[milezone]

In my experience of listening to plenty of speakers, I agree it's a different experience, but not to such a dramatic degree as some people make it seem. I've listened to tons of high end systems in treated rooms none of which I found to be comparable to the Acoustats that I used to own. I firmly believe they were the best speakers ever created and it would take a boat load of money in this day and age to create/market (the associated servo amps deliver a very deadly 5000v to the panels) something of equivalent quality as a commercial platform. From a technical standpoint, accuracy alone, top electrostatic headphones are obviously going to be superior to anything else on the market. The 007s, the 009s, and maybe HE90s are pretty much the only headphones that fall into this category however. The Lambda Sigantures, while more detailed than pretty much anything else on the market, fall well short of many speakers in the presentation department.
 
People (myself included) seem attracted to the idea of sound coming from in front of them versus from their sides. And the mental experience of wearing headphones factors massively into the 'observed differences' you describe. At the end of the day, when I'm not focused on what medium I'm listening through, and I'm lost in the music, headphones enable me to go deeper.

 

[mulveling]

I've gone back-and-forth on this more than a few times. For the last 5 years I've been sporting a nice 2ch+analog setup, with some fairly high-end gear (total MSRP in excess of 50K) -- but the Stax 009 headphones drew me back into head-fi. Even still, these speakers remained choice #1, until I upgraded to the Yggy + KGSShv Carbon. They each have their merits, as amply noted here. But lately the absolute absence of distortion, perfect tonal balance, and ability to listen loud anytime has been drawing me to the Stax, more often than not.
 
Listening fatigue is often a factor with headphones, as even laid back headphones such as the HD650 will be more fatiguing than really good speakers. However the better Stax models buck this trend; I experience absolutely no fatigue with the 009/Carbon/Yggy even after sessions of loud levels. 
 
And then we do have the issue of mutual "musical" enjoyment. OK, big win for speakers here. It's tough to sell a lady on coming over to listen to vinyl over headphones. But the big hifi is a good conversation starter and comfortable to settle into (just don't geek out about it like you would with an audiophile buddy).

 

[murphythecat]

  In my experience of listening to plenty of speakers, I agree it's a different experience, but not to such a dramatic degree as some people make it seem. I've listened to tons of high end systems in treated rooms none of which I found to be comparable to the Acoustats that I used to own. I firmly believe they were the best speakers ever created and it would take a boat load of money in this day and age to create/market (the associated servo amps deliver a very deadly 5000v to the panels) something of equivalent quality as a commercial platform. From a technical standpoint, accuracy alone, top electrostatic headphones are obviously going to be superior to anything else on the market. The 007s, the 009s, and maybe HE90s are pretty much the only headphones that fall into this category however. The Lambda Sigantures, while more detailed than pretty much anything else on the market, fall well short of many speakers in the presentation department.
 
People (myself included) seem attracted to the idea of sound coming from in front of them versus from their sides. And the mental experience of wearing headphones factors massively into the 'observed differences' you describe. At the end of the day, when I'm not focused on what medium I'm listening through, and I'm lost in the music, headphones enable me to go deeper.

to me its very dramatic/emotional to hear the right sound pressure in a room that mimic the real presence of instruments/sounds,  have the soundstage very well defined in front of you and have some distance and air between the source of sound + the impact of the music. I find it is more dramatic, more visceral emotion even at low level.
what a speaker can do at 90-100 db effortlessly blows away headphones in many ways. listening to headphone can seem a bit like a let down for certain type of music. I dont see how someone can say its not dramatically different! but even at normal listneing level, 70-80db, I still see speakers as a different experience, its hard to say which is better, they are more different then one necessary better then the other. When I want to discover a new artist or new albu, headphones will give me insight that speakers wont. but the speakers will give me a experience that the headphones wont as well. lol
 
I dont know how well treated the rooms you heard were, but I hope it was not in a shop as Ive not seen any shop having what id call well treated rooms. A well treated room must have most corners covered with floor to ceiling deep bass traps, a free reflective zone around the listening position, ect. without very good treatment, I could never enjoy the coloration of the room, the untight bass, the undefined soundstage, the smearing of highs, ect. but once well treated..
 
also, most people use a chair as the listening position to listen to their speaker system and I personally need to lay down to really go deep into a album for long listneing sessions.
I use a bed as a listening position so I can be laying down while listening to my speakers which has been amazing.
 
anyways, thats my experience but I have never tried stax system.

