hush4hire
New Head-Fier
- Joined
- Mar 12, 2012
- Posts
- 41
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What is the advantage of the headphone using wood as part of the construction?
means wood actually better than synthetic material in the aspect of sound quality?
I don't see why it would be weird. Metal is very rigid.
Wood has no advantage other than looking good. In fact, it may be detrimental to sound quality if the wood resonates with the music. You want musical instruments to resonate, not tools for music reproduction.
I understand the difference in sound texture in closed cans. What about changing open cans cups like the grado prestige series?
Will one might not notice any changes?
Regards
Wood is relatively strong, lightweight, self damping, and due to its fibrous nature it disperses resonances into a broader frequency spectrum making them less audible at any one particular frequency. Unfinished wood can have unique reflective properties depending on what you're trying to achieve. Any/all of these characteristics could be mimicked with a synthetic material, but wood isn't really that expensive to begin with. Like others have mentioned it looks really nice. It's also a relatively easy material to be shaped for DIY purposes.
Sony used/uses Magnesium alloys for certain components specifically to kill resonances and/or keep weight down. I'm guessing you mean Grados, though, and their Aluminum driver housings? Not a clue.
Imo, wood isn't a selling point, or even a legitimate bonus. It just is. Many headphones both look and sound great without it. I wouldn't pay too much attention to its use.
What would you use that doesn't resonate?
They're is a whole cult sort of thing with tube diameter, length, material, etc. to impart a certain sound signature. I won't get into that. Wood could potentially kill and disperse baffle resonances even if it's an open cup design. Not much else I can think of, and again, not really legitimate or that big of a deal, imo.