What headphones sound the most like speakers?

[ADU]

The amp could also have something to do with the type of sound you're getting from a pair of headphones. So maybe experimenting with some different impedances, and tube amps vs. solid states, might also be worth a try. Some feel, for example, that a tube gives them a better or more natural sound than a solid state amp, for example.

Frequency response is more my area of expertise though, so recommendations on some of these things is a bit out of my line, aside from just some general impedance bridging tips, which could or could not apply in the OP's case.

Some headphones like more current though, while others seem to like more voltage. And then there are others which don't seem to care. And the impedance response of the headphones can also sometimes make a difference in how it will respond to a tube. And whether or not it will get more or less of a boost in the lower frequencies or warmth from that. Alot of this is over my head though, since I've not actually tried any tubes, and have fairly limited experience with HPs outside of the $250 price range.

I guess I'd probably start though by asking the OP how his current headphones are being driven.

 

[jae]

Headphones with significantly angled drivers (or pads) tend to sound more like speakers or have a more open soundstage.

For those of you experimenting with smyth, impulcifer and other 3d-sound DSP, what are good binaural microphones for self-measurement?

 

[ADU]

Headphones with significantly angled drivers (or pads) tend to sound more like speakers or have a more open soundstage.

An interesting point, jae. I think most of the Senn 5 and 6 series have angled drivers though. So the OP's HD598 probably already has this.

The impedance on the HD 598 is 50 ohms btw. And the sensitivity is around 100 dB/mW SPL or 111 dB/V SPL. So it can probably be driven by lower impedance portable devices. But might also benefit a little from a separate amp.

 

[ADU]

Frequency response of the HD598 compared to some other headphones with pretty good bass and treble extension. This is with diffuse field compensation. And the HD598 is in orange. The other headphone's don't necessarily represent the ideal response. But they are probably in sort of the generally neutral ballpark, as a group.

Based on the above plot, the HD598 is a bit withdrawn in the sub-bass, and upper mids between 1-2 kHz, and in the higher frequencies between about 10k and 13k, roughly. So its response is a little uneven. And also a bit V-shaped in the mids. But probably also lacking a little bit of air and fine detail in the treble, and thump way down low. Otherwise it is fairly neutral for an open-back headphone.

Depending on your personal preferences, and whether or not this is the kind of sound signature you like, it might be possible to tweak the frequency response a bit, to maybe give it a slightly more balanced sound, that would bring out a bit more detail in some of the areas where it's more depressed. Whether that would help to give it more of the kind of sound that the OP wants though is something I wouldn't know.

The impact in the lowest frequencies are probably being somewhat lost or hidden though by a little warmth, boominess and maybe some muddiness in the upper bass and lower mids around the 200 Hz range. So the headphones probably lack some sense of depth because of that. Maybe an EQ could help a bit with that, and maybe it couldn't, since these are open.

 

[jae]

An interesting point, jae. I think most of the Senn 5 and 6 series have angled drivers though. So the OP's HD598 probably already has this.

What came to mind was something more like the Sennheiser 800 series which is known for having a large soundstage. I guess it is possible that whatever angle they are using combined with the response of their drivers and the open design perhaps hits an unintentional "sweet spot" with many people, perhaps due to some coincidental commonality in HRTF amongst a population, or other factors that account for localisation.

Maybe if someone has a Sennheiser 800 series, they could comment on how or if the soundstange changes when they EQ their headphones away from their natural response (to the harman curve perhaps, or that of another popular headphone like 600 series).

 

[maverickronin]

What came to mind was something more like the Sennheiser 800 series which is known for having a large soundstage. I guess it is possible that whatever angle they are using combined with the response of their drivers and the open design perhaps hits an unintentional "sweet spot" with many people, perhaps due to some coincidental commonality in HRTF amongst a population, or other factors that account for localisation.

Maybe if someone has a Sennheiser 800 series, they could comment on how or if the soundstange changes when they EQ their headphones away from their natural response (to the harman curve perhaps, or that of another popular headphone like 600 series).

I have HD650s and the vanilla HD800.

