Some of the things I've been hearing the past few nights have been rather ear opening to put things mildly. But to understand what I'm hearing (the fun part!) I'll need some help with the idea of depth perception in headphones.
For the longest time in using headphones, I don't think I've ever experienced depth perception...until now (yes this alludes to new equipment but I'll leave that out of this...I mean who cares
). I've always heard things in a very single layered fashion. To some degree I could tell something was maybe playing a tad farther away from something else, but it was always still a relatively straight beeline...I could pratically connect all the instruments playing in a virtual half circular line from the extreme left side of my ear to the front, to the right. Of course I've just now discovered that the headphone itself can have a profound influence on this...so far I've discovered the Etymotics are actually quite poor at casting a sense of depth. They are exceptional and darn near unbeaten in the dynamic headphone real at the seperation and imaging of instruments however.
Now I've had no problems at all hearing different instruments playing, and this got better and better as my equipment got better and better. But within the headphone realm, I have never experienced a true positioning of each individual instrument in its own space. Until now.
My question now is if you can hear each instrument distinctly playing, that's good seperation. But if you can distinctly hear each instrument playing, and also hear where it is located in a recording/the recording venue, and it contains a space of its very own, is that good seperation and depth? Or is this still just good seperation? Does it take depth perception to be able to localize instruments in their own space?
This is a phenomenon I've never heard in headphones, and also never believed was possible in a headphone until now. And now that I've heard it, it's one of those things that make you want to go back through each CD you own, particularly the ones made up of orchestras or different musical instruments playing together.
Another thing that's boggled me with this discovery is just where are we, as the listener, relative to the recording venue? i.e. in one Keiko Matsui track, I heard drums playing up close , and a saxophone playing farther away. But such an arrangement makes no sense to me, since normally drum kits are positioned in the back of a group. And when I watched the Keiko Matsui DVD, the guy playing the saxophone played in front of the drum kit. Does this mean that through the recording, I'm actually at the back of the stage looking outward at the audience, and listening as such? Or is this simply the way instruments can be arranged around a mic? I mean, what is the "listening position" here? Normally I assume I'm part of an audience with the orchestra or playing group arrayed in front of me on a stage, and yes I've heard recordings where this indeed happens. Most recordings are like this I think. But now I'm wondering if there's actually a different positioning perspective to some recordings.
For the longest time in using headphones, I don't think I've ever experienced depth perception...until now (yes this alludes to new equipment but I'll leave that out of this...I mean who cares
Now I've had no problems at all hearing different instruments playing, and this got better and better as my equipment got better and better. But within the headphone realm, I have never experienced a true positioning of each individual instrument in its own space. Until now.
My question now is if you can hear each instrument distinctly playing, that's good seperation. But if you can distinctly hear each instrument playing, and also hear where it is located in a recording/the recording venue, and it contains a space of its very own, is that good seperation and depth? Or is this still just good seperation? Does it take depth perception to be able to localize instruments in their own space?
This is a phenomenon I've never heard in headphones, and also never believed was possible in a headphone until now. And now that I've heard it, it's one of those things that make you want to go back through each CD you own, particularly the ones made up of orchestras or different musical instruments playing together.
Another thing that's boggled me with this discovery is just where are we, as the listener, relative to the recording venue? i.e. in one Keiko Matsui track, I heard drums playing up close , and a saxophone playing farther away. But such an arrangement makes no sense to me, since normally drum kits are positioned in the back of a group. And when I watched the Keiko Matsui DVD, the guy playing the saxophone played in front of the drum kit. Does this mean that through the recording, I'm actually at the back of the stage looking outward at the audience, and listening as such? Or is this simply the way instruments can be arranged around a mic? I mean, what is the "listening position" here? Normally I assume I'm part of an audience with the orchestra or playing group arrayed in front of me on a stage, and yes I've heard recordings where this indeed happens. Most recordings are like this I think. But now I'm wondering if there's actually a different positioning perspective to some recordings.