Ever wondered why music sounds so different on headphones compared to loudspeakers?

[dalethorn]

Sure but there is no significant repertoire on binaural recordings.

 

Binaural merely proves that headphones can deliver a more accurate playback than speakers. The point is not that binaural is the only way, since my headphones produce a very good simulation with most all well-made recordings. It's worth repeating, that most users who complain about headphone sound do so because they're not equalized properly. Soundstage etc. are very dependent on a neutral response, which is not currently being measured properly by anyone.

[VenturaRV]

Sure but there is no significant repertoire on binaural recordings.

In that point I absolutely agree with you.

There are a few attempts (I have Chesky.and HD Tracks in mind) to remaster normal stereo recordings in what they call "Binaural +" format. This is supposed to function both for speakers and headphones, but to be honest, I have the 24/96k version of Glenn Gould's "Goldberg Variations" first recording (1955), and it seems a normal stereo, with a slight wider sono stage when listened with earbuds, perhaps.

 

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[dalethorn]

The quote is utter nonsense. Both vinyl and tape generate a current through magnetic induction. The only difference is the shape of the magnets and coils.

 

"Considered against literally every music-playback medium ever conceived and created, the analog disc is the only one that generates its own electrical signal. Every other medium in existence—even analog tape—depends on an external power supply to create a source signal."

[mansr]

"Considered against literally every music-playback medium ever conceived and created, the analog disc is the only one that generates its own electrical signal. Every other medium in existence—even analog tape—depends on an external power supply to create a source signal."

Repeating that quote doesn't make it true.

[dalethorn]

Repeating that quote doesn't make it true.

 

I have you saying it's not and Art Dudley of Stereophile, a certified vinyl god saying it is. Until someone else offers an authoritative rebuttal, Stereophile wins.

[VenturaRV]

"Considered against literally every music-playback medium ever conceived and created, the analog disc is the only one that generates its own electrical signal. Every other medium in existence—even analog tape—depends on an external power supply to create a source signal."

I think: the fact that ALMOST ALL vynils have been made from a tape record means that vynil fidelity is limited to the tape fidelity (evident).

Assuming that vynil could be the best medium to store music, only direct cutted vynils (Sheffield Labs for example) would deliver a really proper sound. All the others could sound as good as the master tape can do.

 

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[VenturaRV]

None of this is relevant to headphone listening. This reads like the 3 blind men describing an elephant, one holding the tail, another the trunk, and another an ear.

 

When I listen to a symphony or large pipe organ on my headphone, it sounds quite similar to being there in person with my eyes closed. I recommend some experience in the headphone community, learning from others who are better informed.

My congratulations if your listening experience is so great as you describe.

Let me, worse informed, describe mine: I love to listen with headphones of various types (earbuds, on-ear phones, surrounding cans and even my AKG K1000 earspeakers) mainly for three reasons:

a) I found, in general, their sound more even than what my loudspeakers (Mission 767) do.

b) I'm feel more focused, in general too, in music.

c) Last but not least, I can enjoy music at certain hours my neighbours will call the police if I were using my loudspeakers full power.

Excuse my ignorance.

 

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[astrallite]

I will not dispute you about what headphones can do but, because they cannot convey a natural soundstage, even with cross-feed circuitry, I cannot tolerate them (with an exception or two).

I think that's way the most popular top of the line headphones all seem to try to generate a pseudo-soundstage via a combination of an interior earcup chamber that generates reflections, and/or create a wider soundstage via flatter sound waves (from either flat transducers on electrostatic/planar drivers, or ring radiators with Sennheiser).

 

When you take a regular dome driver (which generates rounder sound waves that compress as they reach the ear) and just put it directly on a flat baffle it sounds exactly like what it is, strapping two speakers to the sides of your head, which is why alot of people seem to agree the Focal Utopia is a reference headphone tonally, and in measurements, but sounds completely boring, whereas cans like the Stax SR009 or Hifiman HE1000 and HD800 (modded with Anax and SD Resonator) really bring out the excitement of music to listeners as they generate impressive simulated soundstages.

[jabbr]

Stereophile had a great article on why vinyl sounds different, and why a lot of people prefer it. The gist of it is that the stylus does something that neither digital nor analog tape playback does - the stylus generates its own current by its physical action in the record grooves, and then the amps amplify that sound. Tape and digital players have to construct that voltage from magnetism or bytes of computer data. That is bound to sound different.

