Headphones v. Speakers

[semente]

I have never liked wearing headphones and find their spatial presentation too strange (I listen mostly to "classical" music).

In my view, speakers create a more convincing illusion of a musical performance.

 

R

[Paul R]

I have never liked wearing headphones and find their spatial presentation too strange (I listen mostly to "classical" music).

In my view, speakers create a more convincing illusion of a musical performance.

 

R

 

This is usually the case, but there is DSP out there that can make a set of headphones sound exactly like the best speakers in the most perfect room you can imagine. DSP can not fix bad rooms, but boy howdy- what it can do when there is no room involved at all is almost unbelievable.

[dalethorn]

I have never liked wearing headphones and find their spatial presentation too strange (I listen mostly to "classical" music). In my view, speakers create a more convincing illusion of a musical performance. R

 

I much prefer the sound of headphones with their clarity to speakers and the smeary sound they have. As far as the spatial aspects go, most of that problem isn't spatial per se, it's the fact that many premium headphones have very aberrant frequency responses, and are quite irritating given how close they are to your ears. A good parametric equalizer and knowing how to use it can make the difference between agony and bliss.

 

Edit: Someday I want to sit in on someone's speaker-centric system and tune it the way I do headphones. I think I can make the sound and soundstage very pleasant - thrilling even, although there's little can be done with the smearing unless the room is slightly "live" to begin with, and yet doesn't have bad peaks and dips at the preferred listening location.

[DigiPete]

I find stereo flat and bland compared to a good surround recording. ?

 

Luckily both speakers and cans now offer great surround. ?

 

Dale, it would definitely be interesting to compare your adjusted preference with Genelecs linear Autocal calibration.

[semente]

I like the sound that speakers generate in a room more than the sound that headphones generate in ear cups... To me the latter just doesn't sound good nor "natural".

 

R

[Ragingfighter]

Keep in mind though, there when you refer to sound smearing with speakers in an actual presentation of music depending on the recording whether it is live or not there is very much quite a bit of sound smearing no matter where you go to some fault it is in some aspects of playback of somethings reproduce through recording a level of sound smearing to start with. This is especially true with live performances remember whether it's headphones or speakers they're only as good as the best microphone and environments possibly used. You could've the best treated room for speakers you can have the best rated headphones but the recording itself sounds like crap or is remastered in a way that is not to the level of "perfection" it doesn't matter. Besides the counterargue smearing in some cases the acoustics of the soundtrack itself really are where the essence of the song why especially when people perform in venues like chapels something that has very unique acoustic properties that you cannot obtain anywhere else truly. I don't find that either way is wrong it is truly a matter of taste and really nobody's wrong or right in this matter. Like I said previously it's all about enjoying what you hearing enjoying the music it comes to the point when you worry about hearing fingers over a guitar more than actually enjoying the track you're listening to you have a problem. The problem is allowing yourself to be too worried about perfection and not enjoying what was originally turned it in the first place which was the music.

[Ragingfighter]

I appreciate what headphones bring to listening to music I do but I have learned not to overly worry about the perfection of every single thing I listen to as I do like to enjoy what I'm listening to such as what's called music. The point to make is I'm not attacking your statement I'm just saying in all of this enjoy what you have to listen to don't get spoiled by high-end gear ultimately because you want to be able to listen to music anywhere you go and I feel totally unimpressed or uninterested. I love listening to music first and foremost everything else when calibrating or having the right "headphone" or the right set of "speakers" is secondary. Honestly without the joy of music half of the use set of these items would be pretty much useless outside of movies. I say this they both play in equally valuable role in the world be at on a personal level such as headphones especially in transit or a good set of speakers or leased a decent set of speakers set up the right way that suit your needs. They're both equally important

[dalethorn]

I find stereo flat and bland compared to a good surround recording. ? Luckily both speakers and cans now offer great surround. ? Dale, it would definitely be interesting to compare your adjusted preference with Genelecs linear Autocal calibration.

 

Measurements and auto-correction can sometimes change a muddy or 'flat' sound to something more interesting and accurate (good). But my discovery (and I can't be the first) is that correcting sudden and large changes in response - effectively treating the resonances etc. - opens up the soundstage and realism in a very satisfying way. I don't think that current auto-correction apps can do that, except by accident.

