Is headphone's scalability a thing?

[Patrick1958]

I don’t support the idea of scalability for headphone listening and like to demonstrate with a real experience.

Years ago I purchased the Sennheiser HD 650. My first impressions were not overwhelming and in fact the opposite of the raving reviews this headphone has/had online. To me it sounded dull, I could hardly hear the so much acclaimed detailed treble reproduction.

One of my favorite songs is the world hit Sweet Lullaby by Deep Forest. The Appolo 400 mix has 38 seconds into the song a distinct bell/triangle instrument on the left side very faint in the background, an instrument/sound reproduction I could hear on Hifiman HE 400i, Beyerdynamic DT 880/990 (to name a few) and even on a very cheap on the go headphone (approx. 40 $) used for listening when bicycling, but no matter how hard I concentrated not on the HD 650. Trying on different amps (violectric) and dac/amp combos (topping, teac, gustard) still didn’t reveal that particular instrument.

Few years ago I started experimenting with eq’ing and about a year ago with settings from Oratory’s site. Not much improvement on the HD 650 until a member here reported his item had an inverted dome on one of his HD 650 headphone speakers. I checked mine, and behold, the right dome was pressed inward.

After contacting Solderdude he agreed to repair the inverted dome and do measurements before and after repair. He did noticed however my HD 650 sounded much darker and comparing my item with previously measured models the frequency chart revealed mine had indeed 4/5 dB less energy in the treble section. Full article on his site, scroll to bottom.

With that info and seeing where the problem lies I could properly eq my headphone and behold, the HD 650 came to live. Finally that bell/triangle 38 seconds into the song was there. I’m now enjoying the HD 650 that has now become one of my favorite headphones. Many thanks Solderdude.

So no, I don’t support the idea of upscaling but wholeheartedly support the idea of proper measurements and eq’ing a headphone.

 

[JohnYang1997]

If objectively better headphone amplifiers can make a pair of headphones sound better then there's scalability in this.
However there's two (extreme) ways to look at it
1, The headphones are so poorly designed that it sounds different from different sources.
2, The headphones are so good that you can hear difference of amplifiers out of it.

In reality, good headphones are generally less forgiving in amplifiers because they have to trade off something in order to get something else. That's it needs headroom, it needs low output impedance, it needs low noise low distortion. These are true.

However when we get to point that the amplifiers are "blameless" the difference should be minimal. And the scalability of headphones will mostly be gone. The amplifiers are all good enough.

 

[AnalogSteph]

I used to have one of these warmer-sounding old HD650s as well. They would always clash with my speakers. Eventually sold 'em and kept my battered old HD580s instead, which were a better match overall. (Note: I still think that sticking a decently wide piece of foam underneath the flattened original headband padding makes for a more comfortable solution than the narrow original ever was.)

Now that I upgraded my speakers, the '580s sound a bit too hot in parts of the treble (they are) and are rather lacking in the bass department (that is certainly true as well, my old speakers just were even more anemic). Been considering getting either some HD600s (now that they ditched the gaudy marble finish) or current-production HD650s instead.... not sure. I mean, ideally you want to EQ 'em both, but which ones would be easier...

 

[Incursio]

If objectively better headphone amplifiers can make a pair of headphones sound better then there's scalability in this.
However there's two (extreme) ways to look at it
1, The headphones are so poorly designed that it sounds different from different sources.
2, The headphones are so good that you can hear difference of amplifiers out of it.

In reality, good headphones are generally less forgiving in amplifiers because they have to trade off something in order to get something else. That's it needs headroom, it needs low output impedance, it needs low noise low distortion. These are true.

However when we get to point that the amplifiers are "blameless" the difference should be minimal. And the scalability of headphones will mostly be gone. The amplifiers are all good enough.

Coming from the guy who designed the best measuring headphone amplifier in ASR (or on the planet?...can't really say most transparent...transparent is transparent) as of March-April 2020...

...I would call this good information.

 

[solderdude]

If objectively better headphone amplifiers can make a pair of headphones sound better then there's scalability in this.

But what aspects needs to be 'better' and above which point there is no audibly 'better' anymore ?

The guys talking about scalability rarely talk about objectively better amps. In fact they usually dislike these amps (find them clinical and boring).
What they mean with 'better' is more tubes, more distortion ermm 'goodness' and moar power, higher price, more magic, more 'theories' of why that particular amp is 'more musical/analog/refined/smooth/warm' etc. and which designer/builder has the magic chops and knows which parts contain what magic and how to 'combine' those parts to get the perfect 'housesound'. For the pro-scalability' folks that's the scaling part. In reality it is their mind and output power that does the scaling.

Scalability of the headphones generally is not coming from distortion but high output voltage (headroom) is needed to make certain headphones sound loud/impressive without becoming 'nasty' or 'restricted' or 'compressed' sounding.

 

[Incursio]

The guys talking about scalability rarely talk about objectively better amps. In fact they usually dislike these amps (find them clinical and boring).
What they mean with 'better' is more tubes, more distortion ermm 'goodness' and moar power, higher price, more magic, more 'theories' of why that particular amp is 'more musical/analog/refined/smooth/warm' etc. and which designer/builder has the magic chops and knows which parts contain what magic and how to 'combine' those parts to get the perfect 'housesound'. For the pro-scalability' folks that's the scaling part. In reality it is their mind and output power that does the scaling.
.

Well, they have to get more and more 'creative' to stay relevant.

One can only hope that newcomers getting into the hobby have the good sense and intelligence to see through the fantasy.

For some reason, I can sense a lot of hype for tubes, Class A, or some other exotic topology incoming....

 

[MRC01]

That would be a logical assumption.
Take the supposedly audible differences in DACs that measure audibly transparent, for example...
After all these years, and despite advances in transducer technology, nobody has been able to pass a blind test to prove it. It's all just anecdotal.
...

That depends on the differences you're talking about. If the DACs measure audibly transparent then by definition, nobody can hear a difference. But not all DACs measure audibly transparent. The example I gave, of slow response or minimum phase filters, is not audibly transparent. Some of these alternative filter implementations can be detected in double-blind tests. This should be no surprise, as their measurements show differences in audible spectrum that can be audible (high frequency rolloff), so long as they are tested with source material with energy in that spectrum (castanets, jangling keys, etc.).

 

[Incursio]

That depends on the differences you're talking about. If the DACs measure audibly transparent then by definition, nobody can hear a difference. But not all DACs measure audibly transparent.

If it's audible, it's measurable, and some headphones will be able to pick out differences more easily than others. Of that, there is no question.

At this point, I think it's just a matter of semantics as to whether the headphone can be said to be 'scaling' or not.