Difference between clarity and resolution in a headphone?

[OstOstMeraOst]

What's the difference between resolution and clarity? How does it impact headphones sound quality?

 

[Me x3]

Well these are always tricky concepts because people use them in slightly different ways.
 
Clarity has to do with macro-detail. Having a neutralish frequency response with non boosted bass and relatively flat mids and treble improves clarity but not necessarily resolution. A headphone with great clarity should let you hear every sound distinctly and every start and stop of the sound (fast decay). On the other hand resolution can be related to micro detail, the "texture" of the sound.
 
You can have a very clear sounding, perfectly defined string that's finely smoothed out so it lacks some texture. In other words it sounds clean but more liquid than it should (High clarity - Low resolution)
 
You can have a perfectly textured string, full of inner detail which lacks proper attack and/or it's masked by an overly boosted midbass (Low clarity - High resolution)

 

[OstOstMeraOst]

Thx. That sorted things out for me.. So a good a headphone with both clarity and resolution is best?

 

[Me x3]

  Thx. That sorted things out for me.. So a good a headphone with both clarity and resolution is best?

As long as you want to hear the recording as it is, yes.
The thing is, some recordings sound pretty bad with very clear headphones like HD800.
Sometimes a warmer and darker headphone like HD650 or Audeze LCD is desirable for the sake of enjoying a wider range of recordings. At some point, personal preferences play a big role.

 

[shurealltheway]

As long as you want to hear the recording as it is, yes.
The thing is, some recordings sound pretty bad with very clear headphones like HD800.
Sometimes a warmer and darker headphone like HD650 or Audeze LCD is desirable for the sake of enjoying a wider range of recordings. At some point, personal preferences play a big role.

Wow. Perfectly said.

 

[jimbop54]

To me, clarity and resolution are the same thing.

 

[Swiftfalcon]

To me clarity signifies lack of distortion and noise, resolution signifies conductance of lowest level and fastest notes.

 

[cossix]

I tend to think of clarity as how balanced the sound is. If the bass or mids are too exaggerated and the treble is rolled off, the headphone may not feel very clear to me. For example, many Bose and Beats headphones seem to have poor clarity to me. An example of a good headphone that has rolled off treble but still has clarity is the HD650.
Resolution on the other hand is pretty much the same as detail retrieval. My 650 has good resolution, but my LCD2 is better, and the HD800 is compatible to LCD2 but since it has more treble presence, it feels like it has better resolution.

 

[FumblingFoo]

I agree with all of the above, but I also like to factor in the degree of instrument separation and vocal distinction for clarity. The less all the sounds being presented simultaneously and successively bleed together, the clearer the presentation. This can heavily depend on the music, too, with less-compressed recordings shining the most. I find that its easier to have clarity without resolution than resolution without clarity. The finer details are masked by a lack of clarity. For example, the HD 598's sound clear but I can pick out a distinct graniness to the sound, but the HD 600's can sometimes lack clarity more than other phones on certain music, making the instruments, vocals, and their details melt into each other, sounding smeared.

 

[cossix]

I agree with all of the above, but I also like to factor in the degree of instrument separation and vocal distinction for clarity. The less all the sounds being presented simultaneously and successively bleed together, the clearer the presentation. This can heavily depend on the music, too, with less-compressed recordings shining the most. I find that its easier to have clarity without resolution than resolution without clarity. The finer details are masked by a lack of clarity. For example, the HD 598's sound clear but I can pick out a distinct graniness to the sound, but the HD 600's can sometimes lack clarity more than other phones on certain music, making the instruments, vocals, and their details melt into each other, sounding smeared.

I like that example. My 598 sound very clear, but lack resolution. The 600/650 have much better resolution and more detail but can lack clarity on some tracks

 

[Music Alchemist]

Well these are always tricky concepts because people use them in slightly different ways.

