[Head Injury]

Quote:

Quote:
Assuming people are not mowing the lawn around you.

  Thanks for all your responses guys.

Sorry, but the lawn mower outside is not anywhere near the approx. 75-80dB I listen at. It still impacts sound quality. People all the time complain about computer fans with open headphones, or look for silent fans. Case fans get at their loudest probably 40dB, unless they're spinning really damn fast. That's 1/16th of 80dB. Yet it's still noticeable and it still is a detriment to sound quality. Remember that even if you listen at 80dB max volume, most of the sounds in the music are much quieter than that. Unless your songs are all compressed dynamically, there will be nuances in the music as quiet as your surroundings allow. A noise at 40dB will blur out all sounds in the music below 40dB. With headphones that reduce that by as little as 10dB, it now only blurs out sounds 30dB and under.
 
Music often sounds better late at night. There are several hypotheses as to why. One of them is because the ambient volume around you is quieter. Less traffic, fewer annoying birds, less noise in other rooms.

 

[High_Q]

^yeah, thanks. Lets get back to the topic at hand.

 

[leeperry]

ok I give up trying to multiquote!
 
@JaZZ: I'm not willing to give up isolation...and if the K701 were semi-open, they would sell a lot more and the existing customers wouldn't complain either.
 
@xxbaker: You have a point...offering isolation with a semi-open enclosure would most likely increase the R&D costs by quite a bit...are customers willing to pay for this when open phones sell well? I personally hate when things get dumbed down.
 
An open phone is an "ear speaker"...nothing more, and cannot be called "headphones" per se.

 

[Head Injury]

 
Quote:

^yeah, thanks. Lets get back to the topic at hand.

It is the topic at hand. You even asked for it.

     Quote:

What are the benefits to sound isolation with full size phones?

See?
 
Quote:

ok I give up trying to multiquote!
 
An open phone is an "ear speaker"...nothing more, and cannot be called "headphones" per se.

I agree about the multiquote. It too me three tries to get this post right.
 
EDIT: And it's still not right. But whatever.
 
Not calling open cans "headphones" seems a little unfair. Why do headphones have to be of closed design? You said yourself that loud"speakers" have closed backs. So why are open headphones "ear"speakers and closed headphones "headphones"?

 

[leeperry]

well, in many ppl's minds and even if you go back to the origin of headphones(telephone/radio operators?), they were meant to isolate the listener from a noisy environment.
 
if we go extreme, a k1k is clearly a pair of ear speakers to me...you can hardly call it "headphones".
 
I'm sure I'd love the K701, as it's said to have wonderful mids and an even wider SS than the cd3k(if that's even possible)...but I do need isolation, that's one of the reasons why I use headphones in the first place...my noisy DLP projector, my dumb dog barking all day...I'm willing to compromise w/ semi-open as the SS was really lousy on the closed cans I tried(manufaktur dt770/d2k) anyway, but going open is not going to happen...then I'll be listening to my computer fans in the quiet moments.

 

[Head Injury]

Quote:

well, in many ppl's minds and even if you go back to the origin of headphones(telephone/radio operators?), they were meant to isolate the listener from a noisy environment.
 
if we go extreme, a k1k is clearly a pair of ear speakers to me...you can hardly call it "headphones".

But "headphones" in the audiophile sense are less about the isolation and more about just sound. One of the first (to my knowledge) "audiophile" headphones, Grado HP-1000, is open. I would think from that that open headphones are as much linked with the audiophile definition of "headphones" as closed are.
 
But no, I wouldn't call the K1000 a headphone either 

 

[ford2]

Quote:

But "headphones" in the audiophile sense are less about the isolation and more about just sound. One of the first (to my knowledge) "audiophile" headphones, Grado HP-1000, is open. I would think from that that open headphones are as much linked with the audiophile definition of "headphones" as closed are.
 
But no, I wouldn't call the K1000 a headphone either 

Neither did AKG,they were sold as  ear speakers ,and excellent one's at that.

 

[udauda]

Good read on designining headphones:
http://www.audioxpress.com/magsdirx/voxcoil/addenda/media/mowry808.pdf
http://www.audioxpress.com/magsdirx/voxcoil/addenda/media/mowry908.pdf
 
Actually this book should answer most of your questions.

 

[leeperry]

thanks for the links udauda, I'll look into them!
 
BTW, someone earlier mentioned a vintage grado as it were the benchmark to 3D SS on headphones..those foam pads look unbearable and most everyone says that the Grado have a narrow 2D in-your-face SS.
 
It seems that the road to success for SONY was some angled drivers(basic physiologic matter here, as the sound needs to hit the concha in the most natural way) w/ some drastic psycho-acoustics tweaking(like those noise canceling phones, they prolly do extensive use of inverted phase to give "depth" to the sound) and some huge cups to allow the drivers to breathe and provide a wide stereo image.
 
what Sony has to say about it: http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&productId=11041066

auro-nomic designed driver unit
is positioned to correspond with the angle of the ear, eliminating pressure and providing wide, natural soundscape reproduction floating earcup system
improves resonance characteristics and sonic performance
large-sized circum-aural design
provides an excellent fit for any size head, allowing hours of tireless wear and total music impression

 
Indeed, many phones crush your ears...I have yet to imagine someone having the same problem on the Sony CD serie 

 and an "untouched" ear allows for a more natural perception...basic rule here again.
 
