dsperber
500+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Jul 27, 2005
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WSR Reber: How does the fidelity of the headphones themselves impact performance? In other words, you’re going to get a different sound character from using just inexpensive headphones versus the STAX headphones.
Smyth: That’s right. When I first developed the Realiser, I was using electrostatic loudspeakers. And it always struck me that here you are capturing this very, very fast system, and how are you going to reproduce it? You’d better make sure that what’s playing out is equally fast. So you have to have a fairly transparent headphone if you really want to hear the characteristic of your loudspeaker. It isn’t as if you clearly hear the coloration of the headphone in the emulated loudspeaker, it’s not as simple as that. The emulated loudspeaker and room dominate, there’s no question about that. The coloration that the headphone adds is a lot less, but it is still there. And so our approach has always been: if you want to be able to judge the room and judge the loudspeakers, then make sure the headphones are good. And of course we have tried the top-of-the-line STAX headphones, and they’re better still. But are they that much better than the entry-level STAX? Maybe five or ten percent. What we supply is a very, very good system, but it doesn’t stop people from improving the headphones. You can improve to whatever level you want.
WSR Reber: Then the basic fidelity is going to come from your actual in-room loudspeaker system?
Smyth: Yes, because the room and the loudspeaker system is dominant. Of course, if the loudspeaker were in an anechoic chamber, you would hear only the loudspeaker. In that case, there would be a much closer divide between the fidelity of the loudspeaker and the fidelity of the headphone. But generally speaking, the room dominates, and so that is what produces the sound characteristic, not the headphone.
Smyth: That’s right. When I first developed the Realiser, I was using electrostatic loudspeakers. And it always struck me that here you are capturing this very, very fast system, and how are you going to reproduce it? You’d better make sure that what’s playing out is equally fast. So you have to have a fairly transparent headphone if you really want to hear the characteristic of your loudspeaker. It isn’t as if you clearly hear the coloration of the headphone in the emulated loudspeaker, it’s not as simple as that. The emulated loudspeaker and room dominate, there’s no question about that. The coloration that the headphone adds is a lot less, but it is still there. And so our approach has always been: if you want to be able to judge the room and judge the loudspeakers, then make sure the headphones are good. And of course we have tried the top-of-the-line STAX headphones, and they’re better still. But are they that much better than the entry-level STAX? Maybe five or ten percent. What we supply is a very, very good system, but it doesn’t stop people from improving the headphones. You can improve to whatever level you want.
WSR Reber: Then the basic fidelity is going to come from your actual in-room loudspeaker system?
Smyth: Yes, because the room and the loudspeaker system is dominant. Of course, if the loudspeaker were in an anechoic chamber, you would hear only the loudspeaker. In that case, there would be a much closer divide between the fidelity of the loudspeaker and the fidelity of the headphone. But generally speaking, the room dominates, and so that is what produces the sound characteristic, not the headphone.