Clarity has to do with macro-detail. Having a neutralish frequency response with non boosted bass and relatively flat mids and treble improves clarity but not necessarily resolution. A headphone with great clarity should let you hear every sound distinctly and every start and stop of the sound (fast decay). On the other hand resolution can be related to micro detail, the "texture" of the sound.

You can have a very clear sounding, perfectly defined string that's finely smoothed out so it lacks some texture. In other words it sounds clean but more liquid than it should (High clarity - Low resolution)

You can have a perfectly textured string, full of inner detail which lacks proper attack and/or it's masked by an overly boosted midbass (Low clarity - High resolution)

That's the exact problem: the terminology is subjective and can mean different things to different people.

For me, things that can change the entire sound signature are macrodetail: texture, timbre, tone, transient speed, spatial capabilities...while microdetail is low-level signals that may not be picked up by less resolving transducers. Resolution is more applicable to macrodetail for me since it's obvious when something is messing up the sound in a way that can't be fixed by EQ.

It's easy to confuse true resolution with perceived detail. For example, I think my speakers are more resolving and expressive than any headphone I've heard. (And I've heard many of the best.) Some would say headphones have more detail, but I think that's just an illusion created by the drivers being right next to your ears, making certain details more apparent in a way that you would not hear at the original performance. (This is exacerbated by headphones with a peaky frequency response.) I have yet to hear a single detail on a headphone that I can't hear on my speakers; it's just that it's reproduced much more accurately on the latter. On the other hand, I've heard countless details reproduced by the speakers that headphones either merely hint at or don't let me hear at all.

Back to the original question... All subjective aspects of sound are derived from the objective aspects that sound is comprised of, such as frequency response, timing accuracy, and distortion. So better performance in those areas can contribute to a greater sense of clarity and resolution. Whether it's one, the other, or both comes down to your interpretation.

 

[geomaso44]

From my perspective, resolution is a more objective term than clarity. In practice, both are used in a subjective way by headphone enthusiast.

To me, resolution describes ability of headphones to reproduce details and nuances in recordings. The higher the resolution, the more microdetails and subtle layers of musical information reach your ears.
To me, clarity describes ability of headphones to reproduce sound without perceived muddiness or fuziness. The thing is people often associate clarity with present treble response (compared to bass to mid spectrum) which is not completely correct IMHO.

 

[cossix]

From my perspective, resolution is a more objective term than clarity. In practice, both are used in a subjective way by headphone enthusiast.

To me, resolution describes ability of headphones to reproduce details and nuances in recordings. The higher the resolution, the more microdetails and subtle layers of musical information reach your ears.
To me, clarity describes ability of headphones to reproduce sound without perceived muddiness or fuziness. The thing is people often associate clarity with present treble response (compared to bass to mid spectrum) which is not completely correct IMHO.

I definitely agree that resolution is much more objective. The details are either there or they aren't. Clarity seems to be related to how people perceive treble response

 

[wu wei]

When I think of clarity I think of instrument separation. I would describe a headphone (or a system of components) as being clear when instruments and voices don't stumble over one another or bleed together.

To me, a resolving system is one where you can hear the ambience around a singer's voice, when you can hear how deep into a ride a drumstick is tapping (or whether not it is plastic tipped, for that matter), when you can tell whether a guitarist is playing the same note higher or lower on the fret board, and whether that fretboard is rosewood or maple.

 

[cossix]

When I think of clarity I think of instrument separation. I would describe a headphone (or a system of components) as being clear when instruments and voices don't stumble over one another or bleed together.

To me, a resolving system is one where you can hear the ambience around a singer's voice, when you can hear how deep into a ride a drumstick is tapping (or whether not it is plastic tipped, for that matter), when you can tell whether a guitarist is playing the same note higher or lower on the fret board, and whether that fretboard is rosewood or maple.

I'd also agree with instrument separation being involved. Going from single ended to balanced on my 650 made the instruments much more divided and seemed to increase clarity. They didn't melt together as much as before.