[zmorris]

Why does it seem that headphone technology always stays at stagnant level or even reverts to a worse state as time goes on, while advancements in other technology such as computing (CPUs, hard drives, video cards), television (LCD, plasma, OLED), and audio/video distribution improve at a much faster rate? If you look at the "top 100 headphones" or "best phones ever" threads, everyone seems to favor the discontinued R10s, L3000s, K1000s, DX1000s, Qualias, etc. which were all developed years ago, and I don't think it's all because of nostalgia reasons. No company seems to be improving their new or upcoming models based on these tried and true frameworks and rather focus more on mass-producing inferior products. Why can't we have better drivers, better voice coils, better cables, better housing, better material, better workmanship, better specifications on headphones that are currently out in the market today and will be coming out in the future?

 

[vorlonix]

the current state of headphone tech is much like speaker tech. speakers from even the 80's sound great.

there's only so much you can do with the moving of air.

unlike cpu's which can be shrunk, made faster, better, to the point of infinity.
or LCD which can be improved on viewing angle and response times, etc.

 

[woopididi]

you are asking a lot of good and complex questions.
maybe you should try to ask the manufacturers themselves.

 

[nickchen]

Stagnation on a quite high level at least.

And "monster" cans such as L3000, K1000 or R10 tended to end in a financial disaster for the manufacturers - to high costs for development, but no adequate sales as return. The golden age (in respect of saleable quanties) for headphones was between ~1985 and ~1992, and that is exactly the decade when such monster fons were invented.

 

[b0dhi]

One of the reasons is that a big leap in transducer technology (such as electrostatic, piezo, plasma, etc) usually means you can't just plug the new headphone into any 3.5mm socket and expect it to work. Usually you have to buy specialised equipment, which makes it more expensive, less convenient to use, less compatible and harder to market.

 

[krmathis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by zmorris /img/forum/go_quote.gif No company seems to be improving their new or upcoming models based on these tried and true frameworks and rather focus more on mass-producing inferior products.

A bit wrong aren't you?
Cause Stax released a new top model (or models) just 4 months ago, with several improvement from the previous models.

Sennheiser, Sony, Grado, AKG, Audio-technica on the other hand...

 

[nickchen]

**sigh**

Imagine we were all Staxers, that would be the end of all wars and all famines...

 

[Punnisher]

I think it's because improvements in hi-fi are subjective and can't be easily quantified like computer technology can.

 

[kool bubba ice]

Quote:

Originally Posted by zmorris /img/forum/go_quote.gif Why does it seem that headphone technology always stays at stagnant level or even reverts to a worse state as time goes on, while advancements in other technology such as computing (CPUs, hard drives, video cards), television (LCD, plasma, OLED), and audio/video distribution improve at a much faster rate? If you look at the "top 100 headphones" or "best phones ever" threads, everyone seems to favor the discontinued R10s, L3000s, K1000s, DX1000s, Qualias, etc. which were all developed years ago, and I don't think it's all because of nostalgia reasons. No company seems to be improving their new or upcoming models based on these tried and true frameworks and rather focus more on mass-producing inferior products. Why can't we have better drivers, better voice coils, better cables, better housing, better material, better workmanship, better specifications on headphones that are currently out in the market today and will be coming out in the future?

Easy. They are not profitable. Why spend a lot of cash on R&D when you just lose money. There is no incentive to make them...Expensive headphones don't sell well.. & if headphones like the 701/650 had to be bought at retail, they would sell even less.. How many people outside of headfi have the 900.00 W5000, or the 1,000 JVC1000? Very, very, small.. & a lot has to do with consumer ignorance.. People generally feel headphones are a 2nd class alternative to speakers, something you have to buy to enjoy late nightmusic/movies..& automatically think speakers are better becasuse they are speakers.. While headphones, aren't 'great with audio', so spending over 50.00 isn't worth it..

 

[el_matt0]

i have to agree with most stuff thats been said here. definitely a large part of it has to do with the market, as bubba ice says, 99% of people wont know a grado from a sennheiser, so beyond your 50 dollar sony headphones you can grab from london drugs, a lot of people wont venture much deeper into the headphone world. and thats not even mentioning amps/source (where undeniably the most money is spent), which is a territory that most non-audiophiles dont even KNOW about let alone venture into (id say your average joe probably doesnt know a good pair of headphones needs to be well amped beyond the headphone out of your ipod)!

in addition to that, i think ultimately even moreso punisher is along the right track. theres a limit to what the human ear can perceive, and even with audio technology of past decades, it sounds PRETTY damned good to our ears. at a certain point - the benefits will FAR outweigh whatever costs need to go into researching new technologies (arguably we are already at this stage??). whereas something like a computer can just keep on getting faster and faster (and we can measure this), despite the fact that we can match components better, get better part tolerances, better separation of components, less interference, etc, in audio - the end "measurement" tool is just the human ear! its a fact that there are physical/anatomical limits to what we can perceive - beyond that its merely just preference!

 

[ch28kid]

Maybe 10 years from now when nanotechnology becomes mainstream, we might have IEM with 100 balanced armatures.

I think there is still room for improvement.

 

[el_matt0]

well, within reason i agree. sure once we develop a totally NEW way to reproduce sound, not using contemporary drivers etc etc, then FINE i agree, 100 years from now, people wont likely be wearing the same headphones - hell, they probably wont be wearing headphones at all, some other weird devices will exist by that point!

within reason though i think there are DEFINITELY audible limits to how far we can go with current technology without designing completely new driver topology etc...

 

[Uncle Erik]

There simply is not enough demand for high-end headphones. If it was there, we would have them.

There are some excellent headphones currently being manufactured. You don't need one of the top tier headphones to enjoy music and you might be surprised how well something like a HD-650 scales with a high-end amp and source.

 

[vhobhstr]

Humanity is at war with an advanced society, and humanity is losing. To make us (humanity) think that we're progressing, this society is feeding us their technology a little at a time. We have faster computers every year and miracle drugs appearing for almost any known illness. But our leaders and brightest minds are being replaced by impostors at an an alarming rate.

So why doesn't headphone technology improve every year? It's because this society doesn't have headphone technology. They listen to music cybernetically.

My post is just science fiction, by the way.

 

[pdennis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by vhobhstr /img/forum/go_quote.gif My post is just science fiction, by the way.

Or maybe that's just what you want us to think.