 

There are current sources and voltage sources. Most DACs are current based and use an I-V converter to go between. So both vinyl and digital start with current in that way of thinking,

[dalethorn]

I think: the fact that ALMOST ALL vynils have been made from a tape record means that vynil fidelity is limited to the tape fidelity (evident).

Assuming that vynil could be the best medium to store music, only direct cutted vynils (Sheffield Labs for example) would deliver a really proper sound. All the others could sound as good as the master tape can do. Enviado desde mi LG-E430 mediante Tapatalk

 

Stereophile doesn't argue for improvement over the source, in terms of the qualities of the source itself. Stereophile describes a real physical process that produces a different effect in the reproduced sound.

[dalethorn]

There are current sources and voltage sources. Most DACs are current based and use an I-V converter to go between. So both vinyl and digital start with current in that way of thinking,

 

I can't argue that and I don't think Stereophile did either. What Art Dudley did argue was that the stylus generates its own electric signal physically, and a tape head does not.

[jabbr]

I can't argue that and I don't think Stereophile did either. What Art Dudley did argue was that the stylus generates its own electric signal physically, and a tape head does not.

 

Not sure that holds up -- AFAIK tape heads also generate current

[dalethorn]

Not sure that holds up -- AFAIK tape heads also generate current

 

The Dudley article was widely circulated and unchallenged. So I await a rebuttal based on the particulars he specified. On a related note, but which doesn't affect Dudley's conclusions, I've had a few fine tape decks and turntables, and I doubt that even with tape hiss and record surface noise subtracted out, that the same recording on each medium would sound exactly the same. There's a kind-of 'weight' to vinyl sound that isn't present in tape, and that weight isn't from rumble or other turntable errors, although it may originate in some physical property of the record player rather than what Dudley claims.

[VenturaRV]

Stereophile doesn't argue for improvement over the source, in terms of the qualities of the source itself. Stereophile describes a real physical process that produces a different effect in the reproduced sound.

Since that physical proccess is an "addition" to the original, only if such addition cancels exactly (quite improbable) the distortions already present in the tape, the result cannot be other than more distortion.

Of course, a cartridge is nothing else than a particular sort of microphone (a "stylus" microphone). And it has an unwanted characteristic: it extracts information from the groove in perpendicular form. But sound is not a perpendicular wave: it is longitudinal. And a magnetic tape stores the analogue differences in longitudinal way.

I don't see Stereophile's point quite clear, even if we don't consider other limitations of a stylus-cartridge-arm set, as undesired resonances, the fact that the stylus moves in arc and not radially and so forth.

 

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[dalethorn]

Since that physical proccess is an "addition" to the original, only if such addition cancels exactly (quite improbable) the distortions already present in the tape, the result cannot be other than more distortion. Of course, a cartridge is nothing else than a particular sort of microphone (a "stylus" microphone). And it has an unwanted characteristic: it extracts information from the groove in perpendicular form. But sound is not a perpendicular wave: it is longitudinal. And a magnetic tape stores the analogue differences in longitudinal way. I don't see Stereophile's point quite clear, even if we don't consider other limitations of a stylus-cartridge-arm set, as undesired resonances, the fact that the stylus moves in arc and not radially and so forth. Sent from my LG-E430 using Computer Audiophile mobile app

 

I can't agree that the physical process is an addition to the original, since the Stereophile article didn't indicate that. Presumably if the "original" is a tape, then the record hopefully would reproduce the tape sound without adding anything. Assuming of course that the recording and mixing engineers consider the tape master rather than the stamper master to have the correct sound. But anyway, the mediums are so different that someone who really knows exactly what Dudley is talking about would need to weigh in. There are things here that need to be clarified. I know too many people who swear by vinyl sound, and after all, money talks - turntables costing up to $200k are being sold. It's a very imposing reality.

[kumakuma]

There are a few attempts (I have Chesky.and HD Tracks in mind) to remaster normal stereo recordings in what they call "Binaural +" format. This is supposed to function both for speakers and headphones, but to be honest, I have the 24/96k version of Glenn Gould's "Goldberg Variations" first recording (1955), and it seems a normal stereo, with a slight wider sono stage when listened with earbuds, perhaps.

 

This isn't quite correct.

 

Chesky's Binaural+ recordings are not remastered versions of stereo recording. They are new recording by Chesky "recorded in high-resolution 192-kHz/24-bit sound with a special Binaural head (a "dummy" human head with specially calibrated microphones where the ears would be)."

 

Binaural+ Series | Chesky Records

 

Most of them are both very well recorded and highly musically enjoyable.

 

HDTracks (which is owned by Chesky) sells a binaural version of the Gould's Goldberg Variations but it isn't part of Chesky's Binaural+ series and was done by Zenph (not Chesky) as part of this series:

 

The Zenph Recordings - Zenph

[VenturaRV]

This isn't quite correct.

 

Chesky's Binaural+ recordings are not remastered versions of stereo recording. They are new recording by Chesky "recorded in high-resolution 192-kHz/24-bit sound with a special Binaural head (a "dummy" human head with specially calibrated microphones where the ears would be)."

 

Binaural+ Series | Chesky Records

 

Most of them are both very well recorded and highly musically enjoyable.

 

HDTracks (which is owned by Chesky) sells a binaural version of the Gould's Goldberg Variations but it isn't part of Chesky's Binaural+ series and was done by Zenph (not Chesky) as part of this series:

 

The Zenph Recordings - Zenph

Thanks for the correction.

Other Chesky records (i.e. "Jazz in the New Harmonic"), with David Chesky himself at the piano, are made with a dummy head and torso, and the results are not extremely impressive, no more than any other "spaciousness" recording made with minimal miking techniques.

I'm not sure that dummy heads are the complete solution for binaural listening.

Perhaps there are other factors in the equation.

 

 

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[VenturaRV]

I can't agree that the physical process is an addition to the original, since the Stereophile article didn't indicate that. Presumably if the "original" is a tape, then the record hopefully would reproduce the tape sound without adding anything. Assuming of course that the recording and mixing engineers consider the tape master rather than the stamper master to have the correct sound. But anyway, the mediums are so different that someone who really knows exactly what Dudley is talking about would need to weigh in. There are things here that need to be clarified. I know too many people who swear by vinyl sound, and after all, money talks - turntables costing up to $200k are being sold. It's a very imposing reality.

If money talks and number of people talks too, then there are digital gear sold for $200k and more.

And I suspect this is not a criterion for comparison.

 

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[semente]

You're saying that headphones selling for $4000 to $55000 are just bad purchases by ignorant folks? I don't think you've thought that through before posting here.

No, I am saying that they are bad purchases for me.

People who like listening to headphones aren't ignorant, they just have different objectives or can live with different shortcomings.

But I don't think listening with headphones sounds natural.

 

R

[semente]

The Dudley article was widely circulated and unchallenged. So I await a rebuttal based on the particulars he specified. On a related note, but which doesn't affect Dudley's conclusions, I've had a few fine tape decks and turntables, and I doubt that even with tape hiss and record surface noise subtracted out, that the same recording on each medium would sound exactly the same. There's a kind-of 'weight' to vinyl sound that isn't present in tape, and that weight isn't from rumble or other turntable errors, although it may originate in some physical property of the record player rather than what Dudley claims.

This article tries to describe a few of the possible causes of analogue warmth, though it does not speak specifically about vinyl records:

 

http://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/analogue-warmth

 

R

[semente]

I can't agree that the physical process is an addition to the original, since the Stereophile article didn't indicate that. Presumably if the "original" is a tape, then the record hopefully would reproduce the tape sound without adding anything. Assuming of course that the recording and mixing engineers consider the tape master rather than the stamper master to have the correct sound. But anyway, the mediums are so different that someone who really knows exactly what Dudley is talking about would need to weigh in. There are things here that need to be clarified. I know too many people who swear by vinyl sound, and after all, money talks - turntables costing up to $200k are being sold. It's a very imposing reality.

It look like you are giving too much credit to Dudley's opinion writing.

 

He is a big defender of "tailored" sound and his preferences generally fall on equipment and even sources that add their own sonic signature to the signal (I have direct experience with 47labs gear).

 

Regarding his comments on turntables, I don't think he took into account the fact that reading and even writing vinyl requires perfect speed timing and stability which in turn is only possible with the best power supplies and motors.

I think it's fair to conclude that electrical power does influence if indirectly the signal that comes out of the cartridge.

 

R

[VenturaRV]

No, I am saying that they are bad purchases for me.

People who like listening to headphones aren't ignorant, they just have different objectives or can live with different shortcomings.

But I don't think listening with headphones sounds natural.