Ultrasone prefered to decentralize the driver(again for the sound to hit the concha as naturally as possible) and put all their R&D on psycho-acoustics to avoid using big cups. I'm kinda envious of my friend who finds his Pro2500 as wide as his cd3k, as I really hated a brand new Pro750. Maybe I should take one for the team, find a Pro2500 and do whatever it takes to get my brain to like its sound...but I'd also need to get bigger pads huh.

 

[donunus]

All this talk of headphones and soundstage shmoundstage hehehe. Its all in the frequency response! more highs gives an impression of more air/wider stage. Less mids gives an impression of depth of soundstage etc(there are specific frequencies but thats for a more detailed discussion)... Angled drivers also gives another illusion of a soundstage because it is slightly off axis making them have a natural ear/hrtf interaction... again hrtf is all about changing frequency response. When things move around the room, we can tell they are at certain places because our brain interprets the changing frequency response as different directional cues. I'm just rambling but if they make closed or open cans measure in a way where things will sound deep and wide... all music will sound deep and wide on it. I call it coloration more than a realistic soundstage. Why would I want a bedroom recording to sound like it was recorded in a concert hall?

 

[Head Injury]

Quote:

BTW, someone earlier mentioned a vintage grado as it were the benchmark to 3D SS on headphones..those foam pads look unbearable and most everyone says that the Grado have a narrow 2D in-your-face SS.

If you're talking about me, then no I didn't 

 
I called it one of the first "audiophile headphones", an open one. I mentioned nothing about SS, I mentioned nothing about its merits vs. closed, nothing about the sound at all. Just that, as one of the first audiophile headphones was open, it seems fair to consider open headphones official "headphones" and not earspeakers. At least as far as this forum and this hobby is concerned.

 

[Br777]

Every pair of headphones i have ever had in my possession i have played through a sine wave generator for the purpose of finding the frequency peaks and valleys and eq-ing them out
 
So far, i have found that the open cans more consistently have fewer frequency imbalances, or have a more "flat" sound.  I think this is one of the main reasons you see so many open cans.. it seems logical to me that with closed cans you get all kinds of resonance and frequency warps due to the sound waves bouncing off the cup and interacting with your ears, so its probably easier to not only create a flat sound, but create the sound consistent to what the engineer is trying to accomplish when they don't have to compensate for the closed cups
 
of course i don't know the "science" behind any of this, but this is my logical conclusion.

 

[leeperry]

If you're talking about me, then no I didn't 

 
I called it one of the first "audiophile headphones", an open one. I mentioned nothing about SS, I mentioned nothing about its merits vs. closed, nothing about the sound at all. Just that, as one of the first audiophile headphones was open, it seems fair to consider open headphones official "headphones" and not earspeakers. At least as far as this forum and this hobby is concerned.

 
OK my bad! anyway, I don't think that you can get a 3D SS without angled/decentralized drivers..Sony had decided to keep on angling them(F1/SA5k/etc...) and Ultrasone decentralized. I don't believe that a phone w/ flat centralized drivers will ever provide a wide 3D SS, make it open if you like it won't change a damn thing...it's prolly a bit OT by now, yet I don't see the point of fully open backs. They don't bring anything to the table as far as 3D headstaging is concerned, and all they do is kill isolation and leak like the little ear speakers that they are

 
I see the HD800 and T1 do have angled drivers(about time these 2 german manfacturers start doing it

), but many overhyped phones like the HD650 don't...making it open back won't change a damn thing, the SS will suck either way. It'll be a dead L/R..
 
I don't really agree w/ all the talk about frequencies, as I always EQ my cans to kill the treble resonant frequencies...saying that a wide 3D SS requires piercing trebles couldn't be farther from the truth.
 
look at the way a[size=medium]nti-reflective coating [/size]works on an optical lens, it will output the opposite wavelength to kill the reflections across the visible spectrum...the same way noise cancelling cans work. I'm quite sure that w/ the right R&D you can do the same in closed cups, through selected inverted phase depending on the FR...that's what I'm hearing w/ the cd3k drivers anyway, and that's prolly also the reason why open drivers transplanted in a closed can sound awful.

 

[b0dhi]

If you don't believe a flat, centralised driver can give a 3D SS, you should try one of the true HRTF processors like Smyth. You'll quickly change your mind.
 
Angling the drivers, increasing the enclosure size, etc...these make only a small difference in the big picture, where  "real life sound" is the basis of comparison.

 

[leeperry]

the Smyth uses top range DSP, some sort of tailor made "Dolby Headphones"...like what Beyer did: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/mar07/articles/headzonepro.htm
 
It's even got a tracker to know the inclination of your head

 
I was talking about a "passive" 3D SS...and I'm not really looking for room simulation tbh, I just want a wide SS on 3 axis simultaneously..not just a boring L/R.