Inner | fidelity - Comparing World-Class Headphone

[TMoney]

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You gotta be kidding me on the "legend" part -- I still remember N3rdling having less than 100 posts; oh time sure flies. N3rdling's headphone collection is pretty legendary, on the other hand.

You care about post count over quality of insight and experience? Really?
 
Many of the most prolific posters here seem to me to be pretty useless.

 

[TMoney]

 
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I have come to an absolute opinion that the secret to a lot of this "soundstage", "imaging", and "brightness/darkness" issues are revealed in the graph under Isolation: Attenuation of External Sounds VS Frequency.
 
It all goes back to crossfeed...think about it, it is too obvious and too logical.

Can you explain your theory a bit more? I'm not sure I understand what you are trying to say.

 

[SP Wild]

 
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I agree, but crossfeed also depends on leakage.
There's a study that measured acoustic crosstalk from different headphones (read page 7 figures 13-14-15) : http://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/ast/25/4/25_276/_article
Notice how the open headphones (Stax Lambda & HD414)  leak in the upper range (and not so much in the lows).
 
As for crossfeed causing more brightness/darkness I'm not sure, SPL from different channels don't add up together do they?

I agree, crossfeed or crosstalk would have to depend on leakage, I believe most of the attenuation and isolation occurs after 1 khz - the area that leaks the most on most open headphones - because smaller diaphragms can't move the lower frequencies over distance anyway. 
 
I'm not sure about the crosstalk causing brightness either - but it will absolutely lower raise the noise floor of each channel.
 
The article is interesting - crosstalk is measurable and looks to be audible - they do not go into it in more detail.


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hmmmmm....  i want to know more...
 
would this imply that the LCD-2 soundstage better for folks who enjoy their music at louder volumes? 
 

I don't believe the effect needs loud volumes to be audible - I believe it affects listeners at their preferred listening levels.
 
WRT the LCD2, my personal opinion is that the "out of head" experience is large - as large as the HD800, but it lacks the center fill phantom channel.  I hear a more two blob sound stage - but very wide.  The HD800 had amazing center fill characteristics to my ears, better by far than LCD2, but to me, the LCD2 was more pin sharp at separation, and placement - but in the 2 blob area.  Ultimately the K1000 was best in center fill and out of head experience, but I felt separation of instruments as well as instrument definition was very lacking compared to the newer flagships.
 
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Can you explain your theory a bit more? I'm not sure I understand what you are trying to say.

 
Degrees of the K1000 effect.

 

[edstrelow]

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I agree, but crossfeed also depends on leakage.
There's a study that measured acoustic crosstalk from different headphones (read page 7 figures 13-14-15) : http://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/ast/25/4/25_276/_article
Notice how the open headphones (Stax Lambda & HD414)  leak in the upper range (and not so much in the lows).
 
As for crossfeed causing more brightness/darkness I'm not sure, SPL from different channels don't add up together do they?

This is not showing a lot of crossfeed even with the Stax Lambda pro,   It's as much as  70 dB down at 300 Hz and 40dB or more down between 30Hz and 4 kHz.  (See Fig 15)
 
I am surprised to see  a crossfeed peak around 10 kHz  since high frequencies are more directional than low frequncies (think about your tweeter.)  I don't know how these frequencies could bend around the head or get past the mineral wool which if I remember correctly, the pro uses behind the drivers.
 
However Fig 18 is very interesting.  It shows that the Lambda pro improves dramatically  below 100 Hz if the earpad is better sealed!  I suspect this  would be true with most Staxen.  Ear pad fit appears to be critical with these phones.  I wonder if the effect would be as marked with the 007 and 009?  Unlike the 007A, the Lambdas form a tight seal around the ear (although as these data show, and inadequate seal.)  I don't know if the 009 is more like the 007A or the Lambda in this regard.
 

 

[n3rdling]

 
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Imaging-wise, I think the LCD2 does pretty well in pin-pointing the locations of instruments and in separating individual sounds. Soundstage-wise, I have no problem either with how the LCD2 renders width. 
 
