[mvw2]

True. I should clarify "ear flat." It's something I'm very familiar with, but I am tossing the word "flat" out there generically. "Ear flat" is what I want, what I'd like to shoot for. Yuin seems to do this very well. Something I've become accustomed to is to run a pink noise track and EQ hardware (ear) flat with that. Some companies fair very well knowing what someone perceives as flat. Yuin seems to be one. I can't add or subtract more then 1dB anywhere before messing up the response. Most other HUs as well as many other hardware (home or car) requires a good bit of EQing to flatten out. I'd like to find a set that starts out close to flat so I don't have to do this.

Transparency is the ability for the driver to not bring attention to itself. It takes a certain level of fidelity to pull off, as well as a lack of distortion, mechanical noise, or vibration of the structure. It's not hypnosis, it's good design. I'll agree it's very hard to do, completely, but it's not impossible. I've only run a very small handful of hardware capable of this, and each was a front runner product in its category, almost elitist, not necessarily expensive though

, just done right.

I don't worry about hypnosis because our mind is already trained to recognize the spacial cues and represent them. It just takes an earphone to make use of this and mimic the sound stage. We already do all our own internal trickery.

Why worry about some preconceived notions of what they should sound, be, or test like?

Because it should sound "right" to me. Why would I be buying them if they don't? Isn't that the whole goal here? I don't know about you, but I'd like to find a earphone that sounded "real" to me. I already have my preconceived notions of what is "correct," "real," and "right."

The down side is to find that "right" earphone requires me to listen to about 100 different products and actually see which one sounds "right."


Back on searching, plowing through reviews/comments, I came across Head-Direct earphones. There seems to be a number of positive reviews and comments on them. As well, the prices aren't all that bad. I'm kind of curious about the RE0.

 

[mvw2]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mape00 /img/forum/go_quote.gif But they are essentially the same... To make a transparent headphone you need design criteria: a frequency response at the eardrum (modulo design criteria such as high frequency roll-off and DF or similar equalization).

You can have junk frequency response and complete transparency. I'll put it this way. There are two ways to notice something. One, you can physically locate it. For example, you have a generic home audio woofer with a bit of distortion. It'll play music and you can point right to it even if you had your eyes closed. You can play with the frequency response all you want, but you can point right to the thing and say "that's where the audio is coming from" any day of the week. Transparency requires the driver to vanish. The sound is there, but you don't have a source. Yes, the stage is controlled by physical location, but you can't find the driver. Yes, you can change the frequency response and make certain frequencies more noticeable, but you can't find the driver. That is transparency. The Denon C700 does this and it doesn't have a flat (ear) frequency response and even crappy bass.

The second way is by creating dominance, but this is completely separate from transparency. Yes, frequency response as well as time alignment can pull your attention around. For example, you can run a 2-way speaker setup with a tweeter set overly loud. The highs will overshadow the mid and bass response. The tweeter will be dominant. This means nothing about actually having the tweeter locatable or not. Time alignment works similarly. If it hits your ears first, you'll notice it first and automatically make it dominant, even if it is quieter in SPL. If any of you run an active setup in your car, you can play with this. These are completely separate aspects from transparency. Noticing that 2kHz is too loud is one thing. Noticing that the sound is resonating from the IEM sitting in your ear is another.

I don't know, I've come to seperate out a lot of aspects into their individual parts.

 

[oarnura]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mvw2 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Transparency is the ability for the driver to not bring attention to itself. It takes a certain level of fidelity to pull off, as well as a lack of distortion, mechanical noise, or vibration of the structure. It's not hypnosis, it's good design. I'll agree it's very hard to do, completely, but it's not impossible. I've only run a very small handful of hardware capable of this, and each was a front runner product in its category, almost elitist, not necessarily expensive though , just done right.

Can you provide any examples of this?