 

R

Well, in general terms, listening with headphones could not be natural if the music you're listening to is not the appropriate.

Even though, and if you don't know it yet (I doubt it), I strongly reccomend you to search in YouTube "The Virtual Barber Shop" (be sure what you select is the original by QSound©). You must hear this quite amazing example with earbuds (no on-ear, circumaural types nor speakers!); otherwise the effect is lost.

By the way: Roger Waters recorded his album "Amused to Death" using a different algorithm from QSound. In this remarkable case, the surrounding effect only occurs with loudspeakers, not with headphones, no matter what kind or price.

These two examplrs are NOT binaural (plus or minus), but the result of a proccessing applied to the audio signals, and the more convincing three-dimensional I've ever heard.

 

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[VenturaRV]

The Dudley article was widely circulated and unchallenged. So I await a rebuttal based on the particulars he specified. On a related note, but which doesn't affect Dudley's conclusions, I've had a few fine tape decks and turntables, and I doubt that even with tape hiss and record surface noise subtracted out, that the same recording on each medium would sound exactly the same. There's a kind-of 'weight' to vinyl sound that isn't present in tape, and that weight isn't from rumble or other turntable errors, although it may originate in some physical property of the record player rather than what Dudley claims.

Agreeing with you in most of what headphone's listening is corcerned, I only can, on the contrary, disagree with you reading your quite evanescent arguments (excuse me) about turntables vs. other reproduction procedures, as far as (excuse me again) they seem to come from a dangerously similar to "placebo effect" source.

Actually, you say that even removing tape hiss (present in the vynil made from that tape) and surface noise from the vynil itself, you suspect the difference between them will remain evident. Since this ideal comparison is not possible in practical terms, your statement remains a conjecture not falsable.

The sound, most probably, will be different (just changing the cart, for example), but will not be neccessarily better for the turntable. We have not (nor Dudley has) an objective method to solve the dilemma.

 

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[semente]

Well, in general terms, listening with headphones could not be natural if the music you're listening to is not the appropriate.

Even though, and if you don't know it yet (I doubt it), I strongly reccomend you to search in YouTube "The Virtual Barber Shop" (be sure what you select is the original by QSound©). You must hear this quite amazing example with earbuds (no on-ear, circumaural types nor speakers!); otherwise the effect is lost.

By the way: Roger Waters recorded his album "Amused to Death" using a different algorithm from QSound. In this remarkable case, the surrounding effect only occurs with loudspeakers, not with headphones, no matter what kind or price.

These two examplrs are NOT binaural (plus or minus), but the result of a proccessing applied to the audio signals, and the more convincing three-dimensional I've ever heard.

 

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Thanks I had forgotten about the often mentioned barber recording, which I have to listen.

There's one of someone knocking on a door which is startlingly real.

But I listen to the world of sounds without wearing anything on my head and ears and using headphones is a step away from that.

 

I am also not convinced that processing is fully transparent and innocuous, at least I tend to prefer minimally mic'ed recordings with little or no post processing (I listen mainly to classical) and short, minimalist signal paths in the reproduction system.

 

R

[semente]

Agreeing with you in most of what headphone's listening is corcerned, I only can, on the contrary, disagree with you reading your quite evanescent arguments (excuse me) about turntables vs. other reproduction procedures, as far as (excuse me again) they seem to come from a dangerously similar to "placebo effect" source.

Actually, you say that even removing tape hiss (present in the vynil made from that tape) and surface noise from the vynil itself, you suspect the difference between them will remain evident. Since this ideal comparison is not possible in practical terms, your statement remains a conjecture not falsable.

The sound, most probably, will be different (just changing the cart, for example), but will not be neccessarily better for the turntable. We have not (nor Dudley has) an objective method to solve the dilemma.

 

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Carts are transducers, just like loudspeaker drivers, just as flawed, and each will produce a different sound.

@dalethorn and or Dudley seem to be inferring that vinyl adds something to the signal which makes it "special", let's call it an effect or a set of effects.

Whether or not these effects enhance the listening experience (I won't say more realism but rather more expressiveness) seems to depend on who is listening.

And the causes for those effects could also be subjected to a more thorough investigation.

 

I am one of those which thinks it doesn't, with perhaps one exception which is the result of the poor channel separation on recordings like some of the Beatles' where you have the singer or a single instrument in one channel and the rest in another one.

But if those tracks were to be remastered for digital the problem would cease to exist.

 

R