[Koei]

At home I pretty much only listen to my normal stereo setup, which isn't high-end by any means (specs below). And while I like my headphones for commuting or at the office I always get put off by the fact that the music is playing in my head instead of in front of me. For electronic or pop music it doesn't bother me as much, but for anything that involves a musician or small band it really grinds my gears. Think a violin concerto, jazz, singer-songwriter stuff. On my speakers I close my eyes and the artists are in front of me. They are playing in my room. What kind of headphones should I be looking at to reach that point with headphones if that is at all possible. I'd guess its impossible with closed headphones, but what about open models?

Stereo setup:
Schiit Modi Multibit
Marantz PM-16 (premium line amplifier from the 90ties, a monster)
Scan Speak Reference Monitors

Headphones:
Oppo PM-3
Galaxy S6 or the PM-16

 

[serman005]

A K7xx, K612 Pro, HD 598, or a DT990 will all have a generous stage. If you want to spend more, an HD800/800S or an HE1000 V2 would be hard to beat, IMO. Maybe read about them and see what you think. It is possible one could work for you.

 

[Koei]

A K7xx, K612 Pro, HD 598, or a DT990 will all have a generous stage. If you want to spend more, an HD800/800S or an HE1000 V2 would be hard to beat, IMO. Maybe read about them and see what you think. It is possible one could work for you.

I have a hard time believing that cheaper headphones like that have a sufficient soundstage. I'll check out the HD800. Closed there are no options?

 

[serman005]

TH-900 Mk. II/Ether C Flow are pretty 3-D, but will not effectively compete with an HD 800/S or an HEK V2 in my opinion. Not knowledgeable about Audeze, products, so can't comment on their offerings. Really, though, this is one of those few areas in headphones where there seem to be some clear leaders--at least that is my take. Oh--BTW. Some people who are fans would also mention an HD700 for this list. It is also quite good. There are others, but this is a start.

 

[buke9]

The HD-800’s are hard to beat on soundstage. For closed backs I haven’t heard any that come close. The Ether-C’s are good but the AKG K872’s are a bit better on the soundstage front. No headphone is going to give the soundstage of a speaker setup.

 

[Koei]

The HD-800’s are hard to beat on soundstage. For closed backs I haven’t heard any that come close. The Ether-C’s are good but the AKG K872’s are a bit better on the soundstage front. No headphone is going to give the soundstage of a speaker setup.

If even HD-800's can't match a decent stereo setup I think my quest is over. I'm going to listen to the HD-800's when I get to chance just to see what they do, but I kinda get the feeling its just a waste of money for somebody like me who just uses headphones when commuting or at work . I appreciate the finer details I sometimes hear when using headphones, but it just doesn't sound real.

Offtopic: measurements for the HD-800 look really bad, what the hell is going on with the midrange on them? Is it just hard to make a flat frequency response for headphones? I know room acoustics ruin a lot of speakers, but I'm surprised they are way flatter .

 

[buke9]

Well if you want to spend upwards of $12k you can go with the Stax SR-009’s and a Blue Hawaii SE and it is one of the best headphone setups I’ve heard other than the $50k Sennheiser HE-1’s which are something else good. The JPS Labs Abyss are very speaker like in their presentation and one of my favorites that I own but can’t rival a good speaker setup but I don’t bother the wife when I want to listen say late at night or a little loud so I’m happy with it.

 

[castleofargh]

Realiser A8 or the A16 coming up (soon?). but on the go that might be a little complicated ^_^.

for many reasons, if your target is speaker simulation, you need to look for speaker simulation. a basic headphone(no DSP)+amp+DAC playing typical stereo albums cannot and will not offer the speaker like experience on their own. basic crossfeed can try to mitigate the issue of left channel signal not reaching the right ear, but it's only a simplified approach to the HRTF problem. when we hear sounds coming from a distance, the waves will bounce on our body/head/ears, and will be affected by them in a specific way depending on where they come from. those changes are used by the brain to help locate a sound source. when we put on a headphone, the sound isn't affected by the body and head, it's affected only by the ears but as a sound source at 90°angle(or close to that for angled drivers), which is really not ideal to make us feel sounds from all the other directions, or simply as coming from 2 speakers at 60°.
of course there is also head tracking, even without thinking about it we move our head all the time, so the difference between stuff in front of us and headphones moving with us is obvious for the brain. also that serves as a triangulation trick to locate things even better.
for pure mono sounds, some people will simply never feel the sound coming from the proper distance if they don't see it. our eyes are the leading sense for humans after all. there a lottery aspect on this and on several other things where we're really not equal in how we'll react to partial stimuli. but at least you can have the right vertical angle so long as your headphone has the right frequency response. trick is, the right freq for you is not necessarily the right freq for me. and the right freq for sound at 60° like speakers isn't exactly the same either.

all in all, simulation DSP and as much customization as possible are what you need to look for. something like the Audeze Mobius may work exceedingly well for some and not be more than a toy for others, the issue being that it has very little customization available, even the best scenario only let you register 2 measurements for your head size. so if your head and ears are close enough to the model used for compensation in the Mobius or any other 3D simulation product or app, you could get great experience for rather cheap. if not, well too bad. the bummer being that you will never know unless you try.
with the Smyth Realiser and a few other even more expensive solutions, you get real close to having all the customization one can hope to get. so of course the chances that our brain will be tricked by it are that much higher.

stuff like those are bound to become more and more common(and logically cheaper), until the day nobody would even consider using headphones without HRTF compensation. it is the future of headphone audio without a doubt.

