Here's a different way to drive any of the 4-series transducers by Etymotic. The idea is to reduce the driving impedance without sacrificing the treble/bass balance. This will improve the damping factor at the transducer's resonant frequency, to produce a more natural sound. Unfortunately...

Shorting the left and right channels together is not the most elegant way to achieve mono. Here's another approach:- SW1 is a 6P4T shorting (make before break) rotary switch, quite a rare bird. With 30 connecting tabs in two layers, figuring out which is which is also a bit of fun. Once...

Connect two sets of headphones to a single source and gain control becomes an issue. Sticking an inline volume control on one pair of headphones can help, but often has the unwelcome side effect of causing the other person's headphones to get louder when you turn yours down. Plus, those things...

Modern headphones are too sensitive. How sensitive should they be? Some people find that previous favourites like the HD580 (at 102 dB/V) are hard to drive with portable players but I've had more frustration due to the opposite problem, i.e. background hiss from headphones which are too...

Here's an easy project for those times when a 6x6 matrix stepped attenuator is overkill. An inline volume control is handy when sharing a source or to reduce background hiss. It also helps you to get a good sound from sources which don't perform well at low volume settings. Ideally, P1 would...

So proud of my new toy... Big knob for coarse control = 6dB/step. Small knob for fine control = 2dB/step. For those times when I need an in-line volume control, I now have something I can rely on, i.e. no crackling or channel imbalance, plus a nice low output impedance to drive...

Headphone efficiency has been quoted in dB/mW ever since headphones were invented, hasn't it? Probably a good idea too, because it was fairly easy to calculate how much power you were going to need. It also allowed manufacturers to compete on a meaningful basis, improving efficiency with better...

A couple of weeks ago I was listening to the sample disc from Gramophone magazine (February) when I noticed something odd from my trusty portable CD player - a subtle effect but definitely something there, which if I had to "give it a name" would be noise pumping. The track was the 2nd...

So there I was at http://www.amazon.com, browsing through the back catalogue of Top 40 hits from 1902, when some bits were flipped by a cosmic ray or something. Check out the music samples on this CD:- Stenhammar #1, Jarvi/Gothenburg. <Search for B0000016A4 if the link doesn't work.>

Evidently, humans weren't designed to be able to hear clearly while cycling, running or just facing into a decent breeze. Most four-legged creatures can wiggle their ears in various directions. Some can even ride bicycles, but I digress. By the simple act of extending an index finger skywards...

Right now I'm listening to the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra playing Tchaikovsky 6 under the direction of Mariss Janssons. This is a live FM radio broadcast thanks to NHK, from their hall in Tokyo. Great sound, although I could do some more work on the reception. Is this really analogue? Perhaps...

The ATH-PRO700.

A-T's Hong Kong website carries some pictures of four open headphones due for release late October:- Judging just from the model numbers these will be in the low to mid price bracket.

Can someone be completely uninterested in music? Someone whose radio is always tuned to the news & talkback channel... Someone whose only CD's were presents... Someone with no interest in going to hear a live event... Is it humanly possible? How could that come about? Or can the human need...

Lately I've been enjoying the sound of an oldie but a goodie. "Legato Link" is Pioneer's version of single-bit digital-to-analog conversion, which appeared in their CD players around 10 years ago and can still be found in their latest DVD gear. The PD-S801 is a CD player:-

Where is it? In 100 years of audio recording we've seen only two methods of analogue recording; grooves and tape. Is anyone even working on a successor, or are we forever committed to dividing the world into smaller and smaller separate pieces? Is it pointless to even think about what form it...

Once upon a time I put the boot into Sennheiser for not doing a good job of distributing their headphones. Since that time though, they have made fantastic progress, not just in Hi-Fi stores but also with their budget models appearing in chain stores. [These developments were purely coincidental...

Images attached to posts don't seem to be visible any more, using the "img" tags. That was a really nice feature. Has it been disabled?

Been inside? Heard a concert there? Played a concert there? Do tell!

My first poll... hope I pressed all the right buttons. Multiple selections are permitted. You could tick every option (I'd like to ) but that wouldn't mean much. Draw a line in the sand somewhere. I think I can get mine down to 6 or 7 essentials. Why the poll? I've noticed that the factors...

It's a wonder that the old ED-1 Stax equalizer disappeared completely and modern Stax amps don't have a "diffuse EQ" button to fill in the upper mids and tame the unbridled highs. Many audiophiles reject equalizers for various reasons, some of which relate not to the EQ circuit itself (or...

I just discovered an interesting old thread in the DIY Discussions forum, where Matt posted some photos of SRM-313 internals. Compare this picture of the insides of the SRM-212 (on the left) with one of Matt's SRM-313 shots (on the right):- Notice anything unusual? Looks to me like...

Something I found which may be of interest:- Source (pdf file): TeacherNet, Page not found This is only the fundamentals, though. Most non-percussive instrument sounds are rich in harmonics at multiples of the fundamental notes.

I came across this while looking for something else and thought it might be of interest:- Expected 35dB hearing loss at 6kHz between the ages of 20 and 60. Does that sound right??? Full article here. A redeeming quote? Quote: Some researchers reject the idea that a certain amount of...

Here I'm going to describe in gruesome, nerd-worthy detail how to make graphs like the ones you can see in the DIY Headphone Response Plots thread. Feel free to tear the methodology to shreds. Many relevant points were raised in a discussion between gerG, halcyon et al. in gerG's thread Want to...