[TronII]

Interesting, so why would someone add multiple drivers to a pair of headphones (eg: onemore) ?

Some driver types excel more with certain frequency ranges than others. A lot of the time, those drivers have a narrow frequency range to begin with, and so need to be augmented with other drivers that can reproduce the frequencies they can't, like in the case of balanced armature drivers in IEMs. In the case of the OneMore Triple Driver headphones (not the IEMs), the ceramic driver is to produce stronger treble.

 

[Tsukuyomi]

Some driver types excel more with certain frequency ranges than others. A lot of the time, those drivers have a narrow frequency range to begin with, and so need to be augmented with other drivers that can reproduce the frequencies they can't, like in the case of balanced armature drivers in IEMs. In the case of the OneMore Triple Driver headphones (not the IEMs), the ceramic driver is to produce stronger treble.

So like in Final Audios headphones, they also use a BA for a tweater to pick up higher frequencies. Hmmm

So my idea for planar, electrostatic and dynamic may seem a tad overkill?. I thought maybe having all three of thoes driver types all adding to sound would give a rich vibrate sound with lots of range along the frequencies. I guess possibly not.

 

[castleofargh]

in IEMs, the aim was to make a tiny device with good isolation and some sound. BA drivers gave that opportunity at the time, but they sucked. so a lot of IEM development has been about fixing the obvious issues of BA drivers. but at a bigger scale, a single dynamic driver can measure very well(except maybe in the really low freqs, but typically they can still do as well or better than BAs) and extend way higher in frequency than BA drivers.
at an even bigger scale with speakers, we have new issues. the low freqs require to move such a massive amount of air that the driver has to be big in diameter, and as trebles will typically get attenuated very fast in the air, they can benefit from something with very focused directivity(not sure I'm using the proper term?) that will aim right at the listener, or at least very close in direction. the reasons for using multidrivers and crossovers(which are almost never free of side effects) in different setups, don't necessarily remain relevant for a headphone. I personally enjoyed many multidriver IEMs but I also enjoyed many single driver and never thought that more drivers actually made things better. for speakers, I've enjoyed single driver fairly compact solutions but of course those were predictably weak in the sub area, so adding a woofer made sense. with headphones, I've found many impressive ones, many with very good measurements, many with very extended frequency range, many that I enjoyed, and all of those were single driver designs. so I fail to see why we would even want to use multidriver configurations. and just looking at the market, I feel like it's probably a clue that multidriver headphones aren't the obvious way to make things better. because of course manufacturers have thought about it and many probably have tried. they didn't just jump the headphones and went crazy with IEM multidriver stuff, yet here we are with a market entirely dominated with single driver headphones.
I don't know enough to tell you if it's clearly a bad idea with insurmountable technical issues, maybe someone can design an amazing multidriver headphone, but at the very least, it's not the obvious easy fix you seem to expect.

edit: I leave the shame but strike it so nobody is tempted to take it as a fact.

 

[Tsukuyomi]

in IEMs, the aim was to make a tiny device with good isolation and some sound. BA drivers gave that opportunity at the time, but they sucked. so a lot of IEM development has been about fixing the obvious issues of BA drivers. but at a bigger scale, a single dynamic driver can measure very well(except maybe in the really low freqs, but typically they can still do as well or better than BAs) and extend way higher in frequency than BA drivers.
at an even bigger scale with speakers, we have new issues. the low freqs require to move such a massive amount of air that the driver has to be big in diameter, and as trebles will typically get attenuated very fast in the air, they can benefit from something with very focused directivity(not sure I'm using the proper term?) that will aim right at the listener, or at least very close in direction. the reasons for using multidrivers and crossovers(which are almost never free of side effects) in different setups, don't necessarily remain relevant for a headphone. I personally enjoyed many multidriver IEMs but I also enjoyed many single driver and never thought that more drivers actually made things better. for speakers, I've enjoyed single driver fairly compact solutions but of course those were predictably weak in the sub area, so adding a woofer made sense. with headphones, I've found many impressive ones, many with very good measurements, many with very extended frequency range, many that I enjoyed, and all of those were single driver designs. so I fail to see why we would even want to use multidriver configurations. and just looking at the market, I feel like it's probably a clue that multidriver headphones aren't the obvious way to make things better. because of course manufacturers have thought about it and many probably have tried. they didn't just jump the headphones and went crazy with IEM multidriver stuff, yet here we are with a market entirely dominated with single driver headphones.
I don't know enough to tell you if it's clearly a bad idea with insurmountable technical issues, maybe someone can design an amazing multidriver headphone, but at the very least, it's not the obvious easy fix you seem to expect.

