Obviously ZMF does. Fostex does. Once out of the bottom ranges, Grado does. In fact Grado and a few others use wood in phono cartridges also.
So, I don’t think it’s the earth now eco thing. Not a choice because plastic can be forever. Those Beats you toss on the trash heap will be in the ocean killin’ whales and sea turtles for sure.
But seriously, what are the advantages, disadvantages, and challenges of building headphones with wood? Not just aesthetic, but technical. Are there any references? Research? Enquiring Minds Want to Know.
Kidding. The densities of wood can influence sound, though as per Zach Merbach of ZMF the differences between varying woods on the same models on his headphones are largely negligible; a large part of what contributes to the final sound is design. My Klipsch HP-3s have solid ebony cups but are sonically identical to the Oak and Walnut variants due to the inside of the cups being treated with a lacquer that apparently keeps the sound standard— due to the treating of interior surfaces I wonder whether substituting the wood for anything similarly dense without the acoustic characteristics of wood might affect the sound.
The TH-X00 is a better example of how wood can influence headphone presentation, as the internal surfaces are untreated. The Ebony variant is reasonably linear (albeit downward sloping with a slight tick upwards in the mid-treble region), while the Purplehearts have more pronounced low midrange and low treble dips, and more interesting resonance characteristics that convey a pleasurable colouration to the sound besides (Mahogany splits the difference, but I think is closer to the EB overall?). It’s not just a matter of FR balance but also of distortion characteristics/internal reflections/loads of other things. Species of wood aside the shape of the cups, internal volume, thickness, and heck maybe even natural variation between samples of wood can all contribute to the final sound. I’ve always wondered what putting a modern TH900 driver into a Sony MDR-R10 with dead diaphragms (primitive biocellulose tech ftw) might do.
I don’t really play any instruments but it may be worth looking into tone woods and how they influence acoustics. I’ve some friends who play guitar/violin and they could go on for ages about how wood matters when designing and selecting an instrument. This all is a massive oversimplification, but I’m more a subjective guy than a technical one to begin with, haha. I personally like how well-done wooden headphones sound— they don’t necessarily have the clinical precision of Sennheiser’s hi-fi products, or HiFiMan’s for that matter, but those subtle tells you get when listening to wooden headphones can be quite pleasing. I’m excited to eventually get ears on an Auteur or Aeolus, they seem up my alley.
Challenges, well I imagine making consistent products could be a massive pain in the bunghole given how wood is a natural product and inherently variable. I also know of some species of wood that are so hard as to damage tools when working with them. Softer woods might be easy to play with on a lathe but are consequently less durable. Also, living in a tropical climate I can attest to how poorly-finished wood is susceptible to swelling and disintegrating (this is hyperbole, just about) over time.
I remember reading random articles online about how material choice affect performance in loudspeaker designs. Not exactly headphones, but some of the same principles will apply I daresay. Trying to track those down now.
I get wood when we are talking about resonating chambers. Piano, guitar, violin, etc. But given the thickness of the wood in headphones, it’s more like castanets.
Good point, perhaps a great deal of it really has more to do with how dense the wood is and what that does for dampening sound than the enclosure resonances colouring the presentation. I said it was all largely aesthetic as something of a joke as measurements and subjective impressions of certain makes and models inform of appreciable sonic differences, but perhaps the joke is truer than I initially thought and it comes largely down to structure more than materials used. I do think any efforts to dampen sound using acoustic fiber or similar might immediately negate the effects of wood type, but I’ve not had the opportunity to experiment with that yet— the Fostex kids are all plain wood on the inside I believe, which allows the woods to “sing”, as it were.
Perhaps some can tell the difference between ironwood castanets and elm ones, I’d probably be hard-pressed to do so unless I spent a good few years learning to play them
So many great discussions, and one comment that resonated with me was when Metal briefly touched on the subject of wood densities when speaking of ZMF Headphones.
I think this gets downplayed a bit, but wood densities play a more substantial role in sound than they’re credited. Hence the the term “tone woods” and they’re classical use in instrument construction.
Yeah I’ve asked Zach about this quite a bit and most of the time he insists that the measurements are about the same between woods aside from some time domain type of stuff, and you should pick the one you like the look of the most. I’m not so sure now and it may be less subtle than that
It’s pretty fascinating. If we look at another popular dynamic driver like the Foster BioDyna, which is used by several manufacturers we find that the major variance is the wood used for the cups.
All of the Massdrop Fostex Tr-XX use the same exact components with the exception of the wooden cups. Same drivers, and the same chassis, but different wood. Many who’ve heard the 3 different models will attest to the difference in sound and that’s caused by the wood.
I don’t know how ZMF can diminish this factor so much when it’s so evident in another wood headphone.
Very interesting.
Edit: Here’s a thread I created for the discussion of woods used in headphones.
I think Zach does down play it a bit, but the changes aren’t as dramatic as they are made out to be on forums everywhere. I’ve had three Eikons in different woods, and yes there small differences, but they all sounded like Eikons tonally. Differences were more about decay or speed.
If the total difference were scaled on the “just get the one that looks best to you aesthetically” as a 1, to “it’s like a while different headphone!” as a 10, I’d say the difference wood makes is about a 2.5. To put it into perspective, I’ve heard far bigger differences between DACs than I’ve heard in different woods on ZMF headphones.
Worst case scenario, it might be a 3, but that’s comparing fairly soft to very hard woods, like going from Camphor to Blackwood.
Pad rolling makes much more of a difference. Like, a full order of magnitude different by comparison.
Also imagine the man having to describe the different pad synergies vs wood type vs headphone model. The pads and headphones alone are already a mess and a lot of work for ZMF to keep up with the questions, throw different woods into the equation and it’s probably going to be an “uncontrollable chaos” altogether.
It depends on how deeply into the minutiae you want to get. Some people spend thousands for that .05% difference. If that’s important to you, go for the better wood.
That’s understandable and I agree with you there. So ultimately it’s going to be user-dependent, in your opinion the differences are not that relevant and Zach has point for not paying too much attention to it. Right?
The differences are there. If you A/B the same model with different woods, you will hear subtile differences, especially if you’re used to comparing things like DACs.
If you’re not A/Bing, you probably won’t notice a difference.
Again, it’s not a change in tone/timbre. It’s not an Audeze variance difference kind of change.
So, does Zach have a point? Yes.
Are the differences real enough for people to obsess over? Yes.
Which one is more valid? You tell me.
I’m more on the Zach side of the fence, but I can see both sides.
Fortunately I can’t conclude that (we all hear differently and we all have our own dime vested in this hobby)…but I see your point and ultimately I understand Zach’s point. You’re one of his clients and based on your experience (by actually listening to different woods on the same headphone model) the differences are SUBTLE…if it’s worth spending the time stressing about those differences in wood, Zach himself will probably come up with the final answer (he apparently already did - not worth it).
This is the place to discus the different characteristics of woods and their use in the manufacture of Headphones. Does the wood used make a difference?
