Headphones

And now for something completely different…

The difference between listening to music using speakers or a headphone is striking.

 

When listening to speakers:

• both ears receive the direct sound from both channels, the sound will mix
• for each channel the far ear will receive the sound a fraction of a second later
• for each channel each ear will hear the indirect sound as reflected from the walls, floor (bass!) and ceiling.
• again the far ear will receive the indirect sound a fraction later

When listening to a headphone, each ear will receive 1 and 1 channel only. No mixing, no delay, no indirect sound.

The latter means that the room acoustics are eliminated.

More details can be found here.

Crossfeed

You can simulate the HRTF by using a crossfeed.
Benjamin B. Bauer was one the pioneers.
A famous article by him: Stereophonic Earphones and Binaural Loudspeakers.
JAES Volume 9 Number 2 pp. 148-151; April 1961.

 

A crossfeed emulates the HRTF by taking the signal from one channel, EQ and delay it and feed it into the other channel and visa versa.

Your media player might have one or there is a plug-in.

A VST plug-in and a lot more about headphones can be found here: BlogOhl

A VST plug-in simulating both the HRTF and the room acoustics is Isone Pro

• Zero latency processing
• Low CPU load
• Sample rate support up to 384 kHz
• Customisable HRTF's
• Customisable listening room and distance
• Wide variety of loudspeaker models
• Support for 64 bits audio data processing.
  

The same functionality as Isone Pro but now in hardware plus a little bit more:

Smyth Realiser A8 USD 3,360.00  

Includes Headtracking and In ear measurement

Bundled with a Stax SR-202

Measurements

HeadRoom has measurements of a lot of headphones.
They explain what these measurements indicate and enables you to compare up to four models on frequency response, distortion, impedance, isolation and square wave response.
This won't tell you how it will sound but gives you a nice indication.

This graph tells you that Shure SE530 is louder at the low frequencies than Etymotic ER-4S.

It also rolled-off the highs much more so it will probably sound bass heavy.

 

Both in-ear models offer a better sound isolation than the open Sennheiser HD800

 

Both in-ears produces a lot of harmonics compared with the HD800.

 

A little bit of Latin

Yes, Latin helps in case of headphones.

 

What kind of headphone do you have?
Oh, a circumaural one.
What the hell is that?
That’s one surrounding the pinnae.

 

Circumaural headphones surround the ear.

 

Supra-aural headphones sit on top of the ears

Sennheiser HD 414

 

Intra-aural ends our Latin lesson.
These are placed in the ear.

Earbuds are placed directly outside the ear canal

 

B&O A8

IEM (In Ear Monitor).are inserted in the ear canal

Etymotic HF 5

 

You might conjecture up the Latin your self, one sitting on top of your head

Jecklin Float

Information

The place to discuss headphones:

How to equalize your headphones

 

Various articles about headphones: