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Headphone Specs Explained (2017)

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Re: Headphone Specs Explained (2017)

#21

Post by unlinked_dll »

Waterluvian wrote: post #16
nradov wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you do a blind listening test, most consumers will fool themselves into believing that the more expensive or attractive looking headphones sound "better".

Company idea (or maybe Consumer Reports is good enough): Don't hire experts to review products. Do a double blind study with like 100 participants. I pay you $5 to access this years study of 80 different popular/common headphones. But of course do this for all kinds of products that need this kind of review. I would happily pay for a sample of how the population feels about products and how they on average rank them.…

There are market research firms that do things like this, and their studies cost at least 100 times more than that. It's actually pretty lucrative to keep up to date on details like that if you consult for investment bankers on a particular product category/market segment but that can be difficult to break into.

Re: Headphone Specs Explained (2017)

#22

Post by colonwqbang »

analog31 wrote: post #18

>>> Impedance is electrical resistance – essentially, how well something resists an electrical current that passes through it. It’s a “measure of the opposition that a circuit presents to a current when a voltage is applied.” (Thanks, Wikipedia). Even if that makes no sense, headphone impedance is still very easy to interpret. It’s measured in ohms (Ω) and what it tells you is how much power your headphones will need…

I agree. But how would you have phrased it?

Re: Headphone Specs Explained (2017)

#23

Post by analog31 »

colonwqbang wrote: post #22
analog31 wrote: post #18

>>> Impedance is electrical resistance – essentially, how well something resists an electrical current that passes through it. It’s a “measure of the opposition that a circuit presents to a current when a voltage is applied.” (Thanks, Wikipedia). Even if that makes no sense, headphone impedance is still very easy to interpret. It’s measured in ohms (Ω) and what it tells you is how much power your headphones will need…

I agree. But how would you have phrased it?

I would have started with the relationship between voltage and current in a simple circuit. For instance, the more voltage is applied, the more current typically flows. Resistance and impedance are terms for the ratio between voltage and current in some kinds of simple circuits.

And so forth. I'm using the fiction of a "simple" circuit to avoid going down a rabbit hole of detail that would be unnecessary here.

Re: Headphone Specs Explained (2017)

#25

Post by zhsvszkvx »

colonwqbang wrote: post #22
analog31 wrote: post #18

>>> Impedance is electrical resistance – essentially, how well something resists an electrical current that passes through it. It’s a “measure of the opposition that a circuit presents to a current when a voltage is applied.” (Thanks, Wikipedia). Even if that makes no sense, headphone impedance is still very easy to interpret. It’s measured in ohms (Ω) and what it tells you is how much power your headphones will need…

I agree. But how would you have phrased it?

The ratio of voltage and current in the complex plane.

Drop the “harder” and “easier” analogies with Ohmic resistors. They’re confusing, with impedance you’ve gone up a level and the analogy breaks down. Even “matching” Z is kinda meaningless if you don’t express it as a complex quantity: what you’re trying to match is not |Z| but Z* (otherwise it is possible to match |Z| And deliver no power! In practice matching |Z| is good enough)

What if you don’t know about phasors and Fourier transforms?

Doesn’t matter, don’t look down on people to over simplify. Use the magnitude and angle formulation of complex numbers and build on that with pretty pictures.

Re: Headphone Specs Explained (2017)

#26

Post by nucleardog »

joveian wrote: post #8

Inner Fidelity has some useful data for various (mostly expensive but not all) headphones. The frequency response graph is particularly helpful. https://www.innerfidelity.com/headphone-measurements I like my NAD VISO HP50.

You can find a lot of similar data across a pretty wide array of headphones on the market on rtings.com as well. For instance, here's your HP50 headphones: https://www.rtings.com/headphones/reviews/nad/viso-hp50

I really like some of the non-sound related measurements they perform -- the clamping force and breathability are pretty important for comfort. For instance, as someone with glasses there's a good chance those HP50s would not be remotely comfortable as the high clamping force on the glasses arms tends to get pretty irritating after a while.

Their more thorough sound tests are really invaluable as well -- for instance, apparently the bass response goes down considerably with the HP50s when the cups can't form a good seal (e.g., if you're wearing glasses).

Re: Headphone Specs Explained (2017)

#27

Post by Youden »

fsh wrote: post #17
falcolas wrote: post #5

In addition to understanding impedance and sensitivity, doing actual tests of the headphones to see how they match up with your hearing and tastes is important (and getting harder to do with high end headphones). I personally use the following: https://www.audiocheck.net/soundtests_headphones.php

The audio characteristics of headphones can also be objectively measured using test gear. rtings.com has a very nice database with comprehensive measurements for a large number of headphones.

I found rtings' database was good for regular consumer stuff like gaming headsets and noise cancelling stuff for planes but it was quite limited when it comes to "audiophile" brands.

This website had much better coverage of those brands: https://reference-audio-analyzer.pro/en/catalog-reports.php?...

The UI is a bit of a mess though, you need to select a "User" or "Pro" report on the device's page (which otherwise doesn't tell you anytihng). Here are some example reports:

User: https://reference-audio-analyzer.pro/en/user-report.php?id=7...

Pro: https://reference-audio-analyzer.pro/en/report/hp/meze-99-cl...

I honestly have no clue what I'm looking at here though.

While I'm at it, the AudioScienceReview forums (http://audiosciencereview.com/) have nice comprehensive measurements of the other things you might find in an audio setup (e.g. amps, players, DACs etc., even USB-C dongles).

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