How good will headphones sound in 5-10 years?

[Hphones887]

Is there an endpoint in how good headphone sound can become? What do you think headphones will sound like in 5-10 years from now, how much more can $500-3000+ headphones improve? How much more can the sound of music sound better and better?

 

[Mightygrey]

20 year-old headphones like the HD600 will continue to sound good, as will current TOTL headphones. Driver technology probably won't improve audibly, but software/DSP will continue to improve - this is where most 'improvements' will likely be seen at either a hardware or software level.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

Is there an endpoint in how good headphone sound can become?

Well you can't override physics ie you can't make them sound much farther out than the drivers sitting right outside your ears.

What do you think headphones will sound like in 5-10 years from now, how much more can $500-3000+ headphones improve? How much more can the sound of music sound better and better?

That's hard to predict and not hard at the same time for two reasons.

First: on one hand, ten years ago I had no idea that gaming at 2K resolution with an effective 1080p load on the graphics chip running DLSS while also running real time ray tracing would be a thing. On the other hand your ears can't be tricked into hearing a sound 1m away from you when the origin point of those sounds are about an inch or two away from your ear canal.

Chances are the leap from HD580 to HD660S or HD800S is a more realistic expectation unless Meier's DSP on top of headphone-specific album releases actually allows for making a soundstage that's wider than your head, compared to thinking it might be anywhere near the leap from a GTX 280 to an RTX 3080.

The other problem is similarly double edged. Graphene might get us absolutely flat response, flatter than even the half-flat HE400 series (except the S) and flatter than the Audeze LCD-2, because tech improved...but then again the newer HE5xx and equivalents and LCD-x>2 headphones were less flat because people don't like a flat response.

 

[GREQ]

Since music is recorded and mastered exclusively for playback on loudspeakers, we can't realistically expect it to improve much without DSP, as mentioned previously.

 

[Deolum]

The endpoint was probably reached with headphones like HE90 and Stax Omega. Headphones don't get better, they just get more expensive and mostly worse.

 

[DuncanDirkDick]

Probably not better than now. Every crappy "TOTL" phone gets bought at 4k. Just suck them dry.

Entry level phones will get better and DSP gets more prominent is my guess.

 

[Max Choiral]

Since music is recorded and mastered exclusively for playback on loudspeakers

Exclusively for playback on loudspeakers, eh? How so? It seems kind of unreasonable to me, because you barely see people today who are still using speaker setup. Or am I missing something here?

 

[Poganin]

In 5-10 years we won't be using headphones anymore. We will have music beamed straight into our heads, if we're to believe this: https://noveto.com/

 

[Hphones887]

there's absolutely no way this will sound anything near as good as headphones--impossible, that is just gonna be a gimmick and amount to nothing

 

[Whitigir]

Can’t say anything for 5-10 years far out ....

More realistically, how much degradations will your hearing be for 5-10 years from now ?

 

[Hphones887]

there's no way some sound beam device will match headphones--it would of been done already--they'll put that thing out and no one will know it exists except maybe a few hundred thousand people at best just like everything else with sound

 

[Hphones887]

there's no way some sound beam device will match headphones--it would of been done already--they'll put that thing out and no one will know it exists except maybe a few hundred thousand people at best just like everything else with sound, it's gonna be a gimmick like several before it

 

[GREQ]

Exclusively for playback on loudspeakers, eh? How so? It seems kind of unreasonable to me, because you barely see people today who are still using speaker setup. Or am I missing something here?

It's just how all music is mastered.
In studios, headphones are only used to pick out fine details but the whole mix and presentation is always finalized on loudspeakers.
I know it's a taboo around these parts to say it... but... speakers are better than headphones...

 

[gimmeheadroom]

In 5-10 years we won't be using headphones anymore. We will have music beamed straight into our heads, if we're to believe this: https://noveto.com/

That's old news. The latest theory is they'll beam it into our dogs' heads and since they're already microchipped, well, the rest is all downhill

 

[Max Choiral]

It's just how all music is mastered.
In studios, headphones are only used to pick out fine details but the whole mix and presentation is always finalized on loudspeakers.

I'm quite aware of that.
It doesn't make any sense if the result of mastering & mixing specifically targeted for speakers. A lot of people listen to music using headphones, earphones and prefer to be that way, because it's convenient.
The declaration above is just your implying unless there are some trusted sources which can confirm otherwise