Frequency Response range...

[Eighjan]

The headset in question is the Steel Series Arctis Prime; specifically, is a frequency response range of 10 - 40,000 Hz anything special, or are there other factors that need to be taken into account alongside this metric?

 

I used to own a pair of Sony MDR-V7 Studio Monitors and they sounded absolutely phenomenal; that said I don't deem myself remotely proficient enough to know that 'their' frequency response range of 5 - 30,000 Hz was all that special - for the reasons outlined above.

 

The other metric that I can compare is that the Sony unit had 50mm drivers, where the Steel Series unit only has 40mm drivers.

 

Most specifically; are there diminishing returns on a more extended frequency response range that many may not be able to detect?  I think I can appreciate the full range offered by both units (could, in the case of the Sony unit), but am looking for better input than I have to hand to know if the headphones I have now are as good as I feel they are.

Yes; I like them, esp. as the cable is infinitely more replaceable than the one on the Sony was (I replaced it twice, before I could no longer get a replacement cable)... and if 'me liking them' is all that matters, then fine.

 

Ohh... "what do I use them for?" - any sound my PC makes (from a Creative Labs Audigy RX), as speakers are too intrusive for anyone else who happens to be in the room at the same time I'm using my PC.

 

Thank you - in advance - for any input offered.

[RONOTHAN##]

10 minutes ago, Eighjan said:

are there diminishing returns on a more extended frequency response range that many may not be able to detect?

Yes, it's extremely rare to hear above 20kHz, let alone 30kHz, and it only gets worse as you get older (I'm still relatively young and I'm lucky to hear above 17kHz). It's also not really possible to hear below 20Hz, as your brain will just start to hear each individual pulse as a pulse rather than a consistent sound wave. That said, while you can't necessarily hear the individual frequencies outside of the 20Hz-20kHz range most of the time, frequencies outside of that range can help add the the ambiance of whatever you're listening to (say a 2Hz petal tone will be noticeable as something that feels like you're in the room as a helicopter). 

 

Beyond just the standard 'make sure it can do at least 20Hz-20kHz range,' you want to read reviews of headsets instead (or ideally find a store that has some on sale, as everyone's ears are different) as the spec sheet really isn't enough to gauge anything more than how big are they. 

[Cocococo]

The maximum range of human hearing is 20hz to 20,000hz, anything outside this range is not very helpful in headphones, If you're interested in frequency then i'd suggest finding frequency response graphs (it's a very complicated topic) i personally use Crinacle's stuff the most, it's very subjective but once you figure out a type of tuning you like (neutral, super bright, extra bass, V style etc) then you can use those preferences to see what kind of headset you would like. Or buy a well credited headphone and get a boom/ inline mic (this is what i'd do) 

 

You can also ask in more places than just the LTT forums if you're open to stuff besides gamer brand headset/ give budget and requirements here and wait for recommendations (DO NOT TRUST AUDIO REVIEW SITES) 

[Eighjan]

13 hours ago, RONOTHAN## said:

That said, while you can't necessarily hear the individual frequencies outside of the 20Hz-20kHz range most of the time, frequencies outside of that range can help add the the ambiance of whatever you're listening to

Would that give credibility to the thinking that a driver than can "cover 10hz - 40kHz" would be better able to "cover 20Hz - 20kHz", than a driver designed just for 20-20k...?

[Eighjan]

12 hours ago, Cocococo said:

You can also ask in more places than just the LTT forums...

I already have a (second - had to replace the original damaged) pair of Arctis Prime...  the Sony pair died decades ago.

[Cocococo]

38 minutes ago, Eighjan said:

I already have a (second - had to replace the original damaged) pair of Arctis Prime...  the Sony pair died decades ago.

Oh, i'd have recommended buying a better headset. Audeze Maxwell are absolute market destroyers (literally all of the closed headphone ((up to like 1,000+usd)) and gaming headset market look irrelevant in comparison) or maybe a Sennheiser PC38x/ HD560S with boom mic. 

 

As for frequency range tbh so long as they cover 20hz and 20khz then it's kinda irrelevant, what is extremely relevant is the frequency response (how quiet and loud parts of the music are, trust me it makes a gigantic difference) and the details-imaging (if you can hear the texture of a drum head/ different people clapping on a live album and have the sound so clearly presented to your ears that you can practically point at where different instruments/ general sounds are coming from) Steelseries will not do any of these things very well because they're a gamerbrand headset builder, not a good headphone maker (Don't buy into brand loyalty but also gamerbrands are not at all incentivised to make quality stuff) 

[Psittac]

frequency response range is typically marketing material as everyone has mentioned that you can only hear in a certain range.  It's what the headphones do in that range that is important, never use the range as a purchasing point.

