you get massive convenience using earbuds. Just the nature of the sound. I prefer the sound of open headphones...but I don't walk around them stuck to my head very often.

I think it might depend a lot on the earphones.

Under $150 tends to be a minefield as far as quality goes for IEMs. I'm a huge fan of vocals and that was actually my main criteria when testing headphones. Vocals on my W60 sound great, but warmer than what I would imagine listening to the artist live would be.

The Shure KSE1500's completely blow my socks off when it comes to vocal quality, but they were still horrible IMO when playing Lovers in Japan. I think that perhaps it has more to do with separation and like you said, a smaller soundstage? Or maybe it's just Coldplay because I've noticed that a lot of their other songs are very similar in terms of difficulty in making out the lyrics.

 

[Kaido]

Or maybe it's just Coldplay because I've noticed that a lot of their other songs are very similar in terms of difficulty in making out the lyrics.

Just listened to that song, it is not well-recorded. Try these for testing vocals:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnvWFx_HwEw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9iGZ038MZc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VBex8zbDRs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNQakXT6Zow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8RYUZT57XA

 

[Kaido]

I want my vocals to stand out and be clear, but I'm unsure if the lack of clarity is due to my headphones (maybe a defect?) or if the song's just mixed and recorded badly to have overbearing instruments and muffled vocals.

I think it's a combination of his voice going quieter and his voice being lost in the instruments.

I think...I think they do this on purpose, because it happens even on their later albums. Why, I don't know, because I think the songs would be better with the vocals more up-front. And it's not like they do it on every song either, which is why I think they do it on purpose...maybe because some songs are supposed to blend the vocals into the music, I dunno. To me, a lot of their studio stuff sounds like it was recorded live at a concert on good equipment by a concert-goer, rather than in a studio with the vocals put forward with an equalizer. For example, 2002's "The Scientist" is extremely clear:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnvWFx_HwEw

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

I think...I think they do this on purpose, because it happens even on their later albums. Why, I don't know, because I think the songs would be better with the vocals more up-front. And it's not like they do it on every song either, which is why I think they do it on purpose...maybe because some songs are supposed to blend the vocals into the music, I dunno. To me, a lot of their studio stuff sounds like it was recorded live at a concert on good equipment by a concert-goer, rather than in a studio with the vocals put forward with an equalizer. For example, 2002's "The Scientist" is extremely clear:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnvWFx_HwEw

Yeah, OK. Good to have confirmation that it's the song and not because my equipment sucks.

I just tried Lovers in Japan on a Bowers & Wilkins P9 Signature over-ear headphones (which guessing purely by the price should not be crap) using my DragonFly Red DAC, and the song was still equally unintelligible as my W60s. Perhaps just a tiny tiny bit better separation compared to the IEMs, but the difference is miniscule and so basically the song still sucks.

If they're actually doing this on purpose, then that explains why I hate all of Coldplay's recent songs. Lovers in Japan was simply a recommendation I got from someone on HeadFi for tracks to listen to for the purpose of testing out headphones.

 

[Oyeve]

The problem is you are listening to crap music. You should fix that.

 

[sdifox]

Always test sound hardware with songs you are very familiar with, not someone else's recommendation.

 

[alcoholbob]

I think it might depend a lot on the earphones.

Under $150 tends to be a minefield as far as quality goes for IEMs. I'm a huge fan of vocals and that was actually my main criteria when testing headphones. Vocals on my W60 sound great, but warmer than what I would imagine listening to the artist live would be.

The Shure KSE1500's completely blow my socks off when it comes to vocal quality, but they were still horrible IMO when playing Lovers in Japan. I think that perhaps it has more to do with separation and like you said, a smaller soundstage? Or maybe it's just Coldplay because I've noticed that a lot of their other songs are very similar in terms of difficulty in making out the lyrics.

In-ear monitors/earbuds when playing studio recordings all tend to sound wonky with vocals, I think this is due to the fact that we are used to hearing reverb/reflections in the human voice, and the sound with IEMs is going straight into your ear canal. At least headphones have an earcup to generate some reflections, which adds spaciousness to the sound as well.

But for live recordings it should still sound alright with IEMs since alot of the reflections are already baked into the recording.