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CrelbowMannschaft t1_ja5lszz wrote

Reply to comment by Luke_bxl in How do I listen for "detail" in music? by West-Cheek-156

Controversial but rational take: all of the above is the human brain and ear's way of interpreting variations in frequency response. Sound waves have amplitude, frequency, and stop/start time. There are no other characteristics of sound waves. Every headphone that works is capable of vibrating at least 20,000 times per second. That's fast enough to cover all frequencies, but the differences in amplitude between frequencies create the illusions you describe.

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Liesera t1_ja70yx1 wrote

I agree with this take, but the problem with this take is that it's functionally useless. FR is heavily smoothed because of how inconsistent it is with fine-grained measurements, especially in the treble, which is mostly what affects perceived detail. The way FR is measured is also just a constant volume one-tone sweep, which doesn't really catch anything nonlinear. Time-related response isn't measured either.

The more specific take would be "FR, split across all frequencies, of the sound reaching your ears, across all different speeds and volumes, is all that matters" but it's basically useless trivia at this point.

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CrelbowMannschaft t1_ja71851 wrote

There won't be audible timing issues from equipment designed to vibrate more than 20,000 times per second.

Edit to add: I don't know what nonlinear means in this context.

>a constant volume one-tone sweep, which doesn't really catch anything nonlinear

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Liesera t1_ja73hnj wrote

It's not just the frequency of vibration that matters, but also the impulse response. Theoretically, transducers are limited by the fact that you can't replicate immediate changes in velocity while you're working with something that has mass. Even if we accept that over 20khz frequency changes aren't perceptible even in transients, FR up to that range is very inconsistent. Nonlinear in this context would be the change in FR when measuring at different amplitudes, which would include resonances for example.

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CrelbowMannschaft t1_ja73xv6 wrote

I'm glad you backed off the speed issue. I think it is reasonable for people measuring headphones to assume that most listeners will generally tend to listen at a generally loud but safe volume. But my original point was not a defense of measurement, but an explanation of some illusions created by the designs of different headphones.

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Liesera t1_ja74kvo wrote

Yeah, I'm not completely sold on speed myself, I just think it's an additional potential source of inaccuracy in how we measure FR. I just wanted to emphasize that measured FR is lacking, so there are perceived technicalities, but those technicalities are also just un-measured FR.

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aceCrasher t1_ja72cty wrote

Ok, but then please explain to me why when I EQ all of my Headphones to the Harman target, why does my HD800 still sound the most detailed?

My guess would be that the HD800s bigger soundstage spreads the individual sounds over a much larger area, making it vastly easier to discern individual sounds. The LCD2C sounds like a thick blob of sound in my head in comparison.

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CrelbowMannschaft t1_ja72qzp wrote

Sound stage from headphones is an illusion created by manipulating high frequencies the ear and brain use to locate sound sources. PEQ uses smoothed curves and is imprecise to each individual set. It would take maybe hundreds of lines of PEQ code to make two different headphones sound close enough to exactly the same for most human ears.

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aceCrasher t1_ja72z2r wrote

You are telling me that soundstage has nothing to do with the shape of the cop, reflections within the cup and at what angle the soundwaves are actually hitting my ear? If its ALL in the frequency response, you should be able to name me one IEM that produces a HD800 like soundstage. One of them must have similar high frequencies in the ear compared to an HD800 right?

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CrelbowMannschaft t1_ja73dac wrote

Hey, we're having a friendly conversation here.

The design of the cup is how the engineers manipulate the high frequencies that our brains and ears use to locate sound sources. Sound waves have only three characteristics: amplitude, which we hear as volume, frequency, which we hear as pitch, and start/stop times, which are easy for any device designed to vibrate 20,000 times per second. Sound has no other characteristics. But our ears and brains interpret sound waves in very complicated ways.

Edit: Just saw your stealth edit. I don't think you raised any new points for discussion with it.

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