[gregorio]

[1] Science does not say there is no soundstage with headphones.
[1a] That is your opinion and nothing more.
[2] So you two guys are of the opinion that headphones don’t have soundstage,
[2a] then there’s nothing else to say to the OP. Everything else is just noise.

1. Again, that is CLEARLY FALSE! Science explains what stereo is and that it's an illusion, as illustrated in the patent filed by Alan Blumlein in 1932. Plus of course, there's a great deal of scientific research into HRTFs, binaural, convolution reverb and various techniques in order to create the illusion of soundstage with headphones. I ask again, why do any of these techniques exist and why is there any scientific research into them if headphones already create soundstage?
1a. How did "my opinion and nothing more" find it's way into Alan Blumlein's patent more than 30 years before I was even born?

2. I can't speak to bigshot but I'm of that opinion because science says so and I don't experience soundstage with headphones.
2a. Even this assertion is incorrect! Scientific studies indicate that people can perceive soundstage when listening with headphones, using binaural techniques for example. Some appear to be able to perceive the illusion with nothing more than relatively simple crossfeed, while others require a very specific HRTF, room convolution and head-tracking in order to perceive soundstage convincingly and probably, there are some few who perceive soundstage with headphones playing standard stereo recordings and no binaural technology. I personally have only ever come across one such person but it turned out they were not able to fully perceive soundstage and in fact what they thought was "soundstage" was very significantly different, little more than exaggerated left/right positioning!

G

 

[Hifiearspeakers]

1. Again, that is CLEARLY FALSE! Science explains what stereo is and that it's an illusion, as illustrated in the patent filed by Alan Blumlein in 1932. Plus of course, there's a great deal of scientific research into HRTFs, binaural, convolution reverb and various techniques in order to create the illusion of soundstage with headphones. I ask again, why do any of these techniques exist and why is there any scientific research into them if headphones already create soundstage?
1a. How did "my opinion and nothing more" find it's way into Alan Blumlein's patent more than 30 years before I was even born?

2. I can't speak to bigshot but I'm of that opinion because science says so and I don't experience soundstage with headphones.
2a. Even this assertion is incorrect! Scientific studies indicate that people can perceive soundstage when listening with headphones, using binaural techniques for example. Some appear to be able to perceive the illusion with nothing more than relatively simple crossfeed, while others require a very specific HRTF, room convolution and head-tracking in order to perceive soundstage convincingly and probably, there are some few who perceive soundstage with headphones playing standard stereo recordings and no binaural technology. I personally have only ever come across one such person but it turned out they were not able to fully perceive soundstage and in fact what they thought was "soundstage" was very significantly different, little more than exaggerated left/right positioning!

G

If soundstage is just imagination with headphones, the same is true for speakers. Your speaker set up at 7 feet or 10 feet isn’t the same space occupied by a recording done in Albert Hall. So your subjective speaker placements, treated or untreated room, carpet, acoustic tiles, hardwood floors, couch, and chairs no more accurately convey what’s on the damn recording than headphones do! None of those props exist in the music recordings!

And your subjective placement for said speakers may be arranged completely different than the next owner. It’s all degrees. Your precious speaker soundstage is just as illusory as headphones, or just as real.

And all those techniques exist to enhance the user experience, not because most users don’t already experience soundstage. Not to mention that distance and depth cues can absolutely be perceived with stereo sound through headphones if it’s in the mix. There are many different types of recordings. It’s not confined to just studio mixes.

 

[bigshot]

Google Books is pretty cool. It just pulled up this quote from The Routledge Guide To Music Technology (Thom Holmes ed.)

Stereophonic Recording - Usually referred to as stereo, the modern term comes from the Greek world that translates as "solid". It involves the process of recording a sound source so that the result will deliver the impression of a fully developed, three-dimensional soundstage between two loudspeaker systems. Stereophonic recording is somewhat different than "binaural" recording which involves headphone reproduction of sounds picked up by a microphone array that simulates the human head. True binaural sound reproduction can deliver a genuine full-dimensional effect, whereas stereophonic sound can only simulate the breadth and depth of the soundstage, and not the acoutics of the original performance space. Both techniques are in contrast to surround-sound recording that involves additional reproduction channels, both in front of and adjacent to the listener and extends the three dimensionality clear out into the listening room, and expands the size of the listening area accordingly.

Stereo sound reproduction is based on a theory first propounded by Alan D. Blumlein: a pair of left-right microphones and just two playback speakers could imitate the human hearing mechanism. The stereo effect creates far greater realism than monaural recording, producing an illusion of depth that may be compared to the effect of stereoscopic photography. Stereo works because the brain compares the intensities of incoming sounds and contrasts the input received by each ear. It notes the arrival time from right and left sources, the reverberations, and the intensities. Thus it is able to determine source direction as well as distance instantaneously (and unconsciously). Although the phantom images between the speakers cannot exactly simulate direct sources, the overall effect can be very realistic, at least if the listener occupies a location out in front of and equidistant from each of the speakers.

Not only is soundstage defined in terms of speakers, so is stereophonic sound itself. It's fair to say that headphones don't fully represent the realism of stereophonic sound because they cannot reproduce soundstage. Headphones can deliver a genuine dimensional effect with true binaural recording, and for speakers to improve upon that, you need multichannel sound. Multichannel sound is capable of expanding the size of the perceived sound field allowing the Albert Hall to be reproduced.

 

[Hifiearspeakers]

“Although the phantom images between the speakers cannot exactly simulate direct sources, the overall effect can be very realistic...”

I can say the same for headphones. No one here ever said the soundstage was equivalent to a 1:1 ratio with headphones. And the above quote from your source, just said that speakers can’t do that either. But the effect can be very realistic. No disagreement here.

 

[bigshot]

Speakers can simulate internal placement better with a center channel, because the phantom center is halved between the left and right and center, with the center picking up the heavy lifting in the middle. With stereo though, the way to deal with this is to move the speakers closer together so the overall soundstage is smaller and doesn't have so much of a dip in the phantom center. Most of the time the internal placement is smack dab in the middle, with mono vocals, which doesn't really require a lot of finesse. Mixers mix soundstage to suit the strengths and weaknesses of speakers, since they are almost always monitoring on speakers in a proper triangle setup.

However there are some truly spectacular recordings with soundstage that tracks all the way across the front. John Culshaw was a genius at this, and he did it by creating a precise array of mikes in front of a stage marked with a numbered grid pattern. The singers would have the grid numbers written into their music scores, so they knew the blocking that was required. And the array of mikes captured the left to right speciality perfectly. He would then overlay the orchestral layer captured with the same sort of an array and overlay it. He would have mikes in the far rear of the stage, and in the audience section to capture the front and back secondary depth cues and add those in the mix to mesh with the natural depth cues of the speaker installation. The result sounded exactly like being in the concert hall in the best seat in the house with a stage full of actors and musicians arrayed out in front of you.

Culshaw was the one that proved that opera on record didn't have to be a poor representation of a live event, but rather could be its own vivid "theater of the mind". I bet most people today listen to opera that way instead of hearing the sound of real concert halls. His opera recordings don't have nearly the same impact on headphones as they do on speakers, particularly Gotterdammerung.

 

[FireDragon76]

In my experience, open-back or old-skool on-ear headphones (Koss KSC75's, Porta Pro's, etc.) have much better soundstage. So do angled drivers. Soundstage can also be enhanced by electronic DSP.

 

[bigshot]

That isn’t soundstage. Soundstage is precise location of the imaging of sound location from left to right, not open or closed sounding. I’m guessing you might have never experienced soundstage. It’s the ability to close your eyes and point to the exact location in space each musician occupies from left to right at a distance in front of you, as if you are sitting in an audience in front of a stage. It has nothing to do with size or width. That is determined by the distance between the speakers, which is related to the distance of the listening position from the speakers. Open and closed is a totally different thing, and it has nothing to do with soundstage.

 

[gregorio]

[1] If soundstage is just imagination with headphones, the same is true for speakers.
[1a] Your speaker set up at 7 feet or 10 feet isn’t the same space occupied by a recording done in Albert Hall.
[1b] So your subjective speaker placements, treated or untreated room, carpet, acoustic tiles, hardwood floors, couch, and chairs no more accurately convey what’s on the damn recording than headphones do! None of those props exist in the music recordings!
[2] And your subjective placement for said speakers may be arranged completely different than the next owner. It’s all degrees. Your precious speaker soundstage is just as illusory as headphones, or just as real.
[3] And all those techniques exist to enhance the user experience, not because most users don’t already experience soundstage.
[3a] Not to mention that distance and depth cues can absolutely be perceived with stereo sound through headphones if it’s in the mix.
[4] There are many different types of recordings. It’s not confined to just studio mixes.

1. True ... but:
1a. You pretty much never get to hear "a recording done in the Albert Hall"!! What you actually get is a mix of "a recording done in the Albert Hall" created by an engineer with "speaker set up at 7 feet or 10 feet" and as bigshot correctly stated, this is where the positioning and soundstage are created!
1b. This assertion is therefore FALSE, those props DO exist in the music recordings. Or to be more precise, what you effectively get is a mix WITH room (studio) acoustics but the actual room acoustics are not recorded, because they'll be recreated by the consumers' room acoustics (in the case of a mix/master designed for speaker reproduction).

2. No, it's NOT "all degrees"! Sure, with a consumer speaker setup their room acoustics will never be the same as those in which the mix was created, so it is "all degrees" for consumer speaker setups but with HPs there is no additional room acoustics at all and OBVIOUSLY, "none at all" is not a "degree"!!

3. Music designed for speakers but played back on headphones "places the stereo image inside the listener's head and makes the image appear ultra-wide" and "The soundfield becomes flat and lacking the sensation of dimensions. ... This phenomenon is often referred in literature as lateralization, meaning ’in-the-head’ localization." and "Lateralization techniques involve manipulation of interaural time and/or intensity differences at each ear; the resulting percept is usually of the sound source moving along the intracranial axis between the ears." - respectively published in the Journal of the AES, Researchgate (a Masters thesis) and by NASA. I ask yet again, why would science invent the term "Laterization" and study it extensively if it doesn't exist? And, where's your evidence of "most users" (that directly contradicts NASA and countless other scientific publications)?
3a. Again, a direct contradiction of the actual science! Where's your evidence? Of course, there are different mixes and different people can/will perceive them differently, so some people may indeed perceive some sort of soundstage with some standard stereo mixes.

4. Indeed there are many different types of sound and music recordings but how many commercial recordings are not mixed or mastered in studios? In the last 60 years or so it's none at all or very close to none at all!!

G

 

[CoryGillmore]

"what creates soundtage in headphones?"

To put it simply: the pads

In my experience, pads have a bigger effect on sound characteristics than any aftermarket cables, amps and DACs ever could.

 

[Hifiearspeakers]

1. True ... but:
1a. You pretty much never get to hear "a recording done in the Albert Hall"!! What you actually get is a mix of "a recording done in the Albert Hall" created by an engineer with "speaker set up at 7 feet or 10 feet" and as bigshot correctly stated, this is where the positioning and soundstage are created!
1b. This assertion is therefore FALSE, those props DO exist in the music recordings. Or to be more precise, what you effectively get is a mix WITH room (studio) acoustics but the actual room acoustics are not recorded, because they'll be recreated by the consumers' room acoustics (in the case of a mix/master designed for speaker reproduction).

2. No, it's NOT "all degrees"! Sure, with a consumer speaker setup their room acoustics will never be the same as those in which the mix was created, so it is "all degrees" for consumer speaker setups but with HPs there is no additional room acoustics at all and OBVIOUSLY, "none at all" is not a "degree"!!

3. Music designed for speakers but played back on headphones "places the stereo image inside the listener's head and makes the image appear ultra-wide" and "The soundfield becomes flat and lacking the sensation of dimensions. ... This phenomenon is often referred in literature as lateralization, meaning ’in-the-head’ localization." and "Lateralization techniques involve manipulation of interaural time and/or intensity differences at each ear; the resulting percept is usually of the sound source moving along the intracranial axis between the ears." - respectively published in the Journal of the AES, Researchgate (a Masters thesis) and by NASA. I ask yet again, why would science invent the term "Laterization" and study it extensively if it doesn't exist? And, where's your evidence of "most users" (that directly contradicts NASA and countless other scientific publications)?
3a. Again, a direct contradiction of the actual science! Where's your evidence? Of course, there are different mixes and different people can/will perceive them differently, so some people may indeed perceive some sort of soundstage with some standard stereo mixes.

4. Indeed there are many different types of sound and music recordings but how many commercial recordings are not mixed or mastered in studios? In the last 60 years or so it's none at all or very close to none at all!!

G

The question from the OP wasn’t WHAT CREATES SOUNDSTAGE IN HEADPHONES ONLY FOR MUSIC! It was what creates soundstage in headphones, PERIOD. And headphones do have space, do create soundstage, and come in many different shapes and sizes and many different technologies.

Your hugely broad generalization that no headphones have space from the ear and exhibit zero soundstage is nothing more than your ignorant opinion, which comes from an obvious bias from someone who only wants to talk about speakers, in spite of the OP’s question being clearly about headphones.

All you spew on this thread is noise and bias.

