[nishan99]

I got some shower thoughts!
bass definition is related to the drivers speed so it every bass notes are well defined and not muddied with the other and this require speed so the driver can keep up with multiple bass notes.

For the bass punch and impact it's actually related to the driver stiffness only!. Let's see why planars and estats don't have the same bass impact ? they are faster than dynamics and can get very loud for the mid bass and they actually have bigger surface area so they have more overall combined extrusion travel distance. The main difference aside from the fact they are bipolar is their drivers are not stiff at all!, because of that they deliver bass incrementally in a kinda wiggly motion and not as one straight motion of stiff dynamic drivers, even if their drivers and bass is extremely fast it's not as impactful because it's incrementally delivered.

I think my shower thought is true

note: I am talking about the driver design and not the electronics, they have a significant rule I am sure but here I am discussing the driver design only.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

For the bass punch and impact it's actually related to the driver stiffness only!. Let's see why planars and estats don't have the same bass impact ? they are faster than dynamics and can get very loud for the mid bass and they actually have bigger surface area so they have more overall combined extrusion travel distance. The main difference aside from the fact they are bipolar is their drivers are not stiff at all!, because of that they deliver bass incrementally in a kinda wiggly motion and not as one straight motion of stiff dynamic drivers, even if their drivers and bass is extremely fast it's not as impactful because it's incrementally delivered.

Planars and electrostats aren't "wiggly" in the way that the term itself sounds like you think they're moving and vibrating like when you slap a Japanese cheesecake or a ghetto rear end. They're technically still stiff in the way that diaphragms are and need to be stiff, but they're lighter at the diaphragm and have very short excursion. Think of this more like how a Ferrari V8 or V12 has a much higher redline and has more progressive torque application than say a Chevy V8 or an Aston Martin V8, so it doesn't have as much of that sudden "kick" while screaming all the way 9000rpm.

Dynamic drivers have to move back and forth more violently, like, think of the basketball training exercise where the team runs, stops, then runs the other way repeatedly to simulate reaction times and strengthen joints for changing direction whenever there's a turnover or a rebound after a fast break, or how a longer stroke Chevy V8 or Aston V12 typically will not go past 7000rpm (and this is already an improvement even over the quad cam Mustang) or 7500rpm compared to a Ferrari V8 or V12 (or a BMW V8, V10, or V12) in street trim (full on race cars can afford a cam profile that doesn't make the most out of that long stroke for fuel economy though).

The difference is that either way the engine needs toughter internals to survive either scenario, but the weight of the Corvette and Aston pistons and con rods have more to do with the dimensions of each cylinder. On speakers, the diameter has more of an effect on the magnet weight than just a sharp rise in the weight of the planar (or electrostat) diaphragm, while with the dynamic driver needs to be balanced for strength to survive the stresses which may necessitate an increase in weight or price due to the use of more exotic materials.

Also what you think of as "better" bass and assuming the others have "wiggly" bass isn't even accurate based on measurements. The stronger bass on dynamics is actually the one with distortion or more accurately non-linearity, ie, they have a bass boost at the upper bass range, whereas planars tend to be flatter even if they're stretching straight down to 20hz. A downright flat response from 1000hz to 10hz however doesn't sound all that powerful to most listeners unlike how if you can get the same response in a speaker you still get that kick in the chest sensation if the recording has it, while the loss of pounding the surrounding air with sound impacts a flatter response more and is partially offset in some cases by having a boost in the more audible range at the cost of the palpable range (ergo the Harman curve). In short, it's like comparing a Focal speaker to a Magnepan with the bass panel, except again the bass disparity can be worse thanks to that lack of sensation of bass all over the listener's body.

Just for comparison I EQ my HD600 to bring up the low end so it doesn't trail off sharply below 55hz, and like the HE400i and HD650, if there's deep bass notes, it will be there and very audible (like electronic music), but that doesn't give it the same perceptible "slam" on the kick drum and toms that you will get from a Grado with a spike at the upper bass range. The presence of the deeper bass notes however means that barring something like the RS/GS/GH the tone still sounds more natural than the seemingly "needs more pillows stuffed into it" low range percussion on the Prestige series.

