JaZZ
Headphoneus Supremus
The fact that headphones have much smaller membranes than speakers and principally move much less air has to do with the circumstance that the sound is generated straightly in front of the ears. Thus the main part of the generated sound reaches the ears, and very few is dispersed outwards, in extremis with canalphones, where all generated sound reaches the eardrum. It's obvious that in such a case there's very few air to be moved to achieve the same loudness as with circumaural headphones or speakers.
There's a direct dependency of loudness and moved air. A certain loudness level is equivalent to a certain amount of moved air in the ear canal – referring to a certain frequency. But there are different degrees of efficiency. With some designs there's a lot of «wasted» air movement – possibly impacting great areas of the outer ear and the head with vibrations, from which the impression or even sensation of visceral impact arises.
But why don't the Staxes provide impact? They have all preconditions for this: large diaphragm, large air chamber and large impacting area around the ears. There must be a different factor. Maybe an additional one. I suppose it's the moving mass, consisting primarily of voice coil and membrane. Just like it's actually incorrect to speak of the moon orbiting the earth, there's no simple moving of the membrane, neither with speakers nor with headphones. Earth and moon are orbiting each other around a common center of gravity – and so do sound transducers: membrane and frame/housing move relatively to each other. The much lighter membrane moves much more than the chassis, but the greater the «moving mass» (especially in the case of a large diaphragm), the greater the impact sound from the earcups or the earpads respectively, which can be felt on our skin accordingly.
It's obvious that electrostatics with their foil diaphragms of very low moving mass produce very few impact sound with their housings. Anyway, to say that's the reason for their «thin» bass even isn't half the truth. For there's also a real lack of audible impact. Where does it come from? In the case of my (self-constructed) electrostatics there's no early bass roll-off. Quite the opposite: they have a very strong low bass, much stronger than the one from my HD 600, it's even a tad too much... And I'm quite sure that the Staxes go very deep, too, according to their measurements. So: what's the reason?
The thin foil membranes have virtually no acoustic resistance; the air pressure they produce inside the earcup can easily equalize itself through the diaphragm – kind of permanent battle for hegemony between signal command and air pressure. This phenomenon is less pronounced with dynamic transducers due to their stiffer, less sound permeable and heavier membranes which give more acoustic resistance. The latter could be the reason for the more substantial reproduction especially of low frequencies compared to the «airy», feathery sound from foil diaphragms which extends also to the bass.
These are nothing but assumptions, but some with rhyme and reason, I guess. I don't think there's any established scientific explanation for such different sonic results with nearly identically measuring sound transducers. The same applies to amplifiers, btw, which more or less are measured absolutely identical and sound that different anyway.
JaZZ
There's a direct dependency of loudness and moved air. A certain loudness level is equivalent to a certain amount of moved air in the ear canal – referring to a certain frequency. But there are different degrees of efficiency. With some designs there's a lot of «wasted» air movement – possibly impacting great areas of the outer ear and the head with vibrations, from which the impression or even sensation of visceral impact arises.
But why don't the Staxes provide impact? They have all preconditions for this: large diaphragm, large air chamber and large impacting area around the ears. There must be a different factor. Maybe an additional one. I suppose it's the moving mass, consisting primarily of voice coil and membrane. Just like it's actually incorrect to speak of the moon orbiting the earth, there's no simple moving of the membrane, neither with speakers nor with headphones. Earth and moon are orbiting each other around a common center of gravity – and so do sound transducers: membrane and frame/housing move relatively to each other. The much lighter membrane moves much more than the chassis, but the greater the «moving mass» (especially in the case of a large diaphragm), the greater the impact sound from the earcups or the earpads respectively, which can be felt on our skin accordingly.
It's obvious that electrostatics with their foil diaphragms of very low moving mass produce very few impact sound with their housings. Anyway, to say that's the reason for their «thin» bass even isn't half the truth. For there's also a real lack of audible impact. Where does it come from? In the case of my (self-constructed) electrostatics there's no early bass roll-off. Quite the opposite: they have a very strong low bass, much stronger than the one from my HD 600, it's even a tad too much... And I'm quite sure that the Staxes go very deep, too, according to their measurements. So: what's the reason?
The thin foil membranes have virtually no acoustic resistance; the air pressure they produce inside the earcup can easily equalize itself through the diaphragm – kind of permanent battle for hegemony between signal command and air pressure. This phenomenon is less pronounced with dynamic transducers due to their stiffer, less sound permeable and heavier membranes which give more acoustic resistance. The latter could be the reason for the more substantial reproduction especially of low frequencies compared to the «airy», feathery sound from foil diaphragms which extends also to the bass.
These are nothing but assumptions, but some with rhyme and reason, I guess. I don't think there's any established scientific explanation for such different sonic results with nearly identically measuring sound transducers. The same applies to amplifiers, btw, which more or less are measured absolutely identical and sound that different anyway.
