Many more of these filmed! Vocal Presence and Clarity is on patreon followed by The TWO main types of compression (tomorrow). What else would you like to see explained?
I've been on a watch spree for these educational video of yours. You've done fantastic work DMS, thank you so much for explaining these technicalities to a layman like me.
i am a keyboardist. a musician for about 25 years now and i mainly learn songs we play in the band by ear. So with almost any headphone I can distinguish instrument sounds/instrument separateion and learn the parts i need to learn. Now i have Audio Technica ATH M40X and my listening is improved. Then i got my first cheap IEM and plan to do an unboxing video and fisrt impression of it so i am doingt research on some common audiohile terms like "soundstage" and "imaging" and google led me to this video. Thank you so much! Although yes, soundstage is kinda self explanatorty. but i am not pretening to be a know-it-all so i clicked your video to learn what you have to say. :)
Its also worth noting that different people hear different soundstage/imaging even on the same headphones. DMS and Joshua Valour both think the HD650/660s have great imaging, but Metal571 thinks those two headphones are more 3 blob-y. Z thinks the K712 has just "shoved in your face" soundstage, but Joshua and Metal571 think they sound huge. Z and Metal think the DT880 have a good wide soundstage, but Josh and DMS both recently think that they're just ok in soundstage width. Volume preferences, source, and even environment for closed backs contribute to this, so YMMV.
Timbre: listen to Miles Davis and John Coltrane play a "head" in unison (jazz slang for main melody), you can either take the unison parts or even a single that they play together. The difference in that single note (for example a "C" note), you can easily make a distinction in the nature of each instrument, as to how they produce the same note. That's basically timbre. What influences timbre? The nature of the instrument: brass component, wood component, resonance component, etc. Sibilance is a bit trickier to explain, because it's specific to a couple of factors: inherent tuning of headphone and nature of recording. Sibilance is the "unnatural" sound created by certain sung or spoken syllables (like some overemphasized sizzle every time you hear the letter "S"). I think I'll stop there. You have enough to start with, rest is research... and experience
Thanks for the explanation. Im a amateur audiophile and i keep hearing from people how's the "Soundstage" on my new DAC. I had a feeling of what they were talking about however, i wasn't for sure. Now i know. Thank you.
Great video and very informative! You could do a video about wired connections, between your source, dacs, amps, and monitors. Benefits and best fit for each: balanced vs unbalanced, RCA, S/PDIF, optical, etc.
Hello Dear Friends !!!!!!!! Please tell me !!!!!!!! Can open back IEMs (especially Raptgo Hook x HBB) be SoundStagy and build Images like Sundara or like HarmonicDyne Zeus ? Thank You !!!!!!!!
I remember playing Stalker CoP, leaving the train station and the sound of a bloodsucker getting closer and closer with that heavy breathing. I was wearing AD700s. I uhh don't play Stalker wearing those headphones anymore.
What do you think about the soundstage/imaging of the the DT990 pro(for gaming)? A few great pro gamers use them. Now I’m curious about these headphones since they’re right in my budget.
Hd 599 has excellent imaging, better than premium tier headphones. Average soundstage not too good but it's better than most. For 100 dollars the special edition of that headphone is the most bang for buck purchase you can make beside the shp 9500.
Imaging is ability to pick out a sound and focus just on that one sound/instrument without also drowning out the others. Space plays into this by pushing sounds farther away so your mind can pick them out easier.
Great vid, DMS. Quick question, when folk talk about Imaging is that the same as when they refer to Detail? Seems like the terms are sometimes interchanged. Is there a difference? Enjoying your content, man
For competitive gaming I found more interesting to get a narrow sound-stage but with clear imaging (and no dominant bass). Balanced armatures IEM are very well suited for that task but not all are created equal. The difference is night and day between an open type cans and sound-in-head iem but that might ruin the immersion for some.
@@kalani2356 Years ago for around 260usd there was one undisputed model tuned for that task: The JAYS Q-Jays, a 2-BA tiny iem fine tuned for neutrality and clarity. It's revision 2 included a replaceable cable fixing it's major flaw. Used with a custom-shaped silicon earbud it offered a "wall-hack information" grade of experience. After losing mine (due to faulty SAV) I tried its direct competitor the Japanese Final Audio F4100. Despite being VERY similar in all aspects its tuning and ear fit revealed to be problematic and since such drivers lack naturally the "fullness of sound" it ended up being frustrating to use. Now the good news.. In the recent years the CHI FI market has been SHATTERING the price tag references (truth is most audio gear is overpriced even the Q-Jays). Today for no more than 60usd I've found something that outperforms sound wise what I've mentioned above.. KZ-ZSX. This ZSX is more a Sharp ALL-arround-er than a specific "give me the wall-hack sound" because it have 1DD & 5BA. For serious gaming it require recessing it's Dynamic Driver with a small EQ. It's major flaw, it's build quality around the connector is questionable. Despite being outdated and overpriced the Q-Jay remain a reference for this particular use case.
