On Thursday 25 November 2004 00:55, Richard Rauch wrote:
> The Yamaha pair are hinged and can rotate maybe 30 degrees
> and are much more comfortable than the older Koss pair.  I probably
> paid about $15 for them at a local store somewhere.  They're not
> Bose headphones.  (^&
>
> I have not made an effort to eliminate headphones/speakers variation.
> That didn't occur to me.

Almost any loudspeakers are going to sound quite different from cheap 
headphones -- especially the bass.  I suspect at least part of the problem 
here is that your music is loud in the bass, and the headphones are just not 
delivering that correctly, so the midrange (where voice mostly is) sounds 
louder in comparison.

> Presumably the MonopolySoft user always used his computer speakers when
> editing, and hears the show on a regular FM radio of unspecified quality.

Are these laptop speakers or external speakers?  Laptop speakers are... 
well... let's just say no audiophile would use them.

FM radio throws another loop in: it cuts off everything about 15KHz.  If you 
have a lot of audible sound at the high end, the result is going to be 
*quite* different.  If I were to assume headphones in the one case and 
speakers in the other, this wouldn't explain the problem, though -- except 
for sibilants, voice is well below 15KHz, so chopping off the highs should 
only make it clearer.

You could also check whether they're using equalizer functions in either case.  
For example, they may have turned up treble response on the computer to make 
something else sound better -- but that will also have the effect of making a 
voice clearer if there is a lot of thumping percussion in the background.

There are, unfortunately, many variables.

> From the "varies widely" remark, I would then guess that I will not be
> able to make any guarantees about whether the music is audible under the
> speech---or if it is, I won't be able to guarantee that it won't
> distract from the speech.

You can make it work, but you have to be careful.  :-)