[earmonger]

There are infinite permutations. YMMV.

 

[castleofargh]

Thank you all for all your replies.

What I really want to know is whether a large soundstage delivered by headphones or iems is really reflecting that of the original recording or whether it is an artifact of the phones. Ie, do they just give an big soundstage to everything that you listen to with them, or do they give a more accurate portrayal of the recording.

The reason that I ask is that I have weird hearing when listening to phones in that I get a really huge soundstage that can really fill the room I'm in, and sometimes beyond. Nothing between my ears (no jokes please). I have a long history of listening to phones that dates back to the Sennheiser 414s when they were a thing, and everything was in my head. But about 3 years ago, that somehow changed.

I can't be the only one like this, surely.

Anyway, I'm thinking of getting some iems, specifically the fiio hd5, because of the good reviews and the large soundstage that reviewers generally report.

But if they are imparting the soundstage by artificial means, that will not necessarily be a good idea for me.

But if they do it by accurate reproduction of the source then I'm all in.

Hence my original question.

I'm hoping that you all can help me here. I can't hear before I buy, so any input would be much appreciated.

Thanks again,
Pete

Again, there is no such thing as non artificial. I understand you want a simple yes or no to validate a purchase, but anybody confidently claiming that you will feel a certain soundstage or a certain placement of instruments with that IEM is sadly ignorant about humans. You've seen how your description of space was received with incredulity, well that's just one more example suggesting that your impressions are your own. In such a case, what could accurate or artificially large soundstage even mean? Accurate for whom and in reference to what?
This is not the speaker world, or sounds coming from around you in your daily life, but headphones and IEMs. With those, a significant portion of the image in your head is objectively wrong in term of positioning and spatial cues(be it against real band reference or against what the sound engineer(s) and artist intended or felt themselves).
And on top of that, another significant portion of your interpretation of spatial cues is based on your own body(head and ears), but you lose part of those cues when the sound source is straight at you ears instead of at a distance.

There is no accurate soundstage from default headphones or IEMs and very little a manufacturer can do to change that without at least some generic DSP(some processing of the signal to add some HRTF content or at least crossfeed).
This might seem to contradict my first post saying that just about anything audio or not can affect our perception of space in music, but being able to affect something and being able to control how people would feel, those are 2 very different stories.


It would require even more walls of word than what @whitedragem did to justify what I said, but I hope you can trust that it’s really fact based and not some weird speaker lover delirium. So I can stick to already long but still readable posts.
I would advise anybody to focus on the frequency response he likes most and to seriously consider if he needs good isolation or not for his IEM. At large vented designs tend to be better objectively, but when in a noisy place, what good does it do?
Last concern is comfort but for that there is a need to try the IEM in person.
For you in particular, if your brain manages to create a large space with most tranducers, why would you even care about something like soundstage? You’re lucky, be glad your brain has freed you from the spatial struggle on headphones/IEMs and focus on everything but that.
It’s people with garbage space impressions from headphones like myself who have to care and struggle to find the least horrible solution. I ended up with a Realiser A16(speaker simulation based on our own measurements of our own headphone and speakers from microphones in our ears), after trying so many devices with or without DSP because nothing else was working for me. It would have saved me so much money and efforts to have your ability to discard most contradictory cues.

 

[emlin]

Again, there is no such thing as non artificial. I understand you want a simple yes or no to validate a purchase, but anybody confidently claiming that you will feel a certain soundstage or a certain placement of instruments with that IEM is sadly ignorant about humans. You've seen how your description of space was received with incredulity, well that's just one more example suggesting that your impressions are your own. In such a case, what could accurate or artificially large soundstage even mean? Accurate for whom and in reference to what?
This is not the speaker world, or sounds coming from around you in your daily life, but headphones and IEMs. With those, a significant portion of the image in your head is objectively wrong in term of positioning and spatial cues(be it against real band reference or against what the sound engineer(s) and artist intended or felt themselves).
And on top of that, another significant portion of your interpretation of spatial cues is based on your own body(head and ears), but you lose part of those cues when the sound source is straight at you ears instead of at a distance.

There is no accurate soundstage from default headphones or IEMs and very little a manufacturer can do to change that without at least some generic DSP(some processing of the signal to add some HRTF content or at least crossfeed).
This might seem to contradict my first post saying that just about anything audio or not can affect our perception of space in music, but being able to affect something and being able to control how people would feel, those are 2 very different stories.


It would require even more walls of word than what @whitedragem did to justify what I said, but I hope you can trust that it’s really fact based and not some weird speaker lover delirium. So I can stick to already long but still readable posts.
I would advise anybody to focus on the frequency response he likes most and to seriously consider if he needs good isolation or not for his IEM. At large vented designs tend to be better objectively, but when in a noisy place, what good does it do?
Last concern is comfort but for that there is a need to try the IEM in person.
For you in particular, if your brain manages to create a large space with most tranducers, why would you even care about something like soundstage? You’re lucky, be glad your brain has freed you from the spatial struggle on headphones/IEMs and focus on everything but that.
It’s people with garbage space impressions from headphones like myself who have to care and struggle to find the least horrible solution. I ended up with a Realiser A16(speaker simulation based on our own measurements of our own headphone and speakers from microphones in our ears), after trying so many devices with or without DSP because nothing else was working for me. It would have saved me so much money and efforts to have your ability to discard most contradictory cues.

It doesn't seem to be a very friendly place here.

First I get told that what I hear is not what I hear but hyperbole.

Then that I'm trying to validate a purchase.

And then that I should be happy with what I've got.

Well, you've got at least partially working ears while some people can't hear at all, so you should be happy with an Echo Dot.

Jeez.

 

[whitedragem]

It doesn't seem to be a very friendly place here.

First I get told that what I hear is not what I hear but hyperbole.

Then that I'm trying to validate a purchase.

And then that I should be happy with what I've got.

Well, you've got at least partially working ears while some people can't hear at all, so you should be happy with an Echo Dot.

Jeez.

smiles: this is probably ‘less about you’ and more pre existing conditions…
(I am generally overtly antagonistic of the ‘science thread police bots’, and so am high on a threat list/seen as derailing logic and sound science..)(It isn’t you, but more likey ‘me’)

Tone of voice doesn’t come across in forum posts, and when I reread posts like this thread contains, with a positive helpful tone of voice, and sometimes a ‘slower pace’ to attempt to understand what is being said; the actual information is golden.

Case in point, user CastleofMontyPythonhumour (c’mon- this person must be cool!) is giving a high end example of taking this technology to the utmost level..
The science boys’ live by the same filters as anybody else (even though a few antagonists will challenge everybody elses’ ‘non science’ (nonscence)) and they actively work their brains (some of them) to not relax and enjoy the same imagination/trickeries that allow others to fully enjoy their setups…
Case in point; last night I listened for hours to my stereo rig trying to imagine the sounds as soley coming from the speakers in front of me. (and I achieved this feat)(the problem being that if I relaxed, ie ‘started writing on this forum’, my brain was picking up audio cues in the music from much further afield.
Right now I am playing Pendulum “3 knocks” (has the song ‘Coma’ on it) (late nineties release from an Australian group (there are a ‘few’ bands going by the name Pendulum)), and whilst I write this, the imaging is fantastic and ‘quite room filling’.

