Guys, why are there no multi-driver headphones? It seems to work well with speakers, and IEM's. Why don't headphone companies adapt this design?
there is only one reason why they dont make multi-driver headphones..
because the decay time is way too high.
the only way to fix the decay time is to use a digital signal processor.
and the only way to sell the headphones for the new 'high-resolution' audio format is to include the dsp already programmed to do the job.
that means you need to put the dsp in the cord.. and that means you need to plug the headphone cable into a power source (in the wall or to a battery)
usually a battery would slowly drain and go dead, and if you feed the processor the lower voltage from the dead battery again and again.. the DSP dies early and it makes the headphones useless.
build your own multi-driver headphones and find a better DSP than something that would be stuck in the cord.
but know this..
consumers dont want a bunch of crap on their headphone cord if they have to plug it into something.
they are the worst people to drop everything and make happy.
they want next to nothing for a side dish because they are too lazy to learn what it does.
another problem with multi-driver headphones is..
if you use one speaker for a specific frequency range.. for example, a tweeter towards the rear of your ear.
then, you cant play forward sounds and listen to them from the rear .. it just wont work.
if you were talking about a tweeter speaker on top of a woofer, this can be done easily.. but you would need the DSP again to do something with the soundwaves bouncing off of the back of the tweeter.
when the woofer is made to do this all on it's own.. your final audio quality wont be anything up to par compared to the new 'high-resolution' format of audio.
multi-driver headphones would of been the way to make some money back in the 1990 - 2010 area of time.
if you go on and on about it, saying something like 'i will sell them for more money to pay for everything i need' ... then we will simply tell you 'there is no reason or need for multi-driver headphones'
all that can be done from a multi-driver headphone can be done from regular headphones.
why you want multi-driver headphones is going to determine how stupid the idea is.
the only thing you could say that doesnt sound totally stupid is using the same exact speaker three times on each side for better surround sound.
this should change soon though.
it takes a custom design to get those speakers decay time down.
takes a custom design to get the polar responses playing without interference.
takes a custom design to get the phase responses to play together without interference.
the space between your ear and those multi-drivers goes beyond a DSP programmers dream and actually becomes a nightmare because after the outer ear is all compensated for.. then there is the ear hole, the hole's length & shape is going to demand more than what can be input in the DSP .. except for the smartest of the smartest in the world.
it is not worth it to be using some glue and some old headphone speakers (or even new headphone speakers).
maybe get yourself some older headphones as the prices come down and build yourself something for surround sound... but that is something that will not be able to be done again once the virtual surround sound gets upgraded.