@@ariathyf144 Thanks for long reply and info. I got the moondrop starfield in mail last night and don't like the imaging. Probably because it's a dynamic driver only. I'm about to return and look at others now
Hey DMS, I just found your channel through a friend. I like your videos, but I know a lot of people who buy headphones are also gamers. Gamers believe, inaccurately, that a wide/spacious soundstage on headphones for music will equate to a more accurate 3D world immersion in a game. This is actually the opposite, and better musical instrument imaging is actually worse for competitive first person gaming because it's an emulated 3D sound from the headphones that creates a misrepresentation of the actual game sound locations. This is also why stereo output is better than digital 3D simulation output (like Atmos) for accurate game sounds. I'm sure you knew this already, but as a gamer/audiophile I am tired of explaining that "good imaging" isn't the same for music as it is in games and gamers should not be using open back, flat driver, spacious sounding cans when $10 earbuds will be better 90% of the time. What they want is a well matched L/R channel, close stereo sound, with slightly elevated highs and slightly recessed lows. Something like the graph on Tin HiFi T3 or P1. Anecdotally, I find that BAs create the most defined image in games. I get more kills through walls than anyone I've ever met. Maybe you could make a video explaining this to people so I can just link your video to them instead of typing it all out every time? :)
I think this depends on the content more than the earphones. I mean, binaural audio will sound spacious even on cheap HiFi Chinese in ears. So will Video games with correct HRTF.
What would you say are the best like 5 cans for imaging under 1000 bucks? Do IEMs rly give you more precise imaging in general as claimed on some places of the internet?
IEMs give you better gaming imaging. Worse music imaging due to space. Gaming imaging is actually the exact opposite type of imaging as musical imaging.. you need a close and narrow sound for gaming and you want a wide and broad image for music.
@@BaptizedTTV I strongly disagree with needing a close and narrow soundstage for precise imaging in games. Even when using a soundstage behemoth like the K1000, which are even wider and deeper than the HD800, positional audio remains pinpoint accurate for both distance and directionality. I'm not saying you need a huge soundstage, the HD580 and Clear I use are also 10/10 for positional accuracy, but go smaller and the size of the soundstage will start to inhibit the distance to objects/sounds.
@@tacanacy Tacanacy I wish I had a pair of ear speakers like the K1000! Since they don't have resonance and such they should all come very close to diffuse field! I haven't tested the K1000, but I'd be curious to see it's diffuse field target measurements. This is essentially what I'm testing by tracking the sound through 360*. The thing though about that, is even if it's spread out evenly, in a perfect 360* pattern, the volume is what should determine estimated distance in gaming. This is slightly different than on binaural and ASMR tracks. Anything pushing maximum DB volume notes that sound "away" from directly next to your ear are less realistic (even if it's on perfectly balanced volume levels/perfect diffuse field target) and harder to pinpoint. The center of your head is the cetera algorithm, right? Well, in a game you want the center to be as small as that point while still having dual mics with raw stereo output at the point, bypassing your pinnae, completely filling your ear canal, exactly where the intended microphones are placed. In game they don't use microphones for dual mono/stereo binaural recordings.. so it's more accurate with the smaller stage, since the bigger stage is more like an artificial spread in that case. Great for music but worse for gaming. It's the same reasons why game headsets are all closed back and stereo > digital 3D. I highly suggest buying the Tin T2 next time it's on Drop and check the difference. I'd buy the K1000, but it's like $600 I think. XD
I can't understand why people like having a bloated soundstage. I like having an accurate soundstaging on my headphones. If they recorded from 10ft away, it sound like it was recorded 10ft away. No more, no less. If you don't agree with the artist's take and you want to add or take away intimacy, I'd always recommend doing it digitally (while keeping the headphones neutral).
Truth man, 100% prefer the hd 650 to the HD 800, HD 800 sounded ridiculously wide, nothing felt right, it's like you want to look at a painting, but with the hd 800 it was through a telescope 2 miles away, much rather have the experience of standing 3 feet away from the painting.