[dalethorn]

Keep in mind though, there when you refer to sound smearing with speakers in an actual presentation of music depending on the recording whether it is live or not there is very much quite a bit of sound smearing no matter where you go to some fault it is in some aspects of playback of somethings reproduce through recording a level of sound smearing to start with. This is especially true with live performances remember whether it's headphones or speakers they're only as good as the best microphone and environments possibly used. You could've the best treated room for speakers you can have the best rated headphones but the recording itself sounds like crap or is remastered in a way that is not to the level of "perfection" it doesn't matter. Besides the counterargue smearing in some cases the acoustics of the soundtrack itself really are where the essence of the song why especially when people perform in venues like chapels something that has very unique acoustic properties that you cannot obtain anywhere else truly. I don't find that either way is wrong it is truly a matter of taste and really nobody's wrong or right in this matter. Like I said previously it's all about enjoying what you hearing enjoying the music it comes to the point when you worry about hearing fingers over a guitar more than actually enjoying the track you're listening to you have a problem. The problem is allowing yourself to be too worried about perfection and not enjoying what was originally turned it in the first place which was the music.

 

J. Gordon Holt addressed smearing definitively in his 1972 Stereophile review of the Bose 901 - still available on their website. But to clarify further, an audiophile's preference (as a rule) is to find as tonally accurate a reproduction of musical sound as possible, at least as a starting point, and not merely to satisfy an undefined 'preference'.

[dalethorn]

I like the sound that speakers generate in a room more than the sound that headphones generate in ear cups... To me the latter just doesn't sound good nor "natural". R

 

Very few people would choose headphones, if they had a choice to play speakers at realistic volume levels in their apartments at nighttime. So for the unfortunate millions who don't enjoy that choice, the key to maximum enjoyment is getting around that unnatural sound somehow - and it's doable.

[DigiPete]

Measurements and auto-correction can sometimes change a muddy or 'flat' sound to something more interesting and accurate (good). But my discovery (and I can't be the first) is that correcting sudden and large changes in response - effectively treating the resonances etc. - opens up the soundstage and realism in a very satisfying way. I don't think that current auto-correction apps can do that, except by accident.

 

I rely on a calibrated mic and a pro system to get there with a minimum of filters.

 

I rely on my ears to choose the result I like the best.

 

Dale, I invite you to come best my calibration should you pass through Copenhagen.

 

Hmmmm . . . This can be nothing but a win - win for me.

[dalethorn]

I rely on a calibrated mic and a pro system to get there with a minimum of filters.

 

I rely on my ears to choose the result I like the best.

 

Dale, I invite you to come best my calibration should you pass through Copenhagen.

 

Hmmmm . . . This can be nothing but a win - win for me.

 

The thing is, what I've described has never been discussed in audiophile forums that I'm aware of, and so I have to assume that it's never been done.

[esldude]

I much prefer the sound of headphones with their clarity to speakers and the smeary sound they have. As far as the spatial aspects go, most of that problem isn't spatial per se, it's the fact that many premium headphones have very aberrant frequency responses, and are quite irritating given how close they are to your ears. A good parametric equalizer and knowing how to use it can make the difference between agony and bliss.

 

Edit: Someday I want to sit in on someone's speaker-centric system and tune it the way I do headphones. I think I can make the sound and soundstage very pleasant - thrilling even, although there's little can be done with the smearing unless the room is slightly "live" to begin with, and yet doesn't have bad peaks and dips at the preferred listening location.

 

Interested in how you go about tuning your headphones. Have you written out the process somewhere before or would you mind outlining your procedure here?

[DigiPete]

The thing is, what I've described has never been discussed in audiophile forums that I'm aware of, and so I have to assume that it's never been done.

 

Would you care to elaborate on the process, I'm most eager to learn and I'm surely not the only one.

[monteverdi]

The idealized response curve of speakers is easy to describe: flat. Of course there is the room and the ear/brain can compensate for it (to some extent). Headphone are much more complicated because they depend on individual ear structure and how exactly sit on the head. The good part is no room. So which variable is preferable?

[dalethorn]

Interested in how you go about tuning your headphones. Have you written out the process somewhere before or would you mind outlining your procedure here?

 

I wrote out an Audioforge tutorial (on my dalethorn site under hifi misc), but I'm not sure if it's that much help outside of the mechanics of the settings. More generally, the idea with any equalizer is to first determine if the headphone or speakers have an acceptable balance of bass/mids/highs, since a broad boost or cut in those areas adds to the burden of the EQ. Since Audioforge shows a result curve as you move the sliders, that immediate result gives you important feedback in what you're doing (i.e. the result isn't the same as the slider settings, since adjacent sliders affect each other). So having an equalizer that shows the actual result curve as you work is best, but not necessary.

 

What you're after mainly, assuming your overall balance is OK, is to adjust the frequencies where there's a major amplitude difference between frequencies that are close to each other. I usually start with freq's like 100/150/200/300/400/500/600/700/800/900/1k/1.5k/2k/3k/4k/5k/6k/7k/8k/9k/10k and work with those, but if you wanted to be more accurate you could run sweeps that go continuously across the spectrum, so if there's a sudden sharp peak or dip at, say, 3.3 khz, you can address that more precisely.