 

I'm typically a fan of purchasing a headphone designed for audio then adding some kind of mic to it.  I did the headset stuff for a while and found that, at least 5+ years ago headset manufacturers didn't care much about anything other than gaming.  Even to the point that one headset I had was fanfreakingtastic at games and pure garbage at everything else, couldn't even watch YouTube with it.  I quickly moved on to audiophile grade and a boom mic, today I have a condenser mic on an arm.

[Heats with Nvidia]

23 minutes ago, Psittac said:

frequency response range is typically marketing material as everyone has mentioned that you can only hear in a certain range.  It's what the headphones do in that range that is important, never use the range as a purchasing point.

 

I'm typically a fan of purchasing a headphone designed for audio then adding some kind of mic to it.  I did the headset stuff for a while and found that, at least 5+ years ago headset manufacturers didn't care much about anything other than gaming.  Even to the point that one headset I had was fanfreakingtastic at games and pure garbage at everything else, couldn't even watch YouTube with it.  I quickly moved on to audiophile grade and a boom mic, today I have a condenser mic on an arm.

I totally agree. I basically built my own headset by adding the capsule of a Shure WCM16 headset microphone to my old AKG K240 Sextett. And because i had some free time during covid, built my own small preamp and power supply for it with 2 soviet 1sh29b tubes to get something that fits my needs.

 

Now i use Austrian Audio Hi-X 60 and a surprisingly good dynamic microphone made in GDR on an arm that i also modified a little.

 

Both combinations work really well, but are not that easy to replicate... Although i still have a couple of those microphones lying around, if someone wants something unusual, they fit the bill.

[cmndr]

By the time you're an adult 99% of what you'll hear will be in the ~25-16,000Hz range or so. You might hear a little under (and you'll certainly be able to feel it) and a little over but 40KHz is for bats, not humans.

A bunch of other things matter more like how consistent the response is (no frequencies extra high or low), how responsive the headphones are, how much distortion there is, etc.

 

Also you might be able to get a new cable off of ebay. It might be a "knock off" that's fine. Cables aren't magical. They're VERY simple to make. At least if you're worried about frequencies under 20KHz. If it's 1000x higher or more then tolerances matter more (why trace design and insulation matters on a motherboard or for certain TelCo systems)

[Spuriae]

A frequency response spec given only as a range between two frequencies is completely meaningless, since you can technically produce any range of frequencies with almost any device – it's the loudness at that frequency that really matters. For instance, Airpods can technically produce bass down to 20Hz, but bass they produce at 20Hz is too quiet to be meaningful. It wouldn't be a lie to spec their lower range to 20Hz, or 5Hz, or whatever arbitrarily high or low number; it just wouldn't tell you anything about how they sound. 

 

Being able to produce frequencies beyond the conventional audible range has some benefits; you can feel lower frequency as haptics and can perceive higher frequencies are improved timing accuracy. Practically speaking, however, it's rare for these qualities to be relevant or even audible in everyday music listening, given how many other factors have a greater effect.

[cmndr]

5 hours ago, Spuriae said:

Being able to produce frequencies beyond the conventional audible range has some benefits; you can feel lower frequency as haptics and can perceive higher frequencies are improved timing accuracy. Practically speaking, however, it's rare for these qualities to be relevant or even audible in everyday music listening, given how many other factors have a greater effect.

In the context of headphones, you won't be feeling infrasonic in any meaningful way from a headphone. 

I also am kind of "ehh" on claims about supersonic frequencies. In A LOT of audio recordings sound is rolled off past ~20KHz so there's literally no signal past the roll off point (err negligible). 

[Spuriae]

25 minutes ago, cmndr said:

In the context of headphones, you won't be feeling infrasonic in any meaningful way from a headphone.

I was skeptical, so I tested it. After all, tactile transducers exist; why can't the same effect be obtained in normal headphones, right?

Spoiler

 

Here's an FFT of a 10hz tone played through the HD650. Harmonics are low enough that I can trust that the sound coming out is 10Hz and not just the harmonics. I heard and felt absolutely nothing when I moved the headphone off the microphone and onto my head. Even with the volume maxed and the drivers clipping I felt nothing low frequency, just loud smacking noises.

Exact same thing but 15Hz, outputs volume matched. I definitely head a rumble, but it was very low level despite my overall volume being about the highest I would listen to normal content at. Note the even lower harmonic level; I am confident that I was hearing the 15Hz and not the harmonics (it was definitely lower pitched than a volume-matched 30Hz tone).