I suppose I am ‘the speaker (lover) person’, truth be told; I love music, and yes, I ENJOY my kit (because it plays music)..
Regarding being able to pick up a sense of the soundfield/soundstage that headphones (IEMs) can give is often an important metric…
We each come to our passion with this hobby for different reasons..
For me the most thrilling aspects to get right, (in the eighties) were soundstage and signal to noise ratio.. By the early nineties and the introduction of home theatre amps like the venerable yamaha DSP-A1000, I fast realised ‘dynamic range’ was important.. (And I double down on ‘stereo amps’ from that point forward)..
Having a large TAX return a decade later, and being willing to buy a flagship surround receiver with the latest ‘digital‘ formats I had hoped that the top of the line home theatre stuff could touch middle-fi stereo integrated amps.. (it did not), and thus began a journey of using spec sheets to learn about the company (a little) but buying proper brands that did two channel right (and I bought my first Musical Fidelity product, their ‘entry level’ XA1 (a 30 watt stereo amp with no bass/treble or balance adjustment).. and I used it simply as a preamp as I went UPSTREAM..

So, unlike a musician who might favour tonal accuracy or someone who listens to live orchestral music only (and might want a true 16hz playback for the low note from a house sized organ), some want stage information MORE than other metrics.. hence this being a question that is raised.. (lets all just acknowledge that this is the “help and GETTING STARTED’ section of the Head-fi space, and we do not NEED to argue the last aspects of scientific truth and the nature of existence.. (if a tree falls in the forrest what does that have to do with the FD5 IEM?)

As I have no opinion on the IEM you ask about, I haven’t fielded anything regarding that..
What I have wanted to reaffirm (to the OP) is that what you are hearing, YOU are hearing, and that (some) professional reviewers, when describing soundstage/soundfields (as they experience them) is a correlating metric across many reviews (must be SOMETHING TO THAT!), and that they use familiar test tracks (ones that they know HOW they should present) to see how any (new) given set of headphones sounds when presented with the same (program) material…
There is consistency and those reviewers words hold value..
When they describe the soundfield, sure it is ‘how they interpret it’, but if many people have the same experience, it is fair to say that ‘the particular piece of kit being reviewed’ might have traits towards what is being described.

I like to test for myself…
When I put on some Sennheiser HD800s ‘the oval soundstage was very offputting’ (to me) (subjective experience, sure), but the thin width vs huge depth wasn’t what I wanted to use for music (especially when my goto Ultrasone Edition 5 had a ‘perfect circle’ soundstage/soundfield by comparison.. albeit not as ‘deep’)..
Now, sure the Edition 5 use a very refined technology, S-Logic, (s-logic EX in the Ed5), which puts the driver in a cone and has the sound waves land across the entire ear surface.. this allows using our full sensory interpretation (not quite as we have a cavity below our ears that picks up bass and science is still learning A LOT when it comes to human perception) to resolve the audio (also allows rocking out to music much louder without it being ‘so loud’ (hurting us))..
I chose those headphones as a ‘one can to rule them all’ (attempt) they had neutrality required for HRTFs, great sound stage (for a closed back) and ‘a range of desirable qualities’ (dynamic driver dynamics, with electrostatic style sound, incredible detail (makes Sony MDRZ7 sound like supermarket brand headwear by comparison(-no detail)), yet ‘no one set gets EVERYTHING right’ - I still hold onto a few headsets and IEMs (and I don’t like riding my scooter around without sensory feedback so enjoy some Sunglass style earphones..)..

Getting onto the subject of IEMs and soundstage.. Some Sennheiser IE80s earbuds showed me an incredible soundfield.. I didn’t expect them to do so (not in the slightest), but their detail retrieval was clearly able to lift the micro details that give us the spatial information needed to resolve a sense of space..
They were NOT using a clever cavity or angled driver or some math/witchcraft to pull of this trick,.. just exceptional ability to reveal recorded details..
Fed a high quality source (ie don’t bother with compressed music, AT ALL, if you care about soundfield) they truly shine.

I believe that whatever soundfield/soundstage you read about regarding your next prospective purchase SHALL BE A USEFUL GUIDE.
Just find some reviewers with similar tastes and equipment and then you know that more of the variables will be cut down and the chance to replicate THEIR experience will be increased..
As to what the odds are that you hear exactly the same thing// (who knows), but chances are you will ‘be in the ballpark’.

also, if anyone is jealous of ‘your ability to fool yourself into hearing exceptional positional audio’, just take it as a compliment, and go on..
We are a passionate community here, and this is a hobby, so we like to sillybrate (celebrate) our findings and experiences as often as possible.. (love to live and breathe this stuff)

Joy with you..

 

[castleofargh]

It doesn't seem to be a very friendly place here.

First I get told that what I hear is not what I hear but hyperbole.

Then that I'm trying to validate a purchase.

And then that I should be happy with what I've got.

Well, you've got at least partially working ears while some people can't hear at all, so you should be happy with an Echo Dot.

Jeez.

I read my post again and while I would deserve to go to prison for punctuation terrorism and endless sentences, I really didn't feel like I was establishing an antagonistic or judgmental relation with you. Nor did I think that way when writing the post. If anything, @whitedragem is right about me being jealous and wishing I could summon space at will with headphones and IEMs to feel what you describe without having to use a lot of customized DSPs and psychological tricks.

As for my advice to you, I stand by it. We usually wish to improve our experience, and that’s best done by dealing with the weaker links or most significant variables(here that would be frequency response) instead of looking for what happens to already feel pretty good.
Anyway, as said above, this is the help section. People who don’t give a damn about others just don’t come here(that’s why you see the same 10 people doing a majority of the replies ). I genuinely wished to help and inform about some of the information I happen to have after trying hard to understand and improve my frustrating spatial experience on headphones for about a decade. To those who seem to be like me, having horrible imaging from the so called ”headphone lateralization” while being very determined to do something about it, I suggest to forget about all the audiophile nonsense trying to use the wrong tools to create minute adjustments. And to instead go discuss about what to do in the thread about impulcifer https://www.head-fi.org/threads/recording-impulse-responses-for-speaker-virtualization.890719/ or to go buy an A16 if they’re rich or very very determined.
But to those who are mostly fine with headphone and IEM imaging for whatever reason, I will suggest to care about frequency response and open or closed design depending on use, like I did with you. Because both are likely to play the biggest role in deciding your preference.

