Headphones vs speakers

Fortunately, I have an office that I can close the door.

Welcome to HFGF :smiley:

Probably the closest would be something like the HSA-1b or Stax…but tbh they’re different use scenarios…If you love speakers and have the space then why would you use HP’s?

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Oh maybe an Audioquest Nighthawk would work for him too. That headphone sounds like speakers but without the sound of being in a room.

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Thanks for the welcome!

I’m mainly looking for head phones so I can crank up the music in my office at work which would be harder with speakers lol

I’ll have to do some research on the Nighthawk. Thanks for the recommendation!

They aren’t easy to find and they use an extremely low distortion driver so people either love or hate the sound. It sounds really veiled/dark until your ears adjust, then you start hearing all the little details in the music.

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Price to performance ratio: IEMs > Speakers > Headphones.

Price to performance above ~$1000: Speakers > IEMs > Headphones.

This is generally agreed upon subjectively among those who like all 3 presentations/sound mediums.

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The only way to get speaker-like presentation on your head is to buy something like the RAAL SR1a. Sorry to bust your bubble but you can’t cheat physics.

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I just looked the headphone up. Haha that’s about 3K more than I want to spend on headphones. I’ll have to lower my expectations :slight_smile:

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Price to performance ratio: Speakers > Headphones > IEMs

IEMs hits the worst for diminished return especially for something above $1000

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You got some nice replies here.

Here’s my two cents on it.

Can you get a speaker-like experience on a headphone? Kinda.

Does it cost a lot? Yes. RAAL SR1a is something you could be looking at for a speaker-like experience.

Can you get a speaker-like performance without leaking sound as much as a speaker? Nope. RAAL’s will leak a lot, but you will be getting that experience. Because the speakers of RAAL’s are closer to your ear, the volume levels would be lower than if you were listening to speakers.

You will need several thousands of dollars to achieve what you are looking for. I simply don’t think you can get something that sounds like a speaker at a budget price. Perhaps the Sennheiser HD800 series, but people said it doesn’t sound realistic and sounds larger than the music is supposed to sound.

I will say that a good pair of IEMs can give you a very open experience, but I don’t think it can be compared to loudspeakers. Spending 500-1000 dollars on IEMs does seem to be a valid option for you. Otherwise, you should go for some ZMF headphones (which are perceived to sound very open, depending on the model).

Hope I helped you out a tiny bit. From my understanding, you will be listening to music at work, and this really limits you as to what product you can use. If you go the IEM way, expect not to hear your colleagues.

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IEM’s offer insane performance for almost no money, but yes it does decline extremely rapidly above ~$1000. Many of the most expensive IEMs (+$4000) usually end up being subpar according to the majority of serious reviewers. The best IEMs in the world are probably 64 Audio U12T and UM MEST MK2 which are both well below $4000… so about half that.

Speakers offer a very linear performance ratio and in my experience only become better as you go up in price. I have heard $200, $1000, $2000, $30.000 speakers and the jump is substantial and undeniable each time. There does not seem to be a hard “limit” to performance. My current stereo setup is worth $6500 or thereabouts.

Headphones IMO offer subpar performance up until at least $1000 where it starts to pickup and perhaps overtake what IEMs can offer.

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Thank you everyone for being so helpful. I did buy some Moondrop Aria IEMs ($89.00) today just to get a feel for how IEMs sound. They should be in early next week. I’ve not listened to any yet so looking forward to getting my feet wet. My max budget for head phones is around the $500 mark. Any IEM’s or open backs I should be looking at? I have a good feel for speakers as I’ve been into that for a while now but headphones are brand new to me.

To your main question…kinda sorta but not really. Once you go up, arguably way up, in headphone quality you can get a soundstage that can become somewhat lifelike. Immediatley coming to mind are the big HiFiMans like the Arya or HE1000 series. Those can make it sound like you’re in the 3rd row of a concert, which could be interpreted as speaker-like to an extent. But, they still don’t do it as well as speakers. Speakers and headphones are fundamentally different listening experiences that both have major pros and cons.

As @A_Jedi points out, the laws of physics play a big role here (and everywhere, for that matter). Most headphones cannot move the same volume of air that speakers can and that equates to a different listening experience.

Biology, at least physiology, is also a large factor. Human hearing did not evolve to be at its best with sources of sound placed either inside or right at the ear opening and sound waves being fired directly down the ear canals. That’s a very unnatural way for us to listen for extended periods of time. Speakers have a distinct advantage in that way. Still, headphones and IEMs both present music in a different way that can be very enjoyable based on preferences and types of music.

Enjoy exploring! It’s a lot of fun.

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What kind of sound signature are you looking for? Warm? Bassy? Bright? Bassy and bright? etc.

