julie Posted January 16, 2008 Report Share Posted January 16, 2008 Hello everyone! I am a product designer from the uk and I'm designing a pair of headphones for my final project (at Uni). I'm aiming them at the female youth-late twenties market but I want them to sound good too. So far I've been trying to research design on headphones but am not finding an awful lot. Does anyone know about the insides much? lol is it a case of just the speaker being inside the headphone cup? I'm looking at 40mm Neodymium speakers but I can't find any other higher end alternatives. They seem decent but at only $USD0.20 I'd like to put something better in. The other aspect I'm looking at is sales. Could anyone point me in the right direction here? For example how many pairs or a particular model are sold each year through a particular retailer etc. Any help would be hugely appreciated! Julie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
postjack Posted January 16, 2008 Report Share Posted January 16, 2008 MOTMOTMTOMTOMTOMTOMTOTMOTMOTMOTM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JBLoudG20 Posted January 16, 2008 Report Share Posted January 16, 2008 MOTMOTMTOMTOMTOMTOMTOTMOTMOTMOTM lol, nice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n_maher Posted January 16, 2008 Report Share Posted January 16, 2008 Am I the only one who reads this and sees "please do my research for me" Julie, if you want headphone advice call a headphone company and see if you can get an engineer to speak with you. Explain that you are from "the uni", I'm sure that will set them at ease. Asking a bunch of malcontents what they think doesn't make a whole bunch of sense to me... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spiug31 Posted January 16, 2008 Report Share Posted January 16, 2008 http://www.headphone.com/products/headphones/ will give a very limited introduction to various types/uses of headphones. Headphone design is a massive area. There is a nice disassembly sequence of one pair at http://apuresound.com/hdsennmod.html Contact the retailers directly or phone the regional distributors and ask them about their sales. p.s. If you're not strapped for cash go out and buy some headphones similar to the design your aiming at and see what they are made of Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spiug31 Posted January 16, 2008 Report Share Posted January 16, 2008 this might give you a start point http://headphonereviews.org/manufacturer.php good luck Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
julie Posted January 16, 2008 Author Report Share Posted January 16, 2008 Spiug31 thank you, some really good links cheers I came across the AKG K1000 headphones on the first site-they are amazing! I think you might piss a few people off if you wore them on the bus but the design is just fantastic! I bought a pair of Muji Zumreeds from audiocubes.com and have a few pairs of sennheisers which I've been looking at for research so far. I'm going to call up distributors- I had presumed before they wouldn't give out that sort of info but its definitely worth a try. n_maher - I apologise if I came across as 'one of those' - I'm a regular contributer to a couple of design forums and I understand where you're coming from. On the engineer front I have been in contact with a local uni which has a world renown acoustics department and will be meeting a prof. there as soon as he has time. Postjack - I'm afraid I didn't get the MOT reference, sorry. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spiug31 Posted January 16, 2008 Report Share Posted January 16, 2008 MOT = Member Of the Trade Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
julie Posted January 16, 2008 Author Report Share Posted January 16, 2008 Thank you once again Spiug31! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dusty Chalk Posted January 16, 2008 Report Share Posted January 16, 2008 Does anyone know about the insides much? lol is it a case of just the speaker being inside the headphone cup? The short answer is, "no". Track down one of the blow-up images of a pair of headphones to get you started -- everything comes into play at such close quarters -- even the decision as to what material the pads are made out of affect the sound. Some headphones have multiple screens (the headphone equivalent of speaker grills) to fine tune the sound, as well as multiple materials behind the driver. I can't fine one right now, but try to find one of those blow-up diagrams of a pair of headphones just to give you an inkling of the sort of thoughts that go into the design of a pair of headphones. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
julie Posted January 16, 2008 Author Report Share Posted January 16, 2008 Cheers Dusty Chalk- I'm exploring the insides of my old PX 200s just now. I have the book 'The science of sound' by TD Rossing, FR Moore and PA Wheeler which is good but fairly basic, 'Loudspeaker and headphone handbook' is much more detailed but to my enormous frustration after finding it was on google books (too expensive to buy) they had cut out the headphone pages!! Thanks for the advice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dusty Chalk Posted January 16, 2008 Report Share Posted January 16, 2008 Oh, and a design opinion: black goes with anything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luvdunhill Posted January 16, 2008 Report Share Posted January 16, 2008 AKG service manuals may be of help... I'm not sure if other vendors do this, but I know that AKG does. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mortalcoil Posted January 27, 2008 Report Share Posted January 27, 2008 julie ... look no further than the awe inspiring inspirational design of the GS-1000 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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