If that came out wrong, IDK, blame it on me simply being French and genetically pedantic.

 

[castleofargh]

When I put on some Sennheiser HD800s ‘the oval soundstage was very offputting’ (to me) (subjective experience, sure), but the thin width vs huge depth wasn’t what I wanted to use for music

I’m also no a fan of that headphone even though it has excellent specs. But my impressions were wider than on most headphones with nearly no distance in front of me. So unless you inadvertently switched width and depth, it’s an interesting case of how different we can feel about imaging.

 

[whitedragem]

perhaps different kit up front.. (and I can only

I’m also no a fan of that headphone even though it has excellent specs. But my impressions were wider than on most headphones with nearly no distance in front of me. So unless you inadvertently switched width and depth, it’s an interesting case of how different we can feel about imaging.

probably just fortunate / been playing with top tier gaming soundcards since they first came to market, and ‘evolved with the tech’ (a lot of ear training and appreciation for headphones that render correct soundfield ‘shape’ and required neutrality for hrtfs to play ‘well’.
as i’m no muso, my interests in kit is
a) signal to noise ratio (stopped caring about this twenty+ years ago - probably cause I only bought ‘nice kit’ from that time forwards)
b) soundstage
c) dynamics
with the basis ‘kit must be flatline/studio neutral’ (read: ‘boring“ to many on headfi)
it is only in last few years I have focused on timbre/tone (I blame bowers and wilkins and sennheiser products for this!)

when ALL kit is selected based on these criteria, the output result is very reliable..
but we differ on a few metrics, ie for fun I might allow a sumsung phone to re-eq my headphones to ‘flatline’ (for MY ear/hearing; it is a cool feature!) and,..
I believe in altering sound field using cables etc.. (the science guys would have a ‘field day’ with this notion.. but having owned reference grade ‘tier a’ amps (eg dc/0hz to 500000khz with zero deviation etc (worth the cost of a house!)!) such ‘subtleties‘ are ‘very obvious in their effects.. running flagship transports/dacs (themselves with massive amounts of upgrades and mods, like ‘better clock chips’) and having trained my ears (literally listening to ‘recorded distortion’ at ever smaller percentages etc) the combined skills of a lifetime of being focues on ‘that magical soundstage’ metric, has led me to feel I understand aspects of this topic.
its true cables might not change one iota on any given measurement plot, but ‘in the real world’ the noticable effects (yes ‘blind testing’, asking a ‘panel’ for feedback etc..) and trusting ears better than my own (fortunate to have met conductors and audiofoolz with more skill than myself); it has combined to ‘a lot of SUBJECTIVE truth ,<wink.bmp>(I know bitmaps cannot be animated like “graphics interchange format”/‘gif’s can)..
I get it that the sound science people, who spend a lot, and read a lot, KNOW a lot… but their filters for information are stronger than my appreciation for ‘a world of fantasy/fallacy and fancy’.
for whatever reason I have been very fortunate to experience some amazing kit, and have lived and breathed this stuff since the eighties, where I enjoyed the technical improvements, regarding audio, of ‘the new 16 bit computers’ (amiga and atari st) over our old mac (with a single sided drive inbuilt),.. when pcreative made their first pc soundcard (had a 5 watt amp onboard!), it wasn’t roland fm worthy, but had wave/digital sample support (and was vastly better than adlib cards).

to say I watched pc audio develop (realsound in games like crimewave/links golf), and toyed with dual sound cards for ‘more channels’ in screamtracker type softwares (on PC), and bought just about every card that came out of asia (with better FM synthesis) (OPL2/2.5/3 etc), I’d buy just about every high end creative unit (AWE64 was a landmark),.. the evolution of these parts really got my juices going when I was able to get a development board for Aureal 3D.. (the rest is ‘history’).
I followed the tech evolution, every sound chip in just about every device.. I loved that the sega master system processor (a Z80) was the chip to control soundbytes in a Neo Geo (lots of digital sound channels AND the storage (pre CD) to make use of them.. vs the megadrive/genesis and SNES consoles at the time playing with ‘one digital‘ channel (and FM synthesis); this was exciting tech to me..
I used to listen to my walkman for 20 hours (from a single AA battery/playing tapes) at a volume of 1.5 out of 10..
I never listened loud and always focused on ‘threshold of sound‘ stuff…
When going upmarket with ‘better CD sound’ when HDCD and dual 20 bit DACs was offered with a Rotel RCD971, my fascination with ‘transports‘ was born.. (and external DACs)..
By the late nineties this was also doing superclock mods and all sorts of ‘goodies’.
The Vandenhul 103? cable (carbon) and some of the first ‘high end‘ interconnects and digital cables I played with were noticable upgrades..
When one knows the subtle things to look for with each of these upgrades, and has done so for a long time, they are as obvious to spot as night vs day…

I would say my skill level with this stuff is ‘intermediate’ (at best)..
( I am great with PCs and tech/ and cameras etc)
Sound has always been the ‘hobby’!

People can tell me about the psychology of sound and observation bias etc.. but as someone fascinated with Psychology since the early nineties and done a lot of science(/and psych) at university and always enjoyed further edutainment regarding these fields,.. they are ‘preaching to the converted/the choir’ : I get their point of view.. (and find it funny when someone with the least wide blinkers imaginable wants to school me to THEIR view…)

I have just about always been scientific with my methodology, and my bias has always been to spend less money/‘get away with the best bargain’, so I am not looking for expensive kit to perform better… quite the opposite..
needless to say, some things I take for granted, now, after decades of experiencing this stuff (and knowing others who do as well) this isn’t mythical fairy nonsense..

If I choose to use certain expensive kit because I know it will widen the potential for other ‘downstream‘ pieces to ‘do better’ (not choking the potential to perform) I do…
From a budget point of view this generally means owning ‘super nice stuff’ twenty years after it came to market…
I am alright with that!

Whether my ‘subjective reality‘ is true for anyone else; I don’t enforce it…
I am always happy to discuss opening about things I have found..
My patience for people trying to make me see things the way my sixteen year old self thought (eg fibre optic has to be better than coaxial cause light cannot pick up RF etc) is limited.. When they shout black and blue they are right and I am stupid and biased,. I am alright with that- I earned my biases with an OPEN mind and a lifetime of experience.
Still consider myself ‘new’ to this and everyday is a school day. (my child/family have made this our creed!)

Due to the nature of HRTFs working so much better from flatline reference kit, my ear towards these goals is hyper sensitive…
It takes me a few seconds generally to recognise if a part serves ANY purpose to me…
that is not to say I don’t fully listen and run ‘lots of test’ (and have a huge toolbox of calibration discs and reference equipment/tracks etc).. and again I reiterate- just a hobby and very much a padawan…
But I do get vocal when people start trying to insist that ‘they know more/are right’ and get rude about insisting that others take on board their perspective..

