Zensō
Major Contributor
And there are people who don’t understand a simple answer. You’re now ignored, by the way.
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What else matters on the sound of a headphone besides the Harman curve and distortion?
- Thread starter Garrincha
- Start date
- Thread Starter
- #22
Which question I did not understand? I posted one for the thread that got not very satisfactory answers yet (but maybe there currently don't exist any). Ignored by whom, by you? That would be very harsh on me
Also, FR variation with placement on the same person as well. It's a near miracle headphones work as well as they do, testament to the ability of the human ear-brain system to adapt and compensate, when we consider the amount of variation.
- sample variation (due to the scale of the wavelengths of the frequencies headphones reproduce vs size of driver, size of ears, size of volume enclosed by earcup - incredibly sensitive vs loudspeakers)
- variation of how headphone interacts with the heads of different people
- variation in headphone response with different placement on the same person
Indeed !
For some headphones / individuals combinations, it might not have as much work to do in real-life positioning scenarios as one might expect from the sort of spatial averaging traces you may see on an ear simulator (which in my view serves a different purpose than to appraise positional variation in real-life scenarios) : https://audiosciencereview.com/foru...view-closed-back-headphone.19657/post-1068170
It's been a very long while since I owned them, but I distinctly remember my pair of HD800 sliding around my head quite easily. In contrast my pair of HD650 + Dekoni Elite Velour pads is glued to my head and shows very little seatings to seatings variation and variation when moving around.
It's possibly both an underestimated phenomenon for some headphones / individuals combinations, and not much of a problem for others.
Incredible design, the HD650. Had hoped the Austrian X65 would be able to do the same thing with more extension but the variation measurements I'm seeing (e.g. from Hi-Fi News) aren't promising.
One caveat I can see is that it does touch one's pinna (at least that's the case for me), perhaps other people may experience more seatings to seatings and positional variation than me as a result ?
It wasn't the worst I've measured on my head in terms of seatings to seatings variation (although not excellent either), the main issue I experienced was pads breaking in rather rapidly, with a rather audible result on the FR.
Going back to that thread's subject, there you go, another difficulty in terms of headphones being able to hit their target : how pads age over time and how much influence that has on the delivered FR.
DanielT
Major Contributor
Also consider this:
Headphones are hopeless in terms of frequency with huge deviations and require equalization to be truly sound balanced.
I do not understand at all how to give high marks to passive headphones, regardless of principle or price. I usually speculate that listening to headphones means such an unnatural experience that you easily lose your temper in terms of judgment. As an example, it can be mentioned that better in-ears often have 10-15 dB broadband for a high level around 5-8 kHz, followed by +/- 10 dB narrowband over 10 kHz. Over-ears are better, but even here the deviations are very large and would never be tolerated for speakers. In addition, in principle, all passive headphones lack a low base.
The tricky thing, however, is that only the listener can make the treble in particular because the ear canals (and in this respect the less important outer ears) differ enormously between different individuals.
audiosciencereview.com
Headphones are hopeless in terms of frequency with huge deviations and require equalization to be truly sound balanced.
I do not understand at all how to give high marks to passive headphones, regardless of principle or price. I usually speculate that listening to headphones means such an unnatural experience that you easily lose your temper in terms of judgment. As an example, it can be mentioned that better in-ears often have 10-15 dB broadband for a high level around 5-8 kHz, followed by +/- 10 dB narrowband over 10 kHz. Over-ears are better, but even here the deviations are very large and would never be tolerated for speakers. In addition, in principle, all passive headphones lack a low base.
The tricky thing, however, is that only the listener can make the treble in particular because the ear canals (and in this respect the less important outer ears) differ enormously between different individuals.
How about EQ with headphones?
You who do EQ with headphones . EQ setting,it's based on subjective, liking and taste in terms of sound, right? Subjectively because frequency curves and headphones are pretty pointless (how measure?) to start with because our ears look different, right? Or what do I know there may be special...
audiosciencereview.com
- Thread Starter
- #28
Please make a separate thread about headphone fitting. I am not interested in this here.
The headphone fitting affects compliance to Harman between listeners and across different listening sessions for the same listener. So it matters.
- Thread Starter
- #30
Please make a separate thread about headphone fitting. I am not interested in this here.
Ok, if you live on a noisy road and don't use closed or noise cancelling headphones, it may affect the sound as well. But I want to know which (potentially) measurable feature in the design and construction of a headphone and driver has which influence on the sound.
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IT IS MEASURABLE AND A COMMON FEATURE IN MEASUREMENT SETS THAT ARE PUBLISHED. Keith Howard's Headphone Test Lab/Hi-Fi News, Innerfidelity, Oratory to begin with.
Headphone Test Lab test results manufacturers sennheiser hd 800 s full test
Headphone Test Lab test results manufacturers sennheiser hd 800 s full test
headphonetestlab.co.uk
Your condescension and dunning kruger isn't appreciated here.
- Thread Starter
- #32
What is measureable? If you set up loudspeakers and arrange and optimise the sound for the sweat spot and then go in another room for listening, the sound will deteriorate. So what?IT IS MEASURABLE AND A COMMON FEATURE IN MEASUREMENT SETS THAT ARE PUBLISHED. Keith Howard's Headphone Test Lab/Hi-Fi News, Innerfidelity, Oratory to begin with.