 

[Martijn W]

  hi martin
you have amazing speakers! I use amphion one18 + subwoofer in well treated room. I dont think I can say I prefer one over the other. if I had to choose only one, id take headphones (hd650 or hd800) as hear more details with them, the bass is cleaner, and I feel more envelopped with headphones.
To have the same amount of details with speakers, I have to have the volume high enough on speakers that it can disturb others.
I also find that it depends what I listen. for electronica or ambient/idm/ downtempo music, I prefer headphones. For jazz, Rock and very musical electronica, I prefer speakers overall.
 
I hope you did use eq with hd800 as I dont like them much without EQ applied. 

Thanks. I really love the Geithains like no other audio gear i know. Best purchase I ever made. they engage me like nothing else... I don't know the Amphions though (but have heard only the highest recommendations about them).

 

[Martijn W]

Actually imo monitoring via a high-grade nearfield setu or via a highgrade headphone setup are actually quite alike. Both can create:
 
- full range reproduction
- high resolution reproduction
- pinpoint stereo imaging
- immersion / engagement
 
But if anything, spatial presentation is much more realistic while monitoring on monitor speakers.

 

[edstrelow]

  Actually imo monitoring via a high-grade nearfield setu or via a highgrade headphone setup are actually quite alike. Both can create:
 
- full range reproduction
- high resolution reproduction
- pinpoint stereo imaging
- immersion / engagement
 
But if anything, spatial presentation is much more realistic while monitoring on monitor speakers.

 With headphones, each ear hears only one channel, the left ear hears the left and the right ear hears the right.  With speakers, near field or not, each ear hears both channels.  This means that left-right imaging is degraded because the directional information is blended towards a monaural sound.  They may sound good for other reasons, such as less effect on the sound from room effects and near field speakers may give better imaging than regularly placed speakers  but they do not and cannot give as good stereo imaging as headphones unless you place them around your head like big headphones.

 

[Martijn W]

   With headphones, each ear hears only one channel, the left ear hears the left and the right ear hears the right.  With speakers, near field or not, each ear hears both channels.  This means that left-right imaging is degraded because the directional information is blended towards a monaural sound.  They may sound good for other reasons, such as less effect on the sound from room effects and near field speakers may give better imaging than regularly placed speakers  but they do not and cannot give as good stereo imaging as headphones unless you place them around your head like big headphones.

 
If we examine this closely we will find that your statement is actually an argument in favor of loudspeakers!
 
In real life, a sound coming from the left is heard with both ears. The time difference between the sound reaching the ears helps us localise. A headphone reproduces this completely different, only playing it through one ear. Monitors reproduce this situation more accurately as the human hearing localisation is not enhanced like it is when playing through headphones.

 

[edstrelow]

If we examine this closely we will find that your statement is actually an argument in favor of loudspeakers!

In real life, a sound coming from the left is heard with both ears. The time difference between the sound reaching the ears helps us localise. A headphone reproduces this completely different, only playing it through one ear. Monitors reproduce this situation more accurately as the human hearing localisation is not enhanced like it is when playing through headphones.

Time differences are not the main source of directional hearing in commercial stereo. Ampltude differences between the channels are what give stereo, an instrument is heard as left or right because it is louder on the left or right channel. Your brain is calibrated in terms of the time differences for tsound to go the distance between your two ears. Recordings made with mics either further apart or sometime closer together than your ears do not capture a realistic time difference although they do capture amplitude differences.