You're absolutely correct. I was wrong. There is no meaningful haptic effect. Even with the drivers full-on physically clipping I felt nothing tactile. While I was able to hear below 20Hz as a distinct tone, it would probably never be audible with other sounds playing at the same time.

[DreamCat04]

On 10/22/2023 at 4:05 AM, RONOTHAN## said:

(I'm still relatively young and I'm lucky to hear above 17kHz)

I am approaching my 20s and I already top out at around 14.5KHz while my speakers could do around 17KHz. 23Hz is also difficult to hear as a tone for me, 21Hz is just so audible, but for whatever reason my 180W RMSx2 speakers can't do 21Hz but my 200$ 2017 sony headphones can do it xD (but I can barely hear it as a tone)

[Heats with Nvidia]

33 minutes ago, DreamCat04 said:

I am approaching my 20s and I already top out at around 14.5KHz while my speakers could do around 17KHz. 23Hz is also difficult to hear as a tone for me, 21Hz is just so audible, but for whatever reason my 180W RMSx2 speakers can't do 21Hz but my 200$ 2017 sony headphones can do it xD (but I can barely hear it as a tone)

That the speakers can`t do 20Hz and the headphones can, is normal. Through the very small and sealed amount of air between your ears and the driver, it basically has a more or less direct coupling between the two and very low frequencies get less conducted as a wave, but more as a pressure change in the whole volume. Because of that its very easy for headphones to get these low frequencies into your ear.

 

Your loudspeakers would need to move enormeous amounts of air to achieve the same. Thats the reason why subwoofers that actually work for very low frequencies at a high enough volume are huge compared to the ones that work down to around 40Hz like most HiFi loudspeakers.

[cmndr]

10 hours ago, Spuriae said:

I was skeptical, so I tested it. After all, tactile transducers exist; why can't the same effect be obtained in normal headphones, right?

You're absolutely correct. I was wrong. There is no meaningful haptic effect. Even with the drivers full-on physically clipping I felt nothing tactile. While I was able to hear below 20Hz as a distinct tone, it would probably never be audible with other sounds playing at the same time.

You pretty much need to use a proper transducer for that.  

FEELING sound mostly comes from your whole body feeling vibrations or shifts in the air or air pressure. It's largely a whole body thing. (note: this is based on intuition, I haven't specifically researched this bit). I can definitely hear 20Hz on my headphones. I don't FEEL much of anything with my headphones though. I'm pretty sure that my headphones are "superior" in terms of frequency response, distortion, etc. over my speakers but the speakers DO something the headphones don't. I can FEEL it. Heck I can feel the vibrations on my desk from my computer speakers. It's satisfying in a certain sense. 

For what it's worth I've gone overboard with subwoofers and transducers. A tiny 2" driver isn't going to compete with 100x the surface area and power. 

 

6 hours ago, Heats with Nvidia said:

Your loudspeakers would need to move enormous amounts of air to achieve the same. Thats the reason why subwoofers that actually work for very low frequencies at a high enough volume are huge compared to the ones that work down to around 40Hz like most HiFi loudspeakers.

I have 4 subwoofers of which 3 are SB-1000s. I'm getting reasonably flat measurements down to around 18Hz. 

It'll depend on the room but something as small as an SVS SB-1000 (roughly 12"x12"x12") can get near 20Hz if it's in the right room/position. I mean playing 20Hz about as loudly at the listening position as say 30 or 80Hz as measured by a calibrated microphone.

 

The SB-2000 doesn't even really NEED room gain to get there. 

[Spuriae]

51 minutes ago, cmndr said:

You pretty much need to use a proper transducer for that.  

FEELING sound mostly comes from your whole body feeling vibrations or shifts in the air or air pressure. It's largely a whole body thing. (note: this is based on intuition, I haven't specifically researched this bit). I can definitely hear 20Hz on my headphones. I don't FEEL much of anything with my headphones though. 

Small (e.g. wristband-sized) wearable tactile transducers exist and do work, so it definitely doesn't need to be a whole body thing.

 

I was curious if the limitation was the headphone's poor coupling to the skin or a loudness limitation, so I tried again with the HE400SE at 15Hz (and with earplugs in).

 

At 600mW input, the headphones started to perceptibly vibrate, with the 15Hz tone somewhat audible through the earplugs.

At 2.5W input (any higher caused scary-sounding clipping noises), the headphones were vibrating in an appreciable bass-enhancing way. I could somewhat feel puffs of air coming off the drivers, but most of the effect was vibrations in the housing coming through the pads. The 15Hz tone was also very much audible through the earplugs, so easily hearing damage territory without the earplugs.

 

Feeling tactile bass with normal headphones is possible, but not under any reasonable listening conditions, and is also a bad idea.