Is it more difficult to engineer warm transducers with good detail than bright transducers with...

A lot of perceived detail comes from the sparkle in the treble, which is enhanced if treble is boosted. Likewise with stuff like soundstage size and imaging, which we pick up on from treble (because of the length of the waves and the distance between our ears, etc.) Treble basically makes a headphone seem faster and more "open".

And as a result, audiophiles like treble and manufacturers like to sell them treble. Which is why there's so few dark headphones period 

I think this maybe be due to psychoacoustics, specifically the masking effect which is apparently more important at lower rather than higher frequencies. Let's say we have a 2 kHz sine with 2 other sines a 1kHz and 4 kHz*, the 1 kHz sine is going to make it presence felt more than the 4 kHz sine, it's going to mask more in a way. As a result, headphones with an emphasis on bass and low mids somewhat mask the higher frequencies more than headphones with no emphasis. And the phenomenon is not symmetrical, higher frequencies won't mask lower ones (as much). This may be the reason why headphones that are forward and bright seem a lot more detailed all other things being equal. Designing a bass heavy heavy with detailed sound is a challenge indeed.

Another hypothesis is that the 2-6 kHz** zone contains the higher harmonics of a lot instruments, raising the volume of this zone would add to the harmonics instead of the main note, giving it a richer harmonic structure.Maybe this gets translated into better texture and better timbres by our brain? More details indeed.

Both are of course hypotheses, they could explain perhaps partially of the phenomenon you describe, or totally, or I could even be absolutely wrong

*note that the human ear perceives frequency logarithmically, thus perceptually, the 2 other sines are are equal distance from the 1 kHz sine.

** it corresponds to bright in audiophile speak.

Engineering is objective while "warm" and "bright" are subjective terms.  Look to sites like the "O2" for an objective approach. Perhaps there is one for subjective design , I don't know of any.

Quote:

Originally Posted by fubar3 

Engineering is objective while "warm" and "bright" are subjective terms.  Look to sites like the "O2" for an objective approach. Perhaps there is one for subjective design , I don't know of any.

Warm and bright per individual is subjective, but you could simply describe them as "more bass/lower mid-range than neutral" and "more treble/upper mid-range than neutral" respectively. Neutrality when it comes to headphones is pretty subjective too, because of the way everyone's ears differ, but if you define those terms in this broad a way you can bring it close to objectivity.

Quote:

Originally Posted by fubar3 

Engineering is objective while "warm" and "bright" are subjective terms.  Look to sites like the "O2" for an objective approach. Perhaps there is one for subjective design , I don't know of any.

Warm and bright are subjective terms, but they actually correlate quite well with objective data and usually correspond to bumps in specific frequency bands.

It's easy to qualify objectively an amp or a DAC, but when it comes to headphones it's a lot more difficult, for one thing, we only have a vague idea of what a perfect frequency response looks like, and contrary to electronics where high level of transparency is easily achieved (from an objective pov), designing headphones is still very much a matter of compromise, subjective judgment is still very useful to determine what to privilege.

Speakers are a bit easiear to judge objectively than headphone, but how would you determine an optimal directivity pattern given that the room of the end listener remains a big unknown for the designer. Linkwitz Labs makes a very nice attempt with the Orion though.

There are a lot of warm and detailed IEM's.

Google for Biorhythm Music.  There are articles about "auditory cheesecake" and YouTubes of people in MRI with headphones? Anyway, I am thinking that a music system should include a bio sensor where emotional feedback is used to improve the perceived sound. That should please the subjectivists.  :-)

Quote:

Originally Posted by fubar3 

Google for Biorhythm Music.  There are articles about "auditory cheesecake" and YouTubes of people in MRI with headphones? Anyway, I am thinking that a music system should include a bio sensor where emotional feedback is used to improve the perceived sound. That should please the subjectivists.  :-)

Like there would be a Setup button or something that goes through sine wave sweeps with various equalizations, and adjusts the equalization according to how active the pleasure centers are until it maximizes enjoyment? That'd be pretty nifty.

But no doubt after it's set up some audiophile will come along with a story about how much better it sounds with amp X or cable Y.

Sometimes the best way to adjust subjective pleasure is to simply increase the price.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Head Injury 

 

Sometimes the best way to adjust subjective pleasure is to simply increase the price.

I was just reading "Appillionaires" about those who struck it rich on the App Store. One team doing well with a $3.99 app dropped it to .99 because of competition. But reviews became very critical at that price.  When they increased the price to $1.99 the reviews improved. It seems that those who buy the low priced apps are more demanding and critical then for the pricey apps. Those who pay more tend to be less critical because they want to justify having paid the higher price.

So, adding "bling" to an audio product might improve the perceived sound.