How do you hear headphone 'soundstage'

[Oldson]

for me, when listening to music its totally in my head and left to right.
i dont seem to be able to perceive soundstage depth or height that others speak of.
i can with the "virtual haircut" though.

which part of the chain has biggest influence on soundstage?
i would guess
1) headphones
2)source (equipment not material)
3)amp, though i aint sure this affects it at all

 

[Timcognito]

for me, when listening to music its totally in my head and left to right.
i dont seem to be able to perceive soundstage depth or height that others speak of.
i can with the "virtual haircut" though.

which part of the chain has biggest influence on soundstage?
i would guess
1) headphones
2)source
3)amp, though i aint sure this affects it at all

If by source you mean recording then #2 is the most important by far.

Binaural recording - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Oldson]

i actually meant dac/cd etc. sorry i should have been clearer


edited now

 

[Timcognito]

i actually meant dac/cd etc. sorry i should have been clearer

Depth is arguably very difficult to perceive, if at all. You are among many that can not hear it. Tests have shown that. The binaual guys still try to get on the recordings thou.

 

[frogmeat69]

Uhh, with my ears??

 

[DualTriode]

for me, when listening to music its totally in my head and left to right.
i dont seem to be able to perceive soundstage depth or height that others speak of.
i can with the "virtual haircut" though.

which part of the chain has biggest influence on soundstage?
i would guess
1) headphones
2)source (equipment not material)
3)amp, though i aint sure this affects it at all

An honest person.

 

[kemmler3D]

I wanted to update my answer to this after a long time...

For me it's normally a hard L||____|C|____||R inside my head. There isn't much spread between center and left or right.

Since then I started using crossfeed, and it gives more of a continuous 2D image slightly in front of my head.

So it's more like this: L|_|_|_|_|C|_|_|_|_|R ... if that makes any sense. It doesn't fully spatialize stuff but I think it smooths / spreads out the image perceptually. I think the tradeoff is a very tiny penalty to tonality and sharpness of transients.

I was a skeptic for many years, but it's well worth trying if you have a setup that can do it.

 

[InfiniteJester]

An honest person.

Am I dishonest if I say that I experience soundstage in 3D?

 

[solderdude]

Only when you are lying about it

 

[InfiniteJester]

Only when you are lying about it

I insist in that I believe that it is a cognitive ability and that you can develop it.

This is a drawing from imagination I did some time ago. My hearing changed when I became obsessed with drawing like Kim Jung Gi. I think that you can learn to think in 3D.

I can also share the software I wrote for training synesthesia. I believe that it greatly enhances visualization.

 

[Basic Channel]

Since then I started using crossfeed, and it gives more of a continuous 2D image slightly in front of my head.

In front of your head? Everything on headphones happens behind my head

 

[Ze Frog]

I've never really liked headphones myself beyond where it's a necessity, simply because you do lose a lot of the soundstage and the effects speakers can provide in my opinion. Year's ago I tried those Sony 'Surround Sound' headphones a friend had, nice sound but certainly not surround sound. I'd certainly never want to only use headphones although I know people that's literally their sound system.

 

[kemmler3D]

In front of your head? Everything on headphones happens behind my head

Yeah, subjectively it's sort of, kind of like nearfield monitors.

 

[DualTriode]

It is about the science.

Headphones all on their own do not provide much directional information.

I belong to the Audio Engineering Society and receive their monthly journal publication. Often there are articles about auditory spatial location processing. Almost always there are some type of head position sensors in the headphones and real time convolution of the auditory program material. It is about creating the illusion. It does not require expensive headphones but the processing needs to be correct. Small errors in the processing will destroy the illusion.

Accelerometers and gyroscopes like are used in your cell phone are used for head position sensors. the next generation technology will likely use nystagmus sensors to monitor eye movement.

Not so much for your typical headphones.

Today I was at the dining room table, there was this high frequency sound. What was causing it, it drove me nuts looking for the source. I positioned my head up and turned it all around. Some times I could hear the sound, some times not. Turns out the sound was from the LED lamps overhead, the fixture was on a dimmer.

This type of head positioning is what is going on with the current headphone spatial location processing "Augmented Reality".

Good luck with standard headphones without program convolution and head position monitoring.

Thanks DT

​

 

[Westsounds]

Soundstage in headphones is a absolute con. It's all in your heads, well speakers right next to your earholes actually, the rest your brain makes up.

 

[InfiniteJester]

Soundstage in headphones is a absolute con. It's all in your heads, well speakers right next to your earholes actually, the rest your brain makes up.