To that end, I completely agree that it can get fatiguing trying to get the wool off some peoples eyes (not really our job!), the old adage of ‘an opinion is only worth something IF ASKED FOR’.
i do not advocate people run out and buy cables.. but for a completed system (or when trying to lock down a nice sounding front end), the advantages that some parts can bring to the total system is wholly worthwhile.
Case in point my Ultrasone Edition 5 (bought due to the way the sound resolves across the ‘whole ear’), are ‘bass light’ (vs their exceptional clarity up top) and yet I went with an ALO puresilver cable… the monks chanting in Enigma ‘principles of lust’ became like actual Gregorian monks chanting.. and their location in vertical space was heightened.. knowing how hard it is to imply depth and height spacial cues meant that after many hours of alternating between three cables (the shortlist) the cable I least thought would get the vote took it wholeheartedly…

Would it be worth spending money on cables for headphones not capable of this level of resolution or with the intent to keep them for ‘well more than a decade’ No!
but for gaming cans (circular soundfield, neutral sound profile (good for HRTFs)) the benefit to the extended space that the most minute of echo information (with the fullest decay time I could buy -=ahem CABLE ahem=-) was thoroughly worth it. (for me/aka ‘subjective’)
It made a difference- AND I needed a balanced cable anyway, so the ‘upgrade’ wasn’t much in excess of a well built ‘functional‘ cable..

Only cause I had the amp and transport and DAC etc etc etc already sorted.. it was ‘a logical and well considered purchase’; that I would never have bought unless it made a NOTICEABLE improvement.
Choosing equipment that helps the soundfield meant the Chord Hugo (which the method Chords filter/processing works, kills ABSOLUTE positional information) was retired in favour of an iFi Diablo..
The Diablo is seen as a waste of money vs an entry level iFi DAC/amp to many pundits.. but regarding this level of sound, it was the minimal to get the job done, and definitely aided towards perfect sound’field’..

I don’t change my goals ‘on a whim’ this is 30+ years of taking this one aspect of sound ‘very seriously’.
again, my attitude is that ‘on head-fi’ my knowledge is average…
Love this place.
And the members..
My banter is with love, and even those I argue with I have ‘unconditional positive regard‘ for..

It is why I didn’t see any comments as negative,.. but from the perspective of the OP, I can understand how we must all make them feel…
It is also why my first post stated; already answered/covered… those posts, I agree NAILED the topic.

Sometimes we simply need take a step back from our selling and see what others are buying…
As a mod, I get that you know the way head-fi works.. we are a community, and we stand tall when we respect and contribute in helpful ways..
Truly I dig our regular posters, even the ones that I hold polar opposite viewpoints too.. (it takes a village to raise a child/different strokes…)

 

[ProtegeManiac]

oops - specific to the last question asked; yes; 'beyond the triangle' of speakers to listener!

If I play Deep Forrest 'white whisper' (or sweet lullaby) and don't get panning four metres beyond my speakers position (in the present room), then I'd scrap the setup and 'start again'.
I actually like finding orchestral versions of albums I like,, such as symphonic Deep Forrest (apple music), or symphonic Pink Floyd (london philharmonic), or symphonic Tubular Bells, or even EnzSO (new zealand symphonic orchestra playing split ends songs); why?
Cause I don't want to only play classical music genres when testing out systems/setting up kit.. ( I like variety)
As many have come to figure out, symphonic orchestras with their 'rows of musicians' and large recorded environments are some of the hardest recordings, genre wise, to recreate.
( I also like Nine Inch Nails due to signal to noise ratio and engineering quality- nothing like having a man whisper over the top of a rock band at rock out volumes..)

edit @ProtegeManiac aniac
My last post wasn’t meant to be arrogant/mean; it just frustrates me when head-fiers who registered aeons ago and with huge posts counts get in the public space and shout mistruths..
-On this logic I must frustrate many head-fiers with my sillyness re: cables/DACs and amps contributing to sound in ways that many do not feel is true -and I likely insult many peoples setups as I know the kit they are using isn’t good enough to resolve basic audio truths, like those using entry level (price point) surround amps and then state that ‘all DACs sound the same’ -(on their system, they possibly do, but they argue that all amps sound the same, hence as long as they have enough wattage- their ‘amp is fine’)

not trying to sell cables, or, well ‘anything’,..
the aforementioned system wouldnt need be ‘junked’, necessarily, but some room placement consideration (and control) might need be employed/entertained.
and to make my answer clear, ‘yes’ to the left of my speaker (or the right) beyond the ‘triangle’ I have much placements of sounds.

the time that best identified ‘correct setup’ to me, I was looking at buying a second hand turntable- the fellow had done an incredible job with their main speaker placement… I heard sounds on the far walls (or beyond them) and behind me, and I said- “have you got other speakers engaged”- with a big grin the person said “nope!’.
He knew his setup was perfectly tuned- he had had recording engineer friends literally jump when hearing this setup (professionals in the audio industry for decades)- it was simply perfect, and the room dimensions and layout did not look like it would perform the way it did.

That week I went back to the drawing board and redid my speaker layouts, to ‘great effect/affect’ (pun intended)

with some effort will come (some) reward.
there are a lot of guides on the internet re: speaker placement..
I suggest reading a few and finding one(s) that work (for you).

it is true some DACs (circuit/not ‘the chip’) can make sound ‘up front’/in your face, or resolve much further away, and most audiopeepz seem to not recognise how important a great preamp can be (with regards to stereo imaging width/‘prowess’)..

when I use a burson conductor, well regarded as a ‘decent preamp’, I find it quite poor at this task.. vs a proceed avp2 (considered a decent preamp)-they are different classes of kit..
truth is they are both excellent preamps, but it becomes easy, when directly comparing them, to see the effects that ‘good kit’ can bring to recording playback.
(the burson shrinks the stage, sure, but is leaps and bounds better than what is ‘beneath it’).

it is why longtime professional reviewers know to compare kit based on the tiers they belong to..
my present setup would be mostly tier c kit (or below) - I have owned tier ‘a’ kit, but generally 20 years after it came to market (champagne taste on a beer budget), at which point, generally better kit in tier a would out resolve what I have, and hence I’d slip it into tier b kit to label it correctly.

most consumers start with tier e kit (and the world keeps pushing new pricepoints and ‘cheaper sound’) so tier f kit is ‘a thing’ and is what you get with no effort towards audio chains…
sadly many reviewers rate DACs skirting at tier d sound quality using tier e kit, and hence say ‘said part sounds the same to me’ as all other (tier e) DACs..

