[rajeevrn]

  Vertical is a direction. If you want sound to come from a direction, you put a speaker up there. It isn't rocket science.

Do you think if a pair of headphones has very good bass and treble extension, that we can perceive a vertical soundstage?

 

[bigshot]

I don't think there is such a thing as vertical soundstage. Headphones do OK with treble up to a certain point, then they start wobbling around. But it doesn't matter because our ears aren't as sensitive to that. When it comes to bass, headphones are at a distinct disadvantage. Even if they can reproduce the frequencies, beyond a certain point, bass can only be felt. And speakers are a LOT better and that kinesthetic thump in your body than headphones are.

 

[rajeevrn]

  I don't think there is such a thing as vertical soundstage. Headphones do OK with treble up to a certain point, then they start wobbling around. But it doesn't matter because our ears aren't as sensitive to that. When it comes to bass, headphones are at a distinct disadvantage. Even if they can reproduce the frequencies, beyond a certain point, bass can only be felt. And speakers are a LOT better and that kinesthetic thump in your body than headphones are.

Ok that answers the question at both ends. Thanks! I will assume the vertical soundstage I sensed was based on a presumption and that I may have been actually wrong.

 

[bigshot]

If you go back and listen to the same thing again and picture the soundstage going down instead of up, I bet it will flip flop on you. That is a sure sign that it's your interpretation of the depth cues, not the cues themselves.

 

[Solrighal]

Correct me if I'm wrong but there still seems to be a presumption that a vertical soundstage would be in some way related to frequency response. It's not.
 
Loudspeakers manage what they do imaging-wise because they're operating within a room and the room adds it's own colourations (good or bad) to the sound you finally hear. If you listen to loudspeakers in a room with a low ceiling height and everything else is equal the perceived depth - and to a lesser extent, height - is less than it is in a room with a higher ceiling. I'm not being scientific because I can't, that's just 40 years of buying hi-fi and moving location a lot.
 
Having said that, logic would say that if you want any perception of height in headphones then perhaps the best option is a specifically tuned closed headphone. Or maybe not.
 

 

[castleofargh]

  If you go back and listen to the same thing again and picture the soundstage going down instead of up, I bet it will flip flop on you. That is a sure sign that it's your interpretation of the depth cues, not the cues themselves.

I agree with that totally, still you can get a very different "feeling" of height from one phone to another. (again probably just our brain mixing FR differences for positioning cues).
in fact by EQing my hd650 I can get the felling that some instruments move slightly forward and up(I insist on slightly). going back and forth does make me get a different position feeling for some guitars.
 
 
edit: for speakers it's easy to get the right cues, you just have to move your head. for headphones we lose that capacity that's what sux the most with headphones.
 
 
edit2: for once I found the link I was looking for in the mess that are my bookmarks ^_^
http://link.springer.com/article/10.3758%2FBF03212242
Quote:

the only possibly binaural cue would have been that furnished by a disparity in the frequency response of the pinnae. a cue, however, that emerges only at the higher stimulus frequencies

 
so outside of expectations and imagination(or simply seeing the speakers in the room), there seem to be a FR part to it.

 

[rajeevrn]

  If you go back and listen to the same thing again and picture the soundstage going down instead of up, I bet it will flip flop on you. That is a sure sign that it's your interpretation of the depth cues, not the cues themselves.

You are right it is upside down