Our Systems, Scale, and the Sound of Music

[Al M.]

Great thread.

I am very interested on it, as I have owned the same speakers long ago, and also found they could spread a very large sound stage in classical music (Carreras singing Misa Criolla was something very special), but not in music asking for high energy, such as 70's rock or some very demanding brass music from Handel like the Music for the Royal Fireworks.

Can you tell us which recordings were used to check the scale of the system? I see you focus mainly in sound stage dimensions and apparent size of the performers, something I also praise a lot. But scale also needs the feeling of power with some types of music.

Hi Microstrip,

some of the recordings that we listened to:

Large scale orchestral music:
Hindemith, Symphony 'Harmony of the World' (Blomstedt/San Francisco Symphony/Decca)
Bruckner, Fifth Symphony (Wand/Cologne Symphony/RCA)

Both played at peak SPL greater than 90 dB.

Large-scale choral music from Peter Maxwell Davies (Collins Classics)
Shostakovich, Symphony Nr. 14 for soprano, bass and chamber orchestra (cond. Janssons//Decca)

Smaller scale music:
Stockhausen, Freude (Joy), for two harp players
Stockhausen, Capricorn, for bass voice and electronic music
Stockhausen, Susanis Echo for alto flute
Peter Maxwell Davies, Naxos Quartet No. 4 (string quartet, label Naxos)
Beethoven violin sonata No. 1
Elvis Presley, a few songs
Neil Diamond, Ever More

***

As for energy, I am not sure if you have heard the Ensemble Reference in combination with a subwoofer. This makes an enormous difference in perceived power, even though the mini monitors reach down well into the full mid bass range (with their passive radiators in the back; the position of 6 feet from the back wall is also optimized for a clean projection of that). I personally could not listen to the speakers anymore without the combination with the sub -- and for rock, it's an absolute must (Peter's Magico Mini II speakers reproduce more of the bass region than mine, so a sub is not required as much). I had Peter listen to just the beginning of 'The Rover' (Physical Graffity) by Led Zeppelin at loud volume, with and without subwoofer, to demonstrate the difference (the sub shines on that passage also in terms of rhythm & timing).

The tube amps with their internal modifications and external power supplies also project more energy than the stock amps from 23 years ago. Importantly, the size of image is now stable through loud passages.

 

[rbbert]

Hopefully our esteemed host will chime in, but until he does I will say that in my relatively brief experience with his system (before Stillpoints but after Shunyata) it had no problem reproducing small-scale as well as large scale. In fact even streamed mp3 sounded pretty good

 

[PeterA]

Great thread...my own experiences:


- size helps with effortlessness when size is put to good use
- with greater size comes much greater room interaction (ie, problems) and much greater risk of vibration
- the giant-