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Room reverberation effect in headphones?

post #1 of 6
3/4/11 at 8:15am
Thread Starter 

I don't know if this is the correct place to post this, so correct me if I'm wrong.

 

Music is mixed for being played through speakers in a room, and studios therefore try to mimic this. One of it's biggest implications is that a room adds to reverberation, as the music reflects from walls and other objects (I think the decay time in an average listening room is about 0,4 seconds).

 

Listening to music from headphones, this added reverb is of course not present, and recordings will logically sound more "dry". I have not done any comparison for myself to see if this makes a big difference, so I was wondering what everyone thinks of this? Does listening through headphones sound more dry, or does the natural reverb in the music maybe stand out more since a rooms reverb might otherwise mask it? Has anyone experimented with adding a reverb imitating a small room, to maybe make a recording sound more like it was intended?

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post #2 of 6
3/4/11 at 8:50am

I can definitely say this that listening to headphones in general sounds more "dry". It'll ofc vary a bit from a headphone to another. However these days I can't even stand completely reverb-free headphone listening but it becomes also annoying when it gets too pronounced and starts sounding too metallic and smeared from the long and obvious delay.

 

With kX Audio drivers for my old Audigy 2 ZS I can tweak the reverb to be just the perfect amount, it's very faint, fades away reasonably quick and it definitely makes it more enjoyable to listen to but I've only added it to the point that it won't be obvious during speech but even this faint amount of reverb helps to make it sound more realistic and like the soundstage was slightly bigger. If I replaced my Audigy 2 ZS card, tweakable reverb effect would be a requirement, not just premade reverb effects which you can't adjust as those are often a little bit too exaggerated.


Edited by RPGWiZaRD - 3/4/11 at 8:52am
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post #3 of 6
3/4/11 at 9:12am
Thread Starter 

Since many high-end headphones and amps are constructed to get more control over the speakers, and thereby reduce it's own induced reverberation, I don't find it hard to believe that many recordings sound dry (I very seldom hear music from ordinary speakers, so I don't really know what I'm missing though).

 

There are many digital effects that can emulate a rooms, and of course reverbs where you can determine every possible element to "build" a room from scratch. It would be nice if you could find specs on the studio that mixed the music, and make a reverb that imitates it - or better yet, if the studios themselves made emulations for others to download biggrin.gif

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post #4 of 6
3/4/11 at 12:58pm

Many many recordings have room reverb added to make the recordings sound more real. A bunch are recorded in real rooms too!

 

Speakers dont try to emulate room reverb: Most peoples listening rooms are too small to do anything here (you need a room about the size of a small jazz club or larger) to get good effects, and the effect of reverb on stereo speakers is NOT the same as the recorded effect from a single source. Most people try to eliminate excessive reverb in their listening rooms. 

 

The problem with adding any sort of reverb well after the fact is that EVERYTHING gets fed through and sounds like poo. 

 

If *everything* you listen to sounds "dry" as you put it Id say to start off by listening to something unfamiliar, or that you dont normally listen to. If you listen to a wide variety of music skip to the next paragraph. If you only listen to a couple narrow genres of music try something new. Even though you may hate the program material different audiences DO listen differently, and DO prefer their recordings to be mastered a certain way.

 

If after experimenting with a bunch of different types of music you still have this same "dry" feeling Id say its time to look for the piece of equipment thats causing that. Most likely headphones, possibly something upstream. If you dont have this same "dry" feeling on your speaker system Id say that its normal for the 2 to sound hugely different. "dry" could describe any number of things (I have heard it in places too) and the slightest change could show or hide it. Changing between different headphones is a HUGE change... headphones and speakers are like night and day.

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post #5 of 6
3/4/11 at 10:33pm

For music from a computer audio source, I generally use the Isone VST room plugin.  I don't like "roomy" sound from headphones and I have it dialed down basically with a bit of crossfeed and a tiny bit of reverb.  Basically it is somewhere between dry headphones and a nearfield simulation.

 

Videos from a computer source get Dolby Headphone.  I find the DH processing to be pretty heavy and don't like it at all for music but for watching videos (of any type) I find I sort of forget about the reverb effect and just get immersed in the whole experience.

 

Non-computer sources usually get hit with some kind of crossfeed when the rig I'm listening on allows it.  I have a Headroom amp that I find the crosfeed quite passable on.  A few weeks ago I picked up a StageDac and I think Jan Meier really knows his way around a crossfeed implementation.  I'm actually quite impressed with his work across the board and especially for the money I don't think I will try to do better than that for a DAC.

 

Given that this is the sound science forum, I'm more than happy to attempt an ABX on any of the above, if possible cool.gif.  Given the setups it's kind of hard for a lone person to do a valid double blind, but hey I'm always willing to try.  One sort of fake double blind I do sometimes with VST plugins is I set a song to repeat, close my eyes and, bang on the bypass button quickly several dozen times.  At this point, I no longer know if the plugin is active or not  Then, keeping my eyes closed I periodically hit the bypass button again every several seconds (or longer.)  I do this for awhile until I seem to find one version I like better.  If I'm sure I really have a preference for either A or B, after some time I will open my eyes and see if the plugin is active or not.

 

Far from perfect testing - but it's not supposed to be either.

 

 

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post #6 of 6
3/5/11 at 12:33pm
Thread Starter 

nikongod - I'm fully with you that many albums have room reverb on them, and that reverb on speakers isn't the same as the recorded effect from a source. Maybe I'm missing your point, but what I was after was the fact that when mixing, the reverb of the studio that the mix is done in, even if it's very small, affects the engineers decisions. As I've said, I haven't experimented with it, but I would imagine that even a very short reverb from a relatively isolated room could make a noticable difference.

 

I'm not implying that listening to headphones gives a hideously "dry" sound - in fact, I don't think I've ever given it a though while listening. I'm just speculating that applying a room reverb that imitates the studios own would perhaps bring us closer to how the engineers meant it to be heard. Even if thats true, It might not be for the better.

 

fiver - it would be really nice to hear some results from a little ABX-testing. I might just try to get some software and give it a go myself.

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