 

[Hifiearspeakers]

"what creates soundtage in headphones?"

To put it simply: the pads

In my experience, pads have a bigger effect on sound characteristics than any aftermarket cables, amps and DACs ever could.

Yes. The pads, the cup design, the technology of the drivers, and even the size of the drivers.

I’ve already told these people in here that the earpads and earcups on circumaural headphones (especially open back) act like a miniature room. And therefore the soundstage is there but on a smaller scale.

But they will continue to blather on with their bias and speaker talk ad nauseum.

 

[CoryGillmore]

Yes. The pads, the cup design, the technology of the drivers, and even the size of the drivers.

I’ve already told these people in here that the earpads and earcups on circumaural headphones (especially open back) act like a miniature room. And therefore the soundstage is there but on a smaller scale.

But they will continue to blather on with their bias and speaker talk ad nauseum.

I think a more interesting topic/question is: what creates soundtage in IEMs? Because different IEMs provide differing perceptions of width. Tia Fourte is among some of the best, just from what I hear from other users.

I dunno maybe soundtage is the wrong term? Maybe "perception of width" would be better suited. That's just semantics though. It's all the same thing.

 

[bigshot]

I'm afraid earspeakers doesn't know what soundstage is. He thinks headphones that are open or closed have different soundstage. He doesn't understand that soundstage deals with precision of sound location, both in physical and simulated space, not the general "openness" or "width" of the sound. If he made an attempt to understand what people say to him instead of ranting and throwing insults, he might learn something.

The problem is that audiophools grabbed onto a real technical term, "soundstage", and gave it a vague, woo-woo definition of their own. They use it as a flowery term, like "veil" or "blackness" or "speed" to describe the way they feel about sound without fully understanding what is causing it. Then people took that definition and tried to think of a reason it might be so... open/closed, ear pads being hard or soft creating reflections, ear cups as tiny rooms... All of that is hooey. Headphones are open or closed sounding. Varying the angle the sound shoots into your ear can make a difference. But none of that has anything at all to do with soundstage.

Soundstage is a flat plane of sound ten feet or more in front of you where sound objects in the mix can be placed anywhere between the speakers from left to right. To the listener, it sounds like sitting in an audience and having the musicians sitting on a stage in front of the listener performing. You can point to the vocalist in the middle, the piano slightly to the left and the guitarist on the far right. The guitarist can walk across the soundstage to the left of the piano and you can hear him move from right to left. Soundstage is part and parcel of stereophonic sound, and it is designed in the mix.

Poor soundstage has dropouts in the middle because speakers are too far apart. Things feel like they are just left and right with no meshing between them because the speakers are positioned incorrectly in the room. When I was a kid, I had a few friends who were audio nuts. One of them saved money for years and assembled a McIntosh system. He bought massive Altec Lansing speakers and put one on each side of his bed facing towards the middle. He said he was trying to make it "like giant headphones". Even lying on his bed, the sound still had no definition in the middle because the speakers were opposite each ear, and the bed was acting as a huge sound damper right in the center of the soundstage. Over a three day weekend, I finally convinced him to move his room around to put the speakers parallel with a single wall, and his bed along the opposite wall. I told him if he didn't like it, I would help him move it back to the way it was. "Fun experiment. We've got the day off from school, why not?" He skeptically agreed. It took a lot of work with moving dollies because those speakers were the size of big freezers or washing machines. When we had everything in place, he skeptically flicked on the sound and sat on the bed. It was like night and day. Now there was a clear aural image in front. His room was still way too small for those speakers, but at least he had created the proper triangulation between speakers and listening position. I didn't have to help him move the speakers back.

If you are used to having the sound enter your ears straight on, you don't realize what you aren't hearing. Putting the speakers at the recommended distance and angle creates an aural image with specific sound location. And the secondary distance cues (reflection, reverb) are designed in the mix to work with that image to create an illusion of depth too. With headphones, it's a straight line through the center of your head and you have no idea what people are talking about. Some people listen and learn something new. Some people argue from ignorance and just get mad. (Dunning-Krueger). I try to not get frustrated and patiently explain things. Maybe someone else will get value out of what I'm saying. I appreciate it when people teach me things with patience.

I dunno maybe soundtage is the wrong term? Maybe "perception of width" would be better suited. That's just semantics though. It's all the same thing.

The terms I use are:

Headstage: That is the straight line extending through the center of your head that you hear with headphones. It can be more open or more closed, giving the illusion of sound seeming wider or narrower.

