How do you hear headphone 'soundstage'

[dasdoing]

I drew a diagram of what soundstage feels like for me with headphones...yay me! lol

View attachment 285476

something like that. My head is the little brown circle and the big black circles are 3D balloons of space rather than flat horizontal platters. The way soundstage seems "better" or "worse" for me with different headphones manifests as bigger or smaller black orbs. With really good headphones it feels like the space around my ears is big and there's lots of room between the instruments and sounds. It's never a sense that there's a physical stage in front of me with musicians standing there playing. It's sounds floating in positions around my head in 3 dimensions (although never really far behind) with an impression of spaciousness or compactness of space.

on the other hand the guy in your picture has superb crosstalk elimination lol

 

[Sgt. Ear Ache]

on the other hand the guy in your picture has superb crosstalk elimination lol

Well, the amount of information contained within those different areas isn't equal. Where they crossover contains a lot of stuff. Then there's stuff to the sides and up and around and some to the back. I never get a strong sense of anything directly behind. But a bit to the sides and behind yes. But the sense of distance increases with my "good" headphones. It feels like I can pinpoint an instrument or sound and locate it in the space wherever it sits, and it feels like the whole space the sound occupies is much larger. And of course it's dependant on the recording to a large degree as well.

 

[Robbo99999]

Well, the amount of information contained within those different areas isn't equal. Where they crossover contains a lot of stuff. Then there's stuff to the sides and up and around and some to the back. I never get a strong sense of anything directly behind. But a bit to the sides and behind yes. But the sense of distance increases with my "good" headphones. It feels like I can pinpoint an instrument or sound and locate it in the space wherever it sits, and it feels like the whole space the sound occupies is much larger. And of course it's dependant on the recording to a large degree as well.

(You might get a strong sense of "behind" on the few maybe somewhat rare tracks that have HRTF baked into the the track and utilise panning of effects around & behind you. Aurora, Forgotton Love is one such track around halfway through. That's just one example.)

 

[Sgt. Ear Ache]

(You might get a strong sense of "behind" on the few maybe somewhat rare tracks that have HRTF baked into the the track and utilise panning of effects around & behind you. Aurora, Forgotton Love is one such track around halfway through. That's just one example.)

Oh yeah I've got a few of those. And yes, there is a bit of an effect there that can sometimes sound like it moves around behind me. But it's not super-convincing. It ends up sounding more like the movement is a circle mostly in front of me where the sound just rotates closer and then further away. And ftmp, I'm fine with that. I'm not really in it for any big surround-sound experience.

 

[Robbo99999]

Oh yeah I've got a few of those. And yes, there is a bit of an effect there that can sometimes sound like it moves around behind me. But it's not super-convincing. It ends up sounding more like the movement is a circle mostly in front of me where the sound just rotates closer and then further away. And ftmp, I'm fine with that. I'm not really in it for any big surround-sound experience.

It's gonna vary from person to person - those effects vary for me on the same track from listening session to listening session, even with the same headphone - it might be placement on the head or psychological factors, but those tracks I mentioned always have some degree of that 3D panning effect, but it can vary & a lot more unpredictably than 2 speakers in equilateral triangle (speakers are reliable pretty much the same everytime, headphone aren't as much), but it varies with headphone model too, some headphones won't create that 3D effect as much as others. That's my experience of those tracks that have that panning HRTF effect baked in.

 

[Deleted member 58722]

Yesterday I was listening to some music on my headphones, lost in the moment, I forgot I was wearing them, went to turn down the volume on my speakers! Now that’s good spatial stuff right there.

 

[Loomynarty]

After listening to speakers for any amount of time, all headphones sound in my head. Surprisingly, some of my IEMs sound "wider" than my over-ear headphones.

 

[Ahmonge]

On my head, on the axis that runs through my ears, sometimes slightly outside them

 

[Tallulah]

I always feel it in my head. Having the drivers away from my ears (Hifiman Edition XS / Sennheiser HD 800 S) gives me some sense of space and maybe a little bit more width but it's still in my head. Never had 3D image or sound coming from the front, although some videogames sometimes manage to trick my brain a bit (Insurgency: Sandstorm is quite good at this).

 

[olieb]

For me it does not only depend on the headphone but on the recording (technique), too.

Headphones
With most overears (Hifiman HE6se, LCD2closedback, Stax207, AKG501, DT880,....) and all inears the "stage" is more or less in my head. But my head seems kind of Tardis-like, bigger on the inside, as there is this impression of several meters of distance. The "musical space" is quite warped like in an Escher drawing.
HD800s is different, there I get more of an out-of-head experience a bit in front of me (though fuzzy), space is lesser warped.

Recordings
With some recordings (mainly orchestra) it is more like a cloud to the (frontal) sides that in the middle collapses to my head (HD800s fills that frontal hole somewhat).
With others (some opera or often pop music) it is strictly inside the head with some instruments (panned to the sides) pressing in the ears.