What determines the spacious effect of a headphone?

[tomtrp]

Headphones like AKG K371 do sound quite good after EQ to the target plus some personal preference.
But it doesn't provide the spacial experience (or in ambiguous hifi words: Headphones' soundstage and imaging ) like HD800 or other "big soundstage" headphones (usually expensive).HD800 has some flaws in frequency response, but the spacial experience is just way better than AKG K371 plus EQ.
Note I am not talking about the effects you can tune on in many sound cards and music players, such effects usually try to mimic speakers but doesn't feel natural to me for headphones.
I remember there is some research shows that "big soundstage and good imaging" correlates with certain frequency response, but what is it? How do you tell the spacial effect of a headphone from frequency response? Any other factors like driver size, design have great impact?
Or is there any tool or trick that can give AKG k371 a big soundstage and precise imaging while not sacrificing its frequency response too much?

 

[Patrick1958]

Owning several headphones I'm experiencing angled drivers provide the best spatial experience.

 

[fieldcar]

Rtings addresses this in their reviews. Take a look at the soundstage section. Maybe you could eq to their target.

https://www.rtings.com/headphones/reviews/akg/k371/

 

[Haint]

Owning several headphones I'm experiencing angled drivers provide the best spatial experience.

May be, but don't the HD560S and PC38X have angled drivers? I don't recall seeing any impressions about noteworthy spatial performance out of them. If I'm not mistaken it's just the opposite, they're lauded for their neutral sound profile, but the soundstage and image are claimed to be poor to boring.

 

[Patrick1958]

May be, but don't the HD560S and PC38X have angled drivers? I don't recall seeing any impressions about noteworthy spatial performance out of them. If I'm not mistaken it's just the opposite, they're lauded for their neutral sound profile, but the soundstage and image are claimed to be poor to boring.

Solderdude's impression is the opposite of your statement.

 

[rxp]

Imaging on headphones without crosstalk is a very odd concept to me. I have a friend who has a blocked ear canal due to a skin flap - he can still locate sounds - his brain developed differently so perhaps to him it'll be a more reasonable concept.

In my experience spatial cues are entirely by DSP. Using Impuclifer for a couple of years now I can make mostly any headphone sound like my real 7 channel Kef R300 setup. On the go I love the Dolby Atmos effect that my Galaxy has with any set of earphones. Listening to acoustic recordings like MTV Unplugged that have a real sense of sound stage sound amazing on either.

 

[threni]

I've tried to find out about soundstage as it's an interesting concept; I love my HD 660S but when I read about the stupidly expensive HD 800S (even with their current £200 discount) and their apparently awesome soundstage I wonder how I'd experience that. I look forward trying a pair when the whole zombie apocalypse thing has blown over, and dreaming.

It's not clear how you'd get a wider soundstage. I tried playing around a little with some plugins in Audacity but they didn't do anything for me. I've read about "angled drivers". Not sure exactly what that means. Is there some suggestion that frequencies reach your ears at a different time relative to other frequencies? Is it that the furthest left is more left (ditto for right)? And/or in front of you quieter things sound further away?

And I appreciate there's always going to be a situation where each brand has a model for different price points, so there's always going to be expensive models which don't necessarily cost all that much more to produce than the cheaper ones (I'm mindful here of 1990's CD players where you could get a cheaper model without a remote, but where remotes from the expensive models would work on the "remoteless" ones, presumably because it was cheaper to just produce the one PCB etc and keep quiet about it to get people to pay up) but is an angled driver something you could simulate via modding the headphones? Is it cost which means the HD 660S doesn't have angled drivers, or just maintaining a price differential? If you dismantled the HD 660S and HD 800S and taped them to Amir's headphone tester would you still get the wide soundstage? You can get DACs and amps which are "perfect" for peanuts these days; is there anything inherently expensive about the parts or tooling needed to produce headphones, or is it possible Topping et al. could produce a HD 800S quality headphone for £300 or so (and still make a profit)?

 

[Chromatischism]

In my limited experience it mostly seems to be spectral balance (frequency response) and fit of the device on the head/in the ear. The latter includes closed/open/loose/tight/etc.

 

[highpurityusbcable]

Sobriety level in my experience.

 

[BillG]

A slight channel imbalance or delay can increase the effect.

 

[3125b]

If I remember right Focal said in their whitepaper for the Elear and Utopia that the position of the driver at an angle and towards the front of the ear has a great effect. Listening to my Elear that holds true, the imaging is fantastic.
But that appears to only be one of several fators. In a weird way the Sennheiser HD 555 (open back) doesn't work for me in terms of stereo image, whereas the closed back HD 569 works well. They have the same ear cup construction with the driver at the same position relative to the ear.

 

[Feelas]

@3125b did you find KNS-8400 spatially nice? They seem to be angled under pads.

 

[3125b]

No, not really. But they do have fairly small earcups and shallow pads, so they sit right on the pinna anyway.

 

[Inner Space]

Like Yogi said, I think 90% of it is half mental. Having a headphone clamped to your ear is a fundamentally weird experience for an organ that evolved to sense its wider surroundings. The less the better, therefore lighter, larger, more open-construction designs like the HD800 start out with a subliminal advantage.