[greenhorn]

I was wondering whether a parallel « headphones - speakers » has already been tried on head-fi.

I am talking sound signatures.

I mean, something along the line « this headphone sounds like/close to these speakers ». Not something stressing the difference between listening through headphones and listening through speakers, but something stressing particular similitudes, like « this headphone reminds me of those speakers ».

My examples:

- the Bowers & Wilkins P9 headphone reminds me of B&W 800 Series speakers fed by vintage McIntosh gear;

- the AKG K1000 makes me think at some bookshelf KEF speakers fed by a Mark Levinson ML9/ML10 preamp-amp.

 

[Reactcore]

You could read into or experiment with the Realiser from Smyth research. It mimics any speaker setup once learnt in the acoustics.

 

[Lindholdt]

It would be great fun if you could do so, but there is one major factor that makes this impossible in my opinion: Room acoustics.
The same speaker setup will sound vastly different in two different rooms. So it's really har to compare them, not only because of the usual issues with choosing the right words to describe something subjective, but also because you have this huge unknown factor.
Headphones removes this unknown factor, making it far more easy to compare them, but even this is a hard task.

So great idea, that I unfortunately think is very hard to do in practice.

 

[Rob80b]

I remember thinking the HD700 came close to reminding me of my Dynaudio at the time (back in 2012?) but as Lindholt pointed out...

there is one major factor that makes this impossible in my opinion: Room acoustics.
The same speaker setup will sound vastly different in two different rooms.

.......a case in point, had a friend over yesterday listening to music on the stereo, currently the Dynaudio Special 25 augmented with a Velodyne DD12, and without too much imagination one could feel the performers and the performance was transported into the listening room, that will never occur with a pair of headphones.

So great idea, that I unfortunately think is very hard to do in practice.

Ditto.

 

[Rob80b]

You could read into or experiment with the Realiser from Smyth research. It mimics any speaker setup once learnt in the acoustics.

Didn't know about this..thanks..interesting.
https://smyth-research.com/

that will never occur with a pair of headphones.

If it also emulates the visceral impact of "being there" maybe I could retract my previous comment.

 

[Reactcore]

Didn't know about this..thanks..interesting.
https://smyth-research.com/

If it also emulates the visceral impact of "being there" maybe I could retract my previous comment.

Sadly i never heard one but i was reading deeply into inter aural (phase and reflection differences of soundwaves between the ears) research that Smyth works with and HRTF properties that the brain uses to create the 'real life' sound we hear.

Having only one financial budget and the A16 was in the crowdfunding fase still.. i went with Chord DAC's by @Rob Watts and how they recreate the true analog input on an ADC like nothing else can, the chip DAC in the A16 included.

I discovered how realistic proper transient reproduction sounds and ended up with the Dave which i (sucessfully imo) further improved by altering the power section of its amp stage just to give it the drive authority of the best headphone amps out there but with the shortest and therefore cleanest undegraded signal path possible.

Boy if Rob and Smyth would combine their knowledge and efforts in a product.. then we are speaking of true endgame headphone sound that neither on its own can achieve.

 

[padam]

Boy if Rob and Smyth would combine their knowledge and efforts in a product.. then we are speaking of true endgame headphone sound that neither on its own can achieve.

For the best sound, you don't use a Realiser as a DAC. You use it as a digital signal processor before the DAC itself and connect it to that.
Also, using it with a really high-end Stax system is highly advisable, others won't quite gain the full benefit of it.

 

[bagwell359]

It would be great fun if you could do so, but there is one major factor that makes this impossible in my opinion: Room acoustics.

Bingo!

However, I have heard a few headphones that remind me of speakers (w/ really good room acoustics)

HFM HE-500 (mods and PEQ) = Aeriel 10T/7T (oldies: Q-10 (w/ ribbons), ProAc EBS, Snell III-A)

DCA Voce & Rall CA-1a w/ filter = Quad 2812

Senn HD-600 = Rogers LS3-5a

OG HE-6 6 screw = Infinity speakers of the 80-90's with EMIT drivers and 12" woofs - think Kappa Series

OG LCD-4 200 ohm (PEQ) = Verity Parsifal v3 or later (driven by tubes)

Closed back bass cannons = Cerwin-Vega AT-15 (boom/tinkle)

 

[DigitalJust]

Slate Vsx. These are not talked about much on here (it's hardware/software combo). As far as sounding like real speakers in the room, these sound pretty real. I chat with the one of the mastering engineers who works out of this room. In an unrelated conversation, he had mentioned that what is represented in the Vsx emulation (he was there for the captures) is pretty damn accurate. I'm unsure if this what you meant. They have rooms with Atc, Genelec, Kii, PMC, Dynaudio, Amphion, Pro Ac, Neumann. They all sound pretty real. It will run system wide on mac or pc. i run it from a software monitor controller

 

[DigitalJust]

For a more direct comparison of a traditional headphone to one specific speaker...my 2021 Audeze Lcd-x sounds pretty close to sitting in front a pair of of ATC SCM45A monitors. When i throw this in front of it (for crossfeed) and no eq, it sounds there, just no room interaction. A few owners of SCM45A monitors, who work on them most of the day, have also mentioned this.