Do you perceive depth, shape, anatomy, composition, gesture?

Too bad, there are only stains of color, except color is also something your brain made up. It is only the interpretation of a bunch of photons interacting with the photoreceptive cells in your eyes. If you think that you can see St. Jerome is because you are imagining it. There is no St. Jerome to be found in the wavelengths of photons.

Reductionism is one of the vilest sins of scientism.

Soundstage is completely real as a subjective experience. Nobody is saying that the stage is really there.

 

[Robbo99999]

I wanted to update my answer to this after a long time...

For me it's normally a hard L||____|C|____||R inside my head. There isn't much spread between center and left or right.

Since then I started using crossfeed, and it gives more of a continuous 2D image slightly in front of my head.

So it's more like this: L|_|_|_|_|C|_|_|_|_|R ... if that makes any sense. It doesn't fully spatialize stuff but I think it smooths / spreads out the image perceptually. I think the tradeoff is a very tiny penalty to tonality and sharpness of transients.

I was a skeptic for many years, but it's well worth trying if you have a setup that can do it.

The smoothness of the panning I've found is also related to how good the channel matching is of the headphone. If it's matched really well through the whole frequency response then you'll get good imaging, ie smooth precise panning from left to right. Independent of channel matching I think the headphone model in question also has an effect on this, for instance the HD600 I've found to be the worst one of my headphones for smooth panning, that one is often left blob, centre blob, right blob. Getting a headphone with good channel matching is a good starting point though!

 

[Ahmonge]

The smoothness of the panning I've found is also related to how good the channel matching is of the headphone.

In my case there seems to be a relationship between the smoothness of the panning and the type of headphone cup. Closed ones are more likely to have holes between the ends and the center, open ones have a smoother transition. I don't know if the relationship is due to the type of cup or because the open headphones I have listened to are Hifiman and this brand has achieved this type of panning.

In the case of mismatch in the volume of the transducers, when I have experienced it with a difference of 3 dB, the soundstage has collapsed towards the louder side, making it impossible to hear them without correcting through the balance control of the amplifier or the source.

 

[Robbo99999]

In my case there seems to be a relationship between the smoothness of the panning and the type of headphone cup. Closed ones are more likely to have holes between the ends and the center, open ones have a smoother transition. I don't know if the relationship is due to the type of cup or because the open headphones I have listened to are Hifiman and this brand has achieved this type of panning.

In the case of mismatch in the volume of the transducers, when I have experienced it with a difference of 3 dB, the soundstage has collapsed towards the louder side, making it impossible to hear them without correcting through the balance control of the amplifier or the source.

Yep, if you've got bad channel matching then you can forget about proper imaging and soundstage. About your comment on closed headphones, I only have one pair of closed headphones and that's the NAD HP50, I found that ok with that headphone. It's just the HD600 that had the most profound unsmooth panning, being left/centre/right and not much inbetween. Headphones are in my sig, but I'll list the ones that I own/experience: K702/HD560s/HE4XX/NAD HP50/HD600, & oh yeah HD800 (sort of a mongrel S version - HD800 with HD800s pads, but a very nice refurb)(and I'm still working on the HD800 so I don't have a fixed opinion on that one yet, but it does have smooth panning though which is the point we're talking about).

EDIT: And you mention Hifiman or open back being related to smooth panning. My HE4XX is Hifiman and that's fine in that department, but that's the same for the K702/HP50/HD800 & HD560s, so smooth panning is not a Hifiman only trait, and it's not an open or closed back trait either (HP50). Good channel matching is the main factor in my experience, and just on top of that you have the odd headphone design that doesn't seem to do smooth panning, ie HD600 in my experience - (but it would be silly for me to say it's a bad headphone because it's a good sound at stock which is quite unusual for a headphone).

 

[DualTriode]

you can forget about proper imaging and soundstage

Hello All,

Words like proper always make me humor (smile) a bit. If "proper" was more than a construct it would be defined.

The definition I see above is "not broken". Even if the headphones are intact there is nothing about them that will effect time or space information.

A reminder from the OP, Just plain headphones ... without any processing/plug-ins like crossfeed, stereo enhancers and 3D emulators.

Note this is with 'normal' recordings so NO binaural recordings and without any processing/plug-ins like crossfeed, stereo enhancers and 3D emulators.
Just a plain headphone...

An added, maybe related comment:

I do not always prefer prefer the Harman Curve of the Expanse type headphones.

Some times I mix it up and enjoy the flat frequency response of LCD2 headphones.

Thanks DT