 

[nishan99]

Planars and electrostats aren't "wiggly" in the way that the term itself sounds like you think they're moving and vibrating like when you slap a Japanese cheesecake or a ghetto rear end. They're technically still stiff in the way that diaphragms are and need to be stiff, but they're lighter at the diaphragm and have very short excursion. Think of this more like how a Ferrari V8 or V12 has a much higher redline and has more progressive torque application than say a Chevy V8 or an Aston Martin V8, so it doesn't have as much of that sudden "kick" while screaming all the way 9000rpm.

Dynamic drivers have to move back and forth more violently, like, think of the basketball training exercise where the team runs, stops, then runs the other way repeatedly to simulate reaction times and strengthen joints for changing direction whenever there's a turnover or a rebound after a fast break, or how a longer stroke Chevy V8 or Aston V12 typically will not go past 7000rpm (and this is already an improvement even over the quad cam Mustang) or 7500rpm compared to a Ferrari V8 or V12 (or a BMW V8, V10, or V12) in street trim (full on race cars can afford a cam profile that doesn't make the most out of that long stroke for fuel economy though).

The difference is that either way the engine needs toughter internals to survive either scenario, but the weight of the Corvette and Aston pistons and con rods have more to do with the dimensions of each cylinder. On speakers, the diameter has more of an effect on the magnet weight than just a sharp rise in the weight of the planar (or electrostat) diaphragm, while with the dynamic driver needs to be balanced for strength to survive the stresses which may necessitate an increase in weight or price due to the use of more exotic materials.

Also what you think of as "better" bass and assuming the others have "wiggly" bass isn't even accurate based on measurements. The stronger bass on dynamics is actually the one with distortion or more accurately non-linearity, ie, they have a bass boost at the upper bass range, whereas planars tend to be flatter even if they're stretching straight down to 20hz. A downright flat response from 1000hz to 10hz however doesn't sound all that powerful to most listeners unlike how if you can get the same response in a speaker you still get that kick in the chest sensation if the recording has it, while the loss of pounding the surrounding air with sound impacts a flatter response more and is partially offset in some cases by having a boost in the more audible range at the cost of the palpable range (ergo the Harman curve). In short, it's like comparing a Focal speaker to a Magnepan with the bass panel, except again the bass disparity can be worse thanks to that lack of sensation of bass all over the listener's body.

Just for comparison I EQ my HD600 to bring up the low end so it doesn't trail off sharply below 55hz, and like the HE400i and HD650, if there's deep bass notes, it will be there and very audible (like electronic music), but that doesn't give it the same perceptible "slam" on the kick drum and toms that you will get from a Grado with a spike at the upper bass range. The presence of the deeper bass notes however means that barring something like the RS/GS/GH the tone still sounds more natural than the seemingly "needs more pillows stuffed into it" low range percussion on the Prestige series.

That's why I said "kinda wiggly" in comparison to stiff dynamic driver motion. And no they are not stiff at all

Spoiler: stiffness

(Stiffness is the extent to which an object resists deformation in response to an applied force.)

, but they are indeed very strong and tough to withstand such kinetic pressure.

I don't understand car physics that much

and yeah I agree with you dynamic drivers common tuning does give them the sense of a punch but it's a "fake" punch if planars and estats had the same tuning, the bass will get louder than my liking without have the feel of the punch and this feel is a real tactile sensation in the ear drums or the inner ear of a real bass punch is hitting the ear, and it's quick unlike planars fake punch which tend to have slower decay and distracting because it's just a louder weak punch. I EQed my focal Elex and hifiman Ananda to have the same amount of bass and the same tuning, the Elex gives me that tactile sensation in my ears than the Ananda by a very significant margin!, when I gave the Ananda more bass to compete, the bass became distracting and too much and yet still not as punchy as the Elex with even a lower volume.

And this is in general but there are some planars that punch very well like the monoprice M1060 and I bet they have a stiffer but heavier diaphragm than Ananda which resulted in a less detailed sound but with a punchier bass. that's my guess which I think make sense.