 

[oarnura]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mvw2 /img/forum/go_quote.gif The second way is by creating dominance, but this is completely separate from transparency. Yes, frequency response as well as time alignment can pull your attention around. For example, you can run a 2-way speaker setup with a tweeter set overly loud. The highs will overshadow the mid and bass response. The tweeter will be dominant. This means nothing about actually having the tweeter locatable or not. Time alignment works similarly. If it hits your ears first, you'll notice it first and automatically make it dominant, even if it is quieter in SPL. If any of you run an active setup in your car, you can play with this. These are completely separate aspects from transparency. Noticing that 2kHz is too loud is one thing. Noticing that the sound is resonating from the IEM sitting in your ear is another. I don't know, I've come to seperate out a lot of aspects into their individual parts.

You have to go up in price range to get what you are looking for. The Shure SCL4 I have is fairly transparent. I know what transparent means.

 

[mvw2]

The best example I've used is a subwoofer I own, DIYMA's 12". The thing is completely transparent. I've run dozens of drivers and over half a dozen good subs, and this is the only one I've ever run that my ears can't see...at all. I can park the thing right in front of me, play a wide audio range (up to several hundred Hz), and I can't tell you where the sound is coming from. It's just there. I can adust it to be bloated and overshadowing where I can recognize the sub is too loud, but I still can't locate it.

A close example of poor frequency response but good transparency is ScanSpeak's older D2904/6000 tweeter. Response drops above 10k, is robust and full sounding. It's not flat. However, the transparency is quite good.

I currently run Seas neo metal tweeters. They're a bit light on note (lacks some weight) but are very transparent. You can hear the music, but you don't really hear the source, the driver. Nothing really draws you to the physical device reproducing the music.

The Denon C700 does this well too. It'll play, and you are not directed to the earphone itself. The sound is there, but it doesn't sound like it's coming from the earphone. That is transparency. The C700 even has some faults with a less than amazing frequency response, a bass response that's constrained and bloated, and it lacks some separation in details that I've heard better from other phones I've used.

Transparency is a separate aspect from everything else. It is the ability to not bring attention to itself.

 

[mvw2]

Quote:

Originally Posted by oarnura /img/forum/go_quote.gif You have to go up in price range to get what you are looking for. The Shure SCL4 I have is fairly transparent. I know what transparent means.

Yeah, I'm thinking about leaving it at <$200 and figuring out the best option from there. If it costs $47, great. If it costs $163, fine. It's more of a bang for the buck thing and the sense that an earphone should not cost $400, no matter what it is.

I think a lot of folks know what transparency is. It was more of a response to mape00 for bundling transparency and frequency response.

I just don't want to hear the earphone making noise. It shouldn't sound like it's coming from the earphone. The C700 makes this work. One aspect with that earphone is it doesn't vibrate. You don't feel it move which is a good thing for not bringing attention to itself. Physically holding onto other phones helps in this aspect, but it doesn't necessarily make them completely transparent, despite improving the illusion.

 

[oarnura]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mvw2 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Yeah, I'm thinking about leaving it at <$200 and figuring out the best option from there. If it costs $47, great. If it costs $163, fine. It's more of a bang for the buck thing and the sense that an earphone should not cost $400, no matter what it is.

I think quite a few phones in the $150-$200 would be built properly to not vibrate.

Start of with the $80 Shure SCL4 and see what you think. The White ones are that price from guitarcenter.com.

 

[mvw2]

I'm starting to get the feeling that I'll have to toss $500 at a bunch of them and then keep the one I like the best.

I'll just dig for more reviews/comments.

 

[mape00]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mvw2 /img/forum/go_quote.gif You can have junk frequency response and complete transparency. I'll put it this way. There are two ways to notice something. One, you can physically locate it. For example, you have a generic home audio woofer with a bit of distortion. It'll play music and you can point right to it even if you had your eyes closed. You can play with the frequency response all you want, but you can point right to the thing and say "that's where the audio is coming from" any day of the week. Transparency requires the driver to vanish. The sound is there, but you don't have a source. Yes, the stage is controlled by physical location, but you can't find the driver. Yes, you can change the frequency response and make certain frequencies more noticeable, but you can't find the driver. That is transparency. The Denon C700 does this and it doesn't have a flat (ear) frequency response and even crappy bass.

So for headphones, I guess you'd define transparency as a diffuse sound field (=sound coming from all directions, as in a reverberant room)? This is very dependent on the frequency response, as described by the Moller paper.