However I think it is how the headphone renders depth that could use some improvement.

Agreed!  


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everyone has different yardsticks for measuring what sounds best to them. Personally, soundstage on headphones is very low on my list.
 
Tonality, midrange, bass impact, extension followed by detail and imaging is what gets me more and in that order.
 
For soundstaging, move up to a full on planar speaker setup like the Magnepans, Sound labs, Apogees or Martin Logans. Headphones IMO are not meant for that role, unless we start seeing a lot more binaural recordings.
 
 
 

Agreed again.  I don't think soundstage size is a really big deal either and have made a number of more in depth posts on this in the past.  That's just my tastes though.  I know most people hold soundstage size high on their list of priorities and I admit it can be very nice with some music (classical in particular).  


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I did check it. 
 

A classic HeadFi post - "the problem lies with something else in the chain".  I've heard the LCD2 with many amps including some of the best amps out there.  I've also had it in my system which IMO consists of some pretty good amps and sources.  I actually don't think the LCD2 changes all that much with different amps.  That's probably a good thing.  It is quite easy to drive, and I imagine this was one of the design goals so Audeze was successful in that area for sure.  I've driven it with a Sansa Clip and it sounded good.  Is there something about the Dynahi or Menace that makes you think they are deficient for driving the LCD2?  Can you provide commentary from your experience with them or technical critiques on the circuits from a design perspective please?
 
Ed, it is true that electrostats need to seal well around the ear to decrease bass roll off.  There are measurements of the SR404 showing just this on the first page of the Stax thread.

 

[Ham Sandwich]

Quote:

I agree, but crossfeed also depends on leakage.
There's a study that measured acoustic crosstalk from different headphones (read page 7 figures 13-14-15) : http://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/ast/25/4/25_276/_article
Notice how the open headphones (Stax Lambda & HD414)  leak in the upper range (and not so much in the lows).
 
As for crossfeed causing more brightness/darkness I'm not sure, SPL from different channels don't add up together do they?

 
An interesting research article.  I also wonder about the effect of bone conduction as a form of crossfeed between headphone channels.  How much bone conduction actually goes on with various styles of headphones?  At what frequencies?  I think there might be some bone conduction going on with big full size headphones like the LCD-2 that can drive a lot of vibration and also leave a lot of the bone around the ear exposed to the sound due to the large cups.  Little IEMs would likely have little bone conduction going on, or a very different bone conduction effect if there is any.
 
 

 

[edstrelow]

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Ed, it is true that electrostats need to seal well around the ear to decrease bass roll off.  There are measurements of the SR404 showing just this on the first page of the Stax thread.

It does look the same as the JASA article.  A bit hard to figure out unless you know what the Chinese or Japanese characters mean.
 
In the JASA article they said that they had some trouble fiting the Stax Lambda pro to their ear coupler because the coupler was flat but the  Lambda earpads aren't.  Rather the pads are thicker at the bottom to give a better seal on most people's heads.  Similarly when they used a Bruel and Kjaer dummy head, the artificial pinna was too stiff to give  a good seal.  The better bass result in figure 15 is more characteristic of what they got with real people's heads with a probe microphone inserted. as in Figure 8.
 
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An interesting research article.  I also wonder about the effect of bone conduction as a form of crossfeed between headphone channels.  How much bone conduction actually goes on with various styles of headphones?  At what frequencies?  I think there might be some bone conduction going on with big full size headphones like the LCD-2 that can drive a lot of vibration and also leave a lot of the bone around the ear exposed to the sound due to the large cups.  Little IEMs would likely have little bone conduction going on, or a very different bone conduction effect if there is any. 
 

A friend told me about his father-in-law who was seriously hearing deficient but still listened to music through a bone conduction unit.
 
I believe that with bone conduction you can forget about stereo since both ears tend to get the total pattern of sound.  So if you were getting bone conduction through loud listening it would essentially be  a form of monaural blend of the two channels which would shrink the width of the  stereo soundstage.
 

