Originally Posted by Darth Nut
INTRODUCING:
THE HEADSTAGE
I am listening to a section of Beethoven’s Pastoral
symphony (andante movement), and I think there
are 20 musicians packed inside my head. Listening
to music via headphones can be a paradoxical
experience. I know that 20 people cannot fit into
my head, empty as I sometimes swear it may be
during my stupider moments. Yet the steadfast
illusion right now is that there are 20 musicians in
my head.
There are some recordings that make me go “wow,
what a huge soundstage”. But here’s the rub: I
happen to have a wall-sized mirror on one side of
my listening chair. When I look into the mirror, the
illusion of the huge soundstage is stripped away
and revealed for what it truly is: a cramp head-
hugging soundfield. In the mirror I can “see” all
those sonic images sticking to my scalp like a bad
hair-do. I look away from the mirror, close my
eyes, lose all sense of scaled reference to the real
world, re-invest my concentration into the music,
and the huge soundstage re-appears. But when I
open my eyes and look again at the reflection of
my headphones in the mirror, I once again “see”
the scalp-bound soundfield.
I call this soundfield that stubbornly refuses to take
leave of my head the headstage.
The difference between soundstage and head-
stage is illusion and reality. The soundstage is the
(desired) illusion; the headstage the (unfortunate)
reality.
Another way of stating the difference between
headstage and soundstage: headstage is about
the localization of sonic images in relation to your
head. Let’s say you are listening to a piece of
music that contains 3 sonic images. One image is
located at the right temple of your forehead,
another image is skimming the top centre of your
scalp, and yet another image is located an inch
beyond the left earcup. The arena within which all
these sonic images are located is called the
headstage. And it is a tiny arena—I estimate this
arena on the Omega II to be maybe 8” wide and 5”
tall (it could be bigger on your headphone—I’ve
always said that the Omega II has a small
headstage—but more on this later). The sound-
stage is something else altogether. The sound-
stage is the qualitative perception of ambient cues
captured in the recorded music. The soundstage
can be very big, as big as a cathedral nave, if that
was what was indeed captured in the recording.
When listening to headphones we can choose
between perceiving the soundstage or perceiving
the headstage. Your mental concentration can
swing the perception one way or the other. During
moments when we are utterly absorbed in the
recording, all you have to do is to tell yourself to
“snap out of it”, and chances are that you will “lose
sight” of the majestic soundstage. What’s so
majestic when you choose to become aware that
the whole violin section of a grand and majestic
orchestra is only 4 inches wide across your
forehead?
When listening via headphones, most of us choose
to be aware of the soundstage instead of the
headstage, in an effort to distract ourselves from
noticing the cramp head-hugging soundfield or in
an effort to lose oneself in the recording—the latter
is valid and is after all the whole point of listening
to music. But distracting yourself from scrutinizing
the head-hugging soundfield will not make you a
more discerning listener. You have to understand
the head-hugging headstage first, cramp as it may
be, before you understand the soundstage.
_______________________________________
HEADSTAGE: ANALOGY OF A PHOTOGRAPH
What is the headstage, really? First I will put
forward an analogy, then I will offer a working
definition of the term “headstage”.
Analogy: imagine a 5-inch wide photograph
depicting a sprawling mountain scene going on for
miles and miles. A photograph is nothing more
than colour pigments distributed on a flat piece of
paper. There is no mountain on the piece of paper,
nor inside nor behind the piece of paper. The
mountain is in the eye of the beholder.
Furthermore, a photograph does not need to be
mountain-sized in order to depict a mountain.
Additionally, a statement that the mountain in the
photograph is 10 miles away does not contradict
the fact that the colour pigments representing the
mountain are lying flat on a piece of paper.
The two-dimensional headstage is analogous to
the two-dimensional photograph. If a small photo
can depict a large scenery, why can’t a small
headstage portray a large soundstage? And if a
flat photo can depict distance, why can’t the two-
dimensional headstage depict depth?
This is the definition of the term “headstage”:
the headstage is a flat plane, small in size,
positioned vertically such that the plane
intersects both ears, and all sonic images are
chained to the two-dimensionality of this plane.
None of my past articles has offered such a
concise definition of “headstage”.
Please take time to digest this: all sonic images
are chained to the two-dimensionality of the
headstage, much the same way the mountain is
chained to the two-dimensionality of the
photograph.
