If …
… why should one care about damping factor in headphone amplifiers?
Definitely not all true. Even if the research he sites is accepted as fact, I think there are serious flaws in the conclusions he draws from it. But I’d really like to see what the Noise Floor crew have to say about it.
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I would like to extend the topic to “What will the hobby look like in 5-10 years?”
A conversation on how the various sectors of the audio landscape (headphones, IEMs, DACs, amps, speakers, streaming services…) might evolve could be very interesting.
This could also serve as an opportunity to debate whether IEMs have a higher ceiling than over-ear headphones, provided we can solve the recurring challenges associated with both types of devices in the future.
While thinking through what you posted, as a newcomer to the recent developments in personal HiFi, I’m thinking that the market is dominated by what people buy, in large numbers.
At this time, definitely there are certain fads, not dictated by performance but by perception.
We have a corollary in the auto industry, which has become dominated by what I call “raised cars”, SUV’s, and anything that has the driver seating higher up the ground. From a function perspective, this configuration of car is about the most inefficient from an engineering point of view/physics - with a higher center of gravity, needing more materials to make, weighs more, costs more, and has less interior seating room and leg room, guzzles more fuel and costs more too run, than previous generations of saloon cars. Makes no sense whatsoever, but that is what lots of people have been “marketed” to like, and this makes more money for the manufacturers, delivering a product that has no advantage but the psychological superiority of sitting higher than other road users, which makes the owners of these “raised cars” feel better.
What’s driving the market today - Wireless. In spite of the fact that it took so many year to get to lossless wireless audio in Bluetooth devices, and Apple still does not have lossless wireless audio!! A bit of an anomaly. So the customers of Apple, for example, prefer the convenience of their AirPods, in spite of its technical inferiority. But I can imagine, most of them are completely unaware of the limitations, so they pay for lossless streaming, cos typically its people who buy Apple products who can afford such luxuries or prioritise such luxuries as essential, but no one seems to have sent them the memo, that sorry, this lossless audio ecosystem, does NOT extend yet to your sexy shiny Airpod wireless thing in your ear, so Apple gives you with one hand - lossless on Apple Music, and cripples you with the other, with lossy audio to their wireless listening devices on your head.
How they accomplished this, and no one seems to be highlighting the discrepancy, is amazing.
So I think wireless will stay a dominant feature. I was on a train recently and was the only one with a cable on my IEM. Felt like a dinosaur. How do I explain to those onlooking, I’m the one who is guaranteed to be listening at lossless quality- but that also begs the other question, what’s the point in hi-fidelity in an environment with so much ambient noise? !!
I’m concerned that Dongle DACs will become extinct. As lossless Bluetooth replaces dongles and IEM cables, its hard to justify the need for a cable. I have been told, it is frustrating to run out of battery power, on a wireless earbud. I’m hoping we get more proper IEM like wireless devices with excellent isolation, rather than a digital attempt to noise cancel, with a tiny device that does not isolate the outside world, well enough.
Replaceable batteries in all chargeable devices would be super.
Hoping we will see breakthroughs, especially using AI, to capture HRTF’s and improve the listening experience. Hope we have more progress in binaural listening. I hear Apple’s immersive i.e Spatial Audio is good enough, but have not heard it myself.
The free streaming services are good enough sound quality, for casual browsing and discovery of new music, so why should we pay any more to hear this at lossless quality, which Spotify does not have yet anyway. For those who are critical about their listening, if they are like me hae a few favourites they listen to regularly, so rather than pay a subscription, to get higher quality audio, for a relatively small number of albums that I listen to regularly, best I buy the high quality digital files, or CD’s and extract to FLAC. When you really love a track, would be nice to be able to read through the liner notes, of the small collection of things you simply must OWN, as a keepsake.
I think physical media, for those like me, is on its way back, in a revised format - slimmer cases, more durable cases and ideally when you buy the CD, you should also get access to download the lossless compressed or uncompressed digital version, as standard - this is already so, on some online music storefronts, possibly. Let’s extend that. If I have paid for the digital or physical copy of a track, I should have access to be able to stream it losslessly also, whenever I listen to that track on any streaming service.
I’m hoping the current crop of poor sounding budget IEM’s will simply go extinct. When you have heard better it is impossible to unhear this. With the fantastic quality of today’s DACs, the last frontier is the distortion @ the transducer. Hope that a more demanding and enlightened public, demands better quality at the budget end of things.
Hope we can arrive at a measurement for audio quality @ playback i.e the transducer, by which we can authoritatively rate and compare listening devices. At this time, we have standards for loudness, and SPL, why not have playback device audio quality standards for speakers and head worn devices. to make it easier for consumers to sift through the jargon, and not have to be a geek, to learn how to choose good sounding audio gear.
Looking forward to planar magnetics in TWS’s. so I can think of making the transition. I’ve become a bit of a planar snob. Will not listen to anything else, at this time.
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