 

[tomb]

I'm also not sure how pertinent quotes about loudspeaker drivers are to headphones! Loudspeakers have to push a lot of air: headphones don't. IMO, that means performance comparisons with dynamic, planar, and electrostatic are also different with headphones. All well recognized headphone brands have audio engineers who have accounted for all of this stuff, and they have found their balance. I think there's also more variation with particular preference of headphone, as headphones are more dependent on ear anatomy (which varies with people). With my planars vs dynamics, I find the planars go deeper down and have more kick in the deep bass regions (also confirmed with FR measurements where you see them not dipping so much in sub-bass). It's as close to feeling a kick drum without a sub-woofer as I've encountered. I think their excursion is also very minimal because their premise is a large film surface. I find my dynamic headphones to now be slightly more mids centric. I like my Focal Elex for portable (it's easy to drive) and it's exciting with pop/funk genres. I admit I've never tried twirling around with them focusing on drivers to see if I see movement! Meh, I think beryllium driver isn't so much for more excursion as less distortion (which is what I've read is the epitome for headphone design).

Yeah, no one ever said the beryllium was there to improve excursion. It's there for stiffness (resistance against deformation). As you describe, there are many variables involved in designing the drivers for headphones. However, the OP specifically asked about the difference between driver excursion amounts and transient response.

He also specifically mentioned the Focal Utopia, whose driver is very much like a speaker design.

 

[Davesrose]

He also specifically mentioned the Focal Utopia, whose driver is very much like a speaker design.

Not really sure how Focal headphone is like a speaker design. Focal is also known for their loud speakers, but I think they still had to do a lot of engineering with their headphones. Your typical loudspeaker is at least 2 way, has a lot of engineering for cabinet design (that has a lot more space and/or padding for given drivers). That a headphone driver also is close to your ear, it has different requirements in directivity/off axis pattern.

 

[tomb]

Not really sure how Focal headphone is like a speaker design. Focal is also known for their loud speakers, but I think they still had to do a lot of engineering with their headphones. Your typical loudspeaker is at least 2 way, has a lot of engineering for cabinet design (that has a lot more space and/or padding for given drivers). That a headphone driver also is close to your ear, it has different requirements in directivity/off axis pattern.

Good grief - we were talking drivers, coils and excursion, not speaker cabinets and crossovers.

A speaker doesn't have a headband, either, that doesn't mean some of the physical principles aren't the same. The fact is that Focal headphone drivers are more similar to speaker drivers (if you prefer that term) than most headphones today.

 

[Davesrose]

A speaker doesn't have a headband, either, that doesn't mean some of the physical principles aren't the same. The fact is that Focal headphone drivers are more similar to speaker drivers (if you prefer that term) than most headphones today.

My point was that I'm not sure how that is. The beryllium drivers are unique and not like tweeters that are smaller and woofers that are way larger than the drivers found in Focal headphones.

 

[nishan99]

My point was that I'm not sure how that is. The beryllium drivers are unique and not like tweeters that are smaller and woofers that are way larger than the drivers found in Focal headphones.

It's more about the driver shape and surrounding

that thick rubber surrounding is seen more in speakers for more extrusion SPL power, Focal opted for that so they can use a smaller (40mm) driver with very strong magnets and those small drivers get louder by giving more extrusion than normal headphones, they wanted the smallest drivers with strongest magnets so they can achieve that stupid speed level of their headphones.

 

[tomb]

My point was that I'm not sure how that is. The beryllium drivers are unique and not like tweeters that are smaller and woofers that are way larger than the drivers found in Focal headphones.

Nishan99's pic of the Focal ELEX driver sure looks like a woofer to me: flattened cone (something Polk did back in the day*), rubber surround, etc. It's like they used the Honey I Shrunk the Kids gun and shot a sub-woofer driver.

You are correct that the beryllium is unique, but honestly, I was talking about the fundamental theory. Not that I know that much about it, but it's essentially a spring-mass system.

* I still have a pair of Polk Monitor 10 speakers, where the passive radiator was a woofer without a coil, but with a huge disc in the center of the cone.

 

[Davesrose]

Nishan99's pic of the Focal ELEX driver sure looks like a woofer to me: flattened cone (something Polk did back in the day*), rubber surround, etc. It's like they used the Honey I Shrunk the Kids gun and shot a sub-woofer driver.

Not to me Besides the huge difference in size, the Focal diver has the dome radiating up towards the outer cone. With speakers the dome is only there to cover where the voice coil is. My 12" subwoofer driver is only a concave dome (there is no protruding dome).

