Headphones vs speakers
Feb 3, 2022 at 7:22 AM Thread Starter Post #1 of 47

halo26

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I'm s relative newbie to hifi. Main music interest is classical. (Listen mainly to Flacs via usb to denefrips ares 2 to schiit asgaard to lcd2 or 6xx)
Question: when using speakers, both ears hear the sound from each speaker, but with a delay. Of course, this doesn't happen with headphones, unless one utilizes dsp of some sort on the player to mimic this effect. (As a newbie, im not certain what that type of dsp is called, but I'm pretty sure it exists in some of the players). I try to listen bit perfect. But what I'm wondering is, if most classical recordings were mastered using monitor speakers in listening rooms, then is listening through headphones never going to replicate what the engineers wanted it to sound like, unless I use dsp to mimic that effect? In other words, by listening through headphones without dsp, am I by definition NOT going to get a realistic image of the music?
 
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Feb 3, 2022 at 8:18 AM Post #2 of 47
I'm s relative newbie to hifi. Main music interest is classical. (Listen mainly to Flacs via usb to denefrips ares 2 to schiit asgaard to lcd2 or 6xx)
Question: when using speakers, both ears hear the sound from each speaker, but with a delay.
With speakers it is quite complex. You have the direct sound from the speakers and both ears hears the sound from both speakers, but as you wrote with differing delays. Also the intensity varies and with frequency! So the direct sound alone is pretty complex with speakers, but then you have the early reflections and reverberation with increasingly diffuse sound-field and all the hassle with both ears hearing it in a complex way. Luckily our spatial hearing is good at interpreting a lot of spatial information out of it all. It all sounds natural.

Of course, this doesn't happen with headphones, unless one utilizes dsp of some sort on the player to mimic this effect. (As a newbie, im not certain what that type of dsp is called, but I'm pretty sure it exists in some of the players).
No, it doesn't and it is actually a big problem if you ask me. My headphone listening was revolutionised in 2012 when I realised this myself and discovered cross-feed. I am an old-fashioned physical media guy so I play CDs instead of files on a computer so my cross-feeder is a DIY headphone adapter with crossfeed. Some players have cross-feed functionality.

I try to listen bit perfect.
Rather than insisting bit perfection, more relevant is in what way and why is the sound not bit perfect.

But what I'm wondering is, if most classical recordings were mastered using monitor speakers in listening rooms,
Not in listening rooms, but in mixing/mastering rooms.

then is listening through headphones never going to replicate what the engineers wanted it to sound like, unless I use dsp to mimic that effect?
Recordings are mainly mixed/mastered for speakers so headphones will give a different kind of result than intented. Some classical music recordings give surprisingly good results with headphones as they are. Not perhaps what was intented, but most enjoyable anyway without any processing. However, most recordings have in my opinion excessive spatial information for headphones and I definitely want to cross-feed them. It depends a lot from what kind of microphone settings were used, because some settings work better with headphone than others. Dummy head is the best, then comes Jecklin disk. OSS and ORTF are still good. XY and MS are "passable" while AB and Blumlein are problematic with headphones. It also matters if it is church music with huge reverberation or chamber music with dry acoustics. Anyway, to get "speakers in a room" spatiality you need to use DSP to simulate it.

In other words, by listening through headphones without dsp, am I by definition NOT going to get a realistic image of the music?
Well, even the best speakers in the best listening rooms hardly give you 100 % "realistic image of the music", but luckily we can get close enough to enjoy music a lot. For me getting rid of excessive spatiality with cross-feed is enough to make headphone sound VERY enjoyable, even if it is still far from what was intented.
 
Feb 3, 2022 at 8:46 AM Post #3 of 47
I'm s relative newbie to hifi. Main music interest is classical. (Listen mainly to Flacs via usb to denefrips ares 2 to schiit asgaard to lcd2 or 6xx)
Question: when using speakers, both ears hear the sound from each speaker, but with a delay. Of course, this doesn't happen with headphones, unless one utilizes dsp of some sort on the player to mimic this effect. (As a newbie, im not certain what that type of dsp is called, but I'm pretty sure it exists in some of the players). I try to listen bit perfect. But what I'm wondering is, if most classical recordings were mastered using monitor speakers in listening rooms, then is listening through headphones never going to replicate what the engineers wanted it to sound like, unless I use dsp to mimic that effect? In other words, by listening through headphones without dsp, am I by definition NOT going to get a realistic image of the music?
Yes, for such albums(most albums?) default headphone playback is somehow broken stereo. The basic process you're looking for is as mentioned above, crossfeed. Some follow the basic principle that got it its name, and some solutions are in fact using a generic HRTF model for room simulation. How convincing that can be is a matter of how close your own head is physically/acoustically to the model used. Meaning that beside trying them yourself and hoping to get lucky, there isn't really a way to tell you in advance what generic model will work for you(if any).
The most realistic solution would rely on your own HRTF to process sound, which would require measurements. Not that many solutions for that right now, but no doubt that it's where the future of headphone will be.

