[bagwell359]

false. smooth FR = no ringing

That's beyond ridiculous. I notice from your prior post nothing at all/much on planars. Planars ring, and they ring sometimes when the FR is down, up, or dead on average. Do some reading, then come on back.

 

[Achlys]

That's beyond ridiculous. I notice from your prior post nothing at all/much on planars. Planars ring, and they ring sometimes when the FR is down, up, or dead on average. Do some reading, then come on back.

nope. planars that ring have rough frequency responses (almost all of them).

 

[bagwell359]

Dupe

 

[bagwell359]

There might be a correlation in some cases. However there are HFM headphones that have the worst instance of ringing with an elevated FR coincident (your position) and there are others with the highest level of ringing correlate with low FR readings.

It's clear to anyone that takes 15 minutes to look at the data that FR graphs and and waterfall graphs are two different things, looking at different issues. They manifest differently, and the treatment to mitigate them is not the same (although can overlap).

It's also true (let's throw out every can under $200) that waterfall plots show more ringing with orthos as a group than other technologies. Back to HFM headphones, over time they have addressed this issue to mitigate (not remove) some ringing. The HE-4, HE-5, HE-5LE all ring a lot. The 500 and 6 ring (but less than earlier models), and sound much better with mods/EQ to address them. The Susvara has even less, less reverberations as well thanks to newer design.

 

[MayaTlab]

There might be a correlation in some cases. However there are HFM headphones that have the worst instance of ringing with an elevated FR coincident (your position) and there are others with the highest level of ringing correlate with low FR readings.

In general that's just because of an overly / improperly smoothed or averaged FR graph. The way SBAF's FR graphs are often presented makes them unreadable in that regard and impossible to compare to their CSD graphs.

The Susvara has even less, less reverberations as well thanks to newer design.

Hem...
https://headphonetestlab.co.uk/test-results-manufacturers-e-h-hifiman-susvara
https://www.soundstagenetwork.com/i...fiman-susvara-headphones&catid=263&Itemid=203
Given the bandwidth and magnitude of these peaks / nulls it's debatable whether they're audible or not with broad signals (music), but what's not debatable is that in the mids it's a resonant mess even compared to cheap $200 over-ears. Very good performance however in that regard for a planar above 7kHz or so.

 

[bagwell359]

In general that's just because of an overly / improperly smoothed or averaged FR graph. The way SBAF's FR graphs are often presented makes them unreadable in that regard and impossible to compare to their CSD graphs.



Hem...
https://headphonetestlab.co.uk/test-results-manufacturers-e-h-hifiman-susvara
https://www.soundstagenetwork.com/i...fiman-susvara-headphones&catid=263&Itemid=203
Given the bandwidth and magnitude of these peaks / nulls it's debatable whether they're audible or not with broad signals (music), but what's not debatable is that in the mids it's a resonant mess even compared to cheap $200 over-ears. Very good performance however in that regard for a planar above 7kHz or so.

Interesting. SBAF isn't my only source and some troublesome ringing does occur when the FR is lower than average DB. I use a 10 setting digital parametric and most commonly set for ringing in usually 2 slots (sometimes 1). I freely admit I am much more sensitive to treble issues than most - so some don't hear it and others are swayed by the wall to wall documentation of the easy to understand FR graphs and don't know or don't want to take on waterfall plots or other readings such as spectral decay, group delay and phase delay.

 

[bagwell359]

In general that's just because of an overly / improperly smoothed or averaged FR graph. The way SBAF's FR graphs are often presented makes them unreadable in that regard and impossible to compare to their CSD graphs.



Hem...
https://headphonetestlab.co.uk/test-results-manufacturers-e-h-hifiman-susvara
https://www.soundstagenetwork.com/i...fiman-susvara-headphones&catid=263&Itemid=203
Given the bandwidth and magnitude of these peaks / nulls it's debatable whether they're audible or not with broad signals (music), but what's not debatable is that in the mids it's a resonant mess even compared to cheap $200 over-ears. Very good performance however in that regard for a planar above 7kHz or so.

Partially addresses above post, rest of it...

I believe the thing that attracts people to the technologies of e-stats, orthodynamics and ribbons right away is how fast and true (ish) the rise time is (but they all breakdown very shortly after to some extent). One locks onto that and reverberations/ringing that ate below a threshold (say -40 db) isn't even picked up by ear. Then you have the longer duration and louder non musical artifacts - and if its heard like a pleasantly warm (but incorrect) 2nd harmonic (warm, good body, rich, golden glow, etc.) then you've got a monster success. OTOH, it can be heard as sizzle, artificial, halo, bright, fatiguing, etc.).

