Stommager
New Head-Fier
- Joined
- Aug 26, 2011
- Posts
- 16
- Likes
- 11
Hi!
I would like to share with You my recent thoughts regarding headphone's sound stage.
I like to distinguish two types of listening to music based on level of attention I pay. For each type I have a different gear with specific sound properties. First case is when I sit and listen and do nothing else. In this case I prefer to use setup witch large sound stage. My brain is concentrated on reproducing the scene around me and I feel comfortable inside it. All the sound sources are in their place and I can enjoy any particular musician separately or admire their collective effort. This is in fact quite tiring for my mind, but it gives maximal pleasure from the listen, a real musical journey.
But the situation is totally different when I cannot focus explicitly on the music. Even simple manual tasks can distract me in a way that ruins the whole sound stage magic. Often it's even worse than that. When my mind tries to concentrate on something else it gets confused. It cannot reproduce sound stage properly, so it keeps changing it. Sounds seem to come from unexpected directions and the overall picture is elusive. This can be very irritating. Here's an example: My sweetheart was studying for her exams and she was a bit weary. She wanted to wake up a little bit so she picked up my 'spacious' headphones and plugged them in. After just a few minutes she couldn't stand them - she said that she felt like she was falling down a well. Then she switched to her favorite Koss PortaPro and everything was back to normal. This is why I have a different setup for situations like these.
With my second headphones I sometimes feel like the music is only inside my ears, or I get a small sound stage inside my head. It never goes beyond that. This is most often considered a drawback, but not in this case. Viewed from a different side it becomes an advantage because I get the full picture of my music with no effort. The virtual sound sources are already merged so I don't have to merge them myself. I can enjoy the overall impression that the music gives without going into details. And that's exactly what I need when I'm to do something else simultaneously.
For some of You this might be obvious, but for me it was quite a discovery to learn how important it is to have a free mind when You really want to get into the recording and how different types of headphones shine in different applications.
Do You have similar experience?
I would like to share with You my recent thoughts regarding headphone's sound stage.
I like to distinguish two types of listening to music based on level of attention I pay. For each type I have a different gear with specific sound properties. First case is when I sit and listen and do nothing else. In this case I prefer to use setup witch large sound stage. My brain is concentrated on reproducing the scene around me and I feel comfortable inside it. All the sound sources are in their place and I can enjoy any particular musician separately or admire their collective effort. This is in fact quite tiring for my mind, but it gives maximal pleasure from the listen, a real musical journey.
But the situation is totally different when I cannot focus explicitly on the music. Even simple manual tasks can distract me in a way that ruins the whole sound stage magic. Often it's even worse than that. When my mind tries to concentrate on something else it gets confused. It cannot reproduce sound stage properly, so it keeps changing it. Sounds seem to come from unexpected directions and the overall picture is elusive. This can be very irritating. Here's an example: My sweetheart was studying for her exams and she was a bit weary. She wanted to wake up a little bit so she picked up my 'spacious' headphones and plugged them in. After just a few minutes she couldn't stand them - she said that she felt like she was falling down a well. Then she switched to her favorite Koss PortaPro and everything was back to normal. This is why I have a different setup for situations like these.
With my second headphones I sometimes feel like the music is only inside my ears, or I get a small sound stage inside my head. It never goes beyond that. This is most often considered a drawback, but not in this case. Viewed from a different side it becomes an advantage because I get the full picture of my music with no effort. The virtual sound sources are already merged so I don't have to merge them myself. I can enjoy the overall impression that the music gives without going into details. And that's exactly what I need when I'm to do something else simultaneously.
For some of You this might be obvious, but for me it was quite a discovery to learn how important it is to have a free mind when You really want to get into the recording and how different types of headphones shine in different applications.
Do You have similar experience?