rhalf t1_itrpvx2 wrote on October 25, 2022 at 8:29 PM

Reply to comment by The_D0lph1n in Sincere question: does technicalities exist, or everything what matters is FR graph? by Then-Effective5434

It does make sense intuitively, doesn't it? I'd love to see it made. Heyser was the pioneer. A real genius. Today maybe Tom Danley is comparable of the guys that I've heard. Not that I've read much.

Heyser basically found what everybody interested in audio wants to know - what is the connection between pleasure objective data. TDS is basically asking a driver to shut up and seeing how it complies. Spoiler alert - it doesn't. Complex diaphragms and motors have resonances that store energy and release it when there is no stimulus. These resonances rob us of silence! No other measurement finds that. There is a lecture on Heyser on YouTube and it captures all you need to know about the guy.

Most famously waterfall plots help us understand the smoothness of tweeter sound. Select people with enough money or DIY patience know that ribbon tweeters sound smooth and domes are harsh despite the fact that they're made of the same material. For a long time there was no graph to capture that, but waterfall makes it clear.

xstreamstorm t1_itua2ye wrote on October 26, 2022 at 11:05 AM

from an engineer's perspective what would you say are the brands that actually seem to know what they're doing, contrary to a lot of the hype or otherwise?

rhalf t1_itwxxuk wrote on October 26, 2022 at 10:17 PM

This is an interesting question. I was thinking for a while about it and came to conclusion that I haven't heard many headphones outside of the mainstream hifi. The ones that I've heard were way more deliberate that I could ever make them, except for Grado. The Grados I heard years ago were like hearing aid. I guess people with hearing impairment can have their hifi too.

Most pointless products that I bought however must be some multi-driver Chi-fi earphones. Really badly executed products from TRN and KZ. I keep them stored in hope that some day I'll retune them.

I was also disappointed with Shure. Not bad, not terrible, just uninteresting. You can see how many popular products in hifi were iterated even 10 times before reaching high status. Sennheiser is an example. I used to have their HD545 which was to a degree a precursor to HD600. You can see a clear direction of development there. They not only know what they are doing. They persisted for a long time. Same applies to KEF in the speaker world. Refinement takes time.

Most small manufacturers either make planar drivers, or use freeedge dynamic drivers found in Denon, Fostex and Creative. They're available online. You can have fun with them too and have a no-bullshit set of cans :)I'm personally happy with modded Fostex T40RP. Nothing too fancy, but gets the work done.