How will the world of headphones change with AI?

[Resolve]

Here’s a thread to discuss all things to do with headphones and AI, and how it’s changing our specific information space.

I keep coming across people using AI results as proofs for things, and I’ve always felt this is just an indication of what people are talking about… not necessarily what the truth is about a given topic.

But it raises a number of questions for me as well, how do we feel AI is going to change the industry? How is it going to change evaluative content? Is it likely to be leveraged by the manufacturers like we see commonly in other industries?

I’ve done a video on it here, curious what other folks think:
https://youtu.be/4KTvEWs-8Js?si=iHQ5wgmKrpBwxHT1

[NickZ]

ChatGPT will tell you that you just had a great 2 hours of listening with end-game gear, so you won’t actually need headphones anymore.

[AudioTool]

I’m curious to find out what type of individualized PEQ an AI might develop, but I haven’t played around with it yet. AutoEQ on steroids!

[generic]

I posed your question to Google’s AI tool. I guess we can all go to sleep now, as the future is so cheery and certain.

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AI’s impact on the headphone industry will be transformative, ushering in a new era of personalized, intelligent, and immersive audio experiences. Here are some key ways AI will change the headphone industry:

• Personalized audio experiences: AI will enable headphones to learn and adapt to individual listening preferences, optimizing sound settings based on user habits, music genres, and even hearing capabilities, delivering a tailored and optimized sound profile for each user. This represents a significant step beyond the “one-size-fits-all” approach of traditional headphones.

• Adaptive Noise Cancellation (ANC): AI-driven ANC will become significantly more sophisticated, moving beyond simply blocking out noise to intelligently analyzing the environment in real-time and adjusting noise cancellation levels to provide the ideal balance between blocking distractions and maintaining situational awareness. For example, AI could enhance noise cancellation in a noisy cafe while allowing more ambient sound to pass through in a quieter office setting.

• Enhanced Voice Assistants and Control: AI will power more intelligent and intuitive voice assistants integrated into headphones, allowing for more natural language processing and context-aware responses. This could include anticipating user needs, like suggesting a playlist after a workout, or even interpreting emotional tone to adjust music or conversation responses.

• Health and Wellness Tracking: Headphones will increasingly integrate biometric sensors and AI to monitor health metrics such as heart rate, body temperature, and even stress levels. This data can provide personalized health insights, offer recommendations, and even tailor audio experiences for relaxation or exercise.

• Real-time Language Translation: With the advancements in AI-powered language models, headphones could offer real-time translation during conversations, making international travel and communication smoother and more efficient.

• Sound Contextualization and Augmented Reality (AR): AI could enable headphones to contextualize sounds in real-time, delivering relevant audio cues based on the user’s environment in AR applications. This could include providing information about exhibits in a museum or offering navigation tips and hazard warnings outdoors.

• Sustainable Innovations: AI algorithms can contribute to a more sustainable headphone industry by optimizing design processes for durability and improving manufacturing efficiency to reduce waste. Predictive maintenance models powered by AI can also help prolong equipment life and minimize environmental impact during production.

• Seamless Integration with Smart Devices: The future of headphones will involve seamless integration with other smart devices, enabling smooth transitions between devices and a more holistic user experience.

• Market Dynamics: The headphone market is experiencing robust growth driven by technological advancements and increasing consumer demand for innovative audio solutions. AI integration will be a key differentiator in a highly competitive market, pushing companies to prioritize innovation, quality, and brand loyalty.

In conclusion, AI is poised to fundamentally redefine the headphone experience by making devices smarter, more personalized, and more responsive to individual needs and preferences.

[pennstac]

Whizbang, groovy. The bees’ knees. 23 skidoo.

I guess music will change so that it’s generated in a feedback loop with your vitals being checked for signs of enjoyment. Pleasurable frequencies will be enhanced and annoying ones will be corrected. Your pulse and pupillary dilation measured (Ludovico technique).