If you're kind of rich, you can get a Realiser A16 and work out how to measure stuff with the little binaural microphones. It's expensive and quite demanding(at least to do it right).
Or there is a less impressive(no head tracking) but still customized solution with a->>> free <<<- software https://github.com/jaakkopasanen/Impulcifer you can discuss(ask for help) here https://www.head-fi.org/threads/recording-impulse-responses-for-speaker-virtualization.890719/ I think that unless you're rich, this should be the best option. Working it all out will be a PITA, same thing when it comes to taking measurements, but it's free and one of the objectively more effective options(custom impulse responses at your own ears).

And a more in between solution would be something like Super X-Fi. Where they don't really customize to your own HRTF, but they use... Pictures or video, I don't remember and then get one HRTF profile in their database that the AI thinks matches your own the best out of like 30 preloaded profiles or something. Again, some amount of luck might be at play for the best experience.
 
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Feb 3, 2022 at 8:49 AM Post #4 of 47
Wow, thanks for all that detail.
The following is directed more at the 71db answer, as it was written prior to my seeing the second answer. But the last part is relevant to both answers....

I guess what I find confusing as well as the fact that on these forums people are always talking about how this or that headphone has an intimate sound stage. And especially with symphonic music, where I know and recognize where the instruments in an orchestra are typically situated, I am of course wondering whether whether it's worth chasing improvements in sound stage et cetera. My assumption has been that widening the sound stage can help things feel more real although I can't seem to really find satisfaction with artificial widening would seem to make things sound too distant..... Yet my underlying assumption still persists that persists that a headphone with increase sound stage might increase the realism. So it seems a little paradoxical to me that you are saying that Reducing spatial information will actually increase the realism. ( I am not arguing with leaning of course I'm just trying to formulate into words what sounds a little bit counter intuitive to me). Could you perhaps comment on This idea of increased versus decreased spatial information and sound stage?

( After understanding more about these basic principles I think I can figure out better whether or not or not upgrading my headphones will really increase my listening pleasure.... Ultimately it really is all about the music..... And in a funny subjective- objective way I think that sometimes some of the gear's effect In improving the listeners Experience may happen just because confirmation bias and and Excitement about the gear produces a placebo effect.... But even if that's what some of it is heck it actually does increase listening pleasure.... But the scientific part of my mind really does want to understand this better.... assuming that I want to play around with dsp (I do) yet want to act the purist and mainly listen without a lot of fiddling, bit perfect, Is there really anything to gain by chasing better and better headphones, When ultimately all of them are such or such a distant approximation of the real thing? I know the answer is yes but I'm trying to understand why )
 
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Feb 3, 2022 at 9:03 AM Post #5 of 47
No artist thinks "I hope they will listen through similar studio setup that I'm mastering on". They just want their music to be enjoyed through whatever equipment you prefer. Chasing artist intentions is no different than a chase of wild goose, don't stress yourself there.

I was amazed with the sound quality that certain flagship headphones delivers. you would need way more cash to get something similar on a speaker setup. If you feel a need get a good headphone that will suit your tastes and you will loose an eager for all these tweaks. Ofc there will be newer models with different flavor, but once you reach certain level improvements gets very small if any. I've found my end game a while ago and unless some revelation will come up I'm done for it.
 
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Feb 3, 2022 at 10:46 AM Post #6 of 47
So it seems a little paradoxical to me that you are saying that Reducing spatial information will actually increase the realism.
The problem is that @71 dB (or someone he knew from university) came up with the words "excessive spatiality" (referring to extreme level differences between left and right) and that is simply a very bad choice of words because the problem with using headphones with normal stereo recordings is of course the opposite: a lack of spatiality.
 
