To the ends of the earth

摘要

Use of Owen Jones' isolator idea throws into even sharper relief the issue of headphone headband resonance and the wide disparity in headband vibrational effects between different headphones. Personally I'm convinced that headband resonance is a subjectively significant issue in the worst offenders, although it's worth pointing out that I have never ascribed any aspect of a headphone's sound quality, in normal use, to this effect. We don't yet have hard evidence on which to make such a claim. The effects of headband resonance can certainly be heard when pink noise is replayed over one capsule only. But the effect on stereo music replay will be influenced by masking and by the fact that we can expect the headband vibrational behaviour to be different for the M (sum) and S (difference) components of a stereo signal. Still, were I to be tasked with designing a headphone I'd adopt the precautionary principle: assume that headband resonance does have audible effects and take appropriate measures to suppress it. I can't believe that AudioQuest will be alone when it comes to adopting whole-capsule compliant isolation as a solution.