The Porcupine Tree Thread

Great album, I'm looking forward to getting my special edition soon. My favorite track is Mellotron Scratch, the last two mins of that song are bliss. However like others said, it doesn't top IA for me-- it's hard to beat songs like Trains, Prodigal, Heartattack, etc.
 
Yeah Lightbulb Sun > Stupid Dream > IA > Deadwing, but it's still awesome. I'm looking forward to listening to the actual CD (release date kept getting delayed for USA, I cracked and acquired it through "nefarious" means). I absolutely love the production on In Absentia, so clean and perfect. Hopefully Deadwing got the same treatment.
 
Moonlapse said:
'Heartattack in a Layby' is an amazing song to listen to on headphones, given your full attention. Very emotional.

Headphones should be required to listen to Porcupine Tree. Good fucking headphones too. It's just so much better that way.

On a little tangent -- I've found that I don't like listening to most Opeth with headphones. Anyone else like this?
 
Moonlapse said:
Definately not. Listening to Still Life on good headphones during the night is what opened it up for me.

But it's okay, I use studio monitors now, they work just as good for immersion.

That's how I got into Opeth as well (Still Life on good headphones) but the songs just don't feel as huge and epic with headphones. The production bothers me a little bit too... all the sounds just sort of mesh together and it just comes out a big mess. Honestly, my favorite place to listen to Opeth is in my car stereo.

Maybe I need better headphones.
 
Actually you're right about the sounds meshing together. Headphones give a pretty accurate listening environment and alot of Opeth's albums just have stuff happening all over the place (ESPECIALLY Still Life). Alot of the fuckups they make during the recording process really stick out on headphones too, especially the acoustic parts.

For metal I suppose you'd want the sort of power only a set of speakers can pump out. You wanna feel the SPLs it's pushing out, not some miniature headphone compromise.
 
saut said:
Headphones should be required to listen to Porcupine Tree. Good fucking headphones too. It's just so much better that way.

On a little tangent -- I've found that I don't like listening to most Opeth with headphones. Anyone else like this?

The Sky Moves Sideways with speakers > with headphones.
 
Luz said:
Yes sir, you need it quickly. :)
The more I listen to Opeth songs with headphones, the more I love this band.

I have a pretty decent pair of Sony headphones (that were only $20) that most stuff sounds fantastic on, but not metal.

Maybe it's time to become a bigger audiophile?
 
$20? ahaha. Sorry dude but you gotta at least multiply that price by 10 before you get into happy-land. They're making some nice headphones for low prices these days, but there's always something lacking on the low-end models. Once you pump into the $200+ mark, then you're starting to get a truer experience.
 
Moonlapse said:
$20? ahaha. Sorry dude but you gotta at least multiply that price by 10 before you get into happy-land. They're making some nice headphones for low prices these days, but there's always something lacking on the low-end models. Once you pump into the $200+ mark, then you're starting to get a truer experience.

Yeah I know. I'm not exactly in a position to be spending $200 on headphones though (cmon, $200 is like 1.2 books!). It just seems not worth it to spend that much money... can it really be worth it? I'd be scared shitless of breaking them too, probably take out an insurance policy on 'em.
 
Well think about how often you listen to music. People usually think that it's wasteful to spend $200 on a 'mere' set of headphones... but how many times do you use them? Keep in mind they correlate directly with how much you can enjoy a piece of music.
 
saut said:
Headphones should be required to listen to Porcupine Tree. Good fucking headphones too. It's just so much better that way.
i had the exact same epiphany the other night, i was walking and listening to in absentia on my headphones and realized how incredible the production is...especially contrasted to what i usually hear, which is moderate to intentionally bad (read "nattens madrigal" :D )
 
I find a good set of headphones is almost always better to listen to music than with a set of speakers, it just immerses you with the music so much more. With Opeth for example I've never been able to follow the growls much when playing over speakers, but with headphones it's so easy to make them out.

Btw this might be a stupid question but what exactly are "stereo monitor" headphones? I have a $50 stereo monitor pair but I don't notice anything different about them from regular headphones aside that they're just a good pair :p Is it just a term for headphones that people use for recording?