IME, some of the important things in generating large soundstage in headphones seems to be larger drivers, farther from the outer ear, and angled away from the ear. I presume this is because it allows more of the wearer's natural pinna transfer function to be added to the final FR at the eardrum. RTINGS makes measurements and scores based on similar assumptions.

The 580/600/650 have smaller drivers that are pressed directly to the outer ear and have essentially no soundstage for an open headphone. The 800 series have larger drivers, further away from the ear, and at an angle and are some of the very best in that respect.

I use crossfeed and EQ all my headphones to more or less diffuse field with a bass boost below 100Hz. IME this will usually fix the shape of a headphone's soundstage causing it to be more forward (moving the apparent source forward of my ears) and and more symmetrical if it it unaturally wide (the space apparent sources can occupy is reduced in width but increased in depth so it doesn't sound like you are in the middle of a long hallway full of musicians) but does not increase it's overall volume.

IME EQ can improve the soundstage of most headphones, but it further improves headphones that already have great soundstage but suboptimal FR.

 

[ADU]

I have HD650s and the vanilla HD800.

IME, some of the important things in generating large soundstage in headphones seems to be larger drivers, farther from the outer ear, and angled away from the ear. I presume this is because it allows more of the wearer's natural pinna transfer function to be added to the final FR at the eardrum. RTINGS makes measurements and scores based on similar assumptions.

The 580/600/650 have smaller drivers that are pressed directly to the outer ear and have essentially no soundstage for an open headphone. The 800 series have larger drivers, further away from the ear, and at an angle and are some of the very best in that respect.

Interesting. I've always sort of wondered about that. So thanks for sharin this, maverickronin.

In case anyone here doesn't know what I was referring to with regard to the "surrounds" used on some drivers (Denon refers to this as "free-edge" technology), here is an animation showing the difference between this type of driver, and a normal dynamic driver.

This is a cross-sectional view. And the driver on the left uses a different, and more flexible material around just the edges of the driver (the "surround") so the diaphragm moves more as unit, like the diaphragm on speaker. Which supposedly results in a little better "slam" or impact, and lower distortion than the normal dynamic driver on the right, where the diaphragm simply flexes.

Whether it really produces a better sound, I don't really know. But there are number of higher-end dynamic headphones that employ tech similar to this in their drivers, including the Denons and Focals. And alot of folks seem to like it. And think it gives their headphones a bit more impact and better clarity.

Some of the Focals also have some resonances or harmonics in the higher frequencies, which can supposedly give them a slightly more "metallic" sound. And whether or not that might be related in some way to the type of free-edge design of some of their drivers, I couldn't really say. It is possible that there could be both some advantages and disadvantages to this approach though.

 

[jae]

I have HD650s and the vanilla HD800.

IME, some of the important things in generating large soundstage in headphones seems to be larger drivers, farther from the outer ear, and angled away from the ear. I presume this is because it allows more of the wearer's natural pinna transfer function to be added to the final FR at the eardrum. RTINGS makes measurements and scores based on similar assumptions.

The 580/600/650 have smaller drivers that are pressed directly to the outer ear and have essentially no soundstage for an open headphone. The 800 series have larger drivers, further away from the ear, and at an angle and are some of the very best in that respect.

I use crossfeed and EQ all my headphones to more or less diffuse field with a bass boost below 100Hz. IME this will usually fix the shape of a headphone's soundstage causing it to be more forward (moving the apparent source forward of my ears) and and more symmetrical if it it unaturally wide (the space apparent sources can occupy is reduced in width but increased in depth so it doesn't sound like you are in the middle of a long hallway full of musicians) but does not increase it's overall volume.

IME EQ can improve the soundstage of most headphones, but it further improves headphones that already have great soundstage but suboptimal FR.

That is definitely what I expected. In general I would say when looking for a headphone for playback "as-is" or with minimal EQ/DSP, the recipe would be to look for something with an open design (some passive crossfeed, more natural movement of air across the pinna, more natural room noise), angled drivers/pads, spacious capsule design, large diameter drivers, close to the harman curve, and something with low distortion/good EQ-ability to fix FR and ensure good SQ if necessarily, especially in the low end.

