CHANGSTAR: Audiophile Headphone Reviews and Early 90s Style BBS
Lobby => Headphone, IEM, and Other Audio Related Discussion => Topic started by: Bill-p on April 29, 2015, 06:57:21 AM
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Preface:
"Planar" as a term hereby groups "electrostatic" and "planar magnetic" (also known as "orthodynamic") headphones together into one classification.
"Dynamic" means anything with a non-flat diaphragm moving in any way to reproduce sound waves.
"Plankton" hereby means small or micro details.
The big claim: Sennheiser HD600 can potentially reproduce micro details better than Stax SR-009.
Alright, guys, let's fight (and hopefully keep it civvy and techy)! :)p1
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1-HD800>009>rest; HE1000 possibly in the mix, no idea where final tweaking tuning puts it.
2-unless you've heard the plankton/micro details, people that haven't will think their more macro details are micro details/plankton.
3-You better copy paste everything from the shoutbox cuz people are going to be too tired to repeat themselves on this....yet again.
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Should we say bright headphones with faster bass decay are good at micro details/plankton. Irrespective of dynamic, planar, iem, ciem.
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I'll write down what I wrote in IRC first before copy-pasta from shoutbox.
OJ asked me which headphone I thought was more resolving, HD800 or SR-009, and my answer was essentially this:
I think SR-009 is more resolving than HD800. SR-009 to me sounds like the diaphragm "stops faster" (whatever that means), so I tend to hear more of those "quiet" or "silent" parts of a recording. Even certain old recordings when going through SR-009 or some other Stax headphones would sound like that. So I tend to be able to "hear" things like someone coughing from 10 rows away, or the woman sitting in front of the camera adjusting her dress, the cameraman breathing, etc.... The same things can be heard with the HD800, but at times, I noticed, in recordings that I'm familiar with that the HD800, instead of just presenting the "silent" parts, also seems to pick up something like "ruffles" (?) during those parts, so it could at times sound "weird". This is consistent with the HD800 no matter how many times I rewind back to that part, and it doesn't sound like constant pink/white noise that mucks up the recording like some lesser dynamic transducers. And yet I really can't quite tell if that's supposed to be a good thing. To me, it isn't, because sometimes, these "ruffles" mask a little bit of information that I would otherwise hear just fine with the SR-009.
Is this confirmation that the HD800 is in fact more resolving, and is able to pick up those small details even when the SR-009 isn't able to? Maybe... but to me, the 009 still gives a better look at whatever detail it does present, and so I really can't quite say the 009 is less resolving.
Basically, it's like talking about computer monitors. I think the HD800 is a monitor that's able to show all of the gradations in the transition from black to white, and yet its black is not very black. It's kinda gray-ish. In contrast, the 009 isn't able to show all of the gradations (maybe its contrast is boosted?) but yet its black is very close to true black, so anything that's on top of that black stands out, as opposed to the HD800's gray-ish kind of black.
Please don't take this as me saying the HD800 sounds "gray". It doesn't. But next to the SR-009, I think the 009 tends to sound less "gray"... or that it presents more of a contrast between the silent and "something" parts of a recording.
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Should we say bright headphones with faster bass decay are good at micro details/plankton.
No. Irrelevant. Being rolled off or overly tilted up won't help either way though. That's false BS 'detail' and doesn't resolve plankton in the mids and bass. Some will say elevated treble might help with SS and imaging but I'm not sure I'm completely on board with that one yet. If it's true it's only part of it.
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DACs and available amp topologies will also play a role.
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IMHO SR009 reproduces microdetails (vocal inflections, slight dynamic changes by the same instruments esp strings, etc) more naturally due to its superior decay and speed. However compared to HD800 (semi-modded with rug liner) the SR009 is more fuzzy sounding and sounds or gives the appearance of being less resolving. HD800 has much better transient attacks, leading edge and definition in spatial images (thanks to the mods). But it trades off naturalness or coherence in the way these details are portrayed.
I think Bill is talking about detail detail, or macro-detail, stuff that actually distract from the music. I am talking about microdetail, e.g. the nuances of the sound of instruments/voices themselves.
Personally speaking, with the Yggy (over 24h) I prefer the EC445 and HD800 over the SR009 and KGSSHV for everything apart from vocals.
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I think if there is big bass with slow decay tends to create a viel.
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I'll write down what I wrote in IRC first before copy-pasta from shoutbox.
OJ asked me which headphone I thought was more resolving, HD800 or SR-009, and my answer was essentially this:
I think SR-009 is more resolving than HD800. SR-009 to me sounds like the diaphragm "stops faster" (whatever that means), so I tend to hear more of those "quiet" or "silent" parts of a recording. Even certain old recordings when going through SR-009 or some other Stax headphones would sound like that. So I tend to be able to "hear" things like someone coughing from 10 rows away, or the woman sitting in front of the camera adjusting her dress, the cameraman breathing, etc.... The same things can be heard with the HD800, but at times, I noticed, in recordings that I'm familiar with that the HD800, instead of just presenting the "silent" parts, also seems to pick up something like "ruffles" (?) during those parts, so it could at times sound "weird". This is consistent with the HD800 no matter how many times I rewind back to that part, and it doesn't sound like constant pink/white noise that mucks up the recording like some lesser dynamic transducers. And yet I really can't quite tell if that's supposed to be a good thing. To me, it isn't, because sometimes, these "ruffles" mask a little bit of information that I would otherwise hear just fine with the SR-009.