Headphones just part of the interface. Horrorshow! Time to viddy a bit of the ultraviolent and play some Ludwig Von.

[generic]

A veritable Clockwork Orange.

[Nuance]

[generic]

[Klute]

I’m not an AI user, sometimes if I don’t want to look more into the subject I go with the quick answer it gives in a normal search. To me it’s just new fangled technology that has no use in my life. Though, I didn’t take to smart phones or social media until it had a clear use in my life. I’m very much a techy and have been all of my life, always onto the thing’s no one else in my era enjoyed. But the past decade or two I’m kind of set in my ways. I still don’t use smartphones for much because I’m a PC meat and potatoes guy. So I really appreciated your generalized portions about AI.

For the audio side of thing’s, I’m not a graph non-believer, rather I’m one that doesn’t understand them at all. I have been able to get the smallest grasp on it since watching a couple of your videos, but it just doesn’t speak to my brain. I do want to learn about it though, so I’ll be watching videos about it more frequently. I have ideas in my brain about audio, but they’re based on essentially nothing. I’m not going to fall into the confirmation bias, rather just acknowledge that up until now I have been a subjective person only. And there is nothing wrong with that, the beauty of this hobby and talking about it is that everyone is different but we are able to find common ground. Almost a perfect analogue for society in general.

[Sean_Olive]

I’ve been using it a lot lately to write code for models, analysis, apps.etc and summarize scientific papers ,etc It has really increased my productivity and I only beginning to learn how to use it.
In audio I worked on a project where we used GANs toccpredict listener sound quality ratings and comments about automobile sound systems using measurements. That for me was an eye opener. So I see it used more in the design , testing and evaluation of audio products. The folks at Senselab alway have a Virtual Listener that can predict spectral attributes of headphones trained by expert listeners.
Who knows – it may someday predict “details” and “technicalities” at which point Headphone reviewers will be looking for jobs

[Argha]

For a long time I have made my own GPT named “AWA“ trained specially for Acoustic Engineering Related Questions. The problem is still “hallucinations”, which I need time to fix. (In Mr. Olives Paper it still gets a few things wrong)
For now, I just trained it initially with a tiny bit of data, looking forward to make something more sophisticated in the future, learning a lot of new technologies that is useful to make this possible.

[Saracen]

I have no idea how AI might affect the headphone world, but my main thought is that “AI” is a very broad term, and can mean very different things, depending on context, on which AI and on what is being expected of it. i’m no expert but from what I can tell, even for a specific LLM, what it does is going to depend on exactly what data it is, and is not, trained on. It might also give different answers to the same query if you ask, then wait a period of time , then ask again, because it may have extra data to train from in the intermediate time.

Also, a publicly accessible LLM is a very different thing to a carefully trained locally-hosted AI, and way different to specialist AI like some image recognition such as medical AI for analysing potentially cancerous or abnormal cell types.

So for headphones, IMHO, it so depends on what “AI” is taken to mean.

Personally, I have absolutely minimal interest in most publicly-accessible LLMs, including but by no means limited to ChatGPT, whatever (so far, at least) version it is. The problems are still massive, They’re still subject to (as was pointed out a few posts back) “hallucination”, and potentially worse than that, they are emphatically at risk of problems from GIGO, y’know, the old computing adage - Garbage In, Garbage Out. When, typically, LLMs are trained on “the internet”, to what extent do they take account of, and how effective are they at accounting for, the fact that a very high percentage of “data” on the internet, is complete and utter fatuous, if not outright politically poisonous, garbage? I don’t know. Perhaps Sam Altman could tell us?

in terms of “search” results, I place zero reliance on Ai summaries, to the point where i will turn them off if I can work out how to. I also tend to use browsers that don’t rely on that stuff anyway. So an AI’s opinion of “best” anything, including headphones, is of zero interest. GIGO, remember?