So called binaural recordings are a different matter. These are recorded using small mics at the approximate opening of the ear canals of either a real.person or a dummy head. These recordings do capture accurate time differences as well as amplitude differences and sound very realistic when played back through headphones. However. they sound poor through loudspeakers.

Play regular stereo back through loudspeakers and you get two extra channels of sound, the left channel going to the right ear and vice versa. These extra channels are also arrive some milleseconds later than the intended channel, i.e. right channel to right ear, left channel to left ear. These are sometimes called "phantom channels" and they are simply an artifact of loudspeaker playback. And they do mess up.imaging. Every few years someone discovers this and comes up with a system for eliminating the phantoms. Carver used electrical circuitry, to generate cancellation signals. Polk used a mutiple speaker system which generates cancellation signals for the phantoms. I have the latter speakers and I wouldn't trade them for anything.

 

[Martijn W]

What you refer to as being 'incorrect' is exactly how it works in real life. When a sound is coming from the left... it is coming from the left. 
We hear it on our left side, using both our ears. Real life and speakers are on par here. Headphones reproduce this in a different way..
Why would you want to eliminate something that is there also in real life. That just doesn't make any sense.
 

 

[hoteltech]

I would say it's an issue of cost, but there's also a limit based off experience. Even though high end headphones (like the HD800) run you about 1500 (including a decent entry level source), a comparable stereo system would run you 1500 on speakers alone (though you could easily spend more). Another comparison is the new Orpheus. The creme de la creme is 50,000; a boss Wilson Audio setup is about 750k. I would argue that performance/dollar is also a little subjective.
 
I would also argue the main reason is that speakers are always more 'natural.' Think about a live concert: that's the 'ultimate' experience in music production. However, I think headphones have speakers beat on reference. When you need to hear detail, headphones are cheaper and probably 'better' than speakers, although they're probably neck-and-neck with reference monitors. For music enjoyment, I think speakers are probably more enjoyable because of physiological differences between head gear and speakers (it's a lot easier to relax with speakers than with headphones IMO).
 
I've called it quits on upgrades simply because it's a rabbit hole, and now I'm getting into speakers. Fortunately my experience with head gear allows me to know when to call it quits.

 

[axle_69]

 

Hum... imagine that you record a sound coming from the left at 45 degrees with two microphones 17 cm apart. The sound will arrive first on the left microphone and 351 microseconds later on the right microphone. When playing through loudspeakers, let's say at 30 degrees, the left speaker will transmit a sound that will arrive at t = 0 on the left ear, and 248 microseconds later on the right ear, but the right speaker will transmit the same sound a bit weaker that will arrive at the right ear at 351 microseconds and at the left ear at 351+248 microseconds, so the same sound will be heard on the left at 0 and 599 and on the right at 248 and 351, 103 microseconds apart. I hope the math is correct...
This was just an example, with studio or live recordings, with several microphones and mixing, it gets much more complicated. If I still remember, what Carver did was something similar to invert the phase of one of the channels and add up to the other, probably with some delay, for a certain range of frequencies, to cancel out the phantom channels.
Taking the source out of the equation, passive loudspeakers and amplifier end up being more expensive than headphones for the same lever of detail. Not so sure if the difference will be as big for active monitors. Even not considering cost, if kids are playing around in the middle of the room there isn't much alternative than a quiet corner and a good pair of headphones. But I agree, soundstage is better on speakers.

 

[murphythecat]

Time differences are not the main source of directional hearing in commercial stereo. Ampltude differences between the channels are what give stereo, an instrument is heard as left or right because it is louder on the left or right channel. Your brain is calibrated in terms of the time differences for tsound to go the distance between your two ears. Recordings made with mics either further apart or sometime closer together than your ears do not capture a realistic time difference although they do capture amplitude differences.

So called binaural recordings are a different matter. These are recorded using small mics at the approximate opening of the ear canals of either a real.person or a dummy head. These recordings do capture accurate time differences as well as amplitude differences and sound very realistic when played back through headphones. However. they sound poor through loudspeakers.

Play regular stereo back through loudspeakers and you get two extra channels of sound, the left channel going to the right ear and vice versa. These extra channels are also arrive some milleseconds later than the intended channel, i.e. right channel to right ear, left channel to left ear. These are sometimes called "phantom channels" and they are simply an artifact of loudspeaker playback. And they do mess up.imaging. Every few years someone discovers this and comes up with a system for eliminating the phantoms. Carver used electrical circuitry, to generate cancellation signals. Polk used a mutiple speaker system which generates cancellation signals for the phantoms. I have the latter speakers and I wouldn't trade them for anything.

I get what your saying, but cannot agree that speakers mess up imaging. in the contrary I find good sepakers image infinitely better then the total illusion created by headphones in terms of imaging.
l
I have used with speaker those cancellation signals you talk about and find this absolutely terrible SQ wise.
 
the brain is able to deal with the miliseconds arriving time and its how the brain is able to locate sound in real life.
do you know any good plugin that simulate carver method?
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_localization

 

[Martijn W]

I must admit that i'm listening to headphones atm

 

[edstrelow]

I get what your saying, but cannot agree that speakers mess up imaging. in the contrary I find good sepakers image infinitely better then the total illusion created by headphones in terms of imaging.
l
I have used with speaker those cancellation signals you talk about and find this absolutely terrible SQ wise.

the brain is able to deal with the miliseconds arriving time and its how the brain is able to locate sound in real life.
do you know any good plugin that simulate carver method?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_localization

There is no question that hearing does some remarkable discriminations. However much of this information is lost in the recording process and there is a profound difference between listening to sounds and music in real life versus playback of recorded signals through loudspeakers. The only accurate recordings are the binaurals and these have never really caught on.

I have not heard the Carver system but I have heard good things about it. You would think something like this could come out as an app. As I say I have been perfectly happy with the Polk system. What does it do I hear you say. Makes the sonic images far more tangible, you feel that you could almost touch each instrument. It also expands the width of spatial locations of sounds beyond the actual speakers.

 

[exsomnis]

I think if one were exposed to hifi loudspeakers, one would have a preference towards them. Particularly if said exposure were to a decent set of loudspeakers that were able to project sounds beyond the confines of the boxes/panels that they were emitted from and not forgetting to mention, in high fidelity. 
 
I grew up around a set of Polk Audio SRS 1.2 TLs - towering behemoths that not only projected its soundstage far and wide but also provided a fullness of sound through bass, mids and highs. Before discovering high-end headphones, I found regular headphones to be unbearably limited. Having that closed in sound-stage just within the head was not acceptable.
 
Years later and limited by thin walls and apartment living, headphones are my main go to for music but they are still not as open and 3d sounding as I'd like them to be. I have found though that the LCD2 and 3 do provide that loudspeaker fullness and realism of tone and timbre when properly driven, and have been able to enjoy the pursuit of hi fi with them. 
 
Ideally, I'd have a soundproof man cave where I can rock it out as loud as I want to but until then, for serious listening I'll compromise with headphones.
 
I would imagine that some people who start critical listening with headphones have the opposite preference and have their own criticism of loudspeakers. Where the predominant sound signature for hifi loudspeakers tends to be less treble happy and retrieve less detail, in order to better approximate real life music (in comparison to ultra resolving headphones), headphones, on the other hand, tend to be more on the brighter and resolving side. This is why you have headphone audiophiles who, for example, love their hd-800s or other bright heapdhone/iem and are complete treble heads. They would gravitate towards their perception of hi fi - where higher frequencies are elevated and background hiss contributes to the airy soundstage.
 
The digital age hasn't helped much either and has only perpetuated the elevation of treble in both the mastering and reproduction of music - poorly implemented DACs running rampant and headphones tuned to sound 'clear'. It's perfectly understandable how one would learn to develop a preference and even liking of elevated treble.