[salawow]

Hi !

I want to eventually get good headphones (currently have a logitech G930 "gaming" headset), but first i have a question about ear fatigue.

Short story: When i listen to music in stereo, either with my wife's sennheiser HD555 or with my logitech G930 headset, i quickly get ear fatigue and headache after more or less 1 hour of listening. However, if i put my logitech G930 in "surround mode", which trick my head into feeling the music come from all around the room instead of from the headphones, i get no fatigue/headache at all, even after 3+ hours of listening. (at a cost of denaturalising the music).

What can explain that ? Would getting decent headphones help with fatigue ? Does it have something to do with soundstage ? (since both the G930 in stereo mode and the HD555 have poor soundstage as i read).

 

[007shark76]

Hi !

I want to eventually get good headphones (currently have a logitech G930 "gaming" headset), but first i have a question about ear fatigue.

Short story: When i listen to music in stereo, either with my wife's sennheiser HD555 or with my logitech G930 headset, i quickly get ear fatigue and headache after more or less 1 hour of listening. However, if i put my logitech G930 in "surround mode", which trick my head into feeling the music come from all around the room instead of from the headphones, i get no fatigue/headache at all, even after 3+ hours of listening. (at a cost of denaturalising the music).

What can explain that ? Would getting decent headphones help with fatigue ? Does it have something to do with soundstage ? (since both the G930 in stereo mode and the HD555 have poor soundstage as i read).

It could be from harsh treble from poorly recorded material and/or source. "Surround Mode" is probably reducing that. You could try using an equalizer to reduce the 6KHz frequency area and higher and see if that gives relief.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

Hi !

I want to eventually get good headphones (currently have a logitech G930 "gaming" headset), but first i have a question about ear fatigue.

Short story: When i listen to music in stereo, either with my wife's sennheiser HD555 or with my logitech G930 headset, i quickly get ear fatigue and headache after more or less 1 hour of listening. However, if i put my logitech G930 in "surround mode", which trick my head into feeling the music come from all around the room instead of from the headphones, i get no fatigue/headache at all, even after 3+ hours of listening. (at a cost of denaturalising the music).

What can explain that ? Would getting decent headphones help with fatigue ? Does it have something to do with soundstage ? (since both the G930 in stereo mode and the HD555 have poor soundstage as i read).

Music with the exception of Binaural Recordings are recorded with the expectation that they will be played back on speakers. On speakers both ears can hear both speakers. On headphones, that's not the case - left hears only left and right hears only right - which is why you have a tendency to hear a strong L-C-R image which is trunkated or weak between L-C and C-R. Along with any boost in the treble region, that imaging issue will put the cymbals right by your ears and that increases fatigue.

Virtual Surround and Crossfeed both try to simulate how you hear speakers in a room, albeit differently. Crossfeed is just filtering sound above a given frequency across both channels to a given amplitude; virtual surround takes a surround sound program (or 2ch) and then on top of the filtering also adds reverb to make it sound like the source of the sound seems farther out from your head apart from how you can feel the headphones you're wearing.

You can have a similar problem with speakers if they have spike in the treble and you don't give them enough toe-in, or in a car, if the tweeters' output keeps bouncing off the windshield and the tweeters and midwoofers are out of sync (since most people don't ride in the center of the cabin, ex a McLaren F1).