of all the friends I presently know with sound setups reaching into five figures pricepoints, none have ‘tier c’ quality setups- tier d can be had for a sizable step up over entry level (generally each part of the chain costing 3x more money that the audiophile entry level part). my friends will have a mix of tier d and tier c pieces, and the ones closest to tier c sound do so by buying antiquated second hand ‘wherever possible’… (like I do)

as an easy example, I have a pile of flagship receivers that cost north of 6000$ (aus) when new, which might cost me 200-600$ second hand. they might not have the ‘latest surround formats’, but as offboard power amps to ‘modern processors’, I can get great sound, vastly better than spending many many thousands on new kit (still need a good /modern processor though).. using offboard power amplification, these ancient ‘flagship’ surround amps can make a decent ‘modern’ surround system.
they’d be roughly equal to tier d ‘stereo’ amps though, and ideally I wouldn’t use them for two channel setups.. -I split my two channel and surround setups, and my recordings to suit each setup.. ie compressed for radio/mainstream crap goes on the surround setup (in 2 channel mode), and the nice ‘high fidelity’ recordings (think:well mastered for high fidelity setups) live in the two channel/‘stereo’ setup.

case in point- a ‘budget’ nad 3020, famous 40 years ago for sounding alright for an ‘entry level amplifier’, will flog/‘seriously outclass’ a lot of ‘new’ amps.
the last nad3020 amp I bought was 20 years ago, with a rotel rb850 power amp, for 200$. no modern 200$ amp could touch either of those amps for stereo sound quality-irrespective of the associated ‘spec sheets’ and the modern kit ‘looking good on paper’.

most people who haven’t heard good two channel, will argue that their kit is ‘all that’.. it usually ‘is not’.
having great equipment allows testing variables- too many forum warriors have substandard kit, and argue they have ‘tried it all’ (often thinking a 1000$ DAC sounds the same/equal to a 150$ DAC etc)
a lot of arguments/basis for arguments (such as ‘cables alter sound’)can be easily experienced on well setup rigs, but most do not have a) the equipment or b) correctly setup to experience these things.. nor c)the ear training or understanding of which select parts of certain recordings that reveal obvious differences when making certain changes

(i figure if i am going to seem arrogant, might as well go ‘all in’)(i’m not actually an audio snob, and love building budget setups that can hold their own against much more costly projects. hint: i read second hand trading posts)
well setup twi channel rig should resolve sound beyond the speakers. if not, it can be source (clock chips/ and transport quality), DAC (circuit, not ‘the chips’), preamp, amp, speakers, room setup… and of course, recordings that push boundaries.
eg vanessa mae, violin lovers concherto is recorded to sound ‘well back’; it doesn’t extend much beyond my left/rights, but does throw a nice distance beyond the rear wall.
setup and recording, and ‘yes’,’beyond boundaries’

And I never said anything about the soundstage extending beyond the listening triangle. Not even on headphones. In fact I specifically mentioned examples where they can, both for good and bad reasons. What I'm telling the OP is that I find it terribly difficult to imagine that earphones perceptively filled the entire room with sound, something I haven't even run into using even an HD800 on a video game with the DSP running surround or a game like CS:GO having native surround simulation on headphones, since these games inevitably if they are going to be realistic in reproduction should be waaaaaaaaay larger in soundstage size (and all around) than audio recording meant to reproduce a stage because...ya know...if some guy was running around far enough that his head wouldn't fill in the scope on a SCAR-H, he's farther out than any band on stage will have people farther than each other.

Or did you miss the fact that he was walking about the room being filled with sound using earphones to begin with.

To be clear, I'm not being arrogant/mean either. It just frustrates me when head-fiers regardless of when they register or what their post count is think I consider the same as some sort of credentials only to rattle off similar things as what I based what I say on.

And regarding how electronics can sound different, yes you're right that amps and DACs can sound different, but that's because one system can have more noise or distortion than another, and this is in terms of a particular combo - lower voltage on one DAC can force the same amp to into audible distortion, or force another amp into audible distortion more than the other, and inversely higher voltage on one DAC can make it sound harsher than another DAC which is why level-matching is important, people who can't hear a difference across everything tend to be people who don't really crank anything up when comparing but those who'd sweat very small differences and spend more just for that smaller difference when cranking it up (or at least I hope they don't always listen with everything cranked up that high), etc etc.

And yes speaker placement matters, so do headphone driver placement whether on the chassis or how they're worn., something I also discussed when I replied to the OP, and thus why I wanted to get a better idea on what he meant by filling the room with sound when on earbuds when even a K701 - heck, not even a K1000 - can do that. Because what he might be hearing is more of a wall of sound effect and not actually hearing a soundsource coming from 3m out of his head. Which, again, I didn't say it was impossible for sound to exceed the listening triangle (speakers)* or head (headphones), I just said that there's a word of difference heading a ~0.4m wide overall stage with the vocals in front of my face and the drums about 0.1m behind that on an HD800 and "earbuds filling the whole room with sound" (sic).


*Oh an uh...you know why I also don't look at post count as credentials? Because those numbers don't tell you that I hang out at speaker stores and I do know that sound does exceed the triangle. One time I even managed to finish listening at Focal's room at an annual hi-fi show where the bass drum was 1m behind the center of the two Focal Stella Utopias (set about 3m apart) and spread out around 1.5m wide (0.75m to each side, just to be clear), while the rest of the instruments can be a bit beyond the speakers' flanks, and get to the Dynaudio room before my country's freaking president arrived to check out speakers and got mobbed by the crowd. Again, not being arrogant/mean here, I'm just laying out why what you think I think matters doesn't actually matter to me. I didn't even bother to check your post count or when you registered, because yeah, that doesn't matter.

 

[whitedragem]

And I never said anything about the soundstage extending beyond the listening triangle. Not even on headphones. In fact I specifically mentioned examples where they can, both for good and bad reasons. What I'm telling the OP is that I find it terribly difficult to imagine that earphones perceptively filled the entire room with sound, something I haven't even run into using even an HD800 on a video game with the DSP running surround or a game like CS:GO having native surround simulation on headphones, since these games inevitably if they are going to be realistic in reproduction should be waaaaaaaaay larger in soundstage size (and all around) than audio recording meant to reproduce a stage because...ya know...if some guy was running around far enough that his head wouldn't fill in the scope on a SCAR-H, he's farther out than any band on stage will have people farther than each other.

Or did you miss the fact that he was walking about the room being filled with sound using earphones to begin with.

To be clear, I'm not being arrogant/mean either. It just frustrates me when head-fiers regardless of when they register or what their post count is think I consider the same as some sort of credentials only to rattle off similar things as what I based what I say on.

And regarding how electronics can sound different, yes you're right that amps and DACs can sound different, but that's because one system can have more noise or distortion than another, and this is in terms of a particular combo - lower voltage on one DAC can force the same amp to into audible distortion, or force another amp into audible distortion more than the other, and inversely higher voltage on one DAC can make it sound harsher than another DAC which is why level-matching is important, people who can't hear a difference across everything tend to be people who don't really crank anything up when comparing but those who'd sweat very small differences and spend more just for that smaller difference when cranking it up (or at least I hope they don't always listen with everything cranked up that high), etc etc.