Is this confirmation that the HD800 is in fact more resolving, and is able to pick up those small details even when the SR-009 isn't able to? Maybe... but to me, the 009 still gives a better look at whatever detail it does present, and so I really can't quite say the 009 is less resolving.
Basically, it's like talking about computer monitors. I think the HD800 is a monitor that's able to show all of the gradations in the transition from black to white, and yet its black is not very black. It's kinda gray-ish. In contrast, the 009 isn't able to show all of the gradations (maybe its contrast is boosted?) but yet its black is very close to true black, so anything that's on top of that black stands out, as opposed to the HD800's gray-ish kind of black.
Please don't take this as me saying the HD800 sounds "gray". It doesn't. But next to the SR-009, I think the 009 tends to sound less "gray"... or that it presents more of a contrast between the silent and "something" parts of a recording.
I think you don't quite know if you are hearing the headphone, amp or source when comparing the two. You're using unfamiliar gear at meets. With more experience you'd be able to tell. We'll compare notes and talk about it this weekend if you have time and we can see what's what. I'll just leave this here in the meantime.
www.changstar.com/index.php/topic,593.msg12271.html#msg12271 (http://www.changstar.com/index.php/topic,593.msg12271.html#msg12271)
(http://www.changstar.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=593.0;attach=2488;image)
(http://www.changstar.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=593.0;attach=2490;image)
Looks like we'll need to merge this thread with Marv's original one.
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IMHO SR009 reproduces microdetails (vocal inflections, slight dynamic changes by the same instruments esp strings, etc) more naturally due to its superior decay and speed.
Does it? See above... ;)
Elephant in the room is HD800's really need a mod and solid upstream gear to push it's abilities.
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I like my old visualizations better. Need to re-write the program to take ARTA data.
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Heck, there's interesting stuff to be gleaned from Tyll's measurements too. I went ahead and took the best 009 measurement to compare just to be fair. I mean really, there's a stat advantage to be gleaned here beyond 30hz squarewave and mid to low bass distortion? Seems the HD800 wins or draws even on most of these charts to me. I consider the FR charts a matter of taste here and the impedance chart irrelevant to what we are discussing.
www.innerfidelity.com/images/StaxSR009SNSZ92251KGSS.pdf (http://www.innerfidelity.com/images/StaxSR009SNSZ92251KGSS.pdf)
www.innerfidelity.com/images/SennheiserHD800.pdf (http://www.innerfidelity.com/images/SennheiserHD800.pdf)
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Is it true most of the headphones can be in only of following groups
Body, Lush , warmth, Thick , Veiled , (Laid-back)
Dry, Analytical, Airy , Thin , Transparent , Cool,(Forward)
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Is there an automatic way to do multiquote on this forum?
I think MuZo2 brought up a good point. There are certain headphones that have a thick or slow bass, which tends to overbear the entire sound and mask detail. One of my biggest gripes with the LCD2 when I had them was that the bass was so thick (not slow though), that there was no texture at all.
FR is definitely a segment of detail, and can lead to false detail. For instance, if there's a large upper mids peak, you might hear silverware on a live recording a conclude that your HP has "more detail" than another HP because that particular thing was more audible on your HP...when in reality your HP is just putting an emphasis on a certain range of frequencies. The same goes for dips in FR.
I know Anax isn't talking about FR generated detail though. He's talking about the natural ability of the driver to dig up information, which is what I refer to when I mention 'resolution'.
I think electrostats are much more resolving than dynamics in general. Much. The HD800, Qualia, and certain bass light R10s are the only dynamics I'd put into the 'very resolving' camp. The Abyss might be the only ortho I'd put in there, too. The HE1000 I heard sounded pretty bad and I think it was defective, so I'm waiting to give it another shot before I have a serious opinion of it.
Anax, those decays are a bit misleading, I think. The vast majority of the lingering decay on that SR-009 graph is from -40dB to -60dB and less, which is WAY under anything that will be heard with music + ambient noise. Hell, I probably listen at 60 dB a lot of times, so that stuff isn't even anechoic chamber levels of magnitude in comparison. If we look at the -20 dB decay and up (yellow/orange/red), which is much more relevant to real world listening, we'll see the SR-009 is exceptional.
This also doesn't necessarily reflect directly and completely on the driver, as the housing has just as much (or even more) to do with the CSD plots, and the housing for the HD800 is really advanced. I also think Marv's measurements put an even bigger emphasis on the housing, since the cavity is essentially empty under measurement conditions instead of being largely filled by an ear.
