Which headphones sound most like loudspeakers?

[swechsler]

Let's face it, modern headphones are pretty damn good. Manufacturers have pretty much gotten excellent frequency response and clarity out of even mid-range phones. When I'm checking out a new set of phones, what I'm usually listening for is "openness", or how the image spreads out around outside your head, rather than just being squeezed in between your ears. However, every headphone that I've ever tried still sounds like you're listening to headphones. A good set of speakers will disappear and you'll just hear the music in front of you. With headphones, this never happens.

This may just be a weakness of the medium. Your brains gets all sorts of cues, from the way the sounds interact with your face and your ears, to how the sound changes slightly as you move your head, that let you know that what you're hearing is happening out there in the world, rather than inside your head. Has any manufacturer cracked the problem of fooling your brain into thinking that what you hear through your headphones is actually in front of them?

 

[JoeESP9]

Check out the Smythe Realizer. Not cheap but very effective.
Realiser A16 the world's most advanced 3d audio processor (smyth-research.com)

The cheapest way is to listen to binaural recordings.

 

[swechsler]

Check out the Smythe Realizer. Not cheap but very effective.

That is one pricey piece of kit (> $4000). ISTM it could be done in software with a much less expensive DSP.

The cheapest way is to listen to binaural recordings.

I'll have to keep an eye open for music that I'm interested in.

 

[wmgwizard]

Not sure what you are asking is possible due to the way our brains process sound.

Everything we hear, even our stereo's, is filled with spatial clues. Sound bounces around our environment and our brains process it and localize the source wether its our speakers or a cricket in the back yard. Sounds reach our ears at different times and thats how we percieve "space".

Headphones remove those reflections and all the sound reaches our ears at the same time removing any spatial clues.

 

[swechsler]

Not sure what you are asking is possible due to the way our brains process sound.

Yeah, I kind of already figured that (thus the second para in my OP). However, I have heard it done, at least to my recollection of something I heard over 20 years ago, by a set of Sony headphones that had a separate signal processor. And of course there is that processor that @JoeESP9 linked to above.

 

[Michelag]

It should be the other way around... Which loudspeakers sound like headphones


When building speakers, i do the fine tuning through headphones, to obtain the nuance i want, not the opposite

 

[wmgwizard]

Electronic manipulation of the signal typically equates to some sort of "distortion".

I have found open back 'phones tend to provide a little more spaciousness but thats just my experience, others may differ.

 

[swechsler]

Electronic manipulation of the signal typically equates to some sort of "distortion".

Maybe for a very specific definition of distortion (i.e. any difference between the input and the output of the audio signal). But adding EQ changes, delays, or phase changes in order to make the music sound more realistic? I would not consider that to be distortion. All that stuff is done in the mixing room anyway.

 

[GrisPato]

It should be the other way around... Which loudspeakers sound like headphones


When building speakers, i do the fine tuning through headphones, to obtain the nuance i want, not the opposite

This is interesting. Can not imagine how you do that.
You listen to your speakers through headphones?

 

[wmgwizard]

Anything done during the mastering should be reproduced by your speakers/headphones, anything done during playback is a distortion of the original signal.

This includes the phase shift induced by crossover networks which many headphones do not have.

 

[JoeESP9]

It should be the other way around... Which loudspeakers sound like headphones


When building speakers, i do the fine tuning through headphones, to obtain the nuance i want, not the opposite

Please be so kind and tell me and others (I'm sure there are) how you tune speakers by using headphones.

 

[MuseChaser]

FWIW, I've found that the mixes and rough test masters I've done in my studios ln Grado SR60 'phones sound much better when played back on my various speaker systems than the mixes I've done using various other, much more expensive 'phones. In that sense, I guess, the Grados sound "most like speakers."

 

[HPMguy]

It will be impossible to reproduce the effects of moving between two discrete speakers with headphones unless you spend a huge amount of signal processing and motion sensors to "locate" the sound. Not worth the effort.

Headphones will give you a different sound as the transducers are in a fixed relationship with your ears. To get the "speaker" effect you'd have to use small speakers close to your head but not attached to it -- that is, not headphones.

Not sure there is any overpowering reason to set something like that up, main use for headphones is to keep the sound out of the room I think. They also eliminate a lot of environmental noise.

 

[JoeESP9]

That is one pricey piece of kit (> $4000). ISTM it could be done in software with a much less expensive DSP.