It obviously doesn't sound bloated to them. Soundstage interplays differently with different songs. With some songs, I find that the HD800 smear images, but they sound tight and surgically precise with others.
@@tacanacy Most people who know what they're talking about will tell you that for a lot of music the soundstage on the hd 800 is overkill and causes music to sound unengaging, I would definitely agree with them. This is a headphone best suited for the best recordings for acoustic or orchestral.
My personal liking is a bit strange. With speakers I like a big, slightly diffuse soundstage, but with absolute stability of image size and placement. This gives a wonderful feeling of envelopment and warmth. Image sharpness however doesn’t matter to me (again as long as it doesn’t wander with change of frequency) With headphones it’s almost the opposite. A big diffuse soundstage doesn’t do much for me, it’s almost like I get confused by some of the soundstage happening in my head, some on the skin of my head and a bit of it outside of my head. If I can’t get the soundstage completely detached (100%) from my head I will rathe be without it. But instead the image focus and sharpness rise to a major point, as it allows me to listen deeper into the phrasing of a choir or orchestra
I'm new to this audiophile world I'm a competitive gamer but from my understanding a soundstage would be pretty important for gaming i could be wrong please anyone let me know but for a competitive shooter being able to hear your opponents and locate their movements based on sound is a huge plus so would that be soundstage i dont like the gamer head phones its all just marketing im really interested in what headphones would give me that perfect soundstage you say the hd 650s can locate the mic really well so with a game the noise comes from the characters footsteps is that true? or would the argons with a better sound stage be better
Soundstage doesn’t help you locate. Imaging does. Wait till the end of this month. A gaming headphone is coming out that’s really good. I’ll have a video on it when it launches.
Erm when you find your self coming across this video wharing the Hd800s Certainly made me chuckle Love these types of vids from your channel. Got a question mate, need to pick up a new pare of in ear monitors and I have three two choose from was wandering witch of them you would recommend. Am in to well balanced sound but engaging and a detail junky. LCDI4 Shore KSE12000 electro statics, or maybe the 64 audio t12 or t18 Thanks again
Don Hamlin haha you don’t own them? I guess it wouldn’t make sense then, this video is literally the poster child for them. Headphones have come close, but soundstage and imaging yeah they’re still the king. In one package that is obviously
@@KojiCO-ConvinceM They may have the biggest soundstage but they still sound like headphones, the timbre of the HD 800 is pretty bad, and it doesn't really make sense to try and get headphones designed to try to excel at something headphones by their very nature are bad at (soundstage). You're better off getting a decent pair of speakers for a 1/4 of the price and then getting some headphones that don't have broken sounding timbre.
Big Yeetus The HD 800S scales, but it’s only one Head phone in my collection. I have 12, and they are running off of the HTVD 820 and “cutest DAC When you push the HD 800 S to their limits and eek out all their performance trust me you will not say that. 😄
I have decent headphones (Apple AirPod Max)...but it is really hard for me to hear music in front of me. Some songs are amazing in projecting all around me from behind, but not out front. Is everyone like this? Is it my headphones?
not exactly. You can have good imaging without soundstage and the other way around. Soundstage is depth/width. Imaging is just being able to tell where a sound is coming from (directionally)
If you want to come to know and imaging and sound stage, simply buy The Pink Floyd, Pulse CD live. I have the b52s unified Elac, and it's absolutely beautiful and Amazing. Try it, make sure you have a good pair of speakers. Trust me on this , and a good CD player, and put your sit belt on! 🤘👀😘👀💪👻
They’re very commonly agreed upon traits with many many models. Correlation in large groups heavily suggests they are factors that could potentially be measured objectively at some point in the future and likely have something to do with acoustic impedance per-model.
The lack of liked on this comment tells me most people have no idea about audio. Frequency response curves and audio production determines most of the perceived soundstage/ imaging.
for gaming the imaging is the most important, i dont need to know how "far" the enemy is when i can just look over his location. i think soundstage is not that important. just pick which sounds good.
@Hersey Berry Yea I get that, I just don't know what the fuck the point of soundstage is if it makes your music sound broken, give me the natural timbre of the 650 or 600 any day, soundstage be damned, the 800 still sounds like headphones, soundstage on headphones is overhyped and is fighting a losing battle imo when speakers exist that have ACTUAL soundstage.
I think what he is saying is that headphones and IEM's don't really reproduce soundstage/imaging differently. It is determined by the frequency response and the audio production/mixing.
Deeply, and completely full of shit. The “soundstage” and believed by audiophiles is just the apparent illusion of instruments, sounds, and vocals as presented by the mixing engineer deciding with channels, which are all mono (even the shure SM57 depicted in this video is a mono microphone), and which of the two channels in a stereo microphone as recorded, are panned in the two channel master mix, and what the relative gain structures as mixed compared to the other channels giving the illusion of depth.
Soundstage is a psychoacoustic affect that plays off personal HRTF. Mixing is much more complicated than that. Especially now that DAWs can simulate an HRTF for virtually infinite spatial placement.
I sorta agree with this, I'm wondering if people have just parroted each other so many times that people just accept that these things are their own separate categories rather than being inherently dependent on one another. I really just refer to it as "staging" or "head stage"
No, they are not. It's blatantly obvious if you've ever played a game that's not like an RTS or a side-scroller. Soundstage is distance and imaging is direction. It can't be put in any simpler terms.
@@tacanacy I just don't see the point in separating them into separate categories, you can still describe the staging without having separate categories just fine so who gives a fuck?
My $15 earphones (Sony EX110LP) sound better than most headphones ranging to $400, tried a lot, spent hours listening, still not worth the minor upgrade at a huge price jump (no i don't listen to poorly recorded music and i have the proper amp/dac to run them) None of the headphones came even close to the earphone in terms of bass response, depth, strength.
![If you can't hear this then you're not an audiophile [See description for link to followup video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/48PxwspDvrE/mqdefault.jpg)
![If you can't hear this then you're not an audiophile [See description for link to followup video]](/img/tr.png)
![Yeat & Quavo - 5BRAZY [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/4XxnTAwyxus/mqdefault.jpg)
Many more of these filmed! Vocal Presence and Clarity is on patreon followed by The TWO main types of compression (tomorrow).
What else would you like to see explained?
resolving?
To make it even simpler , soundstage is depth and distance of the mix , imaging is panoramic (left to right stereo placement)
@Time Machine Both are important for gaming
Thanks man, I needed this for an essay about something you like and I chose audio. Don't worry I credited and quoted you literally all the time
Great explanation. If you don't explain it simply enough, you don't understand it well enough. Well done!
I've been on a watch spree for these educational video of yours. You've done fantastic work DMS, thank you so much for explaining these technicalities to a layman like me.
i am a keyboardist. a musician for about 25 years now and i mainly learn songs we play in the band by ear. So with almost any headphone I can distinguish instrument sounds/instrument separateion and learn the parts i need to learn. Now i have Audio Technica ATH M40X and my listening is improved. Then i got my first cheap IEM and plan to do an unboxing video and fisrt impression of it so i am doingt research on some common audiohile terms like "soundstage" and "imaging" and google led me to this video. Thank you so much! Although yes, soundstage is kinda self explanatorty. but i am not pretening to be a know-it-all so i clicked your video to learn what you have to say. :)
Its also worth noting that different people hear different soundstage/imaging even on the same headphones.
DMS and Joshua Valour both think the HD650/660s have great imaging, but Metal571 thinks those two headphones are more 3 blob-y. Z thinks the K712 has just "shoved in your face" soundstage, but Joshua and Metal571 think they sound huge. Z and Metal think the DT880 have a good wide soundstage, but Josh and DMS both recently think that they're just ok in soundstage width.
Volume preferences, source, and even environment for closed backs contribute to this, so YMMV.
How can you remember all what they have said?
@@davidmason8212 that’s some dedication there
It's different because it is al bullshit and dependent on the track/audio production and frequency response tuning.
This just isnt true. Z said the 712 was Huge
Hope to see others like this! Harmonic distortion etc...
Also Dynamic Impact.
he already did dynamic range
Now do one on timbre and sibilance please!
Timbre: listen to Miles Davis and John Coltrane play a "head" in unison (jazz slang for main melody), you can either take the unison parts or even a single that they play together. The difference in that single note (for example a "C" note), you can easily make a distinction in the nature of each instrument, as to how they produce the same note. That's basically timbre.
What influences timbre? The nature of the instrument: brass component, wood component, resonance component, etc.
Sibilance is a bit trickier to explain, because it's specific to a couple of factors: inherent tuning of headphone and nature of recording. Sibilance is the "unnatural" sound created by certain sung or spoken syllables (like some overemphasized sizzle every time you hear the letter "S").