When doing more complex DSP/surround processing and implementing things like personal measurements, body tracking etc, closed headphones could probably have a more distinct advantage due to the ability to better control many of the factors than give open headphones their perceived practical advantages.

 

[ADU]

I have HD650s and the vanilla HD800.

IME, some of the important things in generating large soundstage in headphones seems to be larger drivers, farther from the outer ear, and angled away from the ear. I presume this is because it allows more of the wearer's natural pinna transfer function to be added to the final FR at the eardrum. RTINGS makes measurements and scores based on similar assumptions.

The 580/600/650 have smaller drivers that are pressed directly to the outer ear and have essentially no soundstage for an open headphone. The 800 series have larger drivers, further away from the ear, and at an angle and are some of the very best in that respect.

I'd suggest just replacing the pads with some thicker/deeper ones to try to better approximate the depth on the HD800. From what I've heard though, this is something you can't really do with the Senns. And it wouldn't really do anything to change the shape, dimensions or design of the drivers either.

I assume the HD800 is also using some different tech in its drivers than just a larger diameter, and deeper pads. But don't really know about that. Maybe some of Tyll's old articles would tell a little more about some of the differences though.

https://www.stereophile.com/writer/15081

 

[maverickronin]

When doing more complex DSP/surround processing and implementing things like personal measurements, body tracking etc, closed headphones could probably have a more distinct advantage due to the ability to better control many of the factors than give open headphones their advantage.

Open is pretty much always best unless you require isolation from outside noise. "Passive" crossfeed doesn't really amount to anything perceptible and being able to let the driver's backwave radiate into what is comparatively infinite space is a massive advantage over attempting to absorb or diffuse it all without coloring the direct sound.

I'd suggest just replacing the pads with some thicker/deeper ones to try to better approximate the depth on the HD800. From what I've heard though, this is something you can't really do with the Senns.

I did lots of experiments like that back in the day with making custom pads for my Fostex T50RP mods. Angled, extra deep pads did improve the size of the soundstage at the expense of creating a wonky FR.

 

[LightninBoy]

Probably a dumb question but I don't really know anything about headphones. I use Sennheiser 598's which I really love and sound great but they don't give even 10% of the experience of using my Revel's. Are there any headphones that give something close to the experience of speakers? Any price preferably under $2k.

There's much discussion around here about the harman curve. The whole theory behind that curve is to enable headphones to sound similar to good speakers in a good room.

When Amirm does reviews and measures headphones, the target FR he uses is based on the harman curve. So, you can review the headphone reviews on this site and find the ones that match his target curve either before or after EQ. Those will be the headphones that sound the most like good speakers in a good room.

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?pages/HeadphoneReview/

Use the "Recommended without EQ" and "Recommended with EQ" to narrow down to the headphones that match the target curve the best.

You mention bass is the main problem. That makes sense as those Sennheiser headphones typically match the harman curve pretty well except in the bass frequencies. Many folks report good results using EQ to boost the bass. Maybe try that option before spending money on new headphones. You have a popular model, so there are measurements and EQ profiles online that you can try, such as

https://www.dropbox.com/s/flxjqweapsikqm8/Sennheiser HD598SR.pdf?dl=0

Another option is DSP modeling. I haven't had good results with that, but I've used it in the context of music mixing and don't know much about consumer options.

 

[jae]

Here is a basic primer on the harman curve and what it accomplishes/its limitations:

https://www.headphonesty.com/2020/04/harman-target-curves-part-1/

https://www.headphonesty.com/2020/04/harman-target-curves-part-2/

https://www.headphonesty.com/2020/04/harman-target-curves-part-3/

There's much discussion around here about the harman curve. The whole theory behind that curve is to enable headphones to sound similar to good speakers in a good room.

When Amirm does reviews and measures headphones, the target FR he uses is based on the harman curve. So, you can review the headphone reviews on this site and find the ones that match his target curve either before or after EQ. Those will be the headphones that sound the most like good speakers in a good room.

