[hirsch]

Originally Posted by Dusty Chalk

I take a small amount of umbrage specifically with the term "headstage" because it's a play on the word, "soundstage", which, to me, has a very specific meaning of the abilities of speakers to recreate the space of the original recording. Soundstage is, of course, an illusion, the aural equivalent of stereoscopy. Short of binaural recordings -- which no-one is ever talking about when they're talking about headstage -- this is even more illusory with headphones. It is my humble opinion that most people who hear "headstage" are deluding themselves even more so than usual.*

I've never heard a speaker system that was able to recreate the space of an original recordings. Given that much of the music that I listen to is electronic, and is not a "live" (in the sense of real-time, rather than the mortality of the musician) recording, that's probably a good thing. Given some of the places where I've heard concerts that were later released as "live" recordings (I know of at least a dozen, maybe more), I'd say failure to recreate the live event is an even better thing in many cases.

It's interesting that you talk about placement -- I don't think there's anything wrong with being able to place sound elements anywhere "within" the head -- anywhere between the two driver elements -- that can be done simply with balance. "Headstage" would require either binaural recording or some sort of HRTF (which, again, people usually aren't talking about -- this entire discussion changes if that is indeed part of the discussion).

But that's "placement" -- the ability to place sound elements in the sound field.

You say sound field, I say sound stage. You say tomayto, I say tomahto...

In either case, there is an area in which sounds can occur. It should ideally extend beyond the ears. IME a system that simply plays from ear to ear is very limited. In any event, it defines the area in which instruments can appear to be located. Within that space, the instrument can appear to be at a very specific point, or can be diffuse and hard to pin down. When I hear the latter, I fix it.

Also, that's not "separation" -- the ability to separate sound elements in the sound field, especially those which are close to each other.

But both of these can be accomplished with normal, untreated recordings, whereas to get a soundstage via headphones, one must be listening to a binaural recording, or a regular recording run through a HRTF, or some such.

By separation, I think that you're referring to the ability to hear both high and low volumes simultaneously, even if the instruments are near each other in the sound field. Yes...I can live with that, although I fail to see how binaural has anything to do with anything that we're talking about.

*Self-delusion is something all of us do all the time to a lesser extent, so I'm not trying to imply that deluding oneself is, in and of itself, bad. The ability to hear a soundstage requires a certain amount of self-delusion, for example -- one must be able to close one's mind's eye to the fact that you aren't actually in the original recording venue.

Actually, you're using "delusion" in the wrong way, as it implies the possibility of hearing something veridically. We can't, any more than we can see something veridically. We're very familiar with optical illusions. These work because the visual system must simplify input in systemic ways. They are hardwired. There is no way to have an "OIC" moment and see shades of gray in the absence of their context, for example (there are lots of examples of visual illusions on the web). What is less known is that audition works similarly. There is a lot of processing that goes on in the brain prior to hearing a sound.

Here's an interesting experiment. Take a short sound sample (20 sec or so). Cut out a couple of 100 msec gaps per second, leaving the gaps. Take the sound sample, with gaps, and copy it. In the second sample add white noise at the approximate volume of the sample to the gaps. Be sure that the actual audio content is identical, and that the only difference in the samples is the presence of white noise in the gaps. Listen to both and report back. Then check out the work of Daniel Levitin as a good starting point to understanding what just happened.