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Something I've noticed about headphones and a digital piano. Why is it that a cheap $20 pair of earbuds are perfectly fine for listening to piano music from an MP3 player or CD, but are total garbage when plugged into my Casio PX-120? When I say sounds like garbage, I mean that the sound goes from something approximating a piano sound, to that of a 1970's style cheap synthesizer plugged into broken speakers. Even a $50 pair of Sony monitor-style headphones doesn't quite cut it.

Is this because a digital piano's sound chip outputs waveforms that are harder for speakers to handle? (like overly-complex wave forms, such as square waves, etc). If so, does anyone make a circuit that can be plugged inline with the headphone cord to moderate the signal a bit? I've thought of plugging it into a computer sound input, and running it through an mp3 converter (wav to mp3 to wav), and piping it back out the sound card and into the headphones. Could that effectively act as a filter so that my headphones can handle the sound output better?

Hello derekp

I could be way off here, but I think the reason for this phenomenon is that music on a CD or an mp3 file ripped from a CD, were run through a compressor/limiter during the mastering process of the CD. This is done among other reasons to make the CD sound good on many different speaker systems, like in your car, your hi-fi, iPod and so on. Especially on the radio, they do some pretty heavy additional compressing of the sound before it is transmitted to our radios, for this same reason.

The output from your DP has most likely not been run through a compressor, unless the DP has one onboard, but I dont think this is very common. As a result when you use your cheap earbuds they cannot handle the sound output. It is kind of like imagining too much sound trying to squeeze through your tiny earbuds. A little bit of the sound comes through, but a lot of it is lost, thus not sounding like a piano anylonger. Compressing the sound, sort of makes it slimmer and tighter so more of it can squeeze through the earbuds, thus sounding better even on tiny speakers.

I am no expert on this, but you could try running the piano sound through a free VST compressor if you have Cubase or similar software, just to see if it helps. Running the sound through an equalizer might also help.

However, small earbuds and cheap headphones are never going to give you great piano sound, so getting a high quality headphone set, or a pair of good speakers will be a much better choice.

I hope this helps

+1 on the post above. I also think that headphones built for listening are not going to be the best for music production and that is what you are doing when you plug directly into a DP.

You need headphones with a relatively flat response, that is, they do not compensate for compressed, lossey music that you find on MP3 tracks.

While you might not have to spend hundreds of dollars for pro-style headphones there is going to be a certain threshold for a decent pair.

Check out http://www.headphone.com for info and ideas.

Paul

DerekP,
Have you tried VERY good headphones with your DP yet? Chances are it still won't sound as good as the recordings, not only for the reasons given above, but also for the simple fact that some of the real recordings that you like may well use expertly mic'd real pianos!

Greg.

I agree with the compressor theory. The MP3 has been mastered for playback on consumer equipment. They reduce the dynamic range so that it "sounds loud".

The piano is not compressed so you have to turn it up higher to get the same perceived loudness. Try turning down the piano's volume as see if the low volume sound is still distorted

The answer is better headphones. Good ones start at $100. I like my K240 headphones. At $99 they are about the lowest price good headphones.

If the headphones are under $80 bucks, it isn't going to sound as good as it can. I use a pair of Beyerdynamics dt770 80ohm version. The difference is startling in quality of sound. Almost an entirely different instrument.

You might be able to get away with a pair of Sony MDR 7506 or the V6 version. Those can had for around $60-80 and will sound much more detailed then cheap phones. Or if you have the budget, I would shoot for a pair of Audio technica m50's. Very impressive cans for the price.