 

Anyway, once I find such a peak or dip, I try to boost the freq. where there's a dip, or cut the freq. where there's a peak, and then adjust the adjacent freq's (perhaps one khz apart) which have been pulled up some by the boost or pushed down by the cut. You'll see that happen on the graph. In other words, instead of using the 'Q' feature to widen or narrow the slider freq., which requires great precision, I just accomplish the same thing by using two or 3 sliders to get the same effect. If you adjust just one or two of those sudden peaks or dips in the response, you should hear a greatly reduced coloration just by flipping the EQ on and off.

 

It's possible to get nearly immediate results if you have the sense of what to do, but practice helps of course. One very important thing to remember is that many or most people hear somewhat differently at different times of day, especially if tasks change suddenly, like returning from a drive in traffic or otherwise going from a noisy to quiet environment or vice-versa. It's necessary to either run curves at different times and compare them, or somehow take that effect into account so you don't go back to your curve at a different time and say "whoa - how did I come up with that?"

 

But the bottom line is the goal, not to flatten the freq. response per se as the usual EQ task assumes, but rather to address the sudden changes in volume at different freq's that are mostly caused by resonances, and fixing those even partially almost always reduces colorations and greatly enhances the soundstage.

[dalethorn]

The idealized response curve of speakers is easy to describe: flat. Of course there is the room and the ear/brain can compensate for it (to some extent). Headphone are much more complicated because they depend on individual ear structure and how exactlyy sit on the head.

 

My experience says that the idealized curve isn't flat, because of many complex factors including how the speakers perform with a flat freq. response in a complex field where various acoustics influence narrow bands of sound etc. Getting a flat response via automated tools is the easy fix - desirable for most people - but doesn't directly address the major sonic problems. There's no adequate way to describe this when you haven't performed the process and heard the result, but the bottom line is that reducing the specific colorations that kill the soundstage and make things sound unnatural is the real goal, and that's probably *all* that you need to do.

[dalethorn]

Would you care to elaborate on the process, I'm most eager to learn and I'm surely not the only one.

 

I think what I described below covers most everything, but I'd reiterate here that the most useful experiment is to use the equalizer not to go after a generally flat room response, but rather get your proper bass/mids/treble balance through acoustic means, then use the equalizer only to go after the specific colorations you have, i.e. the sudden changes in volume/amplitude you hear with tone sweeps.

[Skeptic]

I generally prefer headphones to speakers.

 

I find headphone listening far more engaging than speakers. You are enveloped in the sound, and it always sounds correct no matter where you are in the room, whether you're sitting up, reclining in a chair, or lying down.

I can take my headphones with me whether I am around the house or away on a trip.

 

I have never heard speakers that are as detailed as headphones, or as articulate in the lower frequencies.

Headphones can block out external noise, and mean that I'm not disturbing anyone else either.

 

Once you get crossfeed/hrtf sorted out, I find headphones to provide more specific positional information than speakers.

And they sound rather impressive when you feed them a 5.1 signal through the right processing.

 

 

That's not to say that speakers cannot do these things, I just have not heard a speaker setup which does.

Speakers end up being far more expensive to get similar performance, and then you have to deal with the room that the speakers are placed in as well.

I feel like I may have to look into getting a 5.1 setup to have a speaker system that is half as involving as headphones are - but then again, the last time I had a 5.1 setup for movies (never really considered 5.1 music at the time) it felt like a gimmick or a distraction to me. So perhaps that's not the answer.

 

Of course speakers have their place - you can't entertain guests with a pair of headphones - but for personal listening for enjoyment, I always end up putting on headphones.

 

I suppose that's why I'm excited for things like the Devialet Phantom or the new line of Genelec SAM speakers replacing traditional speakers and separates.

[semente]

The idealized response curve of speakers is easy to describe: flat. Of course there is the room and the ear/brain can compensate for it (to some extent). Headphone are much more complicated because they depend on individual ear structure and how exactly sit on the head. The good part is no room. So which variable is preferable?

 

My experience says that the idealized curve isn't flat, because of many complex factors including how the speakers perform with a flat freq. response in a complex field where various acoustics influence narrow bands of sound etc. Getting a flat response via automated tools is the easy fix - desirable for most people - but doesn't directly address the major sonic problems. There's no adequate way to describe this when you haven't performed the process and heard the result, but the bottom line is that reducing the specific colorations that kill the soundstage and make things sound unnatural is the real goal, and that's probably *all* that you need to do.

 

I think that one must differentiate between on-axis free-field (anechoic) frequency response and in-room frequency response.