On headphones specifically, if AI is somehow used in the design/development phase, then I won’t necessarily know it has been used. But I don’t care, because what interests me, in terms of buying desicions, is the same factors whether it has or not, which (in summary) would be comfort (including weight), build quality and likely longevity, and of course, MY perception of sound quality.

If AI helped get to a product I like, fine. Whatever. But the critical part is whether I like thm or not, not whether AI was involved.

Finally, I am certainly not a fan of AI. Some, like medical tools for desease recognition or antibiotic development are fine, but the other end of the spectrum is the incredibly and unacceptably intrusive privacy invasion of tools like Gemini, and of course, MS CoPilot+ and Recall, The ONLY thing about those that interests me is knowing how to disable and remove them, in the case of CoPilot+/Recall, or not buying a phone with Gemini on it in the first place.

[pennstac]

I think that AI will certainly be able to replace headphone reviewers - and possibly even fora (forums).

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NecroticSound OCD-007 Headphone Review

(by Amere, Audio Silence Review)

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Introduction & Company Background

NecroticSound is a new company whose pedigree will no doubt impress those of you who mistakenly think “heritage” matters. Founded by former engineers from Sennheiser, the National Bureau of Standards, and even technical staff from WWV in Fort Collins, Colorado (yes, the same WWV that broadcasts the time signal at 5 MHz), NecroticSound brings an unprecedented seriousness to headphone design. For once, we have a product tested not by “ears,” but by clocks, calipers, and oscilloscopes. Truly revolutionary.

Today I review their flagship headphone, the OCD-007. This is a wired model with 300 ohm impedance and dynamic drivers. Its innovation is both laughably simple and devastatingly effective: a switch that toggles between a perfect Harman Curve and a perfectly flat frequency response. I emphasize “perfect” because I know some of you will attempt to argue that perfection does not exist. The data will demonstrate otherwise.

Some hobbyist testers report cranial damage and uniformly claim it “sounds awful.” Of course, such anecdotes are meaningless next to real measurements. We will, as always, dismiss this subjectivity.

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Measurements

Frequency Response

I ran sweeps under both the Harman and Flat settings. In each case, the lines overlay precisely onto the target—no deviation visible, even under 1/100th octave smoothing.

As you can see, perfection has finally been achieved. Any complaints at this point are self-inflicted by faulty perception.

Distortion

Total Harmonic Distortion at 94 dB SPL measured below 0.00001%. This is effectively zero. Perhaps bats could perceive the remaining products, but not you.

Clamping Force

The OCD-007 achieved a measured clamping force of 8.675309 kg. I am pleased to report this is one of the highest readings I have ever recorded. While lesser reviewers complain of “headaches,” this force ensures skull resonance modes are damped into irrelevance. That some users experience discomfort is not a fault of the headphone—it is a fault of their anatomy. Standardization would solve this.

Metallurgical Assay

NecroticSound sent me a sample of the headband material. Spectrographic analysis confirmed 99.999% pure spring steel, with trace impurities measured in the parts-per-billion range. For context, this is cleaner than the suspension material used in NATO armored vehicles. Truly exemplary engineering.

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Invented Metrics & Listening

Aesthetics Index

I devised a new objective metric for aesthetics: the ΔBeauty Index, calculated via Fourier Transform of Instagram likes. The OCD-007 scored 0.998 Aesthetic Correlation Units, approaching the Platonic Ideal of a headphone. While some might claim its silhouette resembles medieval torture implements, the numbers do not lie. It is nearly perfect.

Listening Tests

For science, I briefly listened at my standard reference level (95–100 dB SPL). Subjectively, one could call the sound “tight” or “compressed”—but those words are imprecise, and the FFT did not corroborate them. When comparing against my calibrated rotary phone handset from the 1970s, results were inconclusive.

Several so-called “beta testers” insisted the OCD-007 was unlistenable. One reported temporary ear bruising. Another claimed “auditory hallucinations.” I remind everyone: these are anecdotes. Science demands reproducibility, and reproducibility demands ignoring flawed ears.

