[jaieger]

Just wondering, and I've been wondering about this for a while:
 
how do headphone makers manipulate the sound? How does the creator of any given headphone know what to manipulate - the drivers, the housing, etc., and how, to produce the desired effect (more/less bass, warm the sound up or make it colder, etc.)? Or is it a hit-and-miss elimination process for brands to find formulas of certain housings with certain drivers, etc., to find what works and can effectively produce a desired sound?


Also, how does soundstage work? This ties into the above, but...: how do headphones, or even moreso, IEMs, produce that out-of-head sound? For a brief moment the first time I considered this I thought gravity had an effect on this LOL but then I figured if IEMs can be worn over ear with the same sound, that's obviously not the case. So, yeah, how does soundstage work?

 

[ajkda]

i dont feel the out of head sound with mine i feel a 'headstage' i can visualize a stage inside my head haha
maybe it's just
 
From my use of my iems and headphones, I don't feel the out of head sound, but more of a 'headstage' this is done through the separation of the instruments,vocals from different singers, etc ...
 
I think it is through this separation that allows the brain to think where each sound came from and form that 'stage'.
 
I never really tried those imba headphones but for IEMS I did try higher end universals like Westone 3 but was not able to notice any difference in soundstage from the UM2s that I bought in the end.
 
Much of this "soundstage" and the like I believe are overly hyped out here in the forum and many others.

 

[Ypoknons]

Quote:

Just wondering, and I've been wondering about this for a while:
 
how do headphone makers manipulate the sound? How does the creator of any given headphone know what to manipulate - the drivers, the housing, etc., and how, to produce the desired effect (more/less bass, warm the sound up or make it colder, etc.)? Or is it a hit-and-miss elimination process for brands to find formulas of certain housings with certain drivers, etc., to find what works and can effectively produce a desired sound?

Also, how does soundstage work? This ties into the above, but...: how do headphones, or even moreso, IEMs, produce that out-of-head sound? For a brief moment the first time I considered this I thought gravity had an effect on this LOL but then I figured if IEMs can be worn over ear with the same sound, that's obviously not the case. So, yeah, how does soundstage work?

 
1. You manipulate housing shapes, change the material, add foam and dampening etc...... see what smeggy did to Thunderpants. Driver design seems like a complex business to me, shape and material counts for a lot again... try reading Tyll's article on HD800 driver design for starters. 
 
2. Read up on head related transfer function (HRTF). Basically, in real life we only have 2 ears, there are auditory cues that let us know where the sound comes from. If headphones can reproduce these cues recorded in the music, then we can sense directions and soundstage. Soundstage is not hype, even if headphones are 'meh' at it.