[Napalmhardcore]

I've recently bought a pair of Sennheiser HD 600 headphones. This is my first pair of open back headphones. The first pair of headphones I bought with the aim to get a good pair (not just what happened to be in the shop at the time and not too expensive or bundled free with something) was a pair of AKG K240 MKiis in 2013. Between my most recent purchase (HD 600s) and buying the AKGs, I've owned a couple of pairs of cheap earphones (wanted to see if I got on with them before spending a lot on a pair) and a Cloud 2 headset (pretty decent in my opinion considering the price) as I'd tried the Modmic with the AKGs and wasn't a fan for a couple of reasons, so I decided that I wanted a dedicated headset.
 
I had preconceptions of what to expect from an open back pair of headphones that have been proved wrong. Being the K240 MKiis are semi-open, I thought that the sound of the HD 600s would be even wider (being they are fully open back). This has not proved to be the case. It has also highlighted something while switching between the K240 MKiis, HD 600s and Cloud 2s. When changing back and forth between the HD 600s and the Cloud 2s, instruments seem to be in similar positions in terms of trajectory but the distance of those instruments seem different. With the AKGs however, the positions are completely different. Not only that, but certain sounds seem to come from behind me. When panning is used, sometimes it sounds like the sound is actually travelling behind my head. Another thing I've experienced (not just on the AKGs but it happens more often or at least more obviously on them) is the occasional instrument will sound like it is at a different height.
 
When an object/instrument is panned hard right/left, on both the Cloud 2s and the HD 600s it generally sounds like it is coming in from 90 degrees straight into my ear. The volume and other effects such as reverb will determine how close it sounds to me. So basically, if you were to imagine a top down view of a head. Then imagine a semi-circle with the straight portion going straight through the centre of the head. The various sound sources would then populate that semi-circle. That''s the best way I can think to describe it. When a sound is panned hard left/right with the AKGs however, much of the time it will sound like the instrument/object is coming from a position maybe 15-20 degrees (at a guess) behind and left/right of me, so it is like having taken a step or two forward into the semi-circle.
 
I've heard people say that some headphones (in fact, I think it was AKGs they were talking about at the time) had an artificially wide soundstage. However, when they said that I thought they meant that objects/instruments sounded more spaced out/it sounded like the performace area was bigger. I have not heard or read about this 3D phenomenon whereby it sounds like normal stereo music is actually happening around you (not counting binaural tracks or tracks that incorporate some kind of audio trickery to do this by design). Basically, is there something wrong with me or is this normal?
 
I also thought it might be potentially fun for others to discuss where instruments appear to come from in particular tracks and then others can listen back on their own headphones and compare results. Could be interesting.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

 
I had preconceptions of what to expect from an open back pair of headphones that have been proved wrong. Being the K240 MKiis are semi-open, I thought that the sound of the HD 600s would be even wider (being they are fully open back). 

 

An open headphone isn't automatically better. The only time you can expect this to be the case is if you take drivers designed for free air operation and put them in sealed earcups. As an extreme example, compare Grados with the Beyerdynamic T5P.

 

Similarly, I have the HD600 and have tried out a lot of headphones before and since I've purchased these in 2009, and in some cases, headphones some describe as having a "wide" soundstage just epically fails in proportional rendering. Sure, the drum roll spans a wide expanse right to left, but it occupies a span nearly as wide as where the guitars are, with the cymbals sometimes off to the front with the guitars if not pushed to the flanks.

 

If you imagine the size of an actual stage and the performers scaled down into something like that toy with a band that starts moving when you play music near it, that would be like if the band was made up of the Fantastic Four, with Reed "stretchy arms Mr. Fantastic" Richards on the drums. Or Doc Ock with his long robot arms. You might recognize that such a thing doesn't happen in reality because these are fictional characters, and so, it's an unrealistic soundstage.

