[crispswish]

This is not to assume that headphones with small soundstage (ATH-m50) will be one of the most musical and engaging headphones. I'm talking about headphones with unusually large soundstage like HD800, HD598, AD700, etc...

 

[PurpleAngel]

This is not to assume that headphones with small soundstage (ATH-m50) will be one of the most musical and engaging headphones. I'm talking about headphones with unusually large soundstage like HD800, HD598, AD700, etc...

 
It might just come down more to personal taste, on how someone likes their music.
Or might depend on the type of music.

 

[crispswish]

   
It might just come down more to personal taste, on how someone likes their music.
Or might depend on the type of music.

Thanks. I would like to see others' personal preference or opinions on it. What are yours?

 

[spruce music]

Ultimately I think it does.  Headphones that enlarge soundstage tend to do that to all recordings.  It becomes a recognizable coloration.  As such it does put limits on what you get to hear.  I find most recordings have little soundstage.  Those that enhance this character seem nice at first, but become suffocating saccharine in the end. 
 
Of course that is painting with a most broad brush and specifics would make the question easier to answer. If your headphones are accurate the soundstage is in the recording, and not something the headphones will add to deficient recordings.

 

[PurpleAngel]

 
Thanks. I would like to see others' personal preference or opinions on it. What are yours?

 
I use the Beyerdynamic T90 headphones. I like a balanced sound with good detail.
Guess I'm somewhere in the middle when it comes to sound stage/surround sound.

 

[gregorio]

  I would like to see others' personal preference or opinions on it.

 
The difficulty with your question is the terms you have used, pretty much all of which are audiophile terms, IE. They exist only in the audiophile world rather than in the audio world. The reason this causes a difficulty is because audiophiles are a strange bunch. Some are quite extreme in their views and in practice are more interested in the sound of their equipment rather than in the music itself. They then take terms like "musicality" and use them to mean something different from their existing, well established meaning. I'm not exactly sure why, presumably to add some sort of legitimacy and/or to deflect from the fact their hobby is about equipment rather than music.
 
The fact is, we create music and other audio content with a specific placement of the various elements (width, depth, etc.). Those interested in the audio itself, would want to reproduce the intentions of the artists who created it. Those interested in their equipment don't really care about artists' intentions because much/most of what they play is based on how well it shows-off their equipment. It's rather ironical then that they should mis-appropriate the term "musicality", which is 100% about artistic intentions! For this reason you will get extremely variable responses: Those who are actual audiophiles will most likely prefer to reproduce a narrower stereo image, as that is most commonly the intention of the artists (who probably mixed on speakers) and those who in effect are audio-equipment-philes, who are likely to be more engaged by an artificially wide stereo image and not really care whether a particular recording is well suited to such artificial widening.
 
G

 

[icebear]

Does Large Soundstage in Headphones Makes Music Sound Less Musical or Engaging?

No it doesn't ... it just makes it very obvious when there is no natural sound stage the way the recording has been captured. Pieced together multi track recordings vs live in concert venue or live in studio with all musicians in one room at time of recording, this becomes a very obvious difference with e.g. the HD800. Crap in crap out ... if that's less enjoyable or engaging to you, that's not the fault of the headphones or the sound stage it is able to project, it's the fault of the recording in the first place. Me personally, it drive me nuts if the sounds appears to locate in the middle of my head, right between my ears, if you will. For my music preference the HD800 is ideal. Obviously this is very much a personal preference and the reason why there is so much controversy about this headphone.

 

[gregorio]

  [1] Pieced together multi track recordings vs live in concert venue or live in studio with all musicians in one room at time of recording, this becomes a very obvious difference with e.g. the HD800.
[2] Crap in crap out ... [2a] if that's less enjoyable or engaging to you, that's not the fault of the headphones or the sound stage it is able to project, it's the fault of the recording in the first place.

 
1. What about; pieced together multi-track recordings of live in venue or studio with all musicians in one room at the time of recording? With the exception of the few binaural recordings and even fewer stereo-mic'ed only recordings, this is how virtually all classical recordings are made. And, in effect, there is no "natural sound stage", stereo itself is an illusion (which only works under certain circumstances), even with just stereo-mic'ed only recordings.
 
2. You seem to be saying that recordings with a deliberately artificial sound stage are "crap"? This would have to include pretty much all recordings of all popular music genres from about the 1960's onwards? This is a circular argument because ...
2a. This is a contradiction! The distinction you appear to be making doesn't really exist, it's all artificial, there are just different degrees of artificiality. If your headphones are causing this distinction (making a "very obvious difference"), where none were intended and where there would be little or no difference through say speakers, then how is that not the fault of the headphones if the recording were designed for speakers? Ultimately, even with a live stereo only mic'ed classical recording, it comes down to the intention of those creating the recording, of the "virtual" position they choose for the listener. Your argument is circular because your headphones are messing with that virtual positioning, sometimes relatively benignly, sometimes not and those times when it's not benign you judge to be "crap" when in fact that may not be the case. A recording is not necessarily crap just because it doesn't stand extreme over-widening, unless of course it was designed in the first place to prioritise that specific playback scenario.
 
G

 

[edstrelow]

You seem to be begging the question as to whether a large soundstage constitutes distortion. In fact the opposite is probably the case.
 
Soundstage is just stereo imaging and in normal hearing  is based on differences in time, including phase, and amplitude between the two ears. if these do not exist you get monaural sound.  I can't see any way in which headphones could create a larger soundstage than is determined by the time/phase/amplitude differences in the recording.  Thus the wider the soundstage the more accurate the reproduction is with respect to stereo.  If the soundstage is compressed this will mean that some form of crosstalk is occurring. ie. the two channels are bleeding into each other either electrically or mechanically and that means distortion.
 
In other words, a narrow soundstage  due to headphone crosstalk is just as much a sign of poor performance in headphones as it is in an amplifier, or digital  source.
 
Keith Mitchell has  reported measurements of this crosstalk  
See p26 of this http://www.politicalavenue.com/108642/US-MAGAZINES/Hi-Fi%20News%20-%20July%202016.pdf  in HiFi News and Record Review.  which he contends is coming through the headband.  I.e the vibrations from one earcup pass along the headband to the opposite earcup.  And by vibrations were are not talking  about airborne vibrations so much as Newton's  "equal and opposite energy" going from the driver into the surrounding material, thence to the headband and then to the opposite earcup.
 
I know of at least 4 companies trying to get rid of this problem, Sennheiser being one.  The HD800 has damping material specifically in the headband and that is probably why it is reported to have a wider soundstage.  Senn doesn't say what this material is only calling it  "spaceage material."    I would imagine they are also doing this in their $50,000 electrostatic as well.
 
Audioquest and B&W specifically set out to eliminate this crosstalk in some models and Grado employs a "proprietary polycarbonate" material in the conatruction of its e-series phones.  They refer to this as helping transient response, but to the extent that it dampens the Newtonian vibartions, it will also reduce cross-talk.
 
Som years ago I got involved in this issue when I discovered that you could dampen vibrations on Stax SR007's simply bu touching the headband.  One thing led to another and  I have spent a good deal of time looking into the use of materials like  Sorbothane to get rid of mechanical vibrations. Done right it gives a big improvement to sound quality and I should add widens the soundstage. See also below.
 
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/671314/stax-sr007-resonance-problems
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/744839/damping-mechanical-energy-distortion-of-stax-and-other-phones-with-sorbothane-and-other-materials
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

[Fegefeuer]

iirc the material for the HD 800 housing is called LEONA and its stiffness reduces cup/housind vibrations very effectively.