No you just have to accept that headphones will have a proportionately smaller soundstage vs speakers. The important thing is that whatever it has needs elements that are proportional to each other. You can't have cymbals waaaaay out to the flanks and front, practically right by your ears, where the guitars are.
No you just have to accept that headphones will have a proportionately smaller soundstage vs speakers. The important thing is that whatever it has needs elements that are proportional to each other. You can't have cymbals waaaaay out to the flanks and front, practically right by your ears, where the guitars are.
I think this is what I am having an issue with. The thing with speakers, even if the soundstage is not large is that they stay static and headphones follow your heads movements. I have been to hundreds of live concerts from intimate acoustic, to studio recording and arena shows. Live music even studio recorded music will sound different from a speaker to pair of headphones.
I think I am just going to have to accept that no headphones will match a set of properly set up speakers. But you can still find a set of cans that you find pleasure listening to.
BTW, I had a pair of Meze 99 Classics delivered yesterday and one of the drivers was DOA. Today I think I will take a 15 minute drive out to Schiit in Newhall and try out their stuff. They have a couple dozen headphones...Audeze, Mr.Speakers, HiFiMan, Senns AKG's etc to try out. I'll also bring what I have and compare.
Somehow you’ve been walking down the Yellow Brick Road, and all was fine with your speaker set-up. Then when switching to headphones they failed to get you the musicality which is easy with speakers.
The cure is to simply stop listening to speakers for awhile till your brain adjusts to headphones, or listen to headphones which create room effect.
Room effect is way more of a thing than people realize. And even headphones like the AKG K1000 which attempted the layed-back sound of speakers in a room still had that flat AKG sound, leaving out the bass presence which occurs with big speakers moving air. So AKG started to get the speaker in a room imaging though they left out the most important part.....the bass!
Room effect is way more of a thing than people realize. And even headphones like the AKG K1000 which attempted the layed-back sound of speakers in a room still had that flat AKG sound, leaving out the bass presence which occurs with big speakers moving air. So AKG started to get the speaker in a room imaging though they left out the most important part.....the bass!
A subwoofer can help. Since the K1000s aren't positioned over the ears the subwoofer's sound doesn't have to go through an earcup covering the ears.
Won't work out of the box as there needs to be some tweaking of the gain and crossover, plus sub or seat position relative to each other, whcih can get trickier since the integration and interaction with actual speakers vs the earspeakers aren't going to be similar enough. For one, the sub can be positioned such that it's effectively the same distance from the listener's head at the stereo sweet spot as the main speakers. A desktop sub like the Mirage Omni might help since it can be positioned farther up more easily (desk, equipment rack in a living room or dedicated speaker system room, etc), without the distorted, bloated mess from PC subwoofers.
I think this is what I am having an issue with. The thing with speakers, even if the soundstage is not large is that they stay static and headphones follow your heads movements.
Well the headphones are on your head and move with your head, so that's unavoidable if not preferable. Imagine wearing IEMs and every time you turn around while walking you're no longer facing the stage and all sound moves to one side or gets messed up trying to sound like it's coming from behind.
That's the penalty for not hearing music interacting with a room. Each ear hears only one driver, and in addition to proximity, it can't image a large soundstage. Add to that the soundwaves not moving through a room so you don't get a kick in the chest effect.
There's a workaround for the first. Crossfeed in hardware or software can be applied to minimize the hard panned left, narrow center, hard panned right sound by filtering some of the sound across all channels without simply just making for a low channel separation (which is if you filtered everything across). Filter more treble and midrange so the vocals pop out more, cymbals move to the center and back a little, guitars stay mostly where they are, etc. The other is binaural recording but few albums are available in that.
A subwoofer can help. Since the K1000s aren't positioned over the ears the subwoofer's sound doesn't have to go through an earcup covering the ears.