Feb 3, 2022 at 12:34 PM Post #7 of 47
After understanding more about these basic principles I think I can figure out better whether or not or not upgrading my headphones will really increase my listening pleasure....
If you want a speaker-like large realistic out of head soundstage you will need speaker virtualisation (with the help of Impulcifer or a Smyth Realiser like @castleofargh mentioned). And even with relatively affordable headphones that can work great.
I would take stories about expensive headphones with great "soundstage" with a large grain of salt. The differences in that area would be completely negligible compared to the step to using virtual loudspeakers matching your personal HRTF.
A very good pair of headphones may have other advantages, but it is never going to give you speaker-like large realistic out of head soundstage by itself.
 
Feb 3, 2022 at 2:29 PM Post #8 of 47
Wow, thanks for all that detail.
The following is directed more at the 71db answer, as it was written prior to my seeing the second answer. But the last part is relevant to both answers....

I guess what I find confusing as well as the fact that on these forums people are always talking about how this or that headphone has an intimate sound stage. And especially with symphonic music, where I know and recognize where the instruments in an orchestra are typically situated, I am of course wondering whether whether it's worth chasing improvements in sound stage et cetera. My assumption has been that widening the sound stage can help things feel more real although I can't seem to really find satisfaction with artificial widening would seem to make things sound too distant..... Yet my underlying assumption still persists that persists that a headphone with increase sound stage might increase the realism. So it seems a little paradoxical to me that you are saying that Reducing spatial information will actually increase the realism. ( I am not arguing with leaning of course I'm just trying to formulate into words what sounds a little bit counter intuitive to me). Could you perhaps comment on This idea of increased versus decreased spatial information and sound stage?
Wider sound stage requires spatial cues that tell spatial hearing the sound is wider. That is competely different from for example channel separation which is what people in general associate with wider sound. Reducing channel separation can make the sound wider IF the spatial cues move toward the cues of real wide sound. Excessive spatiality causes typically the sound to appear near ears (if you hear something only at one ear, the sound "must be" at that ear). Too little spatiality makes the sound monophonic, so the secret is to have just the right amount of spatiality. Not too much. Not too little. Hopefully this clarifies things for you.
 
Feb 3, 2022 at 2:35 PM Post #9 of 47
The problem is that @71 dB (or someone he knew from university) came up with the words "excessive spatiality" (referring to extreme level differences between left and right) and that is simply a very bad choice of words because the problem with using headphones with normal stereo recordings is of course the opposite: a lack of spatiality.
The terminology "excessive spatiality" has nothing to do with university. I graduated in1999 and I came up with the term 2017 I think BECAUSE people here did not like my original terminology "spatial distortion". I am a Finn. I studied in university mostly in Finnish and partly in English. Also, the terminology regarding headphone spatiality doesn't seem to very established at all. So,...

The spatiality of the recording is excessive even if the spatiality of the listening room is "lacking".
 
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Feb 3, 2022 at 2:54 PM Post #10 of 47
I'm s relative newbie to hifi. Main music interest is classical. (Listen mainly to Flacs via usb to denefrips ares 2 to schiit asgaard to lcd2 or 6xx)
Question: when using speakers, both ears hear the sound from each speaker, but with a delay. Of course, this doesn't happen with headphones, unless one utilizes dsp of some sort on the player to mimic this effect. (As a newbie, im not certain what that type of dsp is called, but I'm pretty sure it exists in some of the players). I try to listen bit perfect. But what I'm wondering is, if most classical recordings were mastered using monitor speakers in listening rooms, then is listening through headphones never going to replicate what the engineers wanted it to sound like, unless I use dsp to mimic that effect? In other words, by listening through headphones without dsp, am I by definition NOT going to get a realistic image of the music?
Room Response:
Or better yet room response simulation:
The speakers in a room have energy bounce around inside the cabinet and exit the back of the cabinet and sidewalls of the cabinet. That sound causes a bump in the lower frequency energy of speaker output. It reflects off the sidewalls and rear-wall of the cabinet then reflects towards the listener by bouncing off the sidewalls and rear-walls of the listening room. This energy is combined with the front driver energy to create what total tone you hear.

This energy is what separates IEMs and headphones from speakers, in frequency response. Obviously there is more to it but headphones and IEMs will never recreate a speaker like sound.

The lower frequency can be reintroduced into headphones and IEMs. Such an amount is key in recreation of tone body from the headphones and IEMs. It sounds like a lower midrange bump at first until acclimation takes place. There are headphones like the MDR-Z1R that regularly take 2-3 days of average listening until your acclimated. Though the effect is different for each person, meaning maybe 1 day, maybe 4 days of acclimation.