You could be right, i was hoping to make something different and somewhat custom for myself and a friend, recently he attained a 3D resin printer and we thought it would be interesting to make our own headphones. Buying parts online, pads from dekoni and hopefully a headband from audeze. Essentially we were gonna make at first a half planar half electrostatic. 50\50 split in each cup but we thought adding a 3rd driver may fill in a gap created by having two drivers and missing something in between. He has more knowledge in electrical circuitry and building than i do.
(He also owns a pair of audeze lcd2c and stax 009mk2 and a focal stellia(previously a utopia).

Would you think the 50\50 idea could still work? Half planar half electrostatic?

 

[castleofargh]

oh! as a DIY project I'd say go ahead and have fun with 3. if your buddy can handle the crossover pretty well, that will give you an easier way to tune the headphone the way you prefer. if I wasn't such a serial component killer when using a soldering iron(I burned another little mic/condenser thing last week trying to replace the fragile wiring), I would try stuff like those all the time just for the adventure. I'm sure this will be a super cool experience so long as you don't expect to develop the next headphone revolution that will remain TOTL for a decade. if that's actually the main point, then I would suggest one driver and to fool around with the inside of the cup a lot and different venting solutions, dampening materials, and so on. the regular way.

 

[Tsukuyomi]

oh! as a DIY project I'd say go ahead and have fun with 3. if your buddy can handle the crossover pretty well, that will give you an easier way to tune the headphone the way you prefer. if I wasn't such a serial component killer when using a soldering iron(I burned another little mic/condenser thing last week trying to replace the fragile wiring), I would try stuff like those all the time just for the adventure. I'm sure this will be a super cool experience so long as you don't expect to develop the next headphone revolution that will remain TOTL for a decade. if that's actually the main point, then I would suggest one driver and to fool around with the inside of the cup a lot and different venting solutions, dampening materials, and so on. the regular way.

we're planning on making a fun prototype and see where it goes, if the sound is great we'll hopefully try and bring it to a local university for further testing at their sound engineering department. maybe get more interest and see where it goes from there. I may re-consider the 3 driver hybrid build for a dual planar/static build. seems easier i think.

 

[sander99]

at an even bigger scale with speakers, we have new issues. the low freqs require to move such a massive amount of air that the driver has to be big in diameter, and as trebles will typically get attenuated very fast in the air, they can benefit from something with very focused directivity(not sure I'm using the proper term?) that will aim right at the listener, or at least very close in direction.

This one you have got a little bit backwards I fear. If a vibration source is much larger than the wavelength it is reproducing it beams, if it is smaller than the wavelength it reproduces it spreads. The smaller it is the more dispersion you get. That's why tweeters are small.

[Edit: this holds for rigid drivers with piston like behaviour. There are tricks to make relatively large drivers spread the higher frequencies in their band better. Like Balanced Mode Radiators. Or flexible cones of which the outer part of the doesn't follow the highest frequencies so effectively for higher frequencies it seems a smaller driver.]

 

[sander99]

Found a nice drawing:

A little comment to avoid wrong conclusions:
What it is trying to tell is of course not what is happening in a three way speaker, because the crossover filter would prevent for example the 5 kHz to go to the woofer. It indicates what happens if those frequencies are sent to each driver.

 

[castleofargh]

This one you have got a little bit backwards I fear. If a vibration source is much larger than the wavelength it is reproducing it beams, if it is smaller than the wavelength it reproduces it spreads. The smaller it is the more dispersion you get. That's why tweeters are small.

you're right, I'm thinking of different stuff at the same time, jumping from device to devices and that doesn't always mix correctly(TBH I'm surprise I don't mess up more often, or maybe I do and people don't dare to correct me?^_^). thank you for pointing it out.
from the point of view of a speaker, maintaining the off axis FR in the treble as much as we can is indeed a valued objective. so my point was wrong anyway(I'm wondering what I was trying to say).
a more local point of origin would cause a more circular spread, that seems kind of obvious for any wave model unless we start to have something to focus the waves, but I never thought about that for tweeters somehow . smarter everyday.

 

[sander99]

I'm wondering what I was trying to say

A corrected version of what you wanted to say would be something like this I guess:
With loudspeakers multiway is almost mandatory because a single full range driver would either be too big to have good dispersion in the high frequencies or it would be too small to shift enough air for reproducing the lower frequencies at a sufficiently high sound pressure level.

 

[castleofargh]

A corrected version of what you wanted to say would be something like this I guess:
With loudspeakers multiway is almost mandatory because a single full range driver would either be too big to have good dispersion in the high frequencies or it would be too small to shift enough air for reproducing the lower frequencies at a sufficiently high sound pressure level.

"no wait! I think I have an idea".
With loudspeakers multiway is almost mandatory because a single full range driver would either be too big to have good dispersion in the high frequencies or it would be too small to shift enough air for reproducing the lower frequencies at a sufficiently high sound pressure level.

 

[bigshot]

Horns can focus sound too.

 

[Killcomic]

Horns can focus sound too.

What?!

 

[bigshot]

 

[BobG55]

BTW, she's single.