Won't work out of the box as there needs to be some tweaking of the gain and crossover, plus sub or seat position relative to each other, whcih can get trickier since the integration and interaction with actual speakers vs the earspeakers aren't going to be similar enough. For one, the sub can be positioned such that it's effectively the same distance from the listener's head at the stereo sweet spot as the main speakers. A desktop sub like the Mirage Omni might help since it can be positioned farther up more easily (desk, equipment rack in a living room or dedicated speaker system room, etc), without the distorted, bloated mess from PC subwoofers.
Well the headphones are on your head and move with your head, so that's unavoidable if not preferable. Imagine wearing IEMs and every time you turn around while walking you're no longer facing the stage and all sound moves to one side or gets messed up trying to sound like it's coming from behind.
That's the penalty for not hearing music interacting with a room. Each ear hears only one driver, and in addition to proximity, it can't image a large soundstage. Add to that the soundwaves not moving through a room so you don't get a kick in the chest effect.
There's a workaround for the first. Crossfeed in hardware or software can be applied to minimize the hard panned left, narrow center, hard panned right sound by filtering some of the sound across all channels without simply just making for a low channel separation (which is if you filtered everything across). Filter more treble and midrange so the vocals pop out more, cymbals move to the center and back a little, guitars stay mostly where they are, etc. The other is binaural recording but few albums are available in that.
Actually my intention was to simply mention bass heavy headphones. Or infact bass “colored” headphones. My biggest issue with headphones has been when the sound is too treble and analytical.
In ways the AKG K1000 was that thin analytical response, explaining that the K1000 had the speaker in a room imaging but lacked room coloring hence it failed for me. The color is actually something that your just starting to see come about in the last two years with headphones like the Z1R. Headphones which almost take the risk of becoming non-audiophile because of shunning the tried and true formula for transparency. They arrive at a room color responce due to more bass tuning. Along with it can come slight distortions with the 70mm drivers not always being free from artifacts. But that’s what rooms do is add artifacts which color sound in the end.
The amazing part for the K1000 always was they had no cup to color the sound. There was no chance of standing waves behind the driver nor a chance of cup color from the cup infront of the driver, between the ear and driver. Hence they did sound fast, but the drums where a little tizzy. The k701 was AKG’s way of reintroducing the technology which was introduced in 1989 with the K1000. Hence the k701s were actually slightly warmer, and of course were not $1200. Still due to price I think we forget the attempt at the k701 as being introduced as a flagship. My point is AKG had speaker in a room goals in mind with both headphones but IMO, failed to get the bass from a speaker in a room.
And while I actually still like the k701s for certain genres, they are really a one trick pony in the end. Headphones like bass heavy Z1Rs can take a week to get used to as they disrupt our idea of what a headphone could be. After the learning curve they come close to the visceral impact of speakers. Male vocals are just a slight edge off, but they do other stuff so well you start to look over the flaws, remembering no headphone is perfect.
Many are put off due to the Z1R being marketed as closed back, when in fact the cups are dispersing the sound and letting it past the cup with audio transparent paper and steel mesh. Thus like the Fostex line are getting closer to a semi-open back, not our traditional ideas of closed headphones. IMO.
And that’s how you arrive at a speaker sound with headphones.
1) Get good bass like speakers in a room.
2) Get open and airy sound with excellent imaging like speakers.
If you want lively and somewhat closer to speaker-like presentation from headphones - try out a STAX Lambda setup. Nothing clearer or more live sounding (not even Focals), extremely dynamic (not flat and boring like the M1060's), and it has a unique sound signature not found in anything else. Note this is with them powered from an HT amp (NAD C275BEE) via a modified STAX SRD-7 electrostatic transformer. The STAX driver units like SRM-323S don't sound as good or present the same level of bass and dynamics. For ~$800 you can have a quality experience setup with a used SR-L300 and used SRM-323S or SRM-353X setup. If you have a very decent HT stereo amp, then the $700 or so for custom electrostatic transformer is a noticeable upgrade over the STAX Driver units.
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