I also like the old visualizations more. Really easy to read, and vibrant.
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No, you listen at more like 40-45dB lol, and I listen at 85-90dB. For low volume listening, I never recommend the HD800. It needs to be cranked a bit. I recommend planars like the 009 or even the 002 for IEMs if you don't need isolation.
I just think dynamics are cheaper to produce in general so you just have more bad ones that range a wider price point scale. Are there $20 e-stats? How about $100? $200??
Also, on balance in the speaker world, I'd say I've heard more resolving dynamics than I have e-stat speakers. There might be like two decent planar speaker companies in the world?
Actually the housing is gimping the HD800 a little here. Doesn't have the latest mods.
I too like the old top down look for comparisons. :)p1
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No. Irrelevant. Being rolled off or overly tilted up won't help either way though. That's false BS 'detail' and doesn't resolve plankton in the mids and bass. Some will say elevated treble might help with SS and imaging but I'm not sure I'm completely on board with that one yet. If it's true it's only part of it.
I think most people would believe that a bright headphone is more detailed. To some extent, it's understandable. A footstep or a snap really "pops" out with a treble tilted headphone. I think it takes more experience to understand the details present in every part of the frequency response, but I haven't found a good way to explain that.
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I think most people would believe that a bright headphone is more detailed. To some extent, it's understandable. A footstep or a snap really "pops" out with a treble tilted headphone. I think it takes more experience to understand the details present in every part of the frequency response, but I haven't found a good way to explain that.
You are absolutely right. Thankfully we can let Head-fi deal with that morass of gibberish.
In a way, I think it can come through in the imaging as how it paints a complete picture of an instrument in space. How does a headphone acoustically render the image of an instrument in it's own space relative to the void space, other instruments around it and everything in between them. That ends up being a big part of the "you are there" experience.
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Milos does bring up a good point that is often overlooked in these topics and especially reviews or impressions. Listening level. That can change the entire dynamic of a headphone! I've often told myself to include this in my impressions but I sometimes forget as old habits die hard.
So we need to probably be even more relativistic here as usually is the case with all things.
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Heck, there's interesting stuff to be gleaned from Tyll's measurements too. I went ahead and took the best 009 measurement to compare just to be fair. I mean really, there's a stat advantage to be gleaned here beyond 30hz squarewave and mid to low bass distortion? Seems the HD800 wins or draws even on most of these charts to me. I consider the FR charts a matter of taste here and the impedance chart irrelevant to what we are discussing.
www.innerfidelity.com/images/StaxSR009SNSZ92251KGSS.pdf (http://www.innerfidelity.com/images/StaxSR009SNSZ92251KGSS.pdf)
www.innerfidelity.com/images/SennheiserHD800.pdf (http://www.innerfidelity.com/images/SennheiserHD800.pdf)
SR-009 distortions figures look better to me. At 100 dB, the SR-009 is basically at or below 0.1% THD throughout the measured spectrum. There are a couple spots where it hits about 0.2%. HD800 gets to about 0.1% THD (and not really below) from ~1 Khz and up, with some small peaks between 3-5Khz. From 20 Hz to 30 Hz @ 100dB, HD800 has 50x-10x the THD of the SR-009. HD800 300 Hz square wave is better though.
If anything, those graphs seem to separate the SR-009 from the HD800 a bit more, but I don't think those measurements are necessarily an indicator of resolution (topic) to be fair.
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SR-009 distortions figures look better to me. At 100 dB, the SR-009 is basically at or below 0.1% THD throughout the measured spectrum. There are a couple spots where it hits about 0.2%. HD800 gets to about 0.1% THD (and not really below) from ~1 Khz and up, with some small peaks between 3-5Khz. From 20 Hz to 30 Hz @ 100dB, HD800 has 50x-10x the THD of the SR-009. HD800 300 Hz square wave is better though.
If anything, those graphs seem to separate the SR-009 from the HD800 a bit more, but I don't think those measurements are necessarily an indicator of resolution (topic) to be fair.
Who's listening at 100dB? On one hand, you're telling me most people only listen at 60dB including yourself, which I doubt. So -60dB is irrelevant. On the other you are saying we should look at 100dB for accurate interpretations? I'd say that's nice headroom to have but I think at these distortion levels the relative difference is small and insignificant compared to what the CSD's are doing. So yeah, I agree with you, it's probably not THAT relevant to plankton.
I already discussed the 30hz-50hz performance and always said bass distortion is the 800's achilles heel. Still, I prefer that flaw over the general lack of midbass or presence in most Stats.
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I think electrostats are much more resolving than dynamics in general. Much. The HD800, Qualia, and certain bass light R10s are the only dynamics I'd put into the 'very resolving' camp. The Abyss might be the only ortho I'd put in there, too. The HE1000 I heard sounded pretty bad and I think it was defective, so I'm waiting to give it another shot before I have a serious opinion of it.
