Basic Knowledge to Digital Music Part 2

No The Listening Device

In part one, we have discussed digital music formats and we have touched some of the players for the digital music files. Whether it is PC or portable players (iPod, SanDisk Sansa, or any others), we still need a listening device to enjoy the music being played.

There are 2 major categories: speakers and headphones. Speakers produce the digital music to be heard by many, while headphones play it for individual listener.

Before we proceed in further discussing the listening device, we need to build the foundation about the sound produced by them, the sound frequency.

Human ears, no matter how sensitive, only hears sound frequency between 20Hz to 20,000Hz. Below 20Hz or above 20kHz won't heard. Some people might claim they do, but it isn't so. We are affected by the lower and the higher than human hearing range, but that's a different topic of discussion that relates to health.

Any sound frequency that we, human, can hear is divided into 3 major categories:
- Low frequency, commonly known as bass
- Mid frequency, usually related to singers' voice and main musical instruments
- High frequency, commonly known as treble

To hear music properly and enjoyably, the 3 frequency categories need to be arranged in such ways that we can enjoy. The arrangement is known as "tuning". Each sound producing device are tuned in specific manner to produce the best result for us the listeners.

For speakers, the high end speakers usually divided into tweeter, mid or main speakers and woofer. As guessed, tweeter plays higher frequency as dominant frequency. Woofer add the power of the bass at lower frequency. Main speakers plays all frequencies but focus on mid frequency.
These speakers, whether you have 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, or 11, are connected to a sound processor usually known as Amplifier. Amplifier boost the sound frequency from the music player to the speakers level. Without amplifier, the sound might not be produced properly, most likely to low on volume.
The source or the music player can be a portable music player or CD/DVD/BluRay player or any legacy player (cassette tape player, etc).
These are the basic construct of speakers based music players. It could be more complicated depending on how a person like his/her music played.

However, in headphones is more complicated, since the unit is smaller and limited by its size. Headphones uses small speakers to put on above or in wearer's ears.  The goal of the headphones design is to simulate multiple big speakers listening experience with the limited number of small speakers in a headphone.
Headphones by itself has several categories based on the size:
- over ear, which is usually the size used by most high end headphones. The characteristic is that the listening part of the headphone cover the wearer ears, that's why over ear headphones are k own as full size headhones. A pair of cushions are used to position the speaker parts of the headphones just above the wearer ears. Since the area available for the small speakers is bigger, a lot of headphones use small speakers with radius of 40mm or bigger. With the bigger size speakers, the tuning makes it possible to reproduce wider range of frequency. Don't be surprised to find headphones with 5Hz to 30Hz sound frequency range.
To enhance the tuning, the over-ear headphones can either have opened back or closed back. Opened back headphones has a more airy quality, hence closer to big speakers experience. While the closed back headphones, sound frequencies are either bounced back into our ear or absorbed by a layer of material behind the closed back area. Off course, opened back headphones leaks sound, meaning people next to you can hear what you are listening. Closed back headphones sealed the sound inside the headphones and almost has no sound leak.
Open back headphones are usually produce the best sound that sound editors and engineers use them as their main tools. While closed back commonly used by DJs caused it sealed their ears from outside noises better.

- on ear, mostly found in portable headphones, on ear headphones become popular with the birth of Sony's Walkman. The listening units are placed literally on the wearer's ears, and to give additional comfort usually they have cushions to protect wearers ears and the speaker units inside. It is light weight, usually foldable for easy transport and always leak sounds regardless whether it is opened back or closed back. The small speakers size is off course smaller than over ear, 40mm or smaller. Being smaller means limited tuning capability and lower quality sound producers compared to the over ear.
Despite the benefits of avoiding to look like Princess Leia, on ear headphones are less comfortable, mostly because we, humans, tend to sweat.
The tuning, being limited, is a challenge by itself. Most on ear headphones has at least 1 are of frequency sacrificed (less bass, less. mid or less treble).

- in ear headphones literally placed inside the wearer's ears, hence the term earphones. Currently, there 2 types of in ear earphones: ear bud (which is placed at the cave of one's ear, just at the opening of the ear canal) and ear canal earphones (which has a small pipe protected by cushioning to be placed inside the wearer's ear canal).
Earbud usually employs a bigger micro speakers of 10mm or smaller. While ear canal earphones have tiny micro speakers.
Earbud is older technology and less comfortable due to the vibration of the earphones that worn the ear caves and hurt the wearer when worn more than 1 hour long. Sennheiser and Yuin (headphone manufacturers) try to bring back earbud and placed them at high end earphones lately and quite successful in the last couple of decades with Sennheiser MX series and the legendary Yuin PK series.
Ear canal is the newer technology and has a more direct to ear drum access. The cushioning of ear canal earphones also acts as nice blocker so wearers won't be bothered by ambience noise. Concert musicians usually wear ear canal earphones customized to fit their ears during concerts so they can focus on playing better.
The current technology of tiny micro speakers now enables an ear canal earphones to have upto 4 tiny micro speaker in each unit. Each tiny micro speakers are tuned to boost a certain area of the frequency. With such technology, sound editors and engineers, who usually wear full size headphones, can use ear canal earphones to monitor sounds frequencies during recording or live concert.
With direct access to ear drums, ear canal can be turned d to produce a very high quality sounds to rival open back, full size headphones, hence the term In Ear Monitor (IEM).

Which is your preferred listening device? Everyone has their preferences. I'm like headphones better than big speakers, hence the term headfi. It's a personalized experience.  However if you asked hifi or headfi lovers, they have the same answer: the goal is to find the subjective perfection of sound as intended by the musicians.

Pricing wise, from the legendary STAX to China's no-brand headphones, you have a lot of choices with pricing as high as the sky.
Which brand is better? Well, that's for everyone to comment and discuss. A forum for headphones lovers are available in the Internet, as well as the speakers lovers.
My personal preference are Ultrasone Edition 8, Ultimate Ears 700, Jays V-Jays, Audio Technica M50LE, and Superlux HD381F. My player SanDisk Sansa Clip+.