How is Soundstage Simulated WIth IEM's?
Oct 19, 2014 at 5:53 PM Thread Starter Post #1 of 10

Spyro

Headphoneus Supremus
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Meaning that the sound seems 10-15 rows back versus front row in your head like a typical stage monitoring IEM.  Two obvious extremes I can think of are the Westone UM3X versus W3.
 
Obviously the tuning of the drivers but how do they create "distance"?  The distance is very nice and creates more of a headphone experience.
 
I find it an amazing phenomenon.
 
Apr 13, 2016 at 4:50 AM Post #2 of 10
Unless the recording is done with coincident mics on a dummy head, you're not going to get an accurate soundstage reproduction in IEMs. The sound cues you get from IEMs is probably the worst conditions you can have for reproducing a stage.
 
Apr 13, 2016 at 10:10 AM Post #3 of 10
almost everything will impact the perceived imaging, all that is, and on IEMs, a lot of what isn't.
 
Apr 20, 2016 at 10:33 PM Post #4 of 10
  Unless the recording is done with coincident mics on a dummy head, you're not going to get an accurate soundstage reproduction in IEMs. The sound cues you get from IEMs is probably the worst conditions you can have for reproducing a stage.

 
I presume this statement holds exactly the same for headphones then.  It has to.  3/8" from eardrum versus 1" in a headphone......when you are trying to reproduce a 20 foot sound room has the same room for errors.
 
Apr 24, 2016 at 3:30 AM Post #6 of 10
   
I presume this statement holds exactly the same for headphones then.

 
Pretty much yes. Maybe slightly less bad than IEMs but there's very little in it.
 
  Perhaps it's not just the tuning of the drivers but how the drivers perceive the source information to create that feeling of 'depth'

 
Drivers don't "perceive" anything and don't create a feeling of depth, they just transduce an analogue electrical signal into acoustic sound pressure waves.
 
G
 
Apr 27, 2016 at 5:54 AM Post #7 of 10
I think that the phase response curve as well as the speed of the driver have a big impact on how we perceive the soundstage. Outside of that, I think that the only other things that really affect that are the acoustics of the shell.
 
Apr 27, 2016 at 7:16 AM Post #8 of 10
I guess it might be because it's easier for the brain to get information about the distance the more of the outer ear is used. So everyone's brain is used to listen and locate sounds through everyone's individual shape of ears and IEMs have to artificially create more of the HRTF than headphones.
 
Apr 27, 2016 at 11:00 AM Post #9 of 10
I guess it might be because it's easier for the brain to get information about the distance the more of the outer ear is used. So everyone's brain is used to listen and locate sounds through everyone's individual shape of ears and IEMs have to artificially create more of the HRTF than headphones.

I agree.
I think that the phase response curve as well as the speed of the driver have a big impact on how we perceive the soundstage. Outside of that, I think that the only other things that really affect that are the acoustics of the shell.

I really don't.
phase is obviously wrong as many multidriver IEM have a nice headstage(for IEMs) when the phase response may be a nightmare.
speed doesn't mean much IMO, unless it's so bad that it translates into massive roll off and distortions, but then I would say the soundstage is impacted by roll off or distortion, instead of talking about "speed".
about the acoustic of the shell, well why not, except that many BA IEMs have a tube that goes straight from the driver to the bore. so on that one I'll go with a maybe.
 
Apr 27, 2016 at 2:50 PM Post #10 of 10
the conventional models of hearing directivity include the shading, diffraction of the head and outer ears affecting the relative amplitude response differently at each ear for a localized point source
 
another couple of additional abilities of human hearing known to Psychoacostics, and most easily heard with headphones, are the resolution of phase/polarity due to auditory neurons responding only to the inner hair cells bending in one direction - seen in "phase locking" of neural impulses with positive pressure - but only up to a few kHz
and the higher level auditory structures in the brain can apparently do fine correlation between the signals coming from each ear - the IATD resolution is possibly better than 10 us for specially structured click tones when listening with headphones (and is absolutely not evidence of "100 kHz hearing")
 
however traditional commercial Stereo music production has largely relied on Amplitude only "pan potting" and added reverberation to "paint on" any "soundstage" from the close miced, sometimes even separately isolation booth recorded "stems" in modern mixing/mastering practice
 

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