Headphone Test Lab test results manufacturers sennheiser hd 800 s full test
Headphone Test Lab test results manufacturers sennheiser hd 800 s full test
Your condescension and dunning kruger isn't appreciated here.
- Thread Starter
- #33
Trolling is also not appreciated. Look, it is very simple. This is a thread I started for the question to discuss I am interested in. It is about the measurable characteristics which have an influence on the sound besides FR (Harman curve) and distortion, that potentially separate cheap from expensive headphones, as there is a number of quite affordable headphones following rather closely the Harman curve and having quite low distortion. So in which way are these SOUNDWISE inferior, if at all ? That is what I would like to know. I am not interested in headphone fitting as I consider this a subordinate issue. If you want to discuss headphone fitting, please make an own separate thread and discuss it there as much as you like. What is the point?
Aside from THD+N, and raw frequency response (which I assume is what you mean when you refer to the Harman curve), there are a number of other characteristics that can influence a headphone's perceived sound quality and imaging that could be measured. Some of these have already been mentioned. But I'll add a few others of my own to the list that I think are also important, like driver symmetry....
isolation
impedance (both electrical & acoustic?) and damping factor
driver symmetry
phase differences
group delay
driver angle
driver size or displacement
pad/cup depth, driver distance, and amount of pinna interaction
sensitivity
consistency
sound leakage and crosstalk (both related and unrelated to the seal)
impulse response & cumulative spectral decay
other forms of nonlinear distortion than THD+N or SINAD
I'm sure there are others I haven't thought of, or am forgetting as well.
isolation
impedance (both electrical & acoustic?) and damping factor
driver symmetry
phase differences
group delay
driver angle
driver size or displacement
pad/cup depth, driver distance, and amount of pinna interaction
sensitivity
consistency
sound leakage and crosstalk (both related and unrelated to the seal)
impulse response & cumulative spectral decay
other forms of nonlinear distortion than THD+N or SINAD
I'm sure there are others I haven't thought of, or am forgetting as well.
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Tyll Hertsens would discuss many of the above in depth in his headphone reviews for Inner Fidelity, which can be found here...
www.stereophile.com
And here is an example of one of his many measurement charts, in this case for the Sennheiser HD-650....
| Stereophile.com
www.stereophile.com
And here is an example of one of his many measurement charts, in this case for the Sennheiser HD-650....
- Thread Starter
- #36
Well, what you list are things that can be measured, but, at least at first glance, they are not clearly related to sound quality or characteristics, there are excellent headphones with high and low impedance (Hifiman Susvara has 60 Ohm impedance and sensitivity of 83 dB, Audeze 14 Ohm and 90 dB, Focal Utopia 80 Ohm and 104dB, while the Sennheiser HD 800 S has and impedance of 300 Ohm and a sensitivity of 102 dB). So these values tell you nothing about sound quality. And several other items from your list, like group delay or driver angle, are, as far is I know, not very well unterstood in their relation to sound, but maybe you can enlighten me a bit more.
Another more controversial, but also interesting resource on this subject are the reviews and articles on headphone and headphone amplifier measurements by NwAvGuy. Especially from the year 2011, which can be found here...
nwavguy.blogspot.com
Introduction
Tap... Tap... Is this thing on? I've resisted the “blog temptation” for a long time as I know I might spend entirely too much time publishin...
nwavguy.blogspot.com
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DanielT
Major Contributor
HiFi gadgets, other than speakers, that can explain the sound are FR and distortion + noise. As far as I know. For speakers the same with the addition directivity.
For example, how sub bass frequencies bounce around the room and reach the listener is obviously something that plays a big role. But it's mostly due to room acoustics, placement of speakers, time delay and so on. How does the sound bounce around in one ear compared to another ear? Ears and ear canals are different between different people.
I do not know how it works with directivity and headphones because I am not a headphone guy.
One thing is for sure, low distortion headphones that are EQ friendly are preferable. EQ and headphones really belong together.
Edit:
FR can in many cases, at best, be set according to taste. Distortion levels are ...well. Distortion can not be changed so if you get annoyed at that you have no other solution to the problem than that playing at not too high a volume. ... or buy better low distorting Hifi gadgets.
Then the thought arises when one hears distortion (at what% level)? But it's OT. There are other threads on that topic.
For example, how sub bass frequencies bounce around the room and reach the listener is obviously something that plays a big role. But it's mostly due to room acoustics, placement of speakers, time delay and so on. How does the sound bounce around in one ear compared to another ear? Ears and ear canals are different between different people.
I do not know how it works with directivity and headphones because I am not a headphone guy.
One thing is for sure, low distortion headphones that are EQ friendly are preferable. EQ and headphones really belong together.
Edit:
FR can in many cases, at best, be set according to taste. Distortion levels are ...well. Distortion can not be changed so if you get annoyed at that you have no other solution to the problem than that playing at not too high a volume. ... or buy better low distorting Hifi gadgets.
Then the thought arises when one hears distortion (at what% level)? But it's OT. There are other threads on that topic.
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Check out some of the other resources that I've provided links to above, and also some of Tyll's YouTube reviews and his seminars for various groups on headphone measurements. I think you'll find some of them interesting, and potentially informative.
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