Sony claims "speaker on your head" headphone design - Page 3

Well there you go. I seriously doubt sony would make a $500 headphone that fries if plugged into a high quality headphone amp.

Yes, they sure have. I loved my pair of CD1000.

I am not particularly fond of open headphones. I may buy a good one one day, who knows. But at this time I prefer closed cans.

I'm not saying they won't be great. But based on the specs, I can't see how. And functionality of a headphone is very important. I don't consider these to be functional. If you get up and bump into a wall, there go your eardrums and probably one of the speakers too.

I'm not ignoring anything. You may be right. Let's find out. But I can tell you right now that if they only accept 60mw, I wouldn't want them. Sources and amps are just as important as the headphones. If I can't power the "audiophile" headphones with an "audiophile" amp, what am I going to power them with? I'm looking to buy a Corda Opera for my Denons because I want an increase in SQ and fidelity. I'm not looking to downgrade by powering them with my low-gain Go-Vibe and the volume knob only turned 1/4 way.

Holy crap I can't believe we missed this. A long interview with sony about these headphones:
http://64.233.179.104/translate_c?hl...ial%26hs%3D53g

This is the original "earspeaker," made by Stax for about 10 years and still a few available on Ebay. I have three of differing specs.



The key point is not to have "speaker imaging," but rather to have a perception of real sound sources in space in front of you. Loudspeakers do this but have a basic fault compared to headphones due to the cross feed from one left speaker to right ear and vice versa. These are artifactual "phantom" channels, coming to the opposite ears a few msec after the original signals. That would measure as massive harmonic distortion if you compared say left channel signal with what actually gets to the left ears from loudspeakers and they certainly mess up localization.

But I digress.

The point of this Sony set-up, the Stax Sigma and the AKG 1000 is to have the sound flow into the ear in a manner more analgous to what you would have with actual players in front of you, to get rid of the in-the-head quality of most headphones. The Stax Sigma partly achieves this objective, it increases the sense of depth of the sound and occasionally, in my experience, actually fools you into perceiving the sound as "out there away from you head."

I woul be curious to try these other 2 systems.

In case anyone at all's interested in the quick (I know, it's not very good ) translation:

The PFR-V1 brings a new style that puts the speaker directly on your head.

Enjoy big sound without the sense of pressure using small speakers.

Using the reflective properties of the ear concha(I think that's the word), the speakers faced diagonally toward your ears
will sound like a live performance. Mid-high's are sounded directed in such a way that gives the illusion of sound coming
from the front. The bass uses newly developed "extended bass lef duct"(? translated as pronounced) that direcly pumps the bass into your outer canals, which
gives a high quality and spatial bass. This method delivers a life-like soundstage

Personal field speaker system:


Extended Bass Lef Duct effects:

(comparison between previous "bass lef duct" to the new "bass lef duct)

Eliminating unwanted sounds, reproducing clear audio
Small speaker cabinet

By minimizing the speaker size, unwanted frequencies produced with traditional speaker units are eliminated, allowing for a clearer sound.


<skip>

Blow up of the speaker unit:


<a> center cap (mainly reproduces mid-high frequencies): using silken material, precise and beautiful highs are reproduced
<b> voice coil (transforms analogue signal into vibration): using CCAW, it's light properties is designed for high quality high frequencies
<c> magnet (operates magnet): using 440 kJ/m^3 neodynium magnet
<d> frame (holds speaker unit parts in place): liquid polymer is used
<e> plate, york(?) (signal path for magnets): (sorry I can't translate this...)

The interview says the main goal of this new earspeaker is to be lightweight without compromising the bass reproduction, which was the major deficiency in the Stax earspeakers.

If you want a pair of MDR-F1, here you go:

Amazon.com MDR-F1 new

Panel speakers do not do a good job of filling rooms with with deep bass, but there is no such limitation with headphones. The old Koss ESP 9 which was a sealed circumaural design came with an individually run test strip, not just some designers specification wish list, which showed them flat to 20 hz!

There is ample bass with the Sigma , no less than most open back supra-aural designs, whether electrostatic or dynamic. Even the original low bias Sigma has more bass than the Stax SRX3 which preceded it. The Lambda which was based on the Sigma transducer, but is a sealed, cicumaural design has about 1/2 octave more bass at the very bottom of hearing, but there's not much music there to worry about. The Sigma also has a midbass hump which tends to cover up any loss at the very bottom.

These are great phones for classical music, especially choral and opera, but they are still quite good with rock/pop. Performance is more limited by the quality of amp or transformer used to drive them.

Been there, done that.

Hahahahahah!!! That is the funniest thing I have ever seen on this forum! Killer photo, man! Now that's what I call DIY. I can't believe you actually made that. Too f***'in hysterical! Here's someone who loves his headgear! With coathangers and a baseball helmet no less! Batter up!!! LOL! I give you credit for actually showing that pic to people and not getting embarrased. How did it sound? LOL!

You are one crazy cat Doug.

The freq. response is always -3dB with Sony so that's what they claim these to be. -3dB is an industry standard measurement.

I believe Sony can do it. They have made the absolute, best ever in the world headphones (to the majority of those that have heard, I'm sure no one will argue that), the R10, and the best SQ competition in car system I ever heard (sample group - in the 100's), the XES

yeh i agree with this,i hate hearing a tone dissppear in the lows and lose impact and feel,the human ear can generally hear down to about 20hz then its all about feel,which ofcourse you dont feel with earphones so 35hz even by sony standards seems poor, they usually like to give false frequency ranges in low end equipment but this which we say puts tubes in your ears needs to really pull something specal in the bass department imho

You what? You don't "Feel" bass with headphones? You sure as hell do if you got the right pair. Try on my AH-D5000 and tell me you don't feel the bass.

As far as IEMs go, you don't feel them nearly as much but you can still feel some of the impact.

oh yeh impact and texture is important and i have my se530 tickling the crap outta my ears with some power and at times vibrating in my ears witch isnt too great, sound stays solid tho, anyway you know what i mean im talking sub level vibrations, no headphones or earphones have the ability to shake your body or the floor thats what i mean,and thats what a solid real loud 10hz tone will do

Lol, the r10 is the most overrated headphone ever. I'll pass..

Biggie.