I'll have to keep an eye open for music that I'm interested in.

One thing the realizer does is to keep the soundstage stable even when you move your head. I don't think you can do that in software.

One of my problems with headphones, even with a binaural source is that the soundstage isn't stably focused in front of you. When you move your head so does the soundstage. Besides making headphones sound a lot like speakers the Realizer solidifies the soundstage to be in front of you regardless of head movements.

 

[wmgwizard]

When you move your head so does the soundstage.

??? the headphones dont move in relation to your head, why would the soundstage move ???

 

[JoeESP9]

??? the headphones dont move in relation to your head, why would the soundstage move ???

That's actually why I'm not big on headphones.

Headphones produce sound that's entirely in your head. If you move or turn the sound stays in the same position. With speakers when turning your head, the soundstage stays where it always is. That being, "over there" where your speakers used to be.

It's actually very simple, with headphones turning 180 degrees produces no change in the sound. Turn your back on speakers and the sound now comes from behind you.

As usual I refuse to call what headphones produce a soundstage. Headphones do not produce a soundstage by any definition.

 

[seely]

FWIW, I've found that the mixes and rough test masters I've done in my studios ln Grado SR60 'phones sound much better when played back on my various speaker systems than the mixes I've done using various other, much more expensive 'phones. In that sense, I guess, the Grados sound "most like speakers."

I would agree with this, I'm continually blown away with the imaging and spaciousness of my 325x's. I settled on them in a quest for headphones I could enjoy as much as speaker listening (at my wife's urging), and tried a couple different mid-range-ish pairs that I found myself reluctantly using. Tried a couple friend's higher end cans from other brands and found the dynamics improved, but they still felt like headphones and relatively "squashed" compared to speaker listening. Took the plunge (and risk) on the Grado's and it paid off. I absolutely enjoy listening with them just as much, sometimes more, than via my speakers. Never heard another pair of headphones where I could pinpoint instrument location so precisely with such a sense of space and distance.

It's actually very simple, with headphones turning 180 degrees produces no change in the sound. Turn your back on speakers and the sound now comes from behind you.

As usual I refuse to call what headphones produce a soundstage. Headphones do not produce a soundstage by any definition.

A very strange definition of soundstage to me... I've always seen and understood it as a "3D listening experience" based on being able to pinpoint instrument location, which you certainly can with some headphones. The idea that the soundstage shifts with the listener's movements really seems extraneous.

 

[trinhsman]

Never been a fan of headphones. To me, they never sounded real. I’ve been able to hear 3500 dollar plus headphones too. Guess I’m weird.

 

[GChief]

HPs were my only source for about half the year over the last 16yrs (travel for work). Glad I can take things for what they are, I love my HP set-up as much as my main system, just different and hotel friendly

 

[JoeESP9]

I would agree with this, I'm continually blown away with the imaging and spaciousness of my 325x's. I settled on them in a quest for headphones I could enjoy as much as speaker listening (at my wife's urging), and tried a couple different mid-range-ish pairs that I found myself reluctantly using. Tried a couple friend's higher end cans from other brands and found the dynamics improved, but they still felt like headphones and relatively "squashed" compared to speaker listening. Took the plunge (and risk) on the Grado's and it paid off. I absolutely enjoy listening with them just as much, sometimes more, than via my speakers. Never heard another pair of headphones where I could pinpoint instrument location so precisely with such a sense of space and distance.



A very strange definition of soundstage to me... I've always seen and understood it as a "3D listening experience" based on being able to pinpoint instrument location, which you certainly can with some headphones. The idea that the soundstage shifts with the listener's movements really seems extraneous.

From the Stereophile Audio Glossary:
soundstaging, soundstage presentation The accuracy with which a reproducing system conveys audible information about the size, shape, and acoustical characteristics of the original recording space and the placement of the performers within it.

soundstage shift Apparent lateral movement of the soundstage when listening from either side of the sweet spot.

With headphones the sound is always from the same place inside one's head regardless of the position of the head. Only binaural recordings produce a soundstage from headphones. Even so, the soundstage moves with head movements to always be directly in front of you. This is not what happens with speakers.

Music that comes from inside one's head does not constitute a soundstage.

FWIW: I like and appreciate headphones for what they are and can do. My headphone collection includes ESL's (Stax), planar magnetic (HiFi Man), Grado, Koss and even a pair of IEM planars. None of them produce a soundstage. They can't.