 

 
When changing back and forth between the HD 600s and the Cloud 2s, instruments seem to be in similar positions in terms of trajectory but the distance of those instruments seem different. With the AKGs however, the positions are completely different. Not only that, but certain sounds seem to come from behind me. When panning is used, sometimes it sounds like the sound is actually travelling behind my head. Another thing I've experienced (not just on the AKGs but it happens more often or at least more obviously on them) is the occasional instrument will sound like it is at a different height.
 
When an object/instrument is panned hard right/left, on both the Cloud 2s and the HD 600s it generally sounds like it is coming in from 90 degrees straight into my ear. The volume and other effects such as reverb will determine how close it sounds to me. So basically, if you were to imagine a top down view of a head. Then imagine a semi-circle with the straight portion going straight through the centre of the head. The various sound sources would then populate that semi-circle. That''s the best way I can think to describe it. 

 

That's likely because you do have the drivers at a 90deg angle straight into your ear canals. This is often the case with oblong cups like these as they are relatively narrow compared to huge round cups which might position the drivers slightly in front of you ear canals, and in the case of the K70x, you get the large round cups plus angled earpads (the HD800 and T1 angle the drivers on the chassis mount).

 

Below you'll see a rough diagram of this. The black angled lines are the earlobes, the straight black line is very roughly the ear canal. The Maroon lines approximate the driver position in the usual way headphones are worn, the orange lines approximate how most people would have the drivers in large oblong earcups and how I wear my HD600 on stock Sennheiser pads pushed against my earlobes (large earlobes obviously can limit either), and and the blue line approximates the position of the drivers on my HD600 on Brainwavz angled earpads, the K702, and HD800 (the latter would push the drivers more towards the temples). This is why Inner Fidelity does measurements at several positions.

 

Now here's what it looks like when you have a speaker. Notice anything?

 
 

 

Now here's the instrument placement of my HD600 worn as above (orange) vs pushed against the earlobes still but now on angled Brainwavz earpads plus Crossfeed and EQ. With the first set up the cymbals (leading two circles) can sometimes still be slightly ahead of the vocals (triangle), but not too far forward or to the flanks as, say, the SR325. Drums (round; obling is top-down view of bass drum) occupy a narrow span, but are proportional to the size occupied by the guitars (square; wider since these include electric) and vocals. With the angled drivers they're moved back a little bit, but most importantly, the cymbals are pushed to the center as well. That seems like a narrow stage, but again, it's a matter of more natural proportion vs having Stan Lee produce the concert.

 
 
 

 
With the AKGs however, the positions are completely different. Not only that, but certain sounds seem to come from behind me. When panning is used, sometimes it sounds like the sound is actually travelling behind my head. Another thing I've experienced (not just on the AKGs but it happens more often or at least more obviously on them) is the occasional instrument will sound like it is at a different height.
 
That''s the best way I can think to describe it. When a sound is panned hard left/right with the AKGs however, much of the time it will sound like the instrument/object is coming from a position maybe 15-20 degrees (at a guess) behind and left/right of me, so it is like having taken a step or two forward into the semi-circle.
 
I've heard people say that some headphones (in fact, I think it was AKGs they were talking about at the time) had an artificially wide soundstage. However, when they said that I thought they meant that objects/instruments sounded more spaced out/it sounded like the performace area was bigger. I have not heard or read about this 3D phenomenon whereby it sounds like normal stereo music is actually happening around you (not counting binaural tracks or tracks that incorporate some kind of audio trickery to do this by design). Basically, is there something wrong with me or is this normal?
 
I also thought it might be potentially fun for others to discuss where instruments appear to come from in particular tracks and then others can listen back on their own headphones and compare results. Could be interesting.
 

 

That isn't normal because if you played that back on a 2ch speaker system, it will not throw the sound behind you. Even live recordings would only throw the sound of the crowd behind and around you if:

 

1. The mic in the crowd sound was recorded with an omni-directional mic used by the vocalist (except they use unidirectional mics to focus the pick up of sound from the mouth of the singer)

 

2. You have a surround sound system where the 5.0 or 5.1 track of a live performanace actually programmed the crowd on all channels, and even then, it shouldn't put the instruments in the surround channels because the band isn't standing around you.

