Aren't there plenty of very good headphones out there already? Just look at an Audiophile forum (and they won't be recommending Beats. That's just marketing/hype/stupidity).
It's time to level up headphone tech
11–20 of 49 posts
Re: It's time to level up headphone tech
#12Existing hearing aids have directional microphones, can distinguish between talking and background noise
Not very well - they can perform well enough to make speech intelligible (and it doesn't take much, human hearing is geared toward recognizing patterns) but the quality is fairly low. That's fine for hearing aids, because low-quality intelligibility is better than no intelligibility, but the technology is nowhere near ready for the quality that consumers with normal hearing would expect.
This might make a decent research project for the MIT Media Lab or Fraunhofer Institute, but it's an idea that's a long way from being ready for primetime.
Re: It's time to level up headphone tech
#13I recall President Laporte doing an interview at CES with a company producing headphones that already perform this functionality, and then some. I can't recall the name at the moment (CES was basically 85% headphones, too many to recall), but I know the TWiT CES coverage is up on the YouTubes for anyone less lazy than I.
Re: It's time to level up headphone tech
#14I have a pair of Shure SE535 earphones and they are fantastic. Perhaps the ergonomics could be improved, but I cannot imagine how the audio quality could be better.
I don't think the point is audio quality. Hearing aids do more than just have good audio quality; they serve multiple purposes, like connecting to phones or TVs. Presumably, one could build vastly better headphones by making them easily connect to whatever device you want, wirelessly. For example, many gyms have TVs playing, and have a small FM radio station so you can tune into the audio with your MP3 player. Perhap…
Perhaps headphones could support them natively instead.
You're basically talking about expanding the use of telecoil technology.
Re: It's time to level up headphone tech
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think the point is audio quality. Hearing aids do more than just have good audio quality; they serve multiple purposes, like connecting to phones or TVs. Presumably, one could build vastly better headphones by making them easily connect to whatever device you want, wirelessly. For example, many gyms have TVs playing, and have a small FM radio station so you can tune into the audio with your MP3 player. Perhap…
Perhaps headphones could support them natively instead. You're basically talking about expanding the use of telecoil technology.
Or Apple's Airplay
Re: It's time to level up headphone tech
#16I'm not sure headphone tech is in need of levelling up, or what the auther thinks is: "Existing hearing aides have directional microphones, can distinguish between talking and background noise, and connect pretty seamlessly with other devices." What good is a directional microphone and why (and lacking a microphone, how?) would a headphone distinguish between voices and background noise? My headphone already connects…
"What good is a directional microphone and why would a headphone distinguish between voices and background noise?"
Lacking any context there is no way to answer your question. Tools do not have any intrinsic value, a tool's value is derived from its application to a problem.
It seems as if you are approaching headsets purely as a means of music reproduction. There are many applications of headsets where audio fidelity is not the only/primary concern. The reference to augmented reality in the first paragraph seems to imply that the author is concerned with more than just how crisp Jerry's guitar sounds at the beginning of Fire on the Mountain. Don't get me wrong I love crispy guitar solos but they are not the end all be all of headsets.
For a really neat and demanding headset application take a look at the C4OPS headset system by Silynx[1]. The C4OPS and others like it are headset systems for combat communications. There are a lot of sounds in combat; some of the loud ones (gunshots/explosions) you would like to hear at a lower volume / with less fidelity and some quiet noises (teammate whisper/footsteps behind you) you would like to be more aware of.
Re: It's time to level up headphone tech
#17Sound leakage is an inevitable consequence of good sound quality. Put simply, those excess soundwaves ultimately have to go somewhere, and it's a choice between jettisoning them into the environment and annoying people, trying to absorb them in the body of the headphone and losing quality, or trying to produce less of them in the first place, also losing quality.
Very cheap headphones leak sound because they are very cheap and their designers and users don't care either way. Expensive, $500+ headphones leak sound because they are meant to be used in a music production context as a substitute for a $1000+ set of speakers, where one doesn't care about leakage.
If you are walking around campus, sitting on a train or generally doing anything except sitting in a chair with your eyes closed then it is pointless buying a very very expensive set of headphones because your physical movement and the input from your other senses will influence your perception of the music to an extent greater than the noise floor of the less expensive headphones you could've bought.
To be honest, headphones schmedphones. High quality monitor speakers are more exciting. There's a limit to what you can achieve with those tiny drivers. Far better to covet things such as this:
http://www.genelec.com/products/main-monitors/1036a/
Flat response from 19-22000hz at 136db. Oh dear.
If £20,000 is a bit much for you, consider something like this:
http://www.adam-audio.com/en/pro-audio/products/a8x/descript...
Re: It's time to level up headphone tech
#18The "beats phenomenon" is a fashion thing, not an audio tech thing. People pay $400 for beats because it makes them look cool and shows they are not poor. Much like a Rolex is not about telling time. I think there is a market for headphone tech, but I would look to the market for Bose noise-canceling headphones as a proxy, not beats.
There are some seriously large markets for headphone tech and they have nothing to do with being able to drown out the noise of a 747 engine or the background noise at a starbucks.
Take a look at the C4OPS headset system by Silynx[1]. The C4OPS and others like it are headset systems for combat communications. There are a lot of sounds in combat; some of the loud ones (gunshots/explosions) you would like to hear at a lower volume / with less fidelity and some quiet noises (teammate whisper/footsteps behind you) you would like to be more aware of.
Re: It's time to level up headphone tech
#19I recall President Laporte doing an interview at CES with a company producing headphones that already perform this functionality, and then some. I can't recall the name at the moment (CES was basically 85% headphones, too many to recall), but I know the TWiT CES coverage is up on the YouTubes for anyone less lazy than I.
"President Laporte"? Please tell me that is not the dude from screensavers. Is this really something people say now?
Re: It's time to level up headphone tech
#20I'm not sure headphone tech is in need of levelling up, or what the auther thinks is: "Existing hearing aides have directional microphones, can distinguish between talking and background noise, and connect pretty seamlessly with other devices." What good is a directional microphone and why (and lacking a microphone, how?) would a headphone distinguish between voices and background noise? My headphone already connects…
"What good is a directional microphone and why would a headphone distinguish between voices and background noise?" Lacking any context there is no way to answer your question. Tools do not have any intrinsic value, a tool's value is derived from its application to a problem. It seems as if you are approaching headsets purely as a means of music reproduction. There are many applications of headsets where audio fidelit…
The article (which I quoted and which serves as the context for my post) refers the the state of headphone tech, not headset tech. He only ever talks about headphones, and the brief introductory reference to another blog entry about AR seemed fairly beside the point and the theme isn't picked up again.
I guess he might have been talking about headsets, although once again I'm not sure the tech is in need of an innovation boost from the hearing aide industry, it seems to progress just fine, even outside the realm of speciality gear for more efficiently killing people.