And yes speaker placement matters, so do headphone driver placement whether on the chassis or how they're worn., something I also discussed when I replied to the OP, and thus why I wanted to get a better idea on what he meant by filling the room with sound when on earbuds when even a K701 - heck, not even a K1000 - can do that. Because what he might be hearing is more of a wall of sound effect and not actually hearing a soundsource coming from 3m out of his head. Which, again, I didn't say it was impossible for sound to exceed the listening triangle (speakers)* or head (headphones), I just said that there's a word of difference heading a ~0.4m wide overall stage with the vocals in front of my face and the drums about 0.1m behind that on an HD800 and "earbuds filling the whole room with sound" (sic).


*Oh an uh...you know why I also don't look at post count as credentials? Because those numbers don't tell you that I hang out at speaker stores and I do know that sound does exceed the triangle. One time I even managed to finish listening at Focal's room at an annual hi-fi show where the bass drum was 1m behind the center of the two Focal Stella Utopias (set about 3m apart) and spread out around 1.5m wide (0.75m to each side, just to be clear), while the rest of the instruments can be a bit beyond the speakers' flanks, and get to the Dynaudio room before my country's freaking president arrived to check out speakers and got mobbed by the crowd. Again, not being arrogant/mean here, I'm just laying out why what you think I think matters doesn't actually matter to me. I didn't even bother to check your post count or when you registered, because yeah, that doesn't matter.

cheers- my post count comment wasn’t referring to you at all… (apols for the confusion); there are a lot of members here who ise alt accounts and all sorts of weird stuff, and take these pages waaaay to seriously in terms of selling their voice. (not you, not in my eyes anyway..)

I feel we hold exceptionally different beliefs regarding kit.
it is fair in the newbie section to describe amp sound differences, at a basic level as to what some people are encountering, as your post just gave. (but that issue has nothing to do with some audio ‘premises’ I hold with regards to sound output from equipment, and how different builds/designs/topologys and parts implementations ‘tunes’ the output audio)

on the subject of ‘soundfield extension’ under earbuds/headphones etc, ironically listening to music using some audeze mobius as I read your comment; guessing you haven’t heard that type of sound before?
I have no doubt that some samsung buds would be using DSP for their sound -many ‘digital’ headwear coming to market saves money on serious sound tuning, and simply uses ‘math and dsp’ to alter sound however they see fit - given how consumers lap up products with the buzz words THX and Dolby in them, many phones now process ‘surround‘ into headwear playback.
samsung are hugely anticonsumer - have ripped out apt x hd (and methods that compete with their adaptive codec) from their phones, and no doubt enjoy using DSP tricks to make their buds sound ‘better’ than products we cannot even compare (fairly) to them…. phones as far back as the Note 7 have been updated to remove apt x hd so that samsung crappy buds will sound better than ‘competing parts’.
(OP dont get me wrong, those Samsung buds might be an upgrade for many many people over what they have heard before, but for those with $800 headwear whose wireless methods have been crippled, ‘we’ experience WORSE audio quality, although overall ‘still better sound‘, and are appropriately saddened that products sold to us WITH certain features can have said features pulled (with security updates )..
bit off topic, but, fair to say DSP is a major part of how such basic headwear sounds they way it does..
and the Mobius can throw sounds around like they are out of the room.. (yes, better than an hd800)
DSP can easily take audio ‘out of the head’- and no one is arguing that this is what the music wants/needs,.. but it is obvious and will ‘sell products’.

 

[earmonger]

quote: "no doubt enjoy using DSP tricks to make their buds sound ‘better’"

We are really into the weeds here. I do not care what kind of DSP tricks/electronic magic goes on. That's for the professionals. Results are all that matters.

If it sounds 'better,' it sounds better.

My AKG N400NC (owned by Harman that supplies Samsung) sound great on Bluetooth from my phone or A&K player. They were giving them away at $49 when I got them, but are now a more sober purchase at $150. Maybe there are others at that range now that are equivalent...just saying.

I don't care how they do it -- DSP, mind control, pixie dust -- or what the exact codec is. They fit, they sound good, end of story.

 

[Redcarmoose]

Soundstage actually is a very loose term. Probably came from full-size speakers, and before the shift from mono to stereo. Hence a single speaker siting is a room could generate many styles of soundstage. Some music is farther away some recorded close, thus reproduction is still variable with a mono speaker. Still the term really started to mean something with the add of two speakers. At that time H.H. Scott put a center channel in. This was in fact due to many not making the move to 2 channel yet. You can only imagine the frenzy and talk. Some moved over to 2 channel, and some die-hards stayed mono. Most well made music at that time was mixed for mono with the stereo mix being a 2nd quality afterthought. What is the 2 channel headphone experience? It's a whole series of things. Two start with when the music is recorded direct to mixing console, like electronic music, and never gathers room response or reflections, ever. So that is an imaginary selection of spacial mixing, that will often still barrow ideas from the outside world. Things like hearing music on speakers will often affect how the songs are mixed. They try and create a synthetic style of 3D space for the listener. Remember too, much of the effects are stereo and barrow from an understanding of speakers in a room when doing reverb or pans. Such tools somehow are using prior understanding of room reverbs, yet we still have never made it out into the air. So you can see that even with direct recording electronic instruments are still affected my mans history of listening to speakers in a room. Though this is also an over generalization. Meaning soundstage is synthetic yet still held by man's understanding of hearing music replayed in a room, yet no room is used, and ultimately can be mixed different. So the question is does the mix-down happen on speakers or singularly headphones? With electronic music often there are no rules. Both methods are used and generate different results, but this whole thing is so abstract, no one cares. Well.................maybe they care but both ways are used. Once a room is recorded with two microphones the whole playing field is changed. Multiple tracks, multiple days used to record a song, multiple locations used to record a song. At times both direct to board inputs are used along with room affected recordings. There is a recent series of events which truly startled me and led me to have slightly different beliefs. That is that the stereo recording actually has multiple ways of interpreting the soundstage. While of course the soundstage is being reproduced as always, but a new monkey wrench has been thrown in to the playback.

1) While soundstage is always present more or less, there are many different ways to subjectively experience it due to equipment.
A) This deals with the whole system, but you will find different systems and processes affect interpretation of sound stage.


2) The stage will actually expand farther when bringing up to better gear.
A) A recording has the ultimate possibility of being perceived different as the better gear will allow you to hear-into the signal.


3)There are many straight-up amplifier processes which deal with signal processing which affect soundstage. This is not the time or place to go into that aspect, but that is an additive to the experience I'm describing. Simply refer to them as up-sampling for a quick generalized description. But beyond that the ultimate blackness of the amplifier will in-turn coalesce these stages experiences. This is obviously total system response, and will vary with equipment used. But......some IEMs actually are able to generate more of the illusion than others.