 

That or you use some kind of DSP to add reverb to the sound to simulate standing in the middle of the band, which you might recognize, only happens in some stages with a pit that they charge extra money for with a catwalk in the middle so the vocalist gets to reach out to the others who can't pay as much. You might recognize this though as "not the best and not the most expensive seat in the house" if it's an opera hall, although to be fair, the best seats are in the center a few rows behind the first, while the most expensive are the private booths to the left and right above, which has the same soundstage issues as being in a car. 

 

[Napalmhardcore]

Hi, thanks for the reply. I guess the pre-conception that open back headphones would have a more... well, open sound was due to this message repeatedly being stated in discussions about headphones. I've found that, while a rule of thumb, there is more to it.
 
Due to how a lot of non-live music is recorded, I've yet to experience anything close to a realistic listening experience through headphones. Instruments seem to always be mixed to use a wide portion of the stereo image (certain sounds panned hard left or right for effect). There may well be recordings that aim to acheive a realistic listening experience (such as binaural or mic techniques to simulate a similar effect) on headphones but the vast majority seem to be mixed to provide a more realistic experience when listening through speakers (forming an equalatral triangle between the two speakers and the listener). Obviously the same recording played back directly into your ears will create a wider spread of the instruments than when the sound is coming from front left and front right.
 
I've noticed that this effect of instruments seeming to come from behind me becomes much less apparent with extended listening to the AKGs without swapping. I think it is the relative difference when swapping back and forth that causes this effect to become more pronounced. Also, the ear cups on the AKGs are quite, shall we say, cosy. I think the drivers sit further back in relation to my ear canal when compared to the HD 600s or Cloud 2s. Perhaps the sound seems like it is coming from slightly behind me (with the AKGs) because it is actually further towards the back of my head. With the HD600s and the Cloud 2s, I'm thinking that the drivers are more closely aligned with my ear canals (plus, I believe they both have larger drivers that may make the sound less directional). If this is the case, I'm actually surprised at my ears ability to detect this difference at such close proximity.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

  Hi, thanks for the reply. I guess the pre-conception that open back headphones would have a more... well, open sound was due to this message repeatedly being stated in discussions about headphones. I've found that, while a rule of thumb, there is more to it.

 

Also note how technology progressed. After about some point in time you'd start finding closed headphones with more even response and angled driver mounts like the T5P, the MDR-1, many Ultrasones, etc, so while long ago that might have been a rule of thumb, it isn't necessarily the case anymore, not even having a more coherent soundstage.

 

Personally it isn't really soundstage but driver distortion. Depending on what conditions the drivers are meant to operate in, ie, the T/S parameters, the older practice of just cramming a free air driver into a closed headphone might have been more widespread, which leads to problems in how to simulate the same conditions or mitigate the opposite (ie, large cups crammed with acoustic foam). These days they probably design the drivers to operate specifically in closed cups.
 

 
Due to how a lot of non-live music is recorded, I've yet to experience anything close to a realistic listening experience through headphones. Instruments seem to always be mixed to use a wide portion of the stereo image (certain sounds panned hard left or right for effect). There may well be recordings that aim to acheive a realistic listening experience (such as binaural or mic techniques to simulate a similar effect) on headphones but the vast majority seem to be mixed to provide a more realistic experience when listening through speakers (forming an equalatral triangle between the two speakers and the listener). Obviously the same recording played back directly into your ears will create a wider spread of the instruments than when the sound is coming from front left and front right.

 

The way that music is recorded for speaker playback is the biggest problem because in such a condition the speakers are farther away from the listener and both ears can hear both speakers. By contrast in a headphone system you can only hear the same side driver in each ear, which, coupled with the way the material is recorded, results in that hard left-right panning.