IME, well amped HD600/650 are more resolving than the Lambda I tried. Slower, muddier, less detailed (macro dyn) but more resolving (micro dyn). maybe it's just me but I really love the speed and the overall sound fo best lambdas but their resolution didn't impress me. The music sound a bit too washed for me.
SR009 is another story . This one sits on my personal audio summit with a very very little bunch of headphone.
EDIT : definitely agree on the listening volume importance and definitely agree with the fact that the HD800 is better at louder volume than average for me. It's probably relative to fletcher-Munson curves.
EDIT2: Just saw the point was over debated on the shoutbox :)p13
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Don't get me wrong, I like the 009 when properly driven quite a bit. But it would be as a low volume backup phone to replace my modded HE5. That and the lack of quality amp choices is also problem. Just too expensive to have as a backup for my tastes and needs atm. I have other fish to fry first.
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No, you listen at more like 40-45dB lol, and I listen at 85-90dB. For low volume listening, I never recommend the HD800. It needs to be cranked a bit. I recommend planars like the 009 or even the 002 for IEMs if you don't need isolation.
I just think dynamics are cheaper to produce in general so you just have more bad ones that range a wider price point scale. Are there $20 e-stats? How about $100? $200??
Also, on balance in the speaker world, I'd say I've heard more resolving dynamics than I have e-stat speakers. There might be like two decent planar speaker companies in the world?
Actually the housing is gimping the HD800 a little here. Doesn't have the latest mods.
I too like the old top down look for comparisons. :)p1
It's true lots of cheap headphones are dynamics, but come on, you know I'm not referring to the cheap general pop stuff. I'm talking about headphones that get attention in our hobby (which admittedly, can be cheap ;) ). Even then, an entry level Stax isn't nearly as expensive as people think for whatever reason, and I think they're WAY more resolving than dynamics in the same price range.
I think dynamics make way more sense in the speaker world than the HP world. Don't get me wrong, there are some really great dynamic headphones out there, especially once price/convenience are taken into account. However, taking those two large factors out of the picture and solely focusing on ultimate performance, electrostats seem like more of a no brainer for HPs than for speakers as long as certain parameters are met. The big negatives for electrostatic speakers are: early bass roll off, limited volume level before arcing air, and beaming treble. Good estat headphones take care of these issues: a sealing, non leaky pad gives you flat bass response; the proximity to the ear is close enough that arcing is very unlikely at listening levels; and headphones point right at the ear anyways, so beaming isn't an issue. The biggest sound quality negative remaining, based on what I've heard from other members, is bass impact, but I'm pretty sure I know how to fix this a bit. I'll show you at the meet after this summer meet.
The HD800 housing can be improved upon, as evidenced by your and others' mods, but it's still more advanced than a leather earpad is all I'm saying. Leather is a little reflective...the CSDs can be cleaned up a bit by lining the inside of the Stax earpads with felt or some other absorbing material.
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Who's listening at 100dB? On one hand, you're telling me most people only listen at 60dB including yourself, which I doubt. So -60dB is irrelevant. On the other you are saying we should look at 100dB for accurate interpretations? I'd say that's nice headroom to have but I think at these distortion levels the relative difference is small and insignificant compared to what the CSD's are doing. So yeah, I agree with you, it's probably not THAT relevant to plankton.
I already discussed the 30hz-50hz performance and always said bass distortion is the 800's achilles heel. Still, I prefer that flaw over the general lack of midbass or presence in most Stats.
I actually had a feeling you'd say this. I only brought up those numbers because you linked the graphs and asked what was better about the SR-009 measurements than the HD800 measurements. I'm only mentioning what's better about the measurements, not saying anything about those differences being audible. I don't think 0.1% and 0.08% THD are gonna be distinguishable from each other FWIW. OT and the differences probably aren't a big deal until you get to the bass, as you said. On a tangent, it'd be nice if measurements were shown at 75/100 dB levels instead, so we could see a set of measurements for the average listener and measurements pushing the driver a bit.
Also, I didn't say "most people" "only listen at 60 dB". I only mentioned what "I" probably listen at "a lot of times".
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Add a Pioneer Monitor 10 to the mix. Of all headphones why this one?
The reason is simple. That headphone in good condition is one of the flattest sounding headphones you can find. Low listening volumes are no problem due to its isolation. I would check with Takato.
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There might be like two decent planar speaker companies in the world?
Which would those be?
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Who's listening at 100dB? On one hand, you're telling me most people only listen at 60dB including yourself, which I doubt. So -60dB is irrelevant. On the other you are saying we should look at 100dB for accurate interpretations? I'd say that's nice headroom to have but I think at these distortion levels the relative difference is small and insignificant compared to what the CSD's are doing. So yeah, I agree with you, it's probably not THAT relevant to plankton.