And finally where does the illusion come (to start with) for 3)


It always comes from the recording, obviously. But......said recording can be enhanced to modify subjective spacial impressions of soundstage. What I have recently learned after 45 years, is that the reproduction (by how it's systematically reproduced) and the file both go together to generate soundstage. So it's the equipment and recording which do this. No one needs to correct me, I'm not looking for guidance here. I also don't need any response to this post. But this revelation has been epic as before I knew headphones were in part responsible, and recordings were responsible, but now I understand how with certain special recording, that specific amplification as well as a controlled digital feed, will affect the subjective experience of soundstage. That basically everything is responsible for the subjective interpretation of soundstage.

 

[whitedragem]

^^^^^^^^^^^
The notion that the grade/‘total capability of the equipment’ (think absolute ability to render the ‘microdetails’ (such as subtle echos that tell our brain how to interpret these ‘spacial cues’)) IS VERY MUCH important when hearing what is recorded by the upstream ‘wizards’.

This is why many people I have met, with highly resolving ‘two channel’ setups, need to keep the ‘recorded for mainstream equipment’ albums in their Home Theatre Room.. (the surround amps generally resolving the ‘over emphasised’ recordings poorly, vs the two channel kit, and make it more ‘listenable’. (think: ‘made for the workshop radio’/get your attention at the supermarket stuff- and I am not just talking about ‘compression to make it compete with the channel ads’, but the fact that if you master on lousy kit and hence use LOTS of echo to make is sound like a ‘mid sized space’ in playback, and then someone plays that back on high end kit, they hear all the echo that the person with the subpar kit couldn’t hear..)

It is the only reason I take to task with some people who review high end components on really entry level ‘consumer-fi’ kit and write it off as ‘no better than anything else they have heard through their system’ (likely ‘very true’)..
Just nice to see someone champion some of the subtle and often “no one wants to acknowledge’ aspects of this topic..
Of course the whole is ‘the sum of its parts’.. (and can be held up by ‘the weakest link’),.. and RECORDINGS matter (ie garbage in = garbage out )..
The efforts of the engineering team (and the quality of their studio) truly matters.. I always buy 10-20% of my recordings from unknown artists, based on their art aesthetics (on the sleeves/cover and liner notes) and by looking at the last page in liner notes listing recorded @ (and by whom).. some stuff I just buy based on who was involved.. (eventually I simply learned to trust some labels and will buy any artist and enjoy ‘top tier’ engineering/mastering).

The other side of this coin is ‘developing a muscle’. (mind training) (@Redcarmoose - completely not aimed at you/not disagreeing with you/ totally heard you say ‘no one needs to respond to you’ - I just want to be clear I AM NOT DOING THAT) (apols if flagging your name made you scour my post-I will keep it short out of respect and ‘care’)

how we hear, like any muscle, can be developed.. (we ‘train our brain’)
When I took up massage, we had to put a hair under a piece of paper and ‘feel it out’.
Once we found that ‘super easy’/‘were comfortable with the exercise’, we would put three pieces of paper on top of a human hair.. (and ‘feel’ it out)..
Then five.. then seven.. (we can see where I am going with this).. (20 pieces of paper was ‘beyond satisfactory’ btw)
Now not trying to create a genetic, ‘fallible’ argument /‘equivocation’ of the sensory systems is ‘different beasts’ (okay not technically ‘different beasts’, (Still human); but..)
Training ones ears to understand the illusion of 30feet back/50 feet back (as drummer Jim Keltner gave in the TDK demo disk for audio setups (late 90s)) as played back using a stereo recording into a two channel speaker system (or under headphones).. anything we train we can get better at..
It is why in experiments with basketballers who are given glasses pushing their vision 30 degrees off to the side.. sure they ‘miss a few shots’, but then they quickly correct..
This is the same for a range of things : I used to ‘shoot from the hip’ in arcade games like Point Blank (cause on the playstation ‘credits’ cost nothing and I didn’t care if I shot the explorer in the eye, rather than the apple on their heads… I would even play two player (gun in each hand), and, on normal mode, I could shoot both apples,.. but never on expert mode.. (could get one though..)
My brain would learn the subtle adjustments of the gun in my hand, and correct and even though I wasn’t looking down the sights, I eventually, through ‘training’ got there..
Audio perception has this going on..
Just like the Aztecs didn’t see the boats coming from the ocean (they had never needed to experience this before,.. their brains had no way of perceiving this)(although how anyone figured this ‘fact‘ out,.. hmmm!??), if no one points out your noise floor,.. or ‘lack of (background) blackness’ you are not listening for it..

I cannot guess how many times someone ‘new to head-fi’ as a hobby has walked away worrying about a plethora of things ‘not on their radar’ prior to finding this webdomain…
If we are looking for something, sure, we can find it..
and if we train ourselves to notice things we can get better and better at finding it..
They same TDK test disk had ‘harmonic distortion‘ recordings.. 10% was painful, sure,.. but 3% (not so much)?.. 1% was on the verge of being subtle.. and 0.1%, and 0.3% or 0.01% etc…
First time around a user might go ‘I can hear 1%, sure’ (but wouldn’t have ever noticed if 3% was in the background whilst their music was playing (it is a subtle ringing sound)..
i wouldn’t use kit with 0.1% harmonic distortion… (now!) (even then I’d have rejected 1% harmonic distortion kit).. and as someone who has been a passenger in cars with partners who want to jam their crappy stereos at 30% distortion.. (arrgghghghg!!)

Most people are being entirely truthful when they say ‘I don’t hear that*’.. it is possible that if they trained their ears ‘they COULD hear that’ but would they really want too?
(‘*that’ being any aspect of audio playback)
ignorance is bliss.. (and some stuff cannot be unlearned…) (don’t ever point out the pops/clicks audible when listening to vinyl.. if you ignore them ‘they are NOT there’!)

edited to fix misteaks and speeling erorrs.

 

[Redcarmoose]

^^^^^^^^^^^
The notion that the grade/‘total capability of the equipment’ (think absolute ability to render the ‘micordetails’ (such as sublte echos that tell our brain how to interpret these ‘spacial cues’)) IS VERY MUCH important when hearing what is recorded by the upstream ‘wizards’.

This is why many people I have met, with highly resolving ‘two channel’ setups, need to keep the ‘recorded for mainstream equipment’ albums in their Home Theatre Room.. (the surround amps generally resolving the ‘over emphasised’ recordings (thing ‘made for the workshop radio’/get your attention at the supermarket stuff- and I am not just talking about ‘compression to make it compete with the channel ads’, but the fact that if you master on lousy kit and hence use LOTS of echo to make is sound like a ‘mid sized space’ in playback, and then someone plays that back on high end kit, they hear all the echo that the person with the subpar kit couldn’t hear..