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?pages/HeadphoneReview/

Use the "Recommended without EQ" and "Recommended with EQ" to narrow down to the headphones that match the target curve the best.

You mention bass is the main problem. That makes sense as those Sennheiser headphones typically match the harman curve pretty well except in the bass frequencies. Many folks report good results using EQ to boost the bass. Maybe try that option before spending money on new headphones. You have a popular model, so there are measurements and EQ profiles online that you can try, such as

https://www.dropbox.com/s/flxjqweapsikqm8/Sennheiser HD598SR.pdf?dl=0

Another option is DSP modeling. I haven't had good results with that, but I've used it in the context of music mixing and don't know much about consumer options.

There is also already a much wider database here: https://github.com/jaakkopasanen/AutoEq/blob/master/results/RANKING.md and most of them have been consistent with Amir's results and with this chart it is easy to tell if a headphone leans dark or bright.

Frequency response is a large part of the equation but there will be cases were a lesser harman-conforming headphone with EQ will sound more "speaker like" than a highly harman-conforming headphone with an identical score because of minor timbral differences provided by the headphone tuning itself or its interaction with the ear. A high score is definitely a good baseline but I can see a lot of headphones in lower ranges that have a superior qualities even when compared to another when both are EQ'd to the same curve.

 

[Jimmy]

I second the Sennheiser HD 800S recommendation, without getting into DSP are probably the closest to speaker listening (but still very different), but I don't agree with the HD 600/650 having no soundstage, for me it's more than adequate.

But anyway, there are no headphones that can provide the same listening experience as good speakers, sure that they are more convenient and allow listening in situations where speakers aren't a choice (family, neighbors, ...), but starting from confort (nothing in or on your ears/head), to naturalness, they can't be compared. For critical listening/detail retrieval, headphones win, though, but not for the overall experience.

 

[Robbo99999]

K702 and HD560s are the most speaker-like of my headphones (see in my sig my different headphones), with K702 pipping the HD560s with a wider soundstage, but HD560s soundstage is very accurate in it's presentation within it's smaller space. I do find both of those headphones unique for soundstage property though. (I use Harman EQ on all my headphones)

I agree with what other posters have said about Smyth Realiser (not that I've tried it but I understand the theory), and The Impulcifier Project could also be tried which is based on a similar angle: https://github.com/jaakkopasanen/Impulcifer.

For gaming purposes, I've found Soundblaster's implementation of Virtual 7.1 Surround Sound processing very convincing when used with my best soundstage headphones (the K702 & HD560s I mentioned) and I can certainly differentiate front & back sounds as well as different angles in horizontal plane (it doesn't do elevation). But I don't use any Soundblaster DSP for music listening.

 

[ADU]

Open is pretty much always best unless you require isolation from outside noise. "Passive" crossfeed doesn't really amount to anything perceptible and being able to let the driver's backwave radiate into what is comparatively infinite space is a massive advantage over attempting to absorb or diffuse it all without coloring the direct sound.

I did lots of experiments like that back in the day with making custom pads for my Fostex T50RP mods. Angled, extra deep pads did improve the size of the soundstage at the expense of creating a wonky FR.

I noticed some of the same kinds of issues when tinkering with the pads on my AKG K553's.

I don't currently own any open-back headphones. But have tried a few in the past. You also mentioned crossfeed. And I wonder if maybe you'd get a little bit of that from the headphones themselves in the higher frequencies, if you are using open headphones in a fairly reflective room.

 

[ADU]

I second the Sennheiser HD 800S recommendation, without getting into DSP are probably the closest to speaker listening (but still very different), but I don't agree with the HD 600/650 having no soundstage, for me it's more than adequate.

But anyway, there are no headphones that can provide the same listening experience as good speakers, sure that they are more convenient and allow listening in situations where speakers aren't a choice (family, neighbors, ...), but starting from confort (nothing in or on your ears/head), to naturalness, they can't be compared. For critical listening/detail retrieval, headphones win, though, but not for the overall experience.

