Another step in my endless quest for Headphone knowledge...
Im psyched to get my HF-1's, due in part to what Ive heard/read the effect of the mahogony housing (i think mahogony) will have on the overall performance.
However, I just spotted a beautiful pic of the PS-1 with its metal (aluminum?) housings and I wonder what (if any) benefits that would have over wood (and I ask because of its significant price increase over the HF-1).
In my limited knowledge, I know that wood has a certain, if not positive effect on pianos, guitars and speaker cabinets/housings.
Could someone explain this effect to me?
Does this same general principle apply to headphones?
Id really like to learn what types of effects different materials have on sound production and reproduction.
Lastly, having dicussed the above, what then would the IDEAL headphone be made of?

I don't think it makes that much of a difference on such a small scale, which is why we see so many headphones made of so many different things.

The best housing is something that keeps the driver from moving or vibrating. Only the diaphragm should be in motion.

Right. And that means no moving your head while wearing headphones. You'll get Doppler distortion, not to mention relativity effects.

Seriously, any material will work, as long as it's not a liquid or a gas. Ideally, since heaphones are reproducers, not musical instruments, they should be made from something inert and dense, like depleted uranium or lead-- that would ensure that nothing was vibrating but the diaphragm. In the real world, even materials that would normally ring (eg, metals) can be used, because they can be damped with coatings and decoupling layers (a sheet of rubber separating earcup halves, say). Good vibration treatment is heavy, though-- you want something with high surface density (like lead). So there's always something of a compromise. Lightweight materials, handled properly, will do just fine. Usually aesthetics steal the scene from acoustics anyway, and we manage quite well. So don't worry. Cup material isn't that big a deal, other things being equal.

Acoustic treatment of a headphone's diaphragm, though, that's critical.


Study sound deadening practice in automobiles-- those people have done their homework.

OKay,
The consensus seems to be that the material doesnt really matter.
Then whats the big deal with wood HF-1's or "woody" modifications or...metal housings for the 325/ps-1?
Is it all aesthetics?

i have maple wood cups on my CD3000s and the biggest difference is that they dampen reverb better; the wood cups get rid of most of the the artificial echo that the plastic cups cause.

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and it looks dead sexy

I suspect it's 54% looks and 44% placebo.

you do realize that that only acounts for 98%

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well, everyone enjoy their $700 rs1's! now tell me what we are paying for there? wood or something else over a sr225? oh wait! they have the uhplc voice coils and cable. thats gotta be the $500 difference. can't be the way the wood looks or makes you think they sound. "I suspect it's 54% looks and 44% placebo." < and $500 or so...... i know i know they really do sound $500 better.

music_man.

Of course it matters.

All materials have their own internal damping factors AND more importantly, self-resonation frequencies.

The best enclosure is NO enclosure (no back wave to kill, no reflections, no flawed step signal delay), but that requires somewhat a magical driver and very good engineering.

Out of all the possible, my favourite would probably be some sort of combination wood (wood1 + layer + wood2) with lots of damping material on the internal surface of wood1

Or that's what I'd start with

since everyone seems to misread my posts. i was actually meaning to say i can hear a difference in the rs1's. long live wood. there, is that easier to understand?

music_man.

jerb: yes, I left that 2% in there as wiggle room...

music_man: the RS series has different drivers over the SR series too, so you can't really judge the difference by comparing an RS-1 with an SR-225. As any scientist will tell you, you can only change one variable at a time to keep the test valid. Some serious blind testing on SR-225 / HF-1 would be a more interesting test, I think, since IIRC the blurb on the HF-1s was that they were simply SR-225s with a bit of wood. I bought mine because they were the same price as SR-225s and limited edition, I don't necessarily expect they sound any better than SR-225s...has anyone got both and can do some *BLIND* testing?

i would actually tell new people that are able to try them first to just try the rs1's. if you like them buy them. then you can collect the rest of the grados imho.
but is it the wood that makes them special or the drivers? i guess according to you guys it would be the drivers. and i don't doubt it. we are not talking about a lot of wood there. and the rs2 does not sound nearly as good. maybe the longer sound chamber and the driver makes the difference. i couldn't really guess how much of a percentage the wood has in their charactor.

music_man.

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i doubt it. while i was unable to double blind test the woody/recabled CD3000s vs. stock ones (due to weight and cable differences), i did do the best possible ABX against stock, with a couple friends also listening to both sets of phones; we each came to the same conclusion despite the fact that i didn't tell either of them what i was hearing.