The CSD reverberation is though - even at -36 dB the resonances are audible. They are generally coming from the earcup and pads and not the driver itself with a few exceptions... At a typical 50 sones (or ~60 dB) this nets about 30 dB background "reverb". Just barely audible, but more than equivalent noise level. -50 dB we can start talking about pristine.
And of course the speed of the initial decay - if the CSDs are properly synced they will show it. Overly long decay obscures detail in transients.
Modded HD800 is very good in this regard, almost as good as IEMs. Similarly HD650. "Ortho wall" might be an important flaw here, likely a resonant mode caused by sudden clamping force holding the membrane, causing a reflection. Dynamic driver conical design makes this force increase gradually, plus it attempts to emulate a point source rather than planar source.
This is a speculative cause of the plankton difference though.
On the other hand, IEMs, esp. balanced armature, have obvious resonant peaks. In BA, you get a main mechanical resonance of the armature somewhere in the lower highs, 3-7kHz range, which cannot be removed. In dynamic IEMs, you might be spared it, but they are more vulnerable to shell and acoustic tube design instead - plus damping.
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The thing I notice with the HD800, is that the area in which it's elevated the most (6khz) is also the area which you tend to hear most room reflection and acoustic effects. The HD800 is very good at painting a picture of a room. The soundstage and black background of the HD800 makes recordings sound more like actual music as opposed to being a recording. By comparison, all the planar magnetics have a disjointed soundscape that's not realistic.
Planars on the other hand (I've had experience with HE-400, 400i, 560, LCD2, LCD3, LCD-X and LCD-XC) all seem to be very good at instrument separation. During a busy passage where multiple instruments harmonize, the planars will do a superb job of delineating the different rich fundamental tones of the instruments as they trail off into space. This is most likely a mix of their super linear lower midrange and inherently fast diaphragm speed.
I have no experience with electrostats.
Both of these are not what I would consider plankton-- hell I don't even know what that is, but they're two different types of details, and they both excel at these particular strengths.
As far as showcasing subtle instrument dynamic shifts in volume, I found nothing better than the LCD3c I had, but I've never had the chance to compare that directly to the HD800 I have right now, nor is my upstream gear good enough for me to make absolute statements regarding it.
This whole stopping and starting speed thing is bullshit. The driver is moving super fast during complex passages to render multiple tones at once, nobody is hearing the stopping speed of a diaphragm.
My average listening volume is 75db.
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I think you don't quite know if you are hearing the headphone, amp or source when comparing the two. You're using unfamiliar gear at meets. With more experience you'd be able to tell. We'll compare notes and talk about it this weekend if you have time and we can see what's what. I'll just leave this here in the meantime.
www.changstar.com/index.php/topic,593.msg12271.html#msg12271 (http://www.changstar.com/index.php/topic,593.msg12271.html#msg12271)
(graphs truncated since I don't wanna make the response take up more space) ;)
Yea... I need to hear moar gears, and get familiarized with moar gears. Each time I have heard the SR-009, it was always out of different setups, and it's kinda hard to tell.
Same with HD800.
But what's apparent to me is that the HD800 in all of the different setups always sounds like it has an oversharpen filter (6KHz peak?) that stands out, whereas the 009 doesn't exhibit this "behavior". 009 always sounds more relaxed to me, though not necessarily smoother.
So I hear these 2 headphones as such: HD800 bright and sharp but smooth, SR-009 more relaxed, cleaner, clearer, and yet something sounds like it's missing up top. Not necessarily grainy or un-smooth, but more of a "huh? I thought I missed something" kinda feeling for me.
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HD800's THD performance is superb. The only thing that those plots tell us is that the HD800 has poorer power handling; i.e. becomes non-linear at high amplitudes. Easy to think of really, the HD800 starts moving outside of it's magnetic gap and you get a non-linear transfer function hence distortion. Whereas with the Stax you have the diaphragm oscillating between two evenly spaced stators so it stays linear throughout its swing. Until you push it too hard and bounce the stators and get that hard clipping sound. Who wants to make the tube distortion vs. opamp clipping analogy here? :P :))
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This whole stopping and starting speed thing is bullshit. The driver is moving super fast during complex passages to render multiple tones at once, nobody is hearing the stopping speed of a diaphragm.
Gooby pls
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I'd argue that the CSD measurements that Anax brought up are revealing of the differences between the two, but maybe not in the way that we might first interpret them. I don't think any of us would say that we hear the 009 as having a hashy or rough treble. On the contrary, I think most of us would say that it's on the smooth side. But I do agree with a point that Marv brought up in the past, w.r.t the Stax having a certain plastic sheen to the musical texture. Maybe that stat hash (stored energy) is part of what we're hearing there.
Milos: I would consider the idea that maybe your low listening levels prevent you from getting the full scope of all the microdetail in a given recording. Like you said, when you listen at such low levels (I'd guess around 50dB, maybe you could verify this for us), then a lot of that really low level information will be so small it can just get buried beneath ambient room noise and so on. I think a big reason that Marv, Anax, and myself often find ourselves in agreement w.r.t. gear is that we all tend to listen to closer to reference levels (~80dBA). That gives you the ability for realistic macro dynamics (~100dBA peaks) as well as all the rest of the plankton floating around below that.