 

[JediMa70]

At home I pretty much only listen to my normal stereo setup, which isn't high-end by any means (specs below). And while I like my headphones for commuting or at the office I always get put off by the fact that the music is playing in my head instead of in front of me. For electronic or pop music it doesn't bother me as much, but for anything that involves a musician or small band it really grinds my gears. Think a violin concerto, jazz, singer-songwriter stuff. On my speakers I close my eyes and the artists are in front of me. They are playing in my room. What kind of headphones should I be looking at to reach that point with headphones if that is at all possible. I'd guess its impossible with closed headphones, but what about open models?

Stereo setup:
Schiit Modi Multibit
Marantz PM-16 (premium line amplifier from the 90ties, a monster)
Scan Speak Reference Monitors

Headphones:
Oppo PM-3
Galaxy S6 or the PM-16

AKG K712 pro period

 

[ProtegeManiac]

What kind of headphones should I look at for a "real" soundstage

AKG K1000 with the matched SAC amp or similar. Also get a good DAC to feed that amp to maximize the imaging.

At home I pretty much only listen to my normal stereo setup, which isn't high-end by any means (specs below). And while I like my headphones for commuting or at the office I always get put off by the fact that the music is playing in my head instead of in front of me. For electronic or pop music it doesn't bother me as much, but for anything that involves a musician or small band it really grinds my gears. Think a violin concerto, jazz, singer-songwriter stuff. On my speakers I close my eyes and the artists are in front of me. They are playing in my room. What kind of headphones should I be looking at to reach that point with headphones if that is at all possible. I'd guess its impossible with closed headphones, but what about open models?

Well first off the problem isn't so much earcup enclosure design. Closed headphones just have a tendency to screw up the sound as the soundwaves bounce off the cup and back into the drivers, which increases distortion, or boosts teh bass enough that you perceive the bass to be out in front where the vocals are. Apart from that they both suffer the same problem vs speakers: each ear hears only the same side driver. By contrast with speakers both ears hear both drivers interacting with the room (which is generally not that good, but usually manageable). Not to mention the speakers are physically out in front of you instead of just hanging right outside your ear canals.

Best you can go for with just the headphones themselves are the ones that angle the drivers - either with asymmetrical earpads (you can fit some aftermarket pads also) or angled driver mounts on the earcups - which mimics the toe in, from the front positioning of speakers. Note that even with speakers you don't put them smack at your flanks firing directly into your ears the way most headphones position the drivers. These at best though can position most of the instrumeents out of your head, but not the vocals. At the same time the cymbals will move towards the center and rear, which many perceive as a "narrow" soundstage, thinking that having cymbals at the flanks is a good thing when whatever system you use means the size of the instruments should be scaled down proportionately, ie, having cymbals far to the flanks (if not also forward) impliess that the drummer has really long arms to reach the front and sides of the stage (and he must be very fast to hit the cymbals and drums with no perceptible gap).

Past that you're going to have to use Crossfeed. Best in soundstage size and proportional positioning I've heard is any Meier amp on level 1 Crossfeed (level 2 is just too narrow already; older amps have it somewhere in the middle) setting driving either an AKG K701/2 or a Sennheiser HD800; HE400 on Focus pads is a far second.

Here's why the K1000 works like speakers: they're speakers. They just come on a swivel mount on a headband instead of speaker stands or desktop feet.

Stereo setup:
Schiit Modi Multibit
Marantz PM-16 (premium line amplifier from the 90ties, a monster)
Scan Speak Reference Monitors

Headphones:
Oppo PM-3
Galaxy S6 or the PM-16

If you can find a K1000 you could probably hook it up to the Speaker B outputs on the Marantz integraed amp and just push the switch button on the front to select the output; you'll have to get the K1000 cables that end in banana or spade plugs at the amp end though. Just note that the K1000 is far from quiet. Anybody sleeping or studying in the next room with only thin walls between you will likely hear it. Some acoustic panels that absorb sound and prevent reflections could reduce some of that considering the headphones still wouldn't be playing as loud as the speakers, just preventing what soundwaves that manage to reach the perimeter of the room still with some energy get slowed down by the panels and thus have even less impact on the actual walls. If you don't have these yet you could get them either way as they'll help your speakers. Best part about this is if your Marantz is one of those PM-series that has an optional Pure Class A operation then even the ~10w from that is already a lot for the K1000, so you can run it that way and not have crossover distortion (and since it won't clip from lack of power, get cleaner bass).

If you want the most plug and play with your system with no additional hardware there's the HD800. If you're using a computer as source you can use paid software apps with Crossfeed; Foobar has a free Meier Crossfeed plug in but it only works on Foobar, not on other apps like Spotify.

If the HD800 is still too expensive but you don't mind paying for an amp then maybe get the K702 and a Meier Jazz FF. Hook up that amp to the Tape/Rec Out on your integrated amp.