Forum Responses & Conclusion

Forum Exchange (Sampled)

• User123: “This thing crushed my skull. It’s unbearable.”

• Amere (me): “If you had a properly standardized head circumference, this would not be an issue. Please refrain from spreading misinformation.”

• SubjectiveListener: “But shouldn’t comfort and enjoyment matter?”

• Amere: “No. Comfort is subjective, and subjective claims are irrelevant. Measurements alone define quality.”

Goalpost Analysis

To forestall criticism, I adjusted my evaluation criteria. Previously, I demanded sub-0.1 dB FR accuracy. Since the OCD-007 achieved 0.0, I now require subjective reports not to conflict with measurements. Those reports conflict, so we discard them. The OCD-007 remains flawless.

Final Verdict

The NecroticSound OCD-007 is objectively the most perfect headphone ever constructed. Its clamping force ensures superior damping. Its headband metal sets a new global standard. Its aesthetic index redefines beauty. And though all testers universally claim it sounds terrible, such opinions only prove their lack of training.

Therefore: Highly Recommended. If you disagree, spend less time listening and more time looking at the graphs.

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Audio Silence Review – Official Summary

Category	Rating (Objective)	Notes
Frequency Response	Perfect	Both flat & Harman buttons hit target with ruler-straight precision.
Distortion	Perfect	THD lower than measurable human tolerance.
Clamping Force	Excessive but Beneficial	8.675309 kg ensures skull resonance suppression. Minor cranial injuries reported.
Materials	Immaculate	99.999% pure spring steel; superior to NATO vehicle suspension.
Aesthetics (ΔBeauty Index)	0.998 ACU	Nearly Platonic perfection in headphone beauty metrics.
Subjective Listening	Irrelevant	Listeners complain universally, but we discard their input.

Audio Silence Review Rating:
/ 5 (Objectively Perfect, Subjectively Worthless – Which is to say, Excellent).

[AudioTool]

@Saracen

The problems are still massive, They’re still subject to (as was pointed out a few posts back) “hallucination”, and potentially worse than that, they are emphatically at risk of problems from GIGO, y’know, the old computing adage - Garbage In, Garbage Out. When, typically, LLMs are trained on “the internet”, to what extent do they take account of, and how effective are they at accounting for, the fact that a very high percentage of “data” on the internet, is complete and utter fatuous, if not outright politically poisonous, garbage? I don’t know.

This is more of a problem with the internet than AI. Humans have the same problem.

I point this out not as a criticism of your point. Just that people seem surprised by this result. That they need to be at least as skeptical of an AI’s opinion as anyone else’s who can only speak from what other’s have experienced and expressed on the internet rather than their own experiences.

I don’t know. Maybe it’s just me but it seems like many people are dismissing AI because they try it for something it is bad at once and move on. LLMs are not AGI. They are not good at forming opinions.

I’m a software developer and I’ve been using AI at work. It is shockingly good at understanding the code. I can ask it questions about how things work that would take me hours to figure out. But it isn’t good at coding. Sure it can create code that works, but it’s nowhere near optimal. It’s like a jr developer with an encyclopedic knowledge of the code including all of the code libraries and their documentation.

[guerilla_law3516]

I am just chiming in here to highlight a critical issue that people overlook and is a gigantic problem.

The only way to have an AI model is to make it learn something, but really just copy something. The data that is fed into the system for its Slater use is therefore taken from somewhere – without permission.

but really just copy something. The data that is fed into the system for its Slater use is therefore taken from somewhere – without permission.

It’s one thing if you read a review that is published for free, it is quite another if you take that review and use it for your own benefit and profit-not to mention the eventual professional demise of the person who wrote it-without any compensation to the person who actually created it.

without any compensation to the person who actually created it.

