[brat]

With my HD650s I hear the instruments from below and behind me.. it's strange..

 

[mattpwill]

Same with HD595, it's a very unnatural experience, but the sound quality is amazing

 

[brat]

Exactly!

 

[Andrea]

Actually the HD595 has a better chance to convey 'depth' to the music with its angled drivers, but well, they're headphones, and I don't believe nor I care for a headphone's "soundstage", although a more generic "sense of airiness" is normally pleasing thus desireable.

 

[jramonf]

Isn't this normal with any headphone? I have headphones with angled drivers and the sound still seems to come from behind.

 

[dano1122]

headphones have soundstage? rofl. recordings do.

 

[mintyfresh]

I was walking my dog in the yard with HD650s playing an MP3 "F da Police". I'd never heard the song before actually and I was turning my head side to side looking for the paramedics for about 30 seconds before I realized the sound of sirens was coming from the headphones. Even when I knew it was on the MP3 I still couldn't convince myself fully that the sirens weren't actually outside the headphones. Not bad for an MP3.

 

[purk]

Senn HD-650 excels in depth of stage in comparison to many of the phones I own.

 

[amartignano]

First, one thing: headphones have soundstage, but it's better to speak about an "headstage", which is more correct for the normal "origin" of the sound in an headphones.

Headphones can really have a very good dept in the headstage, and you can hear the different sound-planes in the tridimensional space. Not only a "sense of airiness", but a true sound image, with well defined counturs and proportion.

The HD650 do a good job in this sense: the sound is a little "in the head", but with a very good sense of dept, and, when required, the sound "opens", and it seems that the sound fills the room you are in. With every headphones in particular moments of a particular recording you can hear sound behind you (or like so), but this should not happen with a good classical recording (especially if recorded with few microphones).

So brat, don't worry, it's normal and you have a pair of can that are very good in "imaging"

Bye
Andrea

 

[Andrea]

I think that talking of headstage or soundstage (if you really can make out a difference

) makes some real sense only when you listen to classical music.

In general, by that I'd refer to a perception of 'perspective' and 'dimension' that is just a component of the comprehensive "naturalness" perceived in the sound, coming as a spontaneous result to a consistent, coherent, balanced presentation.

 

[morphie]

You must not listen to much music if you think classical's the only one with soundstage/headstage whatever you wanna call it. Even though music styles such as Jazz or Rock do not excel at it as well as classical, I believe soundstage/headstage is still something people want when listening to music. Anyway I have very little care for soundstage so I guess I'm out of place here ^_^

 

[Andrea]

What I listen to you can see in my 'profile'. I think I've aknowledged that you would want "naturalness" (in an ample sense) and "air" with any music, but the pretenses of a "precise positioning" I believe are to be limited to classical music - and I'm very doubtful that any headphones can provide that in a way that's reminiscent of what speakers could do.

 

[acs236]

The distinction between soundstage and headstage is pretty straightforward. When we refer to headstage, we're talking about the ability for a headphone to make you think you're hearing something that it coming from outside your head, in front you, similar to listening to speakers. Soundstage can vary more by recording, but it refers to the headphones ability to convey the positioning of different instruments in the recording space. Thus, soundstange is more controlled by the recording engineer for studio music, not so with classical.

The 650s headstage is about average in my recollection. By contrast, the CD3000s (maybe R10s -- only heard them for a couple of minutes

) have the best headstage I've yet heard.

 

[mattpwill]

You can only really compare soundstage when using binaural recordings, because soundstage soundstage with 2 channel CDs is unnatural

Are there any good albums using binaural?

 

[Andrea]

acs236, still it sounds not much useful, me being the type who doesn't like over-anlysing things. And, particularly, I've never heard anything corresponding to "headstage" as you define it from headphones, angled drivers or not. Perhaps with the AKG K1000, or the Qualia, perhaps not (very doubtful here), but then, would we really need a term that would apply to hardly a couple of headphones out there ? There are obviously much more immediate things to detect in a reproduction that concur in making it good or less so, then I rather concentrate on something more tangible and essential to seek in a reproduction for me (I don't listen to classical music).