It is the only reason I take to task with some people who review high end components on really entry level ‘consumer-fi’ kit and write it off as ‘no better than anything else they have heard through their system’ (likely ‘very true’)..
Just nice to see someone champion some of the subtle and often “no one wants to acknowledge’ aspects of this topic..
Of course the whole is ‘the sum of its parts’.. (and can be held up by ‘the weakest link’),.. and RECORDINGS matter (ie garbage in = garbage out )..
The efforts of the engineering team (and the quality of their studio) truly matters.. I always buy 10-20% of my recordings from unknown artists, based on their art aesthetics (on the sleeves/cover and liner notes) and by looking at the last page in liner notes listing recorded @ (and by whom).. some stuff I just buy based on who was involved.. (eventually I simply learned to trust some labels and will buy any artist and enjoy ‘top tier’ engineering/mastering).

The other side of this coin is ‘developing a muscle’. (mind training) (@Redcarmoose - completely not aimed at you/not disagreeing with you/ totally heard you say ‘no one needs to respond to you’ - I just want to be clear I AM NOT DOING THAT) (apols if flagging your name made you scour my post-I will keep it short out of respect and ‘care’)

how we hear, like any muscle, can be developered.. (we ‘train our brain’)
When I took up massage, we had to put a hair under a piece of paper and ‘feel it out’.
Once we found that ‘super easy’/‘were comfortable with the exercise’, we would put three pieces of paper on top of a human hair.. (and ‘feel’ it out)..
Then five.. then seven.. (we can see where I am going with this)..
Now not trying to create a genetic, ‘fallible’ argument /‘equivocation’ of the sensory systems is ‘different beasts’ (okay not technically ‘different beasts’, (Still human); but..)
Training ones ears to understand the illusion of 30feet back/50 feet back (as drummer jim Keltner gave in the TDK demo disk for audio setups (late 90s)) as played back using a stereo recording into a two channel speaker system (or under headphones).. anything we train we can get better at..
It is why in experiments with basketballers who are given glasses pushing their vision 30 degrees off to the side.. sure they ‘miss a few shots’, but then they quickly correct..
This is the same for a range of things : I used to ‘shoot from the hip’ in arcade games like Point Blank (cause on the playstation ‘credits’ cost nothing and I didn’t care if I shot the explorer in the eye, rather than the apple on their heads… I would even play two player (gun in each hand), and, on normal mode, I could shoot both apples,.. but never on expert mode.. (could get one though..)
My brain would learn the subtle adjustments of the gun in my hand, and correct and even though I wasn’t looking down the sights, I eventually, through ‘training’ got there..
Audio perception has this going on..
Just like the Aztecs didn’t see the boats coming from the ocean (they had never needed to experience this before,.. their brains had no way of perceiving this)(although how anyone figured this ‘fact‘ out,.. hmmm!??), if no one points out your noise floor,.. or ‘lack of (background) blackness’ you are not listening for it..

I cannot guess how many times someone ‘new to head-fi’ as a hobby has walked away worrying about a plethora of things ‘not on their radar’ prior to finding this webdomain…
If we are looking for something, sure, we can find it..
and if we train ourselves to notice things we can get better and better at finding it..
They same TDK test disk had ‘harmonic distortion‘ recordings.. 10% was painful, sure,.. but 3% (not so much)?.. 1% was on the verge of being subtle.. and 0.1%, and 0.3% or 0.01% etc…
First time around a user might go ‘I can hear 1%, sure’ (but wouldn’t have ever noticed if 3% was in the background whilst their music was playing (it is a subtle ringing sound)..
i wouldn’t use kit with 0.1% harmonic distortion… (now!) (even then I’d have rejected 1% harmonic distortion kit).. and as someone who has been a passenger in cars with partners who want to jam their crappy stereos at 30% distortion.. (arrgghghghg!!)

Most people are being entirely truthful when they say ‘Idon’t hear that*’.. it is possible that if they trained their ears ‘they COULD hear that’ but would they really want too?
(‘*that’ being any aspect of audio playback)
ignorance is bliss.. (and some stuff cannot be unlearned…) (don’t ever point out the pops/clicks audible when listening to vinyl.. if you ignore them ‘they are NOT there’!)

Right everything is learned. Take a baby, many believe that they believe the whole world is them at the start, then they go through separation of the world to become a separate entity. Just like learning to hear correct instrument timbre and tone, that’s a learned response as you can’t identify what’s off if you haven’t heard it correct in reality or a well played-back rendition on headphones. It is always hilarious when noobs leave their first show after getting a chance to hear good equipment. Maybe they have or haven’t been exposed to real instruments, but now that they heard a version of good, they can’t go back to their old rigs. The brain is now schooled as to what is correct. They have to sell their rigs or at least make changes to emulate their own new ideas of correct. Same as soundstage, maybe electronic music can offer playback on bad headphones and still be enjoyable, as there is limited reference as to what the instruments are as they are synthetic. Also the soundstage in direct to desk recordings don’t have real room reverberations or echo? Closer to true life soundstage can be a learned thing. It’s never really true to life because it’s always an approximation. Still some approximations are better than others. This goes for all aspects of recorded music, that perception is a learned talent. Even understanding the style of instrument playback can be perceived as one way when it’s not exactly correct. Meaning often I have heard the mid bass be described as sub-bass personality in IEMs? Which is it? How are they hearing it incorrectly? Does it really matter, all reviews are taken as a subjective take anyways. So instead use graphs? Well, graphs often get artificial measurements too. I don’t graph IEMs, but one set I talked about, I described a Pinna Gain heat. The graph then came back as the Pinna Gain was not at all hot. Then another graph actually reinforced what I heard. So imagine that, a new headphone that I’m only guessing the character, is proven wrong by the first graph, then proven almost correct by the second graph! The fact that the emulating of space with headphones does need to be backed-up by at least hearing echoes and reverberations in real life for the listener to relate. As how would they be able to mentally process the illusion of reality, with out at least given an example of reality first? Same as guitar. A person not into the guitar may not recognize that it’s off tune, or out of intonation, due to never being close to a real guitar. So they concern themselves with other aspects of the reproduction process. Maybe they like the rhythm of the guitar and don’t notice it’s out of tune? But a guitar player would know what’s up the first strum. Same as guitar reflections, if a person never heard a correct reflection in a room of a guitar played, they have no base-line for comparison. They are still able to enjoy music, just fidelity, actual fidelity may escape their perception. It’s never perfect anyways, as the speakers in the production room are not standardized across the world, meaning the music gets mixed different by every recording engineer anyways. So playback will take place in a circle of confusion as to what is correct. It may be close to the correct sound, but the moment was lost in time of the real sound, or real echos.

 

[emlin]

Just to let you all know that I received my Fiio FD5s today.

Wall busting soundstage and precise imaging. Many spine tingling moments.

Probably down to my weird hearing.

 

[Redcarmoose]

Enjoy!

Fiio FD5s