I think I'll stop there. You have enough to start with, rest is research... and experience
Newt Scamander got bored of beasts and became an audiophile. Good on ya mate.
Thanks for the explanation. Im a amateur audiophile and i keep hearing from people how's the "Soundstage" on my new DAC. I had a feeling of what they were talking about however, i wasn't for sure. Now i know. Thank you.
Dacs don’t affect soundstage
very subtle and brief!! thanks that was great!
Aweseome vid! Soooo unbelievably helpful!
Thank you for this. I now know that I absolutely hate voices/sounds in my head.
Your Video Audio in my IEM is superb 🙏
wow, enjoying the increased production value
Great video and very informative! You could do a video about wired connections, between your source, dacs, amps, and monitors. Benefits and best fit for each: balanced vs unbalanced, RCA, S/PDIF, optical, etc.
Great explanation!
This was particularly well done. Keep up the good work.
You should do more of these for sure. Good one.
Thank you! Just what I was looking for! =)
Hello Dear Friends !!!!!!!!
Please tell me !!!!!!!!
Can open back IEMs (especially Raptgo Hook x HBB) be SoundStagy and build Images like Sundara or like HarmonicDyne Zeus ?
Thank You !!!!!!!!
Great video, thank you!
can you make a list of top 5 HPs for Imaging and another top 5 for sound stage ?
More videos like this please
I remember playing Stalker CoP, leaving the train station and the sound of a bloodsucker getting closer and closer with that heavy breathing. I was wearing AD700s. I uhh don't play Stalker wearing those headphones anymore.
What do you think about the soundstage/imaging of the the DT990 pro(for gaming)? A few great pro gamers use them. Now I’m curious about these headphones since they’re right in my budget.
Hey DMS, any opinions between the Sennheiser HD800 an HD800S for an overkill gaming setup?
Thank you , do dacs help to increase the soundstage and imaging of headphones?
Nice information thank you bro
But "what causes it?". Is a wider soundstage created by the arrival time and phase? And could it be created digitally in the signal path?
Can you recommend any headphones that have a good balance between imaging and soundstage... or better yet, does both really well?
Bose soundtouch 10's (on ear) are good for beginning audiophiles... got mine for $50 off eBay. Great sound staging for cheap. :)
Hd 599 has excellent imaging, better than premium tier headphones. Average soundstage not too good but it's better than most. For 100 dollars the special edition of that headphone is the most bang for buck purchase you can make beside the shp 9500.
What is your opinion on the Audio Technica M50XBT2 headphones for sound -imaging?
Kind regards:Noel
great video
great video as always but i need a more detailed explanation in layman's terms... im not clear on the imaging part. great video DMS!
Imaging is ability to pick out a sound and focus just on that one sound/instrument without also drowning out the others. Space plays into this by pushing sounds farther away so your mind can pick them out easier.
Imaging is direction. Soundstage is distance.
can you recommend me headphones that are affordable for competitive gaming? fucked up last year and got an akg 702 which i didnt know had shit imaging
Akg 702 has good soundstage why you hate it ?
Thank you for the explanation! Do the type of earpad used in a headphone alter the soundstage and/or imaging in any way?
Great vid, DMS. Quick question, when folk talk about Imaging is that the same as when they refer to Detail? Seems like the terms are sometimes interchanged. Is there a difference? Enjoying your content, man
imaging is really just being able to clearly tell a direction a sound is coming from. Detail is different. I'll have a video on that soon.
@@DMS3TV Awesome, will keep an eye out for that. Appreciate you taking the time to answer
@@DMS3TV do the drop thx have a wide and big soundstage? If not, can I know what makes them so good? Thanks
quality content
For competitive gaming I found more interesting to get a narrow sound-stage but with clear imaging (and no dominant bass).
Balanced armatures IEM are very well suited for that task but not all are created equal.
The difference is night and day between an open type cans and sound-in-head iem but that might ruin the immersion for some.
ARI ATH YF favorite IEM’ 350$ or less for this ?
@@kalani2356 Years ago for around 260usd there was one undisputed model tuned for that task:
The JAYS Q-Jays, a 2-BA tiny iem fine tuned for neutrality and clarity.
It's revision 2 included a replaceable cable fixing it's major flaw.
Used with a custom-shaped silicon earbud
it offered a "wall-hack information" grade of experience.
After losing mine (due to faulty SAV) I tried its direct competitor the Japanese Final Audio F4100.
Despite being VERY similar in all aspects its tuning and ear fit revealed to be problematic and since such drivers lack naturally the "fullness of sound" it ended up being frustrating to use.