K702 and HD560s are the most speaker-like of my headphones (see in my sig my different headphones), with K702 pipping the HD560s with a wider soundstage, but HD560s soundstage is very accurate in it's presentation within it's smaller space. I do find both of those headphones unique for soundstage property though. (I use Harman EQ on all my headphones)

I agree with what other posters have said about Smyth Realiser (not that I've tried it but I understand the theory), and The Impulcifier Project could also be tried which is based on a similar angle: https://github.com/jaakkopasanen/Impulcifer.

For gaming purposes, I've found Soundblaster's implementation of Virtual 7.1 Surround Sound processing very convincing when used with my best soundstage headphones (the K702 & HD560s I mentioned) and I can certainly differentiate front & back sounds as well as different angles in horizontal plane (it doesn't do elevation). But I don't use any Soundblaster DSP for music listening.

Thank you for weighin in with some of your opinions on this, Jimmy and Robbo99999.

Some more opinions from those who have done some comparisons with their own (or other people's?) in-room systems would also be welcome.

 

[ADU]

There's much discussion around here about the harman curve. The whole theory behind that curve is to enable headphones to sound similar to good speakers in a good room.

When Amirm does reviews and measures headphones, the target FR he uses is based on the harman curve. So, you can review the headphone reviews on this site and find the ones that match his target curve either before or after EQ. Those will be the headphones that sound the most like good speakers in a good room.

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?pages/HeadphoneReview/

Use the "Recommended without EQ" and "Recommended with EQ" to narrow down to the headphones that match the target curve the best.

You mention bass is the main problem. That makes sense as those Sennheiser headphones typically match the harman curve pretty well except in the bass frequencies. Many folks report good results using EQ to boost the bass. Maybe try that option before spending money on new headphones. You have a popular model, so there are measurements and EQ profiles online that you can try, such as

https://www.dropbox.com/s/flxjqweapsikqm8/Sennheiser HD598SR.pdf?dl=0

Another option is DSP modeling. I haven't had good results with that, but I've used it in the context of music mixing and don't know much about consumer options.

Here is a basic primer on the harman curve and what it accomplishes/its limitations:

https://www.headphonesty.com/2020/04/harman-target-curves-part-1/

https://www.headphonesty.com/2020/04/harman-target-curves-part-2/

https://www.headphonesty.com/2020/04/harman-target-curves-part-3/

There is also already a much wider database here: https://github.com/jaakkopasanen/AutoEq/blob/master/results/RANKING.md and most of them have been consistent with Amir's results and with this chart it is easy to tell if a headphone leans dark or bright.

Frequency response is a large part of the equation but there will be cases were a lesser harman-conforming headphone with EQ will sound more "speaker like" than a highly harman-conforming headphone with an identical score because of minor timbral differences provided by the headphone tuning itself or its interaction with the ear. A high score is definitely a good baseline but I can see a lot of headphones in lower ranges that have a superior qualities even when compared to another when both are EQ'd to the same curve.

The Harman curve is not a bad place to start. But I would not expect it to be completely accurate or reliable, especially in the higher frequencies.

 

[Robbo99999]

Yep, this visceral, tactile bass is what headphones lack, but there are actually silent 'wearable subwoofers' available that you can use with headphones which can compensate for this:

https://www.woojer.com/pages/strap
https://subpac.com/

Have you tried those, are they quite convincing or does it just feel weird/strange?

 

[Robbo99999]

An interesting point, jae. I think most of the Senn 5 and 6 series have angled drivers though. So the OP's HD598 probably already has this.

The impedance on the HD 598 is 50 ohms btw. And the sensitivity is around 100 dB/mW SPL or 111 dB/V SPL. So it can probably be driven by lower impedance portable devices. But might also benefit a little from a separate amp.

(HD600 & HD650 don't have angled drivers or pads, HD560s has angled drivers, haven't researched the others)

 

[ADU]

(HD600 & HD650 don't have angled drivers or pads, HD560s has angled drivers, haven't researched the others)

Interesting. Thank you for the correction, Robbo. The HD 598 also appears to have the E.A.R. technology used on the 560s. So maybe that means they the angled drivers too?