A loudspeaker with a flat on-axis free-field FR doesn't necessarilly produce a flat curve at the listening spot.

If the speakers produce an unbalanced off-axis response then the results at the listening spot will be very much room dependent.

And there is the matter of floor-bounce, a floor-induced reflection that produces cancellation of a narrow band in the lower frequencies.

 

I'm not sure that there's even an agreement on the "right" shape of the on-axis free-field frequency response curve.

While Toole & Co. and several others defend a flat curve, both Edgar Villchur (AR) and the BBC Research Department preferred a tilted curve gently sloping from LF to HF; the latter also opted for a slight (on- and off-axis) dip in the "presence" (2-4kHz) region for a more "realistic" presentation of the orchestral sound "perspective".

 

As for the in-room response, B&K did some research on the subject and the result was this curve:

 

 

 

If you wish to do some reading:

 

B&K "Relevant loudspeaker tests in studios, in Hi-Fi dealers' demo rooms, in the home, etc. using 1/3 octave, pink-weighted, random noise"

http://www.bksv.co.uk/doc/17-197.pdf

 

BBC/Harwood "Some factors in loudspeaker quality"

http://www.linkwitzlab.com/Wireless%20World/Harwood-BBC.htm

 

Toole "Audio Engineering Science in the Service of Art" (from page 5 onwards)

http://www.theaudiocritic.com/back_issues/The_Audio_Critic_28_r.pdf

[semente]

As for headphone frequency response, I enjoyed listening to this interview with Paul Barton:

 

[monteverdi]

I think that one must differentiate between on-axis free-field (anechoic) frequency response and in-room frequency response.

A loudspeaker with a flat on-axis free-field FR doesn't necessarilly produce a flat curve at the listening spot.

If the speakers produce an unbalanced off-axis response then the results at the listening spot will be very much room dependent.

And there is the matter of floor-bounce, a floor-induced reflection that produces cancellation of a narrow band in the lower frequencies.

 

I'm not sure that there's even an agreement on the "right" shape of the on-axis free-field frequency response curve.

While Toole & Co. and several others defend a flat curve, both Edgar Villchur (AR) and the BBC Research Department preferred a tilted curve gently sloping from LF to HF; the latter also opted for a slight (on- and off-axis) dip in the "presence" (2-4kHz) region for a more "realistic" presentation of the orchestral sound "perspective".

 

As for the in-room response, B&K did some research on the subject and the result was this curve:

 

 

 

If you wish to do some reading:

 

B&K "Relevant loudspeaker tests in studios, in Hi-Fi dealers' demo rooms, in the home, etc. using 1/3 octave, pink-weighted, random noise"

http://www.bksv.co.uk/doc/17-197.pdf

 

BBC/Harwood "Some factors in loudspeaker quality"

http://www.linkwitzlab.com/Wireless%20World/Harwood-BBC.htm

 

Toole "Audio Engineering Science in the Service of Art" (from page 5 onwards)

http://www.theaudiocritic.com/back_issues/The_Audio_Critic_28_r.pdf

 

I agree that the B&K curve is a good approximation but it is a composite of speaker and room and therefore room position dependent. What is the relevant free-field response is depending on measurement(and eventually listening) position - one reason I never like speakers with multiple drivers and crossovers above a few hundred Hz.

[semente]

I don't understand what you are trying to say.

Speakers are meant to be used in rooms and the performance depends on the sonic atributes of the room as well as the positioning of both speakers and listener (hi-fi stereo is a solo experience).

If the speaker has flat on-axis free-field frequency response, balanced off-axis response and care was taken to minimize or eliminate floor-bounce then it's performance with be less room-dependent.

[dalethorn]

I don't understand what you are trying to say.

Speakers are meant to be used in rooms and the performance depends on the sonic atributes of the room as well as the positioning of both speakers and listener (hi-fi stereo is a solo experience). If the speaker has flat on-axis free-field frequency response, balanced off-axis response and care was taken to minimize or eliminate floor-bounce then it's performance with be less room-dependent.

 

That's a perfect summation.

[esldude]

I agree that the B&K curve is a good approximation but it is a composite of speaker and room and therefore room position dependent. What is the relevant free-field response is depending on measurement(and eventually listening) position - one reason I never like speakers with multiple drivers and crossovers above a few hundred Hz.

 

Well, I do room correction, and most such packages suggest a similar curve. Peter Walker years ago suggested a downward tilt of 3 db per decade which would be -9 db drop from 20 hz to 20khz. You can adjust the curves for the listening position and you end up with one similar to the B&K curve. Flatter is too bright (actually I find their suggestion on the bright side of things). The measurements of such are an average right around the listening position. I use panel speakers without multiple drivers and still this is so.