Typically in a live setting like a nightclub or concert venue we actually ignore this, as it isn’t important to the perception of music. Still we are hearing it and it becomes room response.

In headphones and IEMs:
As we start acclamation this room response simulation is fully noted, and musical replay sounds off. It’s only when we slowly learn to ignore the room response that the new headphones start to sound correct.

There is never a correlation between headphones and speakers as they are totally two different processes. But some have learned that the synthesis of speaker room response is obtainable and new way to further the (illusion) perception of speaker played “live” music.

This is actually one of the reasons more bass energy in headphones and IEMs has started to change the frequency range landscape as of late.
 
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Feb 4, 2022 at 7:30 AM Post #11 of 47
But the scientific part of my mind really does want to understand this better....
That's going to be difficult, for three reasons:

1. When we're talking about audio and audio reproduction equipment we're dealing with one of the most massive bodies of scientific knowledge/research there is. Don't think in terms of just the audiophile world but in terms of the countless trillions of dollars in the telecoms industry dating back to the 1880's. The science of analogue and digital audio is well/fully understood and has been for many decades. However, the science of how the human ear/brain perceives sound (psycho-acoustics) is less well researched and far less well understood. Although that's not to say there hasn't been a lot of research or that science doesn't know anything, it "knows" a lot, just not everything.

2. Ohm's Law, Fourier Transforms, the Shannon-Nyquist Theorem and various other scientific principles provide us with precise answers that are always correct. However, that's often not the case with psycho-acoustics. Sometimes it is, because we're all human beings with the same ears as other human beings but commonly it's not the case, because everyone has slightly different ears, slightly different head shape/size, plus, we all have different knowledge, experiences and value judgements and ALL of these can/does affect our perception. Therefore, psycho-acoustic answers (where we have them) are often not precise but fall within a probability distribution. In other words, a correct "answer" may only apply to a sub-set of people. For example, cross-feed works for some but not most others and a particular generalised HRTF may or may not work for you.

3. To complicate matters further, the audiophile world largely relies on misinformation, pseudo-science or lies of omission. It's pretty much standard in the audiophile world to confuse the perception of sound with the actual sound itself. For example, it's standard for manufacturers, reviewers and audiophiles in general to describe a DAC's "personality", "colouration", "musicality", etc. The actual fact is that the vast majority of DACs are audibly transparent, we can measure the output signal of DACs and with a handful of exceptions, they're all identical within the limits of human audibility. What the audiophiles are unwittingly describing are their own biased perceptions, not anything to do with the actual audio performance of the DAC.

A more pertinent example of the last two points: Stereo is an aural illusion, it's an illusion that works for all human beings given the correct conditions. However, as it's an illusion, "Soundstage" is a perception that can/will vary from person to person, more so with headphones than with speakers, for a number of reasons.

assuming that I want to play around with dsp (I do) yet want to act the purist and mainly listen without a lot of fiddling, bit perfect, Is there really anything to gain by chasing better and better headphones, When ultimately all of them are such or such a distant approximation of the real thing? I know the answer is yes but I'm trying to understand why )

Firstly, there's almost no conditions where you can achieve "bit perfect" and those conditions that do actually provide "bit perfect" are lower fidelity. There can be audible benefits with better headphones, as with speakers, but soundstage is very subjective, IE. What you consider "better" soundstage might be "worse" to someone else and a HP that to some might create the illusion of say a wider soundstage might not for you.

You're generally not going to replicate what the engineer heard when listening with HPs and even a binaural classical recording might be hit or miss depending on your personal HRTF. Most of us just accept and enjoy listening to the somewhat different presentation that HPs provide, although we are starting to see DSP technology more closely approximating what we would experience with speakers but how closely again depends on the individual's perception.

G
 
Feb 4, 2022 at 8:45 AM Post #12 of 47
Stereo is an aural illusion, it's an illusion that works for all human beings given the correct conditions. However, as it's an illusion, "Soundstage" is a perception that can/will vary from person to person, more so with headphones than with speakers, for a number of reasons.

G
Well said! :thumbsup:
 
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Feb 12, 2022 at 10:15 PM Post #13 of 47
Soundstage is created in the mix and reproduced by the triangulation of listener and source. If you use the correct listener position and speaker placement, you will be able to hear true soundstage. But a lot of people have less than ideal living rooms. It's very easy to mess up soundstage that way. Headphones are pretty much incapable of correctly presenting it without signal processing.
 