 

Some tricks like Crossfeed get around this by filtering some of the sound across both channels but many don't like it because they perceive the soundstage to be "narrower," but again, their perception of wide has no basis in reality regarding proportions, and for some reason, Mr Fantastic, Doc Ock, Omega Red, Juggernaut, and Galactus seem to be very famous drummers for many headphone listeners. Could be due to MCU and the Fox X-Men reboot - they're too popular nowadays.

 
 

 
I've noticed that this effect of instruments seeming to come from behind me becomes much less apparent with extended listening to the AKGs without swapping. I think it is the relative difference when swapping back and forth that causes this effect to become more pronounced. Also, the ear cups on the AKGs are quite, shall we say, cosy. I think the drivers sit further back in relation to my ear canal when compared to the HD 600s or Cloud 2s. Perhaps the sound seems like it is coming from slightly behind me (with the AKGs) because it is actually further towards the back of my head. With the HD600s and the Cloud 2s, I'm thinking that the drivers are more closely aligned with my ear canals (plus, I believe they both have larger drivers that may make the sound less directional). If this is the case, I'm actually surprised at my ears ability to detect this difference at such close proximity.

 

It's harder to pinpoint what causes those but they're not unheard of in other headphones, but this I think is the second time I've read of someone reporting some height variance in the K240.

 

[Napalmhardcore]

No doubt, headphones have evolved and there seems to be a lot of R&D that goes into them now. I've read a couple of articles about how headphones have changed over the years. Apparently they were originally sold more like budget cables are today. They weren't considered a serious means to recreate music and all the attention was lavished on speakers. Nowadays it seems that people are just as likely to have a good pair of headphones and mediocre/bad speakers rather than the other way around. The cost of a good set of headphones in comparison to a set of speakers of equivalent quality make them an attractive purchase. The vast majority of people have actually never listened to a pair of stereo speakers placed properly to acheive the effect they are capable of. Instead they aim to fill the room they are in with sound without consideration of stereo imaging and soundstage. Admittedly, I have never had a setup at home with proper speaker placement. It is only the last few years that I've become interested in hi-fi audio, so speaker placement has always been a compromise between practicality and effectiveness.
 
I've never used crossfeed. I'm interested to try it. Is is only contained in certain media playback software, or is there an application that can apply it globally (so it may be used with music streaming services like Tidal/Spotify)?
 
After starting this thread, I was listening to my HD 600s and again I got the impression of certain sounds being played at different heights. If I were to guess, I'd say that it is due to the way the instrument was recorded. If they were using stereo mics and they were angled down towards a source, if there was some reflection picked up in the recording it could create a binaural effect. I guess some people may be more sensitive to this effect than others.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

 
I've never used crossfeed. I'm interested to try it. Is is only contained in certain media playback software, or is there an application that can apply it globally (so it may be used with music streaming services like Tidal/Spotify)?

 
You can find in hardware and software forms. Foobar has a Crossfeed plug-in with 10 levels (no specific parameter adjustment) and NeutronMusicPlayer on Android/iOS has it with variable freq and dB.
 
Meier Corda DACs and amps also have it built into the circuit, although that can be bypassed.

 

[Napalmhardcore]

   
You can find in hardware and software forms. Foobar has a Crossfeed plug-in with 10 levels (no specific parameter adjustment) and NeutronMusicPlayer on Android/iOS has it with variable freq and dB.
 
Meier Corda DACs and amps also have it built into the circuit, although that can be bypassed.

Interesting. I checked out some of the crossfeed demos by Meier audio. I might have to look into this more. I'd be really interested to hear some tracks I'm famiiar with using crossfeed.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

 
Interesting. I checked out some of the crossfeed demos by Meier audio. I might have to look into this more. I'd be really interested to hear some tracks I'm famiiar with using crossfeed.

 
I use my Note3 as a music server and on Neutron Music Player (not the app in the photo) I use 900hz, 6dB.