[samvafaei]

Hi all,

So like last year, we've made a video explaining the philosophy and testing methodology behind a couple of our tests, and this one is about soundstage and imaging. Let me know if you have any comments or suggestions.



Sam

 

[castleofargh]

lot of cool ideas, I don't know how reliable those are but you guys are clearly trying to get the ball rolling and that's great.

about PRTF, won't it tend to automatically give good grades to anything with drivers tilted or moved off axis and toward the front, just from how it's measured? not that it's not a relevant variable in how much the headphone will involve the user's own pina in the final signature. but I would have imagined the standard frequency response compared directly to the 30° speaker measurement to be a more important indicator. maybe finding a way to mix both, so that we know the final response would be close to the FR coming for a 30° speaker even when the user's pinna is really special thanks to how much it varies on the PRTF.

I almost want to join your team just to be able to mess around with all those ideas and gears sometimes. plus Cedric wouldn't be the one with the worst English accent anymore. I'm way way worst. ^_^
there are a few considerations like how I have no qualifications whatsoever for such jobs, and live on another continent. but aside from those small details, I'd be perfect

 

[samvafaei]

lot of cool ideas, I don't know how reliable those are but you guys are clearly trying to get the ball rolling and that's great.

about PRTF, won't it tend to automatically give good grades to anything with drivers tilted or moved off axis and toward the front, just from how it's measured? not that it's not a relevant variable in how much the headphone will involve the user's own pina in the final signature. but I would have imagined the standard frequency response compared directly to the 30° speaker measurement to be a more important indicator. maybe finding a way to mix both, so that we know the final response would be close to the FR coming for a 30° speaker even when the user's pinna is really special thanks to how much it varies on the PRTF.

I almost want to join your team just to be able to mess around with all those ideas and gears sometimes. plus Cedric wouldn't be the one with the worst English accent anymore. I'm way way worst. ^_^
there are a few considerations like how I have no qualifications whatsoever for such jobs, and live on another continent. but aside from those small details, I'd be perfect

hehe, thanks!

Yes, a good and accurate frequency response (especially treble response) is essential for good imaging, and a headphone with a poor or lacking treble will have a poor imaging. However, if such a headphone has very good L/R driver matching, it would still score well in our imaging calculations. This is a limitation of our current scoring system, but we have some ideas on how to improve it.

 

[baiyy1986]

cool stuff! Thanks for sharing!

 

[samvafaei]

Thanks

 

[gregorio]

Let me know if you have any comments or suggestions.

To be honest, I was expecting the usual audiophile nonsense about sound-stage and then some made-up measurements that attempted to justify someone's subjective impressions. It was a very pleasant surprise! As a music/sound engineer I always think in terms of imaging and "b-chain" effects, the fidelity and "translation" of the consumer's playback chain. I never came across the term "sound-stage" in the industry, it seemed to be a purely audiophile term which lumped together imaging (both left/right and depth/presence cues), b-chain translation and a big dollop of personal preference (often in-spite of fidelity). For the first time, I've seen a definition of "sound-stage" which makes some sense and not only have you made someone like me happy but you've managed it at the same time as (hopefully) not upsetting audiophiles too much either, a tricky task!

G

 

[bigshot]

He was here a few months back and we had a chat about his use of the term soundstage.

 

[Hangling]

https://www.arkartech.net/blogs/blog/what-does-imaging-mean-in-headphones
https://www.arkartech.net/blogs/blog/what-is-soundstage-in-headphones
hi, maybe they can be helped