I find it odd that no one has mentioned crossfeed yet.
One of the primary differences when using head gear, is that your left and right are completely separate from one another.
People say the Raal and Mysphere sound like speakers…I’m not hearing it - they provide a single aspect that is similar to speakers in that the drivers are in front of your ears and they don’t surround your head - but left and right are still separated.
Usually the benefit of a headphone is that it brings you closer to the details and provides isolation if you used closed headphones. For a speaker like sound, high end Audezes (LCD-3, LCD-4) via something like the SPL Phonitor or RME ADI-2 Pro FS to provide crossfeed is probably as close as you’re going to get.
If you power them properly, the LCD-4 basically sounds like a speaker on your head. The centre image is insanely precise and if you can somehow introduce crossfeed into that mix without destroying the imaging, then you have it!

There is a Japanese brand called Crosszone who make headphones that introduce crossfeed naturally (as in, it’s built into the headphone circuit), but I haven’t heard them personally and it seems you can only order their stuff by email.

But, in any case, IMO chasing a speaker-like sound in a headphone, is kinda an arduous and expensive journey. My advice would be to find a headphone that makes your listening experience enjoyable because of the benefits a headphone brings over a soundsystem, but don’t try and replace (or match like for like) the soundsystem with the headphones.
The way speakers can fill the air with sound energy is something headphones can never really emulate - and if you have a competent subwoofer, it’s basically over (Sure the SubPac, crossfeed and decent headphones do exist, but again, arduous, expensive and probably ultimately fruitless).

There are some good headphones out there, so once you realign your goals a little bit, I’m sure you’ll find something that makes you smile almost every listen :slight_smile:

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Very interesting.

I am more curious. Why is the LCD-3/LCD-4 + Phonitor / ADI-2 PRO FS closer to a speaker than a pair of RAAL headphones? What I’m assuming the answer is, is that the Phonitor/ADI-2 PRO FS offer the crossfeed feature you mentioned, and RAAL’s cannot be connected to those amps because they require their own special amplifier.

I know RAAL’s headphones require a special amplifier, but I’m curious whether the Phonitor 2’s crossfeed feature could be used for the RAAL’s.

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In my experience, it’s down to the technical ability of the driver.
Imo both the MySphere and the Raal are expensive because of their legitimate uniqueness (both in driver technology and form factor) and it probably takes time and money (can’t pump it out on a factory line I’m guessing)to make, not because of their technical performance - not to say they’re not good, but have you seen how stacked the £1K-2K range of headphones is?
Besides, I’m comparing it to a headphone whose RRP exceeds even those cans.

I always scoffed at the LCD pricing, similar to the Utopia, until I heard it powered correctly.
The Raal to me just sounds like far away headphones, that blows a bunch of air at you when sub bass is called upon.
It doesn’t create an insane centre image (though the staging is AWESOME) and it doesn’t produce a massive force that hits the side of your head.

The LCD-4 when powered well completely surrounds your audible senses, it’s very tall and somewhat wide but again the image is very good. In addition, when you give it a bunch of energy, it sends all the energy to your head and, can even do very visceral sub bass, similar in nature to 18" infinite baffle car audio setups (obviously not the same experience, but I haven’t heard any other can do such insane distortion free real sub bass). It’s very open and you can just keep turning it up (another rare feature, usually headphones - including the aforementioned earspeakers - distort or hurt after a while).
So yeah, it’s basically very good, but it’s extreme and expensive. LCD-3 is a subset of that and less extreme, but still needs power.

And, I haven’t heard them with the crossfeed enabled, they just sounded that good already. I’ve heard the crossfeed on other stuff and it’s pretty cool! But, if you combine the two, I imagine it would either be insane, or ruin something because the headphones weren’t originally tuned with crossfeed use in mind.

Now if you could use crossfeed on the Earspeakers…that could completely change the game!
Would still need more competency in the low end area (impossible with that design at that size?) but surely that’s literally as close as you can get to a normal speaker setup!

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This is all very interesting. I think I will thoroughly study crossfeed when I catch myself some free time. It appears to be very interesting, and I personally never heard anyone talking about it.

Thank you for bringing this subject up. I think you definitely gave detailed answers which give a different perspective on things, and I appreciate that!

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Well put. I agree. As I sit here thoroughly enjoying my speaker setup, I started to ponder this question. I have put some energy and resources into the headphone side of the system, and it’s having a positive impact for sure. And yet…

To be honest I have never been a huge fan of the headphone experience but have certainly developed a much greater appreciation for that experience in recent years. And I have to say, the investment made into better headphones as well as gear has driven it. Will the next jump in tier close the gap even more? Perhaps. I am comfortable with life at mid-tier and have no plans to push much beyond that, so I’ll probably never know. Regardless, I will always prefer speakers. Just the air and sense of presence, the resonance that you can feel, the organic nuance that presentation provides is superior to me. That is just how I am wired.

See what I did there? :grinning: