[Allucid]

http://www.addictedtoaudio.com.au/product/grado-gr10e-in-ear-earphones

Grado brought out an new driver it seems. I was wondering what the difference between an normal BA and a moving one would be? Would it be like a dynamic driver with a coil, or better?

 

[Steve Eddy]

It appears to just be marketing.

In a blog entry on Splurgebook titled Everything You Need To Know About IEM's, I found this:

"Moving armatures are relatively new technology which aims to bring the benefits of fast moving balanced armature drivers with dynamic drivers. Moving armature drivers work in a similar principle to balanced armature drivers, but contain a relatively large diaphragm. A single moving armature driver is able to reproduce audio to the same level of quality found in multiple balanced armature IEM’s. Notable examples include the Grado GR8/GR10’s and the Japanese made Ortofon e-Q5."

And if you go to Grado's website, on the page for the GR10e and GR8e, they say "Driver: Moving Armature."

However if you go to Ortofon's website, on their e-Q5 page, they say "Audio engine: Balanced armature driver inner earphone."

I don't think there's any new technology here. Neither Grado nor Ortofon are claiming any. Grado just seems to be taking some liberty as to terminology.

se

 

[limpidglitch]

Not just marketing. I have an e-Q5 and remember I read into it some at the time I bought them.
The manufacturers of the drivers are Yashima Electric, but they prefer to call it a "single pole armature". It's sort of a mix between balanced armature and moving coil designs. Or a bit like a piston engine, if you will.

 

[Allucid]

Not just marketing. I have an e-Q5 and remember I read into it some at the time I bought them.

The manufacturers of the drivers are Yashima Electric, but they prefer to call it a "single pole armature". It's sort of a mix between balanced armature and moving coil designs. Or a bit like a piston engine, if you will.

So in theory it'd improve the dynamics of the headphone, making it less metallic sounding?

 

[Steve Eddy]

Not just marketing. I have an e-Q5 and remember I read into it some at the time I bought them.

The manufacturers of the drivers are Yashima Electric, but they prefer to call it a "single pole armature". It's sort of a mix between balanced armature and moving coil designs. Or a bit like a piston engine, if you will.

Ah, interesting. Well neither Grado nor Ortofon seem to make any effort to make a distinction with a balanced armature driver. Even Yashima uses the term "balanced armature" though I would argue it is an inappropriate term. Even "moving armature" is a poor descriptive term because what they're calling an armature isn't really acting as what I would call an armature. It's acting as a diaphragm. And what they're calling the diaphragm is what I would call the suspension or surround. How confusing and frustrating.

And you can't really say "moving coil" because the coil is stationary. "Moving magnet" would be more descriptive. But after laboring through the "Engrish," and looking at the drawings, what I see is ultimately what I'd call a push/pull solenoid. Because you have a magnetic pole piece situated inside the coil and the pole piece is driven by the magnetic field produced by the coil. Classic solenoid.

Thanks for pointing me to the Yashima website. That really helped clear things up.

I'm actually interested in these drivers now for a crazy project I've been toying with for a while.

se

 

[limpidglitch]

So in theory it'd improve the dynamics of the headphone, making it less metallic sounding?

 
Could you explain what you mean with "dynamics"?
Don't think I've ever heard a metallic sounding headphone either, so I'd need some help there as well.

Although you've got to be a bit careful with predicting too much about the character of an IEM from the kind of drivers it's got, there seems to be some patterns. I collected some descriptive graphs of six different models, two single driver BA, two moving armature and two dynamic:
 

 

 

 
 
The first set of graphs, impedance, shows a bit about the electrical characteristics of the driver, and how you'd might expect it to behave when driven by an out with a less than ideal output impedance. Essentially, the higher the output impedance, the more the frequency response will attain the shape of the IEM's impedance graph
The second two sets of graphs essentially shows the same, but in slightly different way. A sharp impulse is sent to the IEM, and the amount and duration of ringing is measured. The last one analyzes the frequencies this ringing consists of, and is perhaps the most revealing visualization of them all. If you look at the really frantic whizzing about in the Phonak's impulse response graph, the same can me seen in the long accentuated high frequency resonances in the spectral decay graph.
 
A lot can be read from these simple drawings, but what strikes me the most is how quick and clean the Etymōtic is, and while the Ortofon seems to resemble that, the Grado has more of the sluggish bottom end typical of dynamic drivers. 
 
I made this to look ok on my 1440 pixel wide screen. If your screen is narrower than this, it probably looks a little jumbled up, so I put them all together on a single slide:
 

 

[castleofargh]

what I could get as metallic sound are the IEMs with one or several violent isolated spikes in frequency. I kind of feel that way with many IEMs that have a big boost around 10khz and just drop really fast into nothingness right after. maybe that's what Allucid is talking about?
I guess some with really high distortions in the mid/treble might do that too, but it's rare or very localized.
 
 
about the different techs, they do tend to have pros and con(size/price/frequency response range/efficiency...) I kind of expect a dynamic driver to be able to get more bass and a more "speaker like" kind of bass(to me that's more enjoyable, but also often more distorted and less controlled). and strangely enough, multi drivers often extend less in the trebles than single dynamic drivers.
but that's a general idea and I would also be careful not to assume all IEMs of one type are the same and behave the same. just like all orthos aren't the best sounding stuff for fullsize headphones. there is more to the sound than just the driver tech, so you're right to warn against caricatures.

 

[Allucid]

By dynamics I meant the tuning and the soundstage of the headphone, and how well it responds to sounds across the board.
Metallic sounding, I mean how revealing IEMs are compared to headphones, they're not a warm sound when it gets to 4BAs, it's more revealing and unforgiving, therefore metallic. What @castle said is right, most IEMs just cover some frequencies and just drop off, but I've found tube amps work really well with IEMs and bring out so much more.

 

[Spyro]

By dynamics I meant the tuning and the soundstage of the headphone, and how well it responds to sounds across the board.
Metallic sounding, I mean how revealing IEMs are compared to headphones, they're not a warm sound when it gets to 4BAs, it's more revealing and unforgiving, therefore metallic. What @castle said is right, most IEMs just cover some frequencies and just drop off, but I've found tube amps work really well with IEMs and bring out so much more.

This is why multi driver BA's is the way to go.  Crossover networks are well advanced these days.  I have yet to hear a single dynamic driver that can compete with a similarly priced multi-driver .... it's just not there.  IE800 came close but still fell far short.

 

[Strumento]

Even Yashima uses the term "balanced armature" though I would argue it is an inappropriate term.

 
Should the Dynamic BA by Wavelet Design for the OPUS1 be considered as the true "moving armature"?
 

 

[DJ The Rocket]

Could you explain what you mean with "dynamics"?

Don't think I've ever heard a metallic sounding headphone either, so I'd need some help there as well.


Although you've got to be a bit careful with predicting too much about the character of an IEM from the kind of drivers it's got, there seems to be some patterns. I collected some descriptive graphs of six different models, two single driver BA, two moving armature and two dynamic:

(Pictures truncated)

The first set of graphs, impedance, shows a bit about the electrical characteristics of the driver, and how you'd might expect it to behave when driven by an out with a less than ideal output impedance. Essentially, the higher the output impedance, the more the frequency response will attain the shape of the IEM's impedance graph

The second two sets of graphs essentially shows the same, but in slightly different way. A sharp impulse is sent to the IEM, and the amount and duration of ringing is measured. The last one analyzes the frequencies this ringing consists of, and is perhaps the most revealing visualization of them all. If you look at the really frantic whizzing about in the Phonak's impulse response graph, the same can me seen in the long accentuated high frequency resonances in the spectral decay graph.

A lot can be read from these simple drawings, but what strikes me the most is how quick and clean the Etymōtic is, and while the Ortofon seems to resemble that, the Grado has more of the sluggish bottom end typical of dynamic drivers. 

I made this to look ok on my 1440 pixel wide screen. If your screen is narrower than this, it probably looks a little jumbled up, so I put them all together on a single slide:

This is the best, most informative post I've ever read on Head Fi. I was looking at the 6 spectral decay graphs at once, something clicked, and suddenly I understood what I was looking at and why it mattered. Now I can look at the first two sets of graphs and see how they're all interconnected. By the time I read the analysis afterward I was thinking all the same things.

I have to wonder how indicitive that sluggish bass is of all dynamics, you picked two especially known for having huge quantities of bass (and I can certainly see why now).

Brb have to look this stuff up for everything I own now

 

[BX700]

Very interesting topic.

Ancient necro, but was looking at this type of driver, and only the Ortofon e-Q series has credibly positive reviews out of the IEMs using it.