Now the good news..
In the recent years the CHI FI market has been SHATTERING the price tag references (truth is most audio gear is overpriced even the Q-Jays).
Today for no more than 60usd I've found something that outperforms sound wise what I've mentioned above.. KZ-ZSX.
This ZSX is more a Sharp ALL-arround-er than a specific "give me the wall-hack sound" because it have 1DD & 5BA.
For serious gaming it require recessing it's Dynamic Driver with a small EQ.
It's major flaw, it's build quality around the connector is questionable.
Despite being outdated and overpriced the Q-Jay remain a reference for this particular use case.
@@ariathyf144 Thanks for long reply and info. I got the moondrop starfield in mail last night and don't like the imaging. Probably because it's a dynamic driver only. I'm about to return and look at others now
Hey DMS, I just found your channel through a friend. I like your videos, but I know a lot of people who buy headphones are also gamers. Gamers believe, inaccurately, that a wide/spacious soundstage on headphones for music will equate to a more accurate 3D world immersion in a game. This is actually the opposite, and better musical instrument imaging is actually worse for competitive first person gaming because it's an emulated 3D sound from the headphones that creates a misrepresentation of the actual game sound locations. This is also why stereo output is better than digital 3D simulation output (like Atmos) for accurate game sounds.
I'm sure you knew this already, but as a gamer/audiophile I am tired of explaining that "good imaging" isn't the same for music as it is in games and gamers should not be using open back, flat driver, spacious sounding cans when $10 earbuds will be better 90% of the time. What they want is a well matched L/R channel, close stereo sound, with slightly elevated highs and slightly recessed lows. Something like the graph on Tin HiFi T3 or P1.
Anecdotally, I find that BAs create the most defined image in games. I get more kills through walls than anyone I've ever met.
Maybe you could make a video explaining this to people so I can just link your video to them instead of typing it all out every time? :)
best gaming headphones?
I think this depends on the content more than the earphones.
I mean, binaural audio will sound spacious even on cheap HiFi Chinese in ears.
So will Video games with correct HRTF.
Try the Jolida Sound Stage Expander Jolida FOZ SS-X you will blow your mind
I loved DMS in the movie Fantastic Beasts.....
Looool he is Eddie Redmaynes twin brother
What would you say are the best like 5 cans for imaging under 1000 bucks?
Do IEMs rly give you more precise imaging in general as claimed on some places of the internet?
The Sennheiser HD 660 S is one of the, maybe even the best headphone on the
IEMs give you better gaming imaging. Worse music imaging due to space. Gaming imaging is actually the exact opposite type of imaging as musical imaging.. you need a close and narrow sound for gaming and you want a wide and broad image for music.
@@BaptizedTTV I strongly disagree with needing a close and narrow soundstage for precise imaging in games. Even when using a soundstage behemoth like the K1000, which are even wider and deeper than the HD800, positional audio remains pinpoint accurate for both distance and directionality. I'm not saying you need a huge soundstage, the HD580 and Clear I use are also 10/10 for positional accuracy, but go smaller and the size of the soundstage will start to inhibit the distance to objects/sounds.
@@tacanacy Tacanacy I wish I had a pair of ear speakers like the K1000! Since they don't have resonance and such they should all come very close to diffuse field!
I haven't tested the K1000, but I'd be curious to see it's diffuse field target measurements. This is essentially what I'm testing by tracking the sound through 360*. The thing though about that, is even if it's spread out evenly, in a perfect 360* pattern, the volume is what should determine estimated distance in gaming. This is slightly different than on binaural and ASMR tracks. Anything pushing maximum DB volume notes that sound "away" from directly next to your ear are less realistic (even if it's on perfectly balanced volume levels/perfect diffuse field target) and harder to pinpoint. The center of your head is the cetera algorithm, right? Well, in a game you want the center to be as small as that point while still having dual mics with raw stereo output at the point, bypassing your pinnae, completely filling your ear canal, exactly where the intended microphones are placed. In game they don't use microphones for dual mono/stereo binaural recordings.. so it's more accurate with the smaller stage, since the bigger stage is more like an artificial spread in that case. Great for music but worse for gaming. It's the same reasons why game headsets are all closed back and stereo > digital 3D.
I highly suggest buying the Tin T2 next time it's on Drop and check the difference.