If transparency and frequency response are unrelated, how would one go about designing a transparent headphone? Voodoo?

 

[mvw2]

No. Transparency is the inability to locate the source hardware. It's not a matter of direction. For example, a stereo setup in your room can create a sound stage: left, right, center, and you can locate where the instruments are, etc. Transparency is my ability to realize that the sound is coming from the stereo or is simply there. It's basically the definition of the hardware being invisible during the audio reproduction.

It's not a simple matter of being omni-directional or all-directional. Transparency is not a shaking car with a 2kw sub system. It's not a matter of overshadowing the source with other emanating sources.

Sound can still be incredibly directional despite being transparent. Direction is a matter of location or reflection. That defines the space. Transparency is simply the capability of the hardware to be invisible to the user.

Vodoo, no. Good engineering, yes.

The Denon C700 does this already. It is effectively transparent. When I listen to it, I don't hear the earphone playing the sound. I just hear the sound. The Denon just has other aspects I don't like, so I'm looking for other options.

So far, I'm leaning very heavily towards the RE0. A lot of what I've read tells me I'll probably like it, lol.

 

[mape00]

Speaker placement and room acoustics are important when it comes to getting a realistic sound field for speakers, but let's not get there, let's talk headphones.

You didn't answer my (very straightforward) question, so I ask again:
In a headphone, what determines its "transparency"? What are the design criteria?

 

[mvw2]

The same with any speaker I guess, like minimal mechanical noise, low distortion, and maybe one unique to earphones would be chassis vibration/chamber resonances as it's physically on/in your ear. It would be basically eliminating any ques that would bring your attention to the hardware itself.

Maybe we're just using the term "transparency" in different contexts from each other. I don't know. One could also look at transparency in presentation too, as in separation of space, depth of space, etc., i.e. the transparency of the stage presented in front of you and the ability to distinguish and localize specific singers or instruments within a recording or maybe even the room that the music is being played. I personally keep that as separate entities from my term transparency. My transparency term is more mechanical then musical. I would individually talk about separation, stage depth, and so on separately in their own bits.

I'm not really sure what answer you're trying to get from me. Are we even using the term transparent in the same context?

I don't get where frequency response comes to play in your context. Frequency response is useful to bringing information forward or moving it rearward in the presentation. Decrease intensity, decrease awareness. Increase intensity, increase awareness. One can pick out certain instruments or voices even by manipulating frequency response. You have some control over the presentation, but it has no part in my definition of transparency.

 

[montell]

In the $200 range I'd say SA6. People equate lack of bass from the ER4 as analytical, transparant, neutral sound. I'd say the SA6 is the most balanced and flat sound out of any IEM I tried. ER4 just sounds thin, boring and unnatural to me.

 

[ZephyrSapphire]

Quote:

Originally Posted by montell /img/forum/go_quote.gif In the $200 range I'd say SA6. People equate lack of bass from the ER4 as analytical, transparant, neutral sound. I'd say the SA6 is the most balanced and flat sound out of any IEM I tried. ER4 just sounds thin, boring and unnatural to me.

Now didn't that just contradict itself.

 

[Xena]

I'll try to say this more plainly: you cannot ever, ever achieve transparency in an earphone because it is SHOVED INTO your ear. It makes physical contact. It cannot "disappear" because you always have tactile contact. Same with headphones.

I understand what you want. I bought my Dynaudio Contour speakers exactly because they were the only speakers I auditioned (I auditioned speakers for 4 years before I bought the Dyns) that disappeared when I listened.

Quote:

Why worry about some preconceived notions of what they should sound, be, or test like? Because it should sound "right" to me. Why would I be buying them if they don't? Isn't that the whole goal here? I don't know about you, but I'd like to find a earphone that sounded "real" to me. I already have my preconceived notions of what is "correct," "real," and "right."

But that's not what you said you wanted. That's what I said one should seek. Something that sounds good. Originally you said you wanted earphones with a flat freq. response. This is a preconceived notion of what is good. It is incorrect, because earphones with a flat response will not sound right.

Good luck in your search. I don't think it is possibly to find what you want and remain within the laws of physics.