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Balanced Armature Headphone?
Jul 19, 2016 at 11:46 PM Thread Starter Post #1 of 7
Xamdou

Xamdou

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Jul 20, 2016 at 3:28 AM Post #2 of 7
Well it's more commonly used in IEMs but in the end a balanced armature driver is really just a small speaker so there's no limitation to not using them in headphones. They're just more commonly used in IEMs due to their smaller size.
 
Jul 20, 2016 at 10:23 AM Post #3 of 7
xamdou said:
  Sorry for asking a noob question but from my limited knowledge, isn't BA drivers only used for IEMs and not headphones? I found this on Aliexpress from random browsing :
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/MaGaosi-Hybrid-a-Dynamic-six-Balance-Armature-unit-wooden-noise-isolating-headband-earphone-headphone/32659579128.html?spm=2114.01010208.3.94.b8XHck&ws_ab_test=searchweb201556_7,searchweb201602_4_10057_10056_10055_10049_10017_405_404_10059_407_10058_10040_9999,searchweb201603_8&btsid=75f01952-5df5-47c2-919a-075d6df68d66
 
Can someone enlighten me please?
Click to expand...

 
Well they're using six of them. The thing is sensitivity is measured at a distance within which the driver will be used, so while you can see IEMs with a very high sensitivity, that's measured with the drivers - BA or dynamic - firing through a tube and into the ear canal. In this case just putting them in a headphone results in lower output, so they used six. Generally, transducers that vibrate more than they pump, or at least very small dynamic drivers, so they can move and produce treble frequencies with less distortion (and this is why fullrange speaker and headphone drivers have a tendency to have some kind of spike in the treble). The core idea here is to use a driver that doesn't have that kind of spike in the range that the other driver - the single dynamic - would have distortion in.
 
Kind of like this speaker

 

At the same time, there could be adverse affects to the imaging if you had one of these on just one side of the dynamic driver, made worse by being in a headphone cup rather than 1m in front of you (ie there is a greater effective path length differential for the listener, as a standard speaker far enough away or angled minimizes this), so using six of them not only makes up for the low output of each driver in this application, but also "mirrors" the sound source, mimicking a coaxial driver.
 
Kind of like this one, but it goes around a low driver in a circle.

 
Jul 20, 2016 at 1:40 PM Post #4 of 7
Cool find! Final Audio Design also has hybrid dynamic/balanced armature headphones, the Sonorous IV and Sonorous VI, but they only use 1 balanced armature driver. You can check out their diagrams here:
 
http://final-audio-design.com/en/archives/2086
 
The MaGaosi product page doesn't seem to explain how or why they're using six! balanced armature drivers, I wonder if it is for higher SPL or whether they are for different frequencies?
 
Jul 20, 2016 at 9:11 PM Post #5 of 7
Wow, thanks for all the reply. It will take me some time to understand some of the stuff that ProtegeManiac posted 
etysmile.gif

 
I have no idea that Final Audio had an hybrid headphone too since google gave me close to no results on headphones with BAs.
I wonder if anyone took a leap of faith on headfi since there's only 1 order so far 
biggrin.gif

 
Apr 28, 2019 at 2:57 PM Post #7 of 7
I imagine the Magaosi dt-600 has 3 front firing BAs and 3 rear firing BAs , 2 dynamic drivers for left , right and sub bass like a surround sound system. The sound stage must be amazing close to HD 802 for a fraction of the price. I wish someone would write a review on these headphones I'm dying to learn more these . There is no information on Aliexpress, on Amazon they went out of stock before anyone bought one.
 
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