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Feb 13, 2022 at 7:21 AM Post #14 of 47
Soundstage is created in the mix...
Yeah, but the sophistication and character of the soundstage can vary a lot depending on what is the intent, how skilled the people doing the mixing are etc.

...and reproduced by the triangulation of listener and source.
Huh? Triangulation? That is partly true with stereo listening on stereo pair speakers, but is a bit "surveying" explanation in audio.

If you use the correct listener position and speaker placement, you will be able to hear true soundstage.
Correct listener position and speaker placement are very important aspects, but certainly not all there is. The speakers affect the soundstage (e.g. directivity). The listening room acoustics has a huge impact too. Finally, the recording itself plays a massive role as addressed above.

But a lot of people have less than ideal living rooms. It's very easy to mess up soundstage that way.
It is amazing how little people pay attention to acoustic-related things. Sometimes I think most people can be sold anything except good sound. High fidelity has stayed niche and whenever the masses get interested of sound, it is marketing snake oil rather than real great sound. Most people watch TV using the laughably bad speakers of the TV set, which is astonishing. People want 4K picture on 80" screens, but are happy with crappy sound lacking frequencies below 200 Hz. In a way it works, because people have "echo chambers" as living rooms so that frequencies below 200 Hz would create horrible room modes. Nowadays people don't even have bookshelves in their living rooms to improve the acoustics. It is like living in a church! How homely is that? Good acoustics isn't just about sound quality, but people are "educated" about gardening and renovating kitchens instead, because Hi-Fi is considered too nerdy to be "lifestyle."

Headphones are pretty much incapable of correctly presenting it without signal processing.
Depends on the recording a lot, because there isn't room acoustics + HRTF of the listener to generate and regulate spatial cues. Everything depends on the recording. Binaural recordings work well on headphones, but unfortunately most recordings are mixed mainly for speakers and therefor are far from binaural. That's when signal processing can be used to make the stereophonic ---> binaural transformation.

I believe there is a compromise between stereophonic and binaural sound and when I mix my own music I create this kind of spatiality which I call omnistereophonic. The main thing in achieving this is to have almost monophonic sound at low frequencies and increase the channel differences with frequency. The challenge is to have wide-enough sound for speakers, but narrow enough for headphones. At lower frequencies ITD should be used primarily to "pan" sounds. It is about being wise about the spatial choices and keeping in mind music is being listened both on speakers and headphones. I have never believed in hard-panned sounds even for speakers, because it goes against the core idea of stereophony as an illusion. Everything "stereophonic" should play from both channels, just differently to create the illusion. Maybe the ILD at 630 Hz is 7 dB. Maybe the ITD is 550 µs. Maybe there are some effects of ISD and so on, but it all means there is non-zero cross-correlation between the channels and when those cross-correlations hit the spatial cue space of human spatial hearing, the illusion of stereophony is likely to happen. Since it is about an illusion, there is a bit room for doing things a little differently from natural spatiality and that allows the compromise of omnistereophonic sound. However, since omnistereophonic sound is a compromise, it is not about having correct* soundstage. Rather, it is about having enjoyable sound/soundstage. That is the main point of music, I believe.

* What is correct soundstage anyway? What the mixer heard in the mixing studio? Who gave him/her the authority to decide that? Whose soundstage in a live concert is correct? Sound is like the wave-function in quantum physics. Measure something and the wave-function collapses. Use N microphones to record sound and the sound field "collapses" into a N-channel recording, one of the infinitely many possible depending on the microphone placement and other things. If the future is quantum physical and the past is "classical", created from collapsed wave-functions, recording music is about creating audio-phonic history and debating about what is correct soundstage is like debating about who started a war and why. Those who write the history are the mixers.
 
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Feb 13, 2022 at 8:36 AM Post #15 of 47
Reproducing soundstage properly isn’t complicated. It’s just a combination of the distance between the speakers and the distance from the speakers to the listener. You end up with an aural plane in space in front of you extending left to right. The dispersion pattern of the speakers can affect it, but that’s just a matter of toeing the speakers in a hair. The only problem you might run into is if your triangle gets too big. The speakers don’t mesh in the middle and you get a gap in the center of the soundstage. But if you follow the recommended triangle distances, and don’t put more than 8 feet or so between the speakers, you are going to get clear soundstage. (As long as the recording was mixed for clear soundstage… most rock music isn’t recorded that way.)

Most people discussing soundstage on headfi don’t know what they’re talking about because they listen using headphones.

The who gives the mixers the authority bit made me laugh!
 
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