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THB, I also never understood both the "fast" and "stopping speed" of diaphragms as in stats are perceivably superior to all else. To me abrupt time domain behaviour and transients correlates more will ultrasonics, unless phase response gets all effed up at the transition band. I don't remember the 600 being all crapped up phase wise in the treble and transition band.
The 009 and 007 are not bad at all. And they do sound pretty clean. Distortion levels are remarkably low throughout the audible band (more so than pretty much all technologies unless I'm missing something). But I also feel something is lost in resolution. Perhaps is partially due to mids and treble being not-so-smooth, or maybe how things interact. I mentioned in the shoutbox is that Stats must always seal, unlike other open dynamic cans, and that can impose limitations as to what can be done in terms of resolution from mids to treble. The seal however may help in bringing out quality and clean bass.
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Looks like there is a versus between HD800 and planar headphones. I'll try to provide my view on that and some ideas.
In my opinion, THD is a part of what hides plankton, it modifies signal, and harmonics of some signal may mask another simultaneous signal. This is the primary cause of lack of microdetail for most phones, but the HD800 has low enough THD not to have this issue. Stats and orthos are still better, but that's just one side of a coin.
CSD, on the other hand, shows for how long an "old" signal is present, and echo of the old signal could obscure the new one. HD800's CSD plot makes it evident as to why they are so detailed - they aren't feeding your ears old signal, they suppress the past well.
Initially I've wanted to say in this post that HD800's ring driver plays a big role in their fast decay, but after doing the math, I see that it isn't so. However, the ring driver still does play a role. Massive ortho and stat drives have a big difference between sound path run-lengths between the center of the driver to ear canal path and edge of the driver to ear canal path - high enough to cause some combing effect. Although, as ear isn't symmetric and sound from different regions across the edge of driver is affected in a different way, there's no obvious combing effect. Still, all that sound from the edges is somewhat old. Ring driver has much lesser difference while retaining high enough surface area.
Also, perhaps, the ring driver can also benefit from a phase plug? It could even really work with an ring driver, better than with an conventional one, as the driver is more or less, huh, uniphase relative to the "focus" of a plug. Would be better though if the diaphragm could move along a conical trajectory, although that's out of the question for dynamic driver. A planar with specifically knurled diaphragm could do that.
THB, I also never understood both the "fast" and "stopping speed" of diaphragms as in stats are perceivably superior to all else.
I tend to think that this mostly means proper air damping and relative lack of correlated resonances. Modern orthos aren't really that heavy in the diaphragm actually, but they have more stored energy in the driver as there are more "pockets" for air to be trapped within.
That said, I don't mean there aren't any resonances in diaphragmatic drivers. Beside fundamental resonance, there's also higher modes, which wouldn't be damped well, as both peaks and lows of the mode would occur on the same side of membrane and air won't be damping them really. The seemingly only way to get rid of that is indeed a stiff diaphragm with elastic edges - somewhat like high-frequency dynamic driver. MrSpeakers' Primes and Ether seem to use something like that. Although the descripion on site reads as if it's throughoutly knurled diaphragm, photos of Ether's diaphragm look more like it's only knurled at the edges, but the photo I've seen isn't good enough to really tell.
After that, we go to earside cup and earpad construction. Here we have pretty much all headphones on one side, and HD800 and Sony's MDR-F1 and MA900 on the other side. All planars and stats have "standard" construction of an flat baffle with driver in it and earpad attached. HD800 has that massive earside with semi-permeable mesh. One thing I can think of is that they've tried to decrease acoustic impedance of HD800 while providing at least some isolation and pressure chamber for bass. Sony went straightforward and essentially made a supersized on-ear headphone, fixing bass by using bass lens. Sony's approach should result in lower impedance and it seems to be so as they're apparently praised for the soundstage on par with HD800s while being much simpler in general. Our ears seem to detect acoustic impedance caused upon ears by headphones and limit the sound localisaton distance accordingly. The lower the impedance, the further away can the perceived sound source be. The higher, the more in-head localisation becomes. IEMs may have perfect direction to sound source, but zero distance. But that's not our topic, albeit it is also a very interesting factor to investigate.
The earside construction of HD800 is non-flat, somewhat permeable and has velour pads - all together that provides an environment much less prone to reflections and standing waves than standard construction with an flat baffle. Most orthos and all stats further exaggerate reflectiveness by using leather pads, which have highly reflectant inner surface, to provide deeper bass. The baffles are often not even covered in anything, and when they are, it's usually thin felt which isn't really as good at absorbing sound as we want. Driver structures in ortho headphones are also non-covered, which is reflectant and bad again. Personally, when I first modded my T50RP I put acoustic foam on the whole baffle around the driver, but I couldn't listen to them for long - it was just painful to my ears, and I haven't heard anything particularly wrong in the sound. I noticed they're painful even with no sound and put foam all over the driver, leaving only the holes in the driver open. That fixed the issue and made sound noticeably better. There is, for example, the Fuzzor mod which does the same, so at least the modding community recognises that issue. Still, would be better if planar drivers were put in enclosures not so prone to reflections.