Soundstage: As I just described

Soundfield: A three dimensional soundstage that extends from the front of the room to the back (or with Atmos, from the floor to the ceiling too). This is what you get with multichannel speaker setups. The precision of the placement of sound objects within the field becomes more defined as you add more speakers in an array. Soundfields can alter the perceived size of the listening room and simulate everything from cramped, boxy sound to wide open sound like standing in the open air. Listening position, balances and room treatment can be critical to the effectiveness of soundfields.

Soundfield > Soundstage > Headstage > single sound source (mono)

 

[Hifiearspeakers]

I'm afraid earspeakers doesn't know what soundstage is. He thinks headphones that are open or closed have different soundstage. He doesn't understand that soundstage deals with precision of sound location, both in physical and simulated space, not the general "openness" or "width" of the sound. If he made an attempt to understand what people say to him instead of ranting and throwing insults, he might learn something.

The problem is that audiophools grabbed onto a real technical term, "soundstage", and gave it a vague, woo-woo definition of their own. They use it as a flowery term, like "veil" or "blackness" or "speed" to describe the way they feel about sound without fully understanding what is causing it. Then people took that definition and tried to think of a reason it might be so... open/closed, ear pads being hard or soft creating reflections, ear cups as tiny rooms... All of that is hooey. Headphones are open or closed sounding. Varying the angle the sound shoots into your ear can make a difference. But none of that has anything at all to do with soundstage.

Soundstage is a flat plane of sound ten feet or more in front of you where sound objects in the mix can be placed anywhere between the speakers from left to right. To the listener, it sounds like sitting in an audience and having the musicians sitting on a stage in front of the listener performing. You can point to the vocalist in the middle, the piano slightly to the left and the guitarist on the far right. The guitarist can walk across the soundstage to the left of the piano and you can hear him move from right to left. Soundstage is part and parcel of stereophonic sound, and it is designed in the mix.

Poor soundstage has dropouts in the middle because speakers are too far apart. Things feel like they are just left and right with no meshing between them because the speakers are positioned incorrectly in the room. When I was a kid, I had a few friends who were audio nuts. One of them saved money for years and assembled a McIntosh system. He bought massive Altec Lansing speakers and put one on each side of his bed facing towards the middle. He said he was trying to make it "like giant headphones". Even lying on his bed, the sound still had no definition in the middle because the speakers were opposite each ear, and the bed was acting as a huge sound damper right in the center of the soundstage. Over a three day weekend, I finally convinced him to move his room around to put the speakers parallel with a single wall, and his bed along the opposite wall. I told him if he didn't like it, I would help him move it back to the way it was. "Fun experiment. We've got the day off from school, why not?" He skeptically agreed. It took a lot of work with moving dollies because those speakers were the size of big freezers or washing machines. When we had everything in place, he skeptically flicked on the sound and sat on the bed. It was like night and day. Now there was a clear aural image in front. His room was still way too small for those speakers, but at least he had created the proper triangulation between speakers and listening position. I didn't have to help him move the speakers back.

If you are used to having the sound enter your ears straight on, you don't realize what you aren't hearing. Putting the speakers at the recommended distance and angle creates an aural image with specific sound location. And the secondary distance cues (reflection, reverb) are designed in the mix to work with that image to create an illusion of depth too. With headphones, it's a straight line through the center of your head and you have no idea what people are talking about. Some people listen and learn something new. Some people argue from ignorance and just get mad. (Dunning-Krueger). I try to not get frustrated and patiently explain things. Maybe someone else will get value out of what I'm saying. I appreciate it when people teach me things with patience.



The terms I use are:

Headstage: That is the straight line extending through the center of your head that you hear with headphones. It can be more open or more closed, giving the illusion of sound seeming wider or narrower.

Soundstage: As I just described

Soundfield: A three dimensional soundstage that extends from the front of the room to the back (or with Atmos, from the floor to the ceiling too). This is what you get with multichannel speaker setups. The precision of the placement of sound objects within the field becomes more defined as you add more speakers in an array. Soundfields can alter the perceived size of the listening room and simulate everything from cramped, boxy sound to wide open sound like standing in the open air. Listening position, balances and room treatment can be critical to the effectiveness of soundfields.

Soundfield > Soundstage > Headstage > single sound source (mono)

I know very well what soundstage is. The problem is that you are very versed in speakers and don’t know crap about headphones. You lump them all together without paying respect to modern day technology. You’re simply wrong. Period.

 

[bigshot]

How much do you know about the scientific theory put forward by Dunning and Krueger?