 

[sphinxvc]

Tyll, nice review.  Agreed that the SR-007s are slightly lacking in dynamics.  And that the LCD-2 can be underwhelming in high company.  I agree with those who commented on the Pinnacle being inadequate for the HE-6.
 
Sachu & N3rdling, definitely true that soundstage & image specificity or whatever is a non-issue unless evaluating binaural recordings.  Separation or clarity on the other hand is quite nice to have & the LCD-2 has it in spades.

 

[sphinxvc]

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I'd love to see them try to make a TOTL headphone using the Sigma concept again.  Drivers aimed from the front in a better enclosure than the old Sigmas, better driver with rigid mounting, improve imaging precision and extension ala 007/009.  That's probably my ultimate dream headphone.

Yes!!
 
x2.

 

[Audiogalore]

Apparently you never listened to the Grado GS1000.
 
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From my experience, a Balancing Act improves the LCD2's soundstage. But it also does the same for HD800's - kicks it up to Star Trek holo-deck levels. What I'm saying is LCD2 soundstage is similar to Grado's. And Grado's don't do soundstage. 
 

 

 

[purrin]

 
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Apparently you never listened to the Grado GS1000. 
 

I owned a GS1000. To be more precise, I was referring to the non-1000 models or anything with the non-jumbo pads attached.
 
I don't even know why there's even a fuss about the LCD-2's soundstage in the first place. One simply doesn't get an LCD-2 if one's priority is soundstage. And most people who's ears I trust don't even consider it of major importance.
 

 

[moodyrn]

X2. How deep a soundtage is is a lot more important to me than the width. It's funny when a lot of people comment on soundstage, they often refer to how wide it is. The three of the widest soundstages I've listened to are the hd800, k701, and ad700. I really don't care much for either of them. I like a nice wide soundstage, but I also want it to be realistic. So being 3 dimensional, and having pinpoint imaging carries a lot more weight with me. But that's just me.(speaking in general, never listened to the lcd2)

 

[arnaud]

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X2. How deep a soundtage is is a lot more important to me than the width. It's funny when a lot of people comment on soundstage, they often refer to how wide it is. The three of the widest soundstages I've listened to are the hd800, k701, and ad700. I really don't care much for either of them. I like a nice wide soundstage, but I also want it to be realistic. So being 3 dimensional, and having pinpoint imaging carries a lot more weight with me. But that's just me.(speaking in general, never listened to the lcd2)

Ditto!

 

[sphinxvc]

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X2. How deep a soundtage is is a lot more important to me than the width. It's funny when a lot of people comment on soundstage, they often refer to how wide it is. The three of the widest soundstages I've listened to are the hd800, k701, and ad700. I really don't care much for either of them. I like a nice wide soundstage, but I also want it to be realistic. So being 3 dimensional, and having pinpoint imaging carries a lot more weight with me. But that's just me.(speaking in general, never listened to the lcd2)

I have been pondering the same topic recently, and have subsequently downgraded soundstage on my list of priorities too.  
 
HP SS width and depth are inverted when compared to speaker SS.  What's heard at the right and left edges are actually supposed to be front and back.  Depth in HPs is supposed to be right and left.
 
Right?
 
So why bother with it when it's fundamentally flawed.  Separation is another thing though, I do like that.
 
Edit: This idea is continued in this thread.  Turns out I'm mistaken.

 

[chesebert]

Now you got me confused. Do you need some take some "additives" to get your soundstage "back to normal"?

 
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Quote:
I have been pondering the same topic recently, and have subsequently downgraded soundstage on my list of priorities too.  
 
HP SS width and depth are inverted when compared to speaker SS.  What's heard at the right and left edges are actually supposed to be front and back.  Depth in HPs is supposed to be right and left.
 
Right?
 
So why bother with it when it's fundamentally flawed.  Separation is another thing though, I do like that.