[FFBookman]

One thing I think is lost during audio debate and discussion these days is whether we are discussing listening on speakers or headphones. I find them to be very different.
 
Music is very complex vibration. When it is made by an instrument or voice it agitates the air and sends sound waves in all directions. We receive this vibration through multiple inputs:
 

1. our ears
2. our hair including eyelashes, facial hair, and body hair
3. our chest cavity (pressure)
4. our joints (vibration)
5. our skin (secondary vibration/touch/air movement)

 
The ear uses a very complex liquid-based limiter/expander inside of the spiral-shaped cochlea, after being amplified by the mallet/anvil/stirrup, which is after the tympanic membrane on the input chain. Thousands of microscopic hairs in triangle shaped clusters determine qualities of the sound, and the binaural earbrain works with amazing precision and speed to stereoscopically place sounds in spaces.  I could spend my life studying the Organ of Corti: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_of_Corti
 

---

 
If the sound or the overall space you are in changes you know instantly, for this is the primary tool of survival.  You can hear a door open, a presence in the room, a misfiring speaker cable, etc..
 
This signal, when played through speakers, enters the actual room and becomes part of the room sound. The listeners head moves, turns, walks around, and otherwise is constantly changing axis' and distances from the speakers and from the reflections of the wall/floor/ceiling.
 
Our ears use all of their evolutionary powers to decode the sound in the room and by moving about we are getting different versions of the sound with every movement. This is all stored subconciously.
 
The speakers themselves are moving air around the room, vibrations into the room, and all of the vibration inputs of your body are activated. The table, the floor, the plants, the computer keyboard - it's all vibrating along with the music.
 

---

 
When listening with headphones the actual room is removed from the experience. All inputs outside of the ears are removed from the experience.  There is very little ability to move around the sound or the room the sound is in. The virtual center of the soundstage does not exist in front of you and have real dimension, it exists inside of you, somewhere between your left and right headphone, with dimensions that must be imagined.
 
If the drums sound huge you know they can't actually fit inside of your head, even though that's where the sound originates from. You must suspend disbelief to even enjoy headphones. 
 
Note here that I do indeed enjoy headphones. This is not a takedown of headphones, just making the point about the differences.
 

---

 
With speakers the huge drum is almost living in your room. Close your eyes and it might appear.  You can even move around it if you want.  
 
The total amount of data that is transmitted from speakers > headphones.
The total of amount of data received and processed from speakers > headphones.
 
Headphone listening is both necessary and enjoyable, but it is very different than speaker through air listening. I hope we remember this when talking audio, and I hope people on 'head-fi' remember that vibration requires movement to work. Headphones are tiny snapshot of vibration injected directly to our middle ear, which is not a natural listening experience.

 

[Ruben123]

Well yes in theory you can hear with your hairs, bones, skin etc. etc. (everything in body can vibrate and when there are gnostic fibers running around there you can "feel" that information) but it is as far as I know not known how much it adds to our musical or indeed whole hearing outside of our ears. Deaf could sort of feel some very rough sounds and of course lower frequencies if they are loud enough in our thorax which we can too when at a festival. At home I never have my volume anywhere that high, very rarely maybe when listening to house music which I liked in the past. Except for that thorax feeling I dont know of the other possibilities of hearing in non deaf people. What it adds. Like to read more on that, if you have something to read for us. 

 

[RRod]

I think the wealth of "turn your headphones into speakers" plugins is a testament to how people agree that the experiences are different, and how generally speakers are considered to have the more natural sound.

 

[FFBookman]

  Well yes in theory you can hear with your hairs, bones, skin etc. etc. (everything in body can vibrate and when there are gnostic fibers running around there you can "feel" that information) but it is as far as I know not known how much it adds to our musical or indeed whole hearing outside of our ears. Deaf could sort of feel some very rough sounds and of course lower frequencies if they are loud enough in our thorax which we can too when at a festival. At home I never have my volume anywhere that high, very rarely maybe when listening to house music which I liked in the past. Except for that thorax feeling I dont know of the other possibilities of hearing in non deaf people. What it adds. Like to read more on that, if you have something to read for us. 

I think a large part of the timbre of an instrument is how it moves the air. Perhaps this is frequency-based but I use the vibrations and senses from outside of my ear to determine much about the quality of the sound. How much it can vibrate, which frequencies sustain, etc.. How it bounces off a wall or floor, how it fills the room, exposes much about it's depth and quality.
 
I'm not deaf but perhaps I listen like I am  .  Vibration is very important to me when critically listening.

 

[Ruben123]

Yea but where did you read all that? I'd like to read more.

 

[Audioholic123]

  One thing I think is lost during audio debate and discussion these days is whether we are discussing listening on speakers or headphones. I find them to be very different.
 
Music is very complex vibration. When it is made by an instrument or voice it agitates the air and sends sound waves in all directions. We receive this vibration through multiple inputs:
 

1. our ears
2. our hair including eyelashes, facial hair, and body hair
3. our chest cavity (pressure)
4. our joints (vibration)
5. our skin (secondary vibration/touch/air movement)

 
The ear uses a very complex liquid-based limiter/expander inside of the spiral-shaped cochlea, after being amplified by the mallet/anvil/stirrup, which is after the tympanic membrane on the input chain. Thousands of microscopic hairs in triangle shaped clusters determine qualities of the sound, and the binaural earbrain works with amazing precision and speed to stereoscopically place sounds in spaces.  I could spend my life studying the Organ of Corti: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_of_Corti
 

---

 
If the sound or the overall space you are in changes you know instantly, for this is the primary tool of survival.  You can hear a door open, a presence in the room, a misfiring speaker cable, etc..
 
This signal, when played through speakers, enters the actual room and becomes part of the room sound. The listeners head moves, turns, walks around, and otherwise is constantly changing axis' and distances from the speakers and from the reflections of the wall/floor/ceiling.
 
Our ears use all of their evolutionary powers to decode the sound in the room and by moving about we are getting different versions of the sound with every movement. This is all stored subconciously.
 
The speakers themselves are moving air around the room, vibrations into the room, and all of the vibration inputs of your body are activated. The table, the floor, the plants, the computer keyboard - it's all vibrating along with the music.
 

---

 
When listening with headphones the actual room is removed from the experience. All inputs outside of the ears are removed from the experience.  There is very little ability to move around the sound or the room the sound is in. The virtual center of the soundstage does not exist in front of you and have real dimension, it exists inside of you, somewhere between your left and right headphone, with dimensions that must be imagined.
 
If the drums sound huge you know they can't actually fit inside of your head, even though that's where the sound originates from. You must suspend disbelief to even enjoy headphones. 
 
Note here that I do indeed enjoy headphones. This is not a takedown of headphones, just making the point about the differences.
 

---

 
With speakers the huge drum is almost living in your room. Close your eyes and it might appear.  You can even move around it if you want.  
 
The total amount of data that is transmitted from speakers > headphones.
The total of amount of data received and processed from speakers > headphones.
 
Headphone listening is both necessary and enjoyable, but it is very different than speaker through air listening. I hope we remember this when talking audio, and I hope people on 'head-fi' remember that vibration requires movement to work. Headphones are tiny snapshot of vibration injected directly to our middle ear, which is not a natural listening experience.

Finally...an educating post ( non detrimental) and genuinely educated poster! i thought i was the only one...

 Headphones are tiny snapshot of vibration injected directly to our middle ear, which is not a natural listening experience.

Some headphones are consciously designed to mimic the acoustic behaviour of natural sound waves travelling in the air. The acoustic properties of the sound waves are manipulated in such a way that replicates the behaviour of sound waves bouncing off walls and surfaces.
 
Thats natural in my book

 

 

[Ruben123]

I think inside sound science are more educated people than outside if you mean that...

 

[Audioholic123]

I think inside sound science are more educated people than outside if you mean that...

Sure.

 

[FFBookman]

I think inside sound science are more educated people than outside if you mean that...

I got banned from "sound science", pay them no attention in this discussion, please!  
 
There are plenty of mathematical and technical-minded people with very misguided views of how their senses work. Shorthand I call them robots, because they believe we have sorted out human emotion and sensory input and can duplicate it digitally. Ridiculous.
 
Practical experience trumps book learning all day.
Until you play an instrument professionally, and/or mix music, and/or master music, and/or spend time in a recording studio hearing multiple AD converters, multiple downsamples, dithers, and resolutions, you are just talking theory and numbers.
 
Talking about sound isn't knowing sound. Sound cannot be put into words or graphs or pictures or theories. Sound is too complex for our 2D descriptions. No test tone comes close to the complexity of mixed music, and no test tone holds even 1% of the emotional content of music.
 
Also know that Ayre audio, the makers of the Pono audio (and some of the finest DAC's on the planet) use no numbers, charts, or graphs when designing their goods. They simply listen and choose components based on what sounds best.
 
And they don't do quick-switch ABX style tests, they do extended, personal listening tests where the circuit designer gets time to live with and then choose the best sounding component. Their method seems to work - read some reviews of Ayre products (I can't afford to buy them, other than the Pono). 
 
Sound design / music creation is an art form.  Ignore the psuedo-scientists for they know nothing of art.

 

[Ruben123]

But I actually want to read more about what you said , im truly interested as medicine student.

 

[Audioholic123]

 
I got banned from "sound science", pay them no attention in this discussion, please!  
 