 

[castleofargh]

about the title. bass is low frequency so it's the slowest stuff by far that a driver will have to handle. so of course any concept of speed is irrelevant here. 100% of headphones are way way faster than the fastest stuff a bass requires. maybe you mean having a strong enough damping but that's a significantly different thing. TBH I suspect that the frequency response in the low end(if there is a bump, how and where the subs roll off), and the level of distortions are what form our impressions of "good" or "muddy", "uncontrolled", "slow" bass. speed is more of a subjective misuse of the objective concept that then turn out to be reasoned by people as what must be improved to get that feeling of "speed". an actual faster bass would just be a higher frequency.

about extrusion, it's not like with speakers, to the point that dynamic drivers in headphones typically don't bother with a "surround"(the stuff that suspends the cone to the speaker's body). instead the diaphragm is directly glued. that should tell you something about how much smaller the movement requirements really are on headphones. and of course they are, you don't have to reach high SPL in a big room at a distance, with headphone you have to reach the same SPL while sitting right on the ear in a tiny acoustic chamber.
about grabbing the air with little hands and pushing it a certain way instead of another making the sound of some design different than others, there is no simple answer because be it on the electrical, mechanical or acoustic side, everything interacts and influences everything else. some a lot, some not so much but you will rarely get any clear cut answer because you will almost never be able to only get one specific change affecting only one other thing. therefore deciding that a certain impression is caused by a specific change is not as easy as many audiophile like to make it seem.
a simple example would be the fact that with a headphone we have a mix of sound wave traveling in the air, and the sort of pumping action. we're certainly getting traveling sound waves, but at the same time, just let a little space between your head and the pads and the amplitude in the subs will usually collapse by several dB. different designs and sizes will impact how much low end you lose when doing so, but they don't really tell you anything about bass quality(subjective or objective) while you wear your headphone properly. it's just the use of different designs leading to sometimes different, sometime pretty similar results.

as to your point about IEMs, I believe that you're wrong. I most certainly don't feel the bass I can feel with a full size headphone, just like a headphone never comes close to speakers despite how said speakers will often roll off in the subs a lot more than the headphone. and my hypothesis on this is that it could be a matter of physical shaking instead of actual sound at the eardrum. an IEM is so small so light, with such a tiny mechanical power that shaking anything is a challenge. a headphone might, depending on the weight, clamping force, size of the driver, etc, give a physical shaking along with the sub sounds. even if it's limited to the head where the pads touch, or maybe a little on the skin in front of the driver? but it's believable IMO that we might at a certain output level feel that shaking and subjectively interpret it as "bass so stronk and real!". it can't challenge the feeling of the entire body shaking from a subwoofer, but it's something. and Floyd Toole explained that we do get influenced by physical vibrations, even when they don't come from where the sound source is, and even when the physical shaking is not at the same frequency, it can still improve our sense of bass. so it is my hypothesis for now that IEMs fail in that specific aspect, so maybe it's why some people are never satisfied with how the low end sounds on IEMs. except they're probably not actually complaining about sound, just can't define what is missing in their experience. which could explain why some will try to compensate by increasing the bass amplitude, or some may look for something that extends as low as possible while remaining "flat", despite again how their speaker counterpart probably don't. and some will simply never be able to fool themselves into feeling a "believable" music in the sub frequencies. different people will not be influenced as much by certain variables in the same way. I know many people who think the bass they get from their IEM is amazing and much better/cleaner than something a typical speaker would provide. I'm not one of those, but I kind of understand how they could feel that way, so long as they don't miss tactile bass too much(which I always do).
or maybe it's just that we are overly used to speakers and their levels of distortions and room reverb, so when we get subs with a different frequency response(fairly typical of ortho vs DD case), or a lot less distortions, or almost no reverb, then we don't recognize it as matching our idea/memory of proper bass? IDK.
subjectivity makes diagnostics really hard, and trying to tear down complicated models into single variables cause-consequence concepts usually just makes us reach fallacious conclusions because we rarely can actually test such ideal and simple models in real life to know if we're right or full of it.

I guess my main point is that I agree with the warning not to assume that speaker's know how will automatically translate as is for headphone.

