HeadRoom's New Web

[Tyll Hertsens]

I just though it was time for a little fun.

We are about two weeks away from publishing our new web site. I've been thinking about this site for (no joke) 4 years now. We even made an aborted atept at it about 3 years ago. You'll not see all the super cool things we'll do with it (and I'm going to keep many of them a secret) because what we've really built is just the foundation.

It's hosted at Hostcentric. It's a Unix box. It uses a MySQL database (www.mysql.com) and PHP scripting language. There will eventually be some "flat" pages that are not in the database, but everything you'll see is out of the database. (The pictures are not stored in the database, the picture is stored in the file structure and it's locationis built on the fly with the scripts.)

You don't need to tell me about missing graphics or missspellled words: Ivy has got it totally under control with the graphics, and I will never be able to spell. Which brings me to telling you that all the words you see are subject to change. All the copy is on a word document and will be sent to the PROFESSIONAL EDITOR (Yippie!) next week. (A copy editor contacted me and wants to work out a trade for a MAX and 600s.)

About 80% of the product information is done, about 60% of the photos are done. That's going to be the endless ditch digging job that Todd will do. So if he doesn't post too much for the next couple of weeks that's why, in part.

The thing I'm most jump-up-and-down exited about is the headphone and amp measurements. You can get to the individual graphs on the product pages, but if you click the "Product Measurement" bottom on the bottom of the page, you can super-impose up to 4 headphone graphs at a time. The best graphs to choose are the Frequency Responce and Sampled Waveform (which is a square wave).

Have Fun!!!

http://207.66.131.158/headroom2/

 

[Tyll Hertsens]

After...I don't know...6 or so abortive attemps,

I finally got a URL that works right---I think.

 

[Gluegun]

Why are you all pushing the Panasonic SL-CT580 now, rather than the SL-CT470?

 

[Tyll Hertsens]

It's discontinued.

 

[Neruda]

wow! Tyll, this new site is too cool!

 

[Tyll Hertsens]

Thanks! I've got to say that I'm just bubbling over with excitement myself. I love it, too.

Ivy, who did the graphics, and Matt and Jeremy, who did the programming, did incredable work, I think.

By the way, you guys can go ahead and place fake orders if you want to see if it breaks. It may be one of the few times you'll be able to order a BlockHead or an Orpheus---or both!

 

[skippy]

beautiful! i love the new graphs.

 

[Gluegun]

Aww. It's discontinued? Man...

What about the SL-CT570? Everyone here is, like, Gaga over the Japanese version of that...is THAT discontinued too?

The site is cool, though. I couldnt quite find the place for the graphs, from four headphones, unfortunately...And I'm still not quite sure what all of those measurements MEAN, but they still are cool!

A question, I haven't seen that much Koss stuff at the new website...why is that? Am I just not looking in the right places?

 

[jude]

Tyll,

Would you kindly explain the various graph types? I'm guessing we all understand frequency response.

And you say that sampled waveform is a square wave, right? Because most of the graphs of the sampled waveform are more sine-like in shape.

 

[Tyll Hertsens]

Looks like they're not fully indexed yet. Go to PRODUCT STUFF at the to, pck headphones, go down the list.

 

[Neruda]

yeah, the Grados are out of order too. Not a big deal though, all this new stuff is too cool!

oh, one other problem I saw: I think the picture you have of the MG Head side view is to big for the window it opens in, and so you only see a small bit of it (the window doesn't have scroll bars). Can you fix that?

 

[Tim D]

I guess my "elephant" ears weren't too far off when I felt the Beyers had more bass extension than Senns.

I think some graphs should be double checked though...like the Ety graphs. Also the square wave sampling doesn't seem aligned with one another when you compare making it confusing.

As for the square waves, the reason they don't look square is probably because headphones are mechanical devices and it is extremely difficult to reproduce a square wave. I think it tests transient response as well as oscillatory type distortion among other things. The Beyers seem to be faster on transients but suffers from some oscillatory distortion. Grados seem similar with fast transients but even more oscillatory distortion. Senns seems slower on transients but smoother having less oscillatory distortion. Course its hard to test the brakes if you don't go fast enough.

A lot of user findings seem to correlate with the graphs. Like how some people felt the AKG501 lacked both deep bass and and extreme treble extension.

Overall the new site is too cool!

 

[Gluegun]

Tyll, are you ever going to sell the Koss KSC-50's? I'd just like to know....and I was wondering why you didn't seem to make it clear on your site that the KSC-35's are more balanced than the s/portapros....

I've always thought that your website was GREAT on the high end stuff, but that Headwize filled the knowledge void on the lower end stuff... wouldn't it be cool if you could fill both with this new website?

Also, I kind of liked the star system. It was a quick way to determine which headphones were a good value...

A question, on your product advice section, you seem to just list all of the headphones you carry that fit a given criteria. You do kind of plan to, in those sections, highlight those you think are good at this or that, or write some stuff... I couldn't find a placeholder for your actual advice section....

basically I'm wondering why there isn't a placeholder or broken link for this info http://www.headphone.com/EditorialPr...Headphones.asp to be here http://207.66.131.158/headroom2/layo...&subTopicID=14 that's all...

 

[shivohum]

Very snappy stuff, Tyll! Indeed, as Tim said, some of the graphs are screwed up -- I, too, noticed the ER-4S.

A couple of questions:

1) Why are there two lines even on the graphs of just one headphone? Are these supposed to represent different measurements? If so, then when comparing headphones, which line is used?

2) Why do some of the headphones seem to have much larger frequency response deviations on the new graphs than they did on the older ones? Sample variation?

Take, for example, the Senn HD580.

Here's the old version:

Here's the new version:

 

[Apheared]

Guys c'mon chill, stop hammering the poor guy... he just wanted you to beta the new site!

Tyll, tell em all what a kiiiiiller job they're doing; this is fun to play with even at this stage. Well laid out. I'm sure the team will get the functionality going quick, and your contracted copy editor will help you with spelling.

And a SPECIAL THANKS!! for whoever came up with the idea of photo'ing them while on the Neumann head... finally it's easy for people not familiar with every freakin headphone to compare relative sizes and headband curves. That was a brainstorm.