There are plenty of mathematical and technical-minded people with very misguided views of how their senses work. Shorthand I call them robots, because they believe we have sorted out human emotion and sensory input and can duplicate it digitally. Ridiculous.
 
Practical experience trumps book learning all day.
Until you play an instrument professionally, and/or mix music, and/or master music, and/or spend time in a recording studio hearing multiple AD converters, multiple downsamples, dithers, and resolutions, you are just talking theory and numbers.
 
Talking about sound isn't knowing sound. Sound cannot be put into words or graphs or pictures or theories. Sound is too complex for our 2D descriptions. No test tone comes close to the complexity of mixed music, and no test tone holds even 1% of the emotional content of music.
 
Also know that Ayre audio, the makers of the Pono audio (and some of the finest DAC's on the planet) use no numbers, charts, or graphs when designing their goods. They simply listen and choose components based on what sounds best.
 
And they don't do quick-switch ABX style tests, they do extended, personal listening tests where the circuit designer gets time to live with and then choose the best sounding component. Their method seems to work - read some reviews of Ayre products (I can't afford to buy them, other than the Pono). 
 
Sound design / music creation is an art form.  Ignore the psuedo-scientists for they know nothing of art.

Well said...I've been trying to take them on at their own game. As a Pianist i have experience recording my own music using Reason software, and have practicle experience working with circuit boards. I know when they are wrong...

 

[Audioholic123]

Just wanted to simplify to my first post: ( i dont want to sound like a "robot" lol)

You could say that headphones are tiny speakers. The sound waves emit smaller, less powerful vibrations but it's perfectly natural. In closed headphones the earcups can be shaped in a way that affects the waves that bounce off them. Long story short - it creates a sense of space that gives an ( at times) eerily physical dimension to the music. It may not be the same experience of listening to loudspeakers generate sound over distances in the air, but if it can fool my brain even for a split second, then its good enough for me!

 

[FFBookman]

cool replies, i appreciate the discussion. 
 
mimic is not the same as mirror, just like re-create is not the same as mimic or mirror. 
 
i think these terms are critical to understanding signal flow. this signal flows from something alive or dead into something alive, so we need to track it's very authenticity.
 
has it been translated?  if so, has it been through mirroring, through mimicry, or through re-creation?
 
my terms:
mirroring = processes like induction (microphones), tape recording, vinyl cutting, speaker drivers, live delay off the wall.
mimicry = speaker tuning, headphones, EQ profiles, mastering (mixing in general)
re-creation = digital anything
 
all of them are used these days to get pre-made sound to your brain. it's the mix of them that upset me, with mirroring being decidedly "out of style" while mimicry and especially re-creation is the name of the game right now. virtual pop stars are a reality.
 
so when we cannot have direct ear-pickup of something we love, we seek a recording of it.
that recording was created using a variety of methods and tricks to bring it to you in a pleasing way.
 
i think the amount of loss that we ALL accept in our music is sad. i include myself because until 2011 or so I was living/dealing with the crap sound of mp3 through phones telling myself it was better than the old days... knowing it wasn't. "they managed to make CD impressive" was my take on MP3 and iPods. 
 
everyone is to blame -apple, the producers, the artists, the mastering, the instruments, the computers, the listeners, the industry... all of us.
 
but it takes discussions about real sound and psychology to reverse these trends.   
 
our way past this downgrade/garbage audio culture will not be an oscilloscope or digitally generated waveform. our way out will be by using our ears, our bodies, and our human senses to demand better digital re-creations, or the analog original. 

 

[FFBookman]

  You could say that headphones are tiny speakers. The sound waves emit smaller, less powerful vibrations but it's perfectly natural. In closed headphones the earcups can be shaped in a way that affects the waves that bounce off them. Long story short - it creates a sense of space that gives an ( at times) eerily physical dimension to the music. It may not be the same experience of listening to loudspeakers generate sound over distances in the air, but if it can fool my brain even for a split second, then its good enough for me!

I love headphones. I don't buy them often and don't buy very expensive ones but I do love what they do.
 
But to me it is very different than the sound of speakers moving air in a room and me using my entire body to receive it.
 
It's like 1% of the vibration, right into my middle ear, and it's fascinating.  But very different to my senses.

 

[FFBookman]

 
Well said...I've been trying to take them on at their own game. As a Pianist i have experience recording my own music using Reason software, and have practicle experience working with circuit boards. I know when they are wrong...

any time you are using your eyes to tell your ears something you have an issue.
 
what many are doing is trying to understand sound from a mathematical sense, which is noble.
 
and harder to achieve than colonizing pluto.  real scientists don't argue with musicians and music producers about music and production.  it is fun to get into it online though. they even have a name for the 2 sides right?