 

[Fuzzy789]

Also what you think of as "better" bass and assuming the others have "wiggly" bass isn't even accurate based on measurements. The stronger bass on dynamics is actually the one with distortion or more accurately non-linearity, ie, they have a bass boost at the upper bass range, whereas planars tend to be flatter even if they're stretching straight down to 20hz. A downright flat response from 1000hz to 10hz however doesn't sound all that powerful to most listeners unlike how if you can get the same response in a speaker you still get that kick in the chest sensation if the recording has it, while the loss of pounding the surrounding air with sound impacts a flatter response more and is partially offset in some cases by having a boost in the more audible range at the cost of the palpable range (ergo the Harman curve). In short, it's like comparing a Focal speaker to a Magnepan with the bass panel, except again the bass disparity can be worse thanks to that lack of sensation of bass all over the listener's body.

The distortion is from a extra boost on the mid/upper bass its where the "slam" happens. It's why BA's in IEM's give the illusion there lean when there not since even the old ER4S is linear from 1000 down to 10Hz which allot charts show. There whole bass flavour is planar/electrostatic hence why i kinda sometimes call them baby Estats. Not to mention the slower bass decay is also add to overall tone dynamics have. For fast complex stuff they don't hold up well.

I really disagree that non-dynamic headphones can't have good bass when there allot of bassy planar and Balanced armature stuff that have no issue.

 

[tomb]

Not to me Besides the huge difference in size, the Focal diver has the dome radiating up towards the outer cone. With speakers the dome is only there to cover where the voice coil is. My 12" subwoofer driver is only a concave dome (there is no protruding dome).

Wow. I guess we're back to one is in a box and the other has a headband.

From Tyl's Focal Elear review on InnerFidelity, July 28, 2016:
"The dome is attached to the frame with a surround that acts as a suspension allowing the dome to move back and forth freely. The surround is an astonishing 80 microns thin and permits the dome to move relatively long distances without impediment keeping distortion low even at high volumes."

For the rest of you still interested, that paragraph is describing driver excursion. Here's a pic:

Not this: "about extrusion [sic], it's not like with speakers, to the point that dynamic drivers in headphones typically don't bother with a "surround"(the stuff that suspends the cone to the speaker's body)."

I suppose one can say the Focal is not typical. That may be changing over time. In any event, the Focal driver, for all intents and purposes, operates like a speaker: with a surround and excursion movement.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

The distortion is from a extra boost on the mid/upper bass its where the "slam" happens. It's why BA's in IEM's give the illusion there lean when there not since even the old ER4S is linear from 1000 down to 10Hz which allot charts show. There whole bass flavour is planar/electrostatic hence why i kinda sometimes call them baby Estats. Not to mention the slower bass decay is also add to overall tone dynamics have. For fast complex stuff they don't hold up well.

I really disagree that non-dynamic headphones can't have good bass when there allot of bassy planar and Balanced armature stuff that have no issue.

Personally I think it comes down to perception and misunderstanding.

People hear the very low bass on most music which isn't just reinforcing the bass drum sound for example (ex bass guitar) and assume the bass is "loose," and correlate that to a speaker system where the subwoofer box is tuned too low, assuming on headphones that the lack of slam has more to do with a crap driver design than a flat response that lacks the pressurized air that kicks the listener on the chest that even a rather flat speaker would have the sensation for if you played it loud enough.

 

[Fuzzy789]

Personally I think it comes down to perception and misunderstanding.

People hear the very low bass on most music which isn't just reinforcing the bass drum sound for example (ex bass guitar) and assume the bass is "loose," and correlate that to a speaker system where the subwoofer box is tuned too low, assuming on headphones that the lack of slam has more to do with a crap driver design than a flat response that lacks the pressurized air that kicks the listener on the chest that even a rather flat speaker would have the sensation for if you played it loud enough.

They blame the driver because they don't like hearing how the bass love from most dynamic headphones is a coloured flaw that non-dynamic drivers don't have a issue with. I've had arguments with a few somewhere else that came off ignorant on why the ER4, SE846 and the LCD/LS300ltd can't have good bass.

Heck even most large electrostatic loudspeakers can give good bass without the need for a dynamic woofer.