I'd buy the K1000, but it's like $600 I think. XD
I can't understand why people like having a bloated soundstage. I like having an accurate soundstaging on my headphones. If they recorded from 10ft away, it sound like it was recorded 10ft away. No more, no less. If you don't agree with the artist's take and you want to add or take away intimacy, I'd always recommend doing it digitally (while keeping the headphones neutral).
Truth man, 100% prefer the hd 650 to the HD 800, HD 800 sounded ridiculously wide, nothing felt right, it's like you want to look at a painting, but with the hd 800 it was through a telescope 2 miles away, much rather have the experience of standing 3 feet away from the painting.
It obviously doesn't sound bloated to them. Soundstage interplays differently with different songs. With some songs, I find that the HD800 smear images, but they sound tight and surgically precise with others.
@@tacanacy Most people who know what they're talking about will tell you that for a lot of music the soundstage on the hd 800 is overkill and causes music to sound unengaging, I would definitely agree with them. This is a headphone best suited for the best recordings for acoustic or orchestral.
My personal liking is a bit strange.
With speakers I like a big, slightly diffuse soundstage, but with absolute stability of image size and placement. This gives a wonderful feeling of envelopment and warmth. Image sharpness however doesn’t matter to me (again as long as it doesn’t wander with change of frequency)
With headphones it’s almost the opposite. A big diffuse soundstage doesn’t do much for me, it’s almost like I get confused by some of the soundstage happening in my head, some on the skin of my head and a bit of it outside of my head. If I can’t get the soundstage completely detached (100%) from my head I will rathe be without it. But instead the image focus and sharpness rise to a major point, as it allows me to listen deeper into the phrasing of a choir or orchestra
THANK YOU!!!
When is the Bose 700 review coming out? Also, can u do a video on clarity, detail, and resonance?
Amazon cancelled my order so I have to buy another pair. It’s delayed a few weeks unfortunately because they’re on back-order near me.
I'm new to this audiophile world I'm a competitive gamer but from my understanding a soundstage would be pretty important for gaming i could be wrong please anyone let me know but for a competitive shooter being able to hear your opponents and locate their movements based on sound is a huge plus so would that be soundstage
i dont like the gamer head phones its all just marketing im really interested in what headphones would give me that perfect soundstage you say the hd 650s can locate the mic really well so with a game the noise comes from the characters footsteps is that true? or would the argons with a better sound stage be better
Soundstage doesn’t help you locate. Imaging does. Wait till the end of this month. A gaming headphone is coming out that’s really good. I’ll have a video on it when it launches.
Erm when you find your self coming across this video wharing the Hd800s
Certainly made me chuckle
Love these types of vids from your channel.
Got a question mate, need to pick up a new pare of in ear monitors and I have three two choose from was wandering witch of them you would recommend.
Am in to well balanced sound but engaging and a detail junky.
LCDI4 Shore KSE12000 electro statics, or maybe the 64 audio t12 or t18
Thanks again
Koji G Just curious why someone wearing HD800’s would make you chuckle.
Don Hamlin haha you don’t own them?
I guess it wouldn’t make sense then, this video is literally the poster child for them.
Headphones have come close, but soundstage and imaging yeah they’re still the king.
In one package that is obviously
Koji G Yes, I do own them. They are my favorite headphones.
@@KojiCO-ConvinceM They may have the biggest soundstage but they still sound like headphones, the timbre of the HD 800 is pretty bad, and it doesn't really make sense to try and get headphones designed to try to excel at something headphones by their very nature are bad at (soundstage). You're better off getting a decent pair of speakers for a 1/4 of the price and then getting some headphones that don't have broken sounding timbre.
Big Yeetus The HD 800S scales, but it’s only one Head phone in my collection. I have 12, and they are running off of the HTVD 820 and “cutest DAC
When you push the HD 800 S to their limits and eek out all their performance trust me you will not say that.
😄
Love it!
I have decent headphones (Apple AirPod Max)...but it is really hard for me to hear music in front of me. Some songs are amazing in projecting all around me from behind, but not out front.
Is everyone like this? Is it my headphones?
😍
0:28
STARTS
how to increase soundstage for my shp9500 philips?
whats a good closed headphone with good imaging? cant go open back
Which iem is best
Is sound stage the same as sound field?
good content - wrinkled shirt
can we have good imaging without good wide soundstage then ?
that's the first case of senniheiser right ?
thanks for that
So is the soundstage a prerequisite of the imaging?
not exactly. You can have good imaging without soundstage and the other way around. Soundstage is depth/width. Imaging is just being able to tell where a sound is coming from (directionally)
If you want to come to know and imaging and sound stage, simply buy The Pink Floyd, Pulse CD live. I have the b52s unified Elac, and it's absolutely beautiful and Amazing. Try it, make sure you have a good pair of speakers. Trust me on this , and a good CD player, and put your sit belt on! 🤘👀😘👀💪👻
Does an open back headphones gives you a better soundstage/imagine ???
yes
Can't find the study and but they debunked this.