Back on earpads, IMO, the way out of bass-reflection dilemma is simple - use a leather pad without any leather on inner side - just open foam/fiber filler. That way they would be even less reflectant than standard velour pads while maintaining seal. Again, I've lined inner side of my T50RP's earpads (beyer gel pads) with acoustic foam, and that increased clarity a bit and made the sound more comfortable. That's subjective though, as I've made the mod so I should be inclined to hear improvements every time I do something. The aforementioned pain thing, though, surely wasn't so subjective.
So it seems quite obvious that HD800s enclosures are designed with proper goals in mind, even if they aren't perfect perhaps, while ortho drivers and stats are put in enclosures that doesn't really do them justice.
Oh, and additionally, I've once read an note about filling an horn loudspeaker with reticulated foam, to reduce reflections within the horn. It could be applied to headphones as well, perhaps cutting out clear paths in foam over driver/ openings in the driver, perhaps in a form of a phase plug (for HD 800). Could further improve CSDs.
Sorry for my English, haven't written anything in it for a long time.
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This is a reply to Nevod, but I don't have as strong or rigorous a technical background.
I also damped the inside of the earpad of a T50rp (using alpha pads) and found that it improved clarity. I find that there is a paradox in damping, commonly stated as over/underdamping, but more accurately stated simply as damping in the a certain location in the headphone and earpad, with a certain material, with a certain density/compaction of said material, and with certain spaces left open without damping.
Damping, to me, is about making the perceived (not measured absolute!) frequency response to me as linear as possible, using the AudioCheck 20-20k Hz log sine sweep, and reducing the pain from peaks and dips, and therefore resonances. I can then hear all the sounds inherent in the track to the extent of the ability of the driver to produce the signal. I like to think of the driver being able to produce the entire audio spectrum, but needing damping and housing to stabilize the driver and allow it to do so.
Bass guitar, for instance. In Giorgio by Morodor, a headphone with supreme bass control (say LCD2) sounds dull and with slow bass because the bass guitar has higher harmonics in the treble (wow! Bass tones produce treble!) in the attack, reverb, and decay that give the cues to the speed of it. "Speed" being the rate of detail, with each oscillation of treble frequency being another audible, distinct detail, and thus demonstrating the driver's ability (aided by damping/housing) to produce sound sequentially with full force (so, sound pressure) through the entire spectra, and thus timbre of an instrument, and thus realism. Resonances anywhere take away from this. This ability to most uninhibitedly produce the simultaneous/sequential frequency components of an instrument (and also therefore, of the background, like breathing, etc, as others mentioned) is what I hold as plankton. Flat frequency response (or perceived, at least) is important in showing plankton in all frequencies. Smoothness of the frequency response is a corollary of it.
Certain sonic aspects of most every sound exist across the spectrum. A concert bass drum, for example, certainly uses the whole spectrum as the felt padded drumstick smacks the drum skin and produces first a treble frequency and then the fundamental bass note, and then mids harmonics and finally the treble reverb, all the way up to 20k, which most say is air, but which is important (in smoothness of response and quantity) to give the recording's intended sense of space.
So the universal criteria for all headphones in detecting/producing plankton is CSD, THD, and frequency response, each roughly as important as the other, though beyond a certain point, it is more rewarding to focus one, rather than another. Most flagships and hi fi phones have decent enough THD that originate solely from the driver, so we work with modding the csd and frequency response, and a side effect is decreased harmonic distortion in addition. The best t50rp mods do this, the driver being capable enough.
I would agree with Purrin's concession to the HD800 as being able to produce the deepest plankton. The ring driver design and massive magnet are effective. But it's housing and damping need more work. A ring driver planar sounds kinda fun right now. I don't know if that would push ortho design over dynamic.
A lower tension/thinner working membrane allows smaller signals to not get nullified out by the material's mechanical properties. . .
I think most of this has been discussed before, however fragmented throughout the fourm, save the fundamental importance of earpad front of driver damping Nevod brought up (and Jerg, with fuzzor, Purrin's felt Abyss and tp PS1000, Bill's dt770. . .).
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graean,
I don't have much background either. :)
I'd say that the process of making frequency response linear (doesn't matter objective or subjective, everyone has own goals) is tuning. Damping is one of the methods, particularly it's adding resistance in the air flow path to even response out. Can be uneven indeed
It's hard to define what plankton is, as microdetail as a term is just a thought up word with no fixed meaning behind it. Everyone understands his own. In my opinion, microdetail is just that - low-level sounds that are often obscured by distortions of some kind. I have to say though, resonances don't really take away. They actually add old signal, retain its energy and release it when the old signal is off, potentially masking low-level sounds. Could be really nullifying them though if the signals are close enough in frequency and erroneous signal is out of phase. Could even exaggerate them. By the way, one of thoughts of what causes brightness on not high-freq-heavy phones is that - phase shifts of different signals might cause them to add up to produce extremely high singular amplitude peaks.