I've owned a long list of e-stats, orthos, and ribbon speakers, and a number of ortho cans. To enhance the reality and decrease the negative (perceived) traits - you have speaker placement, room treatments (or redesign), and ancillary equipment changes. No matter what you try, there are always issues (narrow listening sport (poor high FR dispersion), Furnitue messing up the stage (center fill in particular with most sticking their shaman blessed equipment in the center near the front wall). I found only a few of the speakers were satisfying in the short/med term (Quad ESL 57, Apogee Duetta, ML CLS IIz w/ Gradient subs) - and none long term. Only one speaker makes that list to me: Verity Parsifal (v3 or later).

I found the Susvara very fine both times I heard it, it had some very high end equipment feeding them. Not having studied the charts on it yet I would bet most of the resonant mess reported would be inaudible to the average listener and/or showing artifacts of the test rig. Most orthos play well to 1k, some to 2k. Many don't do well from 3-6k, some (HFM have issues from 8-11k).

If perfection in transducers was possible, we'd all buy it (if the price could be borne). Absent that, we have to make our way - some via stat sheet, some via "friends" and dealers that keep pushing the latest thing. Few are in the middle - trying to cobble together more/better understanding/execution through filtering out the best of the two opposing sides and testing it to gain experience. Crooked path but over the past 50 years in audio I tried the other two main paths, and concluded 20 years ago both are like one hand clapping on their own.

 

[Steven31]

I am a big fan of closed back headphones. They have many advantages over open back headphones. I think, the only fundamental problem (though bassheads might not see it as a problem!) with the traditional closed back headphone design concept is the standing waves and resonant frequencies that occur behind the drivers, in the housing/inside the sealed cups. But there are ways of dealing with this problem. One way of dealing with it is to introduce damping, that has the effect of cancelling out any resonances/ringing which may occur, and also enhances soundstage. Another solution would be to create bass ports on the cups (like the ones on the Fostex T50RP). I remember buying T40RP (T40RP is essentially the same headphone as T50RP but without the bass ports, as a result, the T40RP's cups are completely sealed/closed off) and being unhappy with it's sound in stock form (sounded bland, too flat and boring to me), so I bought different materials, and modded the hell out of them, applied lots of damping to the inside of the cups and cut out bass ports on them, and afterwards I noticed a huge improvement in it's sound. The T40RP's just seemed to open up completely, like a different headphone entirely, there where improvements all across the board, most notably in the soundstage and imaging. One of my favourite closed back headphones of all time (which I regret parting with) was the Beyerdynamic T70 250 ohm. This headphone had magic foam discs inside the cups, I say magic because the effect they had on the soundstage and imaging was phenomenal, and it's sound had that hard to find quality of a black/dark background. So the engineers at Beyer know all about eliminating standing waves and resonant frequencies, inside the cups. So you see, there are ways of dealing with these things. Personally, I don't favour open back headphones over closed back headphones. I think both have advantages and disadvantages over the other. Furthermore, I prefer to use closed back headphones when producing, mixing and mastering music, and for live monitoring, closed back headphones are a must.

 

[Eagle_Driver]

The thing with the spikes in the upper bass is due to resonances within the closed cups. That lends a blurry and honky character to the sound of most closed-back headphones. I noticed that on all of my closed-back over-ear headphones except my Sony MDR-7506; however, the 7506 has worse problems in the upper mids and lower treble (spiky) than most of my other headphones.

 

[bagwell359]