Why do I say that the headstage is two-
dimensional? In order to be aware that this head-
hugging soundfield is actually two-dimensional,
you have to stop yourself from being swept away
by the soundstage illusion of the recording, and
start to focus on the location of the images in
relation to your head. Your headscape offers
several landmarks that you can reference the
location of the images against. Landmarks on your
head include the front centre of your forehead
between the eyebrows, the front centre of your
forehead where your third eye would be if you
were a Buddha, front top of your forehead where
your hairline is if you haven’t started balding yet,
the left and right temples of your forehead, and the
left and right ears on your head. It may seem
unnatural at first, but try not to focus on the
soundstage cues inherent in the recording, but
instead focus on the location of images in relation
to your headscape.
Then you will realize the truth that all the images
can be located more or less on a flat vertical plane.
Average playback systems will create flatter sonic
images that resemble stickers from a child’s sticker
book. Sonic images are like flat stickers that you
can “paste” on the flat vertical headstage. Superior
playback systems create more rounded, full-bodied
images, in which case the headstage resembles
more an upright rectangular tupperware* within
which all sonic images are contained. (*tupperware
= plastic food container, just in case there’s a
cultural gap here.) But whether it is a flat plane or
an upright tupperware, the point here is that whilst
there is depth in the recording, there is no depth to
the localization of the images.)
I have read accounts of a headphone’s soundfield
as being “a clothesline stretched from one ear to
the other”, or another account describing it as
being “three blobs in the head”. My senses tell me
that both descriptions of the headstage shape are
inaccurate.
I simply don’t perceive the images being located as
if they were strung along a straight line going from
ear to ear, like so many beads on a string. There is
such a thing as height, so the one-dimensional
description of the headstage is something that
contradicts my personal experience. A straight line
going from ear to ear is actually located very deep
in my skull (a straight line going from ear-to-ear is
three inches below the top of my scalp) and the
only time I noticed images located three inches
below the top of my scalp is when I listened to
mono recordings. Stereo recordings create not just
left-to-right differentiation, but also create a sudden
upward expansion of the headstage, i.e., the
creation of headstage height. (If you have a
Stereo-Mono toggle switch on your amp you will
notice that toggling to Mono will collapse the
headstage into a tight-fisted ball deep inside your
head, while toggling to Stereo will not only provide
left-to-right differentiation but also expand the
headstage upwards.) So the description of a
headstage as a thin clothesline stretching from ear
to ear is something I take issue with.
As for the description of the headstage as being
“three blobs in the head”—on my systems (past
and present) I have not heard the three blobs
effect. Intellectually I understand what HeadRoom
is trying to say—it’s just that the three blobs effect
simply doesn’t square with what I have
experienced so far. I suspect that HeadRoom
offered such a stark model (three blobs is a very
stark model) because a more subtle explanation of
the crossfeed mechanism may potentially be lost
on laymen. In an advertisement, you need a clear,
strong message; and the three-blobbed headstage
is as clear a message as you can get: “you don’t
want the three blobs—you want our crossfeed”.
From my experience, the headstage is a smooth
continuum from left to right; and there is no distinct
separation into three separate blobs, unless I was
playing a very old stereo recording—as old or older
than myself. (This is not to be construed as a
comment on the crossfeed mechanism. I am
commenting on the accuracy of the description of
the headstage as being a three-blobbed affair.)
I am prepared to accept a description of the
headstage shape as being a spherical soundfield,
but it is a squashed sphere, more like an oblong
rugby ball: the left-to-right dimension is larger than
the front-to-back dimension. A person who insists
that the headstage soundfield is a perfect sphere
must either get his ears checked or tell us all what
super-duper headphones he is using that can
create not only left-to-right localization but front-to-
back localization as well. (Binaural recordings that
matches one’s personal HRTFs and various 3D-
processing methods lie outside the scope of this
write-up. This write-up is restricted to stereo
headphones playing stereo recordings.)
The description that most resembles my
experience of the headstage shape is any one of
the following: that it is either a flat vertical plane or
an upright rectangular tupperware or an oblong-
shaped ball or a thick fat discus placed vertically.
Whatever shape you choose to describe the
headstage as, the main thing is that this shape has
a larger left-to-right dimension and a very flat front-
to-back dimension. (But if I were to be absolutely
accurate about it, I’d say that the headstage is a
rainbow-shaped arch springing from ear to ear with
the apex of the rainbow at the top centre of the
forehead. All images are located in a smooth
continuum along this rainbow. This rainbow has a
larger left-to-right dimension and a very flat front-
to-back dimension.)
Most headphones create headstages that intersect
the ears. (Meaning to say that the vertical plane or
the oblong ball or the upright tupperware or the
vertical discus or the rainbow intersects the ears.)
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