Output impedance description needed
Low End such as Extenuation, Extension, and, Impact
Thx
Soundstage is immersion
Watching this with my beyerdynamic dt 770 pro 250 ohms
video starts at 0:33
What headphones do you have on in this video?
so, sound stage for music, imaging for gaming.
Who’s here trying to figure out good gaming headphone 😂
PC38X & TYGR300R are both great for their price.
@@DMS3TV just got done watching your pc38x video! Competitive wise do you think the pc38x is good enough to get over the tygr300r?
PC38X is better for gaming.
300r is better for music.
The thing is, soundstage and imaging are subjective features and non-quantifiable unlike frequency responses
They’re very commonly agreed upon traits with many many models. Correlation in large groups heavily suggests they are factors that could potentially be measured objectively at some point in the future and likely have something to do with acoustic impedance per-model.
The lack of liked on this comment tells me most people have no idea about audio. Frequency response curves and audio production determines most of the perceived soundstage/ imaging.
Headphones don't have soundstage (when listening to traditional stereo mixes).
For some reason, I was very confused how focal utopia image the sound. It was just a weird experience.
anyone notice how strange the timer is? it kept dropping the leading 0 for seconds 😂
for gaming the imaging is the most important, i dont need to know how "far" the enemy is when i can just look over his location.
i think soundstage is not that important. just pick which sounds good.
learn a lot about SOUNDSTAGE right here
www.rtings.com/headphones/tests/sound-quality/soundstage
Hd800 eq got both soundstage and imaging
Yea and fucked timbre, no thanks
@@bigyeetus2866 you are correct
@Hersey Berry Yea I get that, I just don't know what the fuck the point of soundstage is if it makes your music sound broken, give me the natural timbre of the 650 or 600 any day, soundstage be damned, the 800 still sounds like headphones, soundstage on headphones is overhyped and is fighting a losing battle imo when speakers exist that have ACTUAL soundstage.
You dropped the ball on soundstage. It made no sense
Headphones like the Monars argon? Tf are you talking about, please put it in the description or spell it in the video 🙄
Modhouse argon.. it’s pretty widespread these days. If you typed in “argon headphone” on google it’ll come up.
Thank you. I'm not into the headphone topic and just came across this video looking for a video about imaging and stage in loudspeakers
And how we can measure this things? Its only in your imagination. Soundstage & Imaging not exist, its audiofools bullshit.
Are you trying to say that your ears can't determine direction? That might be a medical issue.
I think what he is saying is that headphones and IEM's don't really reproduce soundstage/imaging differently. It is determined by the frequency response and the audio production/mixing.
Deeply, and completely full of shit. The “soundstage” and believed by audiophiles is just the apparent illusion of instruments, sounds, and vocals as presented by the mixing engineer deciding with channels, which are all mono (even the shure SM57 depicted in this video is a mono microphone), and which of the two channels in a stereo microphone as recorded, are panned in the two channel master mix, and what the relative gain structures as mixed compared to the other channels giving the illusion of depth.
Soundstage is a psychoacoustic affect that plays off personal HRTF.
Mixing is much more complicated than that. Especially now that DAWs can simulate an HRTF for virtually infinite spatial placement.
Soundstage and Imaging are the same thing. That’s just me
I sorta agree with this, I'm wondering if people have just parroted each other so many times that people just accept that these things are their own separate categories rather than being inherently dependent on one another. I really just refer to it as "staging" or "head stage"
No, they are not. It's blatantly obvious if you've ever played a game that's not like an RTS or a side-scroller. Soundstage is distance and imaging is direction. It can't be put in any simpler terms.
Tacanacy If you say so
@@tacanacy I just don't see the point in separating them into separate categories, you can still describe the staging without having separate categories just fine so who gives a fuck?
My $15 earphones (Sony EX110LP) sound better than most headphones ranging to $400, tried a lot, spent hours listening, still not worth the minor upgrade at a huge price jump (no i don't listen to poorly recorded music and i have the proper amp/dac to run them) None of the headphones came even close to the earphone in terms of bass response, depth, strength.