I am a big fan of closed back headphones. They have many advantages over open back headphones. I think, the only fundamental problem (though bassheads might not see it as a problem!) with the traditional closed back headphone design concept is the standing waves and resonant frequencies that occur behind the drivers, in the housing/inside the sealed cups. But there are ways of dealing with this problem. One way of dealing with it is to introduce damping, that has the effect of cancelling out any resonances/ringing which may occur, and also enhances soundstage. Another solution would be to create bass ports on the cups (like the ones on the Fostex T50RP). I remember buying T40RP (T40RP is essentially the same headphone as T50RP but without the bass ports, as a result, the T40RP's cups are completely sealed/closed off) and being unhappy with it's sound in stock form (sounded bland, too flat and boring to me), so I bought different materials, and modded the hell out of them, applied lots of damping to the inside of the cups and cut out bass ports on them, and afterwards I noticed a huge improvement in it's sound. The T40RP's just seemed to open up completely, like a different headphone entirely, there where improvements all across the board, most notably in the soundstage and imaging. One of my favourite closed back headphones of all time (which I regret parting with) was the Beyerdynamic T70 250 ohm. This headphone had magic foam discs inside the cups, I say magic because the effect they had on the soundstage and imaging was phenomenal, and it's sound had that hard to find quality of a black/dark background. So the engineers at Beyer know all about eliminating standing waves and resonant frequencies, inside the cups. So you see, there are ways of dealing with these things. Personally, I don't favour open back headphones over closed back headphones. I think both have advantages and disadvantages over the other. Furthermore, I prefer to use closed back headphones when producing, mixing and mastering music, and for live monitoring, closed back headphones are a must.

Damping treatments tend to favor absorption at certain frequencies over others. In a room you have diffusion, absorbtion, reflection.

All absorption yields a dead lifeless sound except in a headphone its impossible to do that much under 400 Hz. So ideally you have a backwave that's 100% muted but not in the bass. So it's heavy EQ time or play with bass ports (no good for non-DIY'ers).

Open headphones have varying amount of those 3 elements that say "music" to your brain. Certainly headphones don't match up with best rooms but some of the better designs and mods resemble good room acoustics far better than closed headphones.

 

[Steven31]

I value your opinions, you are certainly very experienced and have been in this game for decades longer than I have, you definitely know what you are talking about, but I am not sure I fully agree with your second sentence about damping treatments being useless at 400 hz and under, in a headphone, if that's what you where implying. It was my understanding (based on the research I done years ago, that i still remember today) that bass ports actually serve a double purpose,- they can help to decrease the unwanted resonances of internal standing waves - emitting from the drivers in a headphone, and also give more energy to the lowest frequencies/bass response (due to more air being able to get in the cups). I don't know if Beyerdynamic still incorporate those exact foam/absorption discs they incorporated in the T70 with their modern high end closed back headphones (the first gen A&K T5P I had didn't even have these discs!) but i'll tell you something - the T70 did not sound like a closed back headphone at all, to me. The soundstage and imaging was truly exceptional for a closed back headphone, and I know for a fact that it had everything to do with the foam/absorption/damping discs attached to the inside of the cups, because I took them off one day (as an experiment, just to see how the sound would change) and it made everything sound noticeably worse, the bass lost it's tightness, soundstage and imaging lost it's precision, and there was nothing to absorb the decibels of standing waves reflecting off the inside surface of the cups. So i'm not sure I agree that damping techniques, such as the one the Beyer engineers incorporated into the design of the T70, have no effect under 400 Hz. If you are an engineer designing an open back headphone, then you don't need to worry at all really, about the affects of standing waves (sound waves emitting from the rear of the drivers in the headphone) resonating at certain frequencies off the inside of the cups, as there is plenty of air and holes/openings on the cups of open back headphones. Another thing I would say is that headphones and speakers can never really be compared. That's apples and oranges.

 

[jonathan c]

Another thing I would say is that headphones and speakers can never really be compared.

…Except when you hold in each palm a Rogers LS3/5a facing your ear…

 

[Steven31]

…Except when you hold in each palm a Rogers LS3/5a facing your ear…

That is a very good point, lol.

 

[ruinedx]

In conclusion always get the open back version if you want a cleaner more transparent less colored sound. also known as higher sound quality.

If you are in an even slightly noisy environment, the closed back will have a vastly higher SNR and arguably better sound - at least for the HD820 vs HD800S. That is why they make the HD820 in the first place.

Also you can't just compare the graphs 1:1 due to the differences in psychoacoustics between a closed and open back. They could have made the HD820 with a similar graph line to the HD800S, and it would have sounded like a boomy mess if they did!

 

[AKGman]

Here we have the legendary openback hd800s vs their closedback version the hd820. It's plain to see the closed back response is much more colored and less clean and smooth:



Same exact problems can be seen on cheaper headphones as well when converted from openback to closedback like dt770 vs dt990.



In conclusion always get the open back version if you want a cleaner more transparent less colored sound. also known as higher sound quality.

The sound is more natural if they are open-back, as the sound can leave the headphone, instead of being forced to reverberate inside the can. You get better sound going into your ear, if some of it is also going out into the room you're in.