True take-away of sound isn't really a thing. Though, again, I've read once that voice coil heating in dynamic headphone can cause transient sensitivity loss due to magnet heating. There were even some calcs showing it isn't something unprobable. Such kind of distortion could really take away low-level sounds that occur after loud passages.
Mind you that frequency response isn't the beginning, it's the end result of all the resonances, dampings, other stored energies and dissipators. There is also phase responce, which together with FR can tell you everything about what really happens down there, but its derivatives are easier to understand. And they again can't account for signal-dependent distortions like thermal distortion mentioned above.
HD800s are technically great, many things done for a first time. Ring driver is a great thing. Housing is also a masterpiece compared to other phones, even if not 100% for the result, but at least for the goal. It adressed acoustic impedance and helped tame earside reflections by the way. Of course, they still can be made better - even just taking reflections in deeper consideration, like with Anax mod. Mass manufacturer also might not be really able to adress these issues due to requirements of mass production, quality control and perhaps not good enough repeatability of materials required.
Lastly, I wanted to say not about damping, it's a well known and huge topic, I am only adressing the importance of fighting reflections on the earside, which has just began getting traction. You don't want to affect damping with it, it's another thing. The mods you've mentioned are about that too, as I understand. You've mentioned damping some spaces and not damping others, true, damping might leave some parts of the driver undamped - a bass lens would be an example. But damping should provide at least some restriction to direct sound flow, that's what it's about. If damping isn't in the way of sound directly radiated from driver, it's not damping.
Oh, sorry for the harsh-looking post, I didn't mean that. I just want to be settled on terminology. Talking with different understanding of termins would be like talking in mutually unknown languages. :)
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By the way, one of thoughts of what causes brightness on not high-freq-heavy phones is that - phase shifts of different signals might cause them to add up to produce extremely high singular amplitude peaks.
Sounds interesting. Have you seen any measurements to support this?
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Though, again, I've read once that voice coil heating in dynamic headphone can cause transient sensitivity loss due to magnet heating. There were even some calcs showing it isn't something unprobable. Such kind of distortion could really take away low-level sounds that occur after loud passages.
Lets say we play an HD800 really loud, say 105dB AVERAGE SPL.
That takes 5mW of power.
Lets assume a thermal resistance of free air. (100oC/W)
The voicecoil would heat up about 0.5oC (0.9oF).
Assuming 120dB AVERAGE SPL. = 160mW would increase the voicecoil temperature by 16oC (29oF)
Personally I would not be afraid of heating up the relatively very large magnet to levels where the magnetic fieldstrength would be compromised without destroying my eardrums or the voicecoils (if I had an HD800) in the process ... :D
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Sounds interesting. Have you seen any measurements to support this?
Nope, that was just a guess by someone.
Solderdude,
The post I've seen was primarily about loudspeaker tweeters.
Eh, calculations I've made before are all wrong stuff. Assuming heat transfer rate at the voice coil surface as 15 W/m.sq. (for forced convection, should be similar given coil is moving) and voice coil diameter as 5 cm and height as 1 cm I get 10 C. Much less than that on the magnet, so yes, not an issue for headphones.
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Assuming 120dB AVERAGE SPL. = 160mW would increase the voicecoil temperature by 16oC (29oF)
Personally I would not be afraid of heating up the relatively very large magnet to levels where the magnetic fieldstrength would be compromised without destroying my eardrums or the voicecoils (if I had an HD800) in the process ... :D
Curie point of ~300 deg C is needed for permanent neodymium magnet to lose domain arrangements. I have seen a speaker transducer catch a fire, but I think it's magnet was ok afterwards.
Perhaps at some temperatures closing 200 deg C the lacquer around coil wire would melt away, causing shorts?
It got me thinking when probing an amp build that had 8V dc.
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Thanks for correcting and clarifying for me, Nevod.
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Where does separation come into all this? Do you guys consider that a subset of detail (micro or macro) or consider it to be it's own category?
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Where does separation come into all this? Do you guys consider that a subset of detail (micro or macro) or consider it to be it's own category?
I think it's certainly a facilitator. I've never heard a highly resolving phone that was blurry or smeared. So I'd definitely think it was a higly important prerequisite. Though high separation doesn't guarantee resolution, let alone 'plankton'. I can think of some DACs and IEMs that were highly separated and well imaged but were missing ambient cues and detail or had them smoothed over.
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Though high separation doesn't guarantee resolution, let alone 'plankton'. I can think of some DACs and IEMs that were highly separated and well imaged but were missing ambient cues and detail or had them smoothed over.
So is that the category you'd put Lambdas in? Their separation is the reason I seem to be in love with them lately.