In whatever field these large language learning models are merely the latest corporatization and theft of other people’s work for the benefit of a singular entity.

learning models are merely the latest corporatization and theft of other people‘s work for the benefit of a singular entity.

Let’s please not overlook this critical ingredient and allow this theft to take place without even so much as a discussion about it.

[generic]

@guerilla_law3516

I am just chiming in here to highlight a critical issue that people overlook and is a gigantic problem.

The only way to have an AI model is to make it learn something, but really just copy something. The data that is fed into the system for its Slater use is therefore taken from somewhere – without permission.

Hey, I have an idea. There’s a critically important issue that people overlook. It’s a gigantic problem.

AI models DEPEND on copying something to learn. They feed data into a huge system and it’s taken from others without permission.

I’m very proud of myself, and I’m an innovator with original thoughts too!

Signed,

Wikipedia and my screen scraper

[Saracen]

@AudioTool

This is more of a problem with the internet than AI. Humans have the same problem.

I don’t disagree, at least in one sense, that being that if GIGO is true, the garbage that’s going in was created by … humans. THat was kind-of what I meant by the points about being careful what data you feed in. If what you feed in is ‘the internet’ we should not be surprised if what coms out reflects that, warts and all. I guess my main issue (with the LLM variant of AI) is that, fist, the AI companies did pretty much just feed them with whatever they could find in the wild, but also the way it’s being marketed, as some kind of essential “can’t do without” tool. They can be very useful, but in my view, you need to bevery careful with queries, ad as you say, be sceptical of the results, and critically, verify what you’re told, including validity of quoted sources. The risk then, is that many people don’t, or won’t, verify, and that if you do do a thorough job of that, whether it takes s much time as to negate much of the supposed benefit of getting AI to do the reseaerch in the first place.

As for the other type of AI I mentioned, the CoPilot+/Recall end of things, all I will say is that I do not want that kind of thing on my computers, EVER for privacy reasons. If I could trust the likes of Google and MS that it was strictly opt-in (as Co=pilot+ currently is) and that it will NEVER be stealth-enabled in the future, after initial resistance has eased off, I’d be less worried … but MS (let alone Google) have form on that kind of thing and I just don’t trust them. Their colours are already to thoroghly nailed to the data acquisition business model. So my reaction is I want it off my systems, period. If others value what it supposedly does for them, fine. It’s their choice. I want nothing to do with it.

As for coding … my coding days are a long way in my past. I’ve certainly seen some examples of AI coding things way faster than a human could, but also, generally, only up to a point. For now, the more complex the problem gets, the flakier the code produced seems to get. THey are, as you suggest, a tool but like many tools, it really helps if the use understands the tool. Knowledge and experience makes a chainsaw a powerful tool but lack of makes it dangerous to both the user and anyone near them.

One of my concerns, coding-wise, would not just be what AI generates and how quickly it does it, but how logically built it might be, and how well documented. Gettig the prduct out the door quickly is one thing, but maintainig it years in the future, quite another, if i’s not built with that in mind..

[pennstac]

@guerilla_law3516

fed into the system for its Slater use i

I thought about this for a while. Its later use.

National Guild of Proofreaders and Word Weenies.

[Spearthrower_Owl]

It’s not being ignored. There are lawsuits:

[guerilla_law3516]

I mean in the public dialogue about it. I’m more aware of the lawsuit in particularly familiar with One author’s in particular.

I was referring to the fact that, just like in this thread, the conversation often jumps right to how can we use this to be more “productive”.

I was referring to the fact that, just like in this thread, the conversation often jumps right to how can we use this to be more “productive”.

Later use is the very question not just before the course but before humanity. Those rules were not set up with this type of large scale, organized theft in mind, litter use has never been compatible with these new technologies.

But even if it was, even under the rules of later use, there is no valid argument to allow one single entity to take advantage of this rule towards own profit and benefit later.

But even if it was, even under the rules of later use, there is no valid argument to allow one single entity to take advantage of this rule, parts own profit, and benefit later.