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EDIT: I have since setup Dolby Headphone with channel mixer for a desirable surround experience: http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f46/5-...-files-447089/
I decided to post this in the members' lounge as it's more of an experience I'd like to share as opposed to say sound science.
Soundstage, or sound stage; what is it and why do we want it. Soundstage presents the listener with a panoramic listening area, a landscape of sound position and distance.
From the beginning of time recorded music has been created with the focus on loudspeaker reproduction, that being left and right channel stereo. A few recording have from time-to-to been focused towards multiple loudspeakers, be it 5.1, and binaural; recording for natural ear spacing primely for use with headphones. This in short is why we don't get much of a sound stage while listening to stereophonic music made for loudspeakers. While certain headphones will present stereophonic music with a seemingly larger soundstage, non can compare with the depth and detailed positioning of a binaural recording.
So the question is: why don't headphones position stereophonics better
or perhaps the question should be: why isn't all music recorded at the very minimum 5.1.
On my recent quest for soundstage I decided to tackle the latter question of 5.1 recordings; how good is it and more importantly how good it sounds on headphones. For this 'soundstage journey' I used Jean Michel Jarre's 'Oxygene: Live In Your Living Room' recording in Dolby Digital 5.1
For this to work as I intended I needed an array of software and decoders. First and foremost my playback had to be bit-perfect, for this I used foobar with WASAPI. I also needed a DTS decoder which can be downloaded from the foobar components page and finally I needed a Dolby Headphone plugin which is also available from foobar. Once setup I hit play and kicked back for a listen; in a nutshell I have never heard music this good from headphones, so detailed and layered, 3D surround sound positioning and I'm in the middle of it! So incredibly detailed, it was like hearing Vangelis for the first time as a child, all these new sounds whizzing around, just introducing there presence to my ears.
Excited by my new discovery I wanted to listen to the rest of my stereophonic music with Dolby Headphone enabled; I loaded up Legend of the black Shawarma by Infected Mushroom, one of my favorite groups for headphone listening. I hit play and... not good, not good at all; the sound was only coming from behind me, as if my front center, left and right speakers were no longer hooked up. The bass was just about the same experience which was coming from a sub woofer on the floor however this 'sat in front' position while hugely different from the norm was not ideal.
While I enjoy music I would say I am very visual and so I have attempted to depict the sound heard around my head, or rather in my brain through my ears in an illustration.
The light green depicts your standard headphone, with left and right soundstage. The teal color depicts Ultrasone and there S-logic technology, while this presents the listener with 3-dimensional sound it is typically not as wide as other headphones. The darker green is Dolby Headphone; extremely wide with a full 180° sweep however there is nothing coming out of the imaginary front speakers. The entire circle would represent my 5.1 listening experience.
In closing I suppose I have to say I'm a bit disappointed with headphones and recorded music as a whole. Overall we are seeing a huge drop in sound quality, with CDs being recorded at much higher volumes, music artists sporting cheap headphones like the beats as-if to say we don't give a damn about the audio quality.
While going back to the rest of my music after my 5.1 experience I have to say it all sounds a little boring I will continue my headphone journey and hope 5.1 catches on in the near future.
What are your thoughts on the subject?
I decided to post this in the members' lounge as it's more of an experience I'd like to share as opposed to say sound science.
Soundstage, or sound stage; what is it and why do we want it. Soundstage presents the listener with a panoramic listening area, a landscape of sound position and distance.
From the beginning of time recorded music has been created with the focus on loudspeaker reproduction, that being left and right channel stereo. A few recording have from time-to-to been focused towards multiple loudspeakers, be it 5.1, and binaural; recording for natural ear spacing primely for use with headphones. This in short is why we don't get much of a sound stage while listening to stereophonic music made for loudspeakers. While certain headphones will present stereophonic music with a seemingly larger soundstage, non can compare with the depth and detailed positioning of a binaural recording.
So the question is: why don't headphones position stereophonics better
or perhaps the question should be: why isn't all music recorded at the very minimum 5.1.
On my recent quest for soundstage I decided to tackle the latter question of 5.1 recordings; how good is it and more importantly how good it sounds on headphones. For this 'soundstage journey' I used Jean Michel Jarre's 'Oxygene: Live In Your Living Room' recording in Dolby Digital 5.1
For this to work as I intended I needed an array of software and decoders. First and foremost my playback had to be bit-perfect, for this I used foobar with WASAPI. I also needed a DTS decoder which can be downloaded from the foobar components page and finally I needed a Dolby Headphone plugin which is also available from foobar. Once setup I hit play and kicked back for a listen; in a nutshell I have never heard music this good from headphones, so detailed and layered, 3D surround sound positioning and I'm in the middle of it! So incredibly detailed, it was like hearing Vangelis for the first time as a child, all these new sounds whizzing around, just introducing there presence to my ears.
Excited by my new discovery I wanted to listen to the rest of my stereophonic music with Dolby Headphone enabled; I loaded up Legend of the black Shawarma by Infected Mushroom, one of my favorite groups for headphone listening. I hit play and... not good, not good at all; the sound was only coming from behind me, as if my front center, left and right speakers were no longer hooked up. The bass was just about the same experience which was coming from a sub woofer on the floor however this 'sat in front' position while hugely different from the norm was not ideal.
While I enjoy music I would say I am very visual and so I have attempted to depict the sound heard around my head, or rather in my brain through my ears in an illustration.
The light green depicts your standard headphone, with left and right soundstage. The teal color depicts Ultrasone and there S-logic technology, while this presents the listener with 3-dimensional sound it is typically not as wide as other headphones. The darker green is Dolby Headphone; extremely wide with a full 180° sweep however there is nothing coming out of the imaginary front speakers. The entire circle would represent my 5.1 listening experience.
In closing I suppose I have to say I'm a bit disappointed with headphones and recorded music as a whole. Overall we are seeing a huge drop in sound quality, with CDs being recorded at much higher volumes, music artists sporting cheap headphones like the beats as-if to say we don't give a damn about the audio quality.
While going back to the rest of my music after my 5.1 experience I have to say it all sounds a little boring I will continue my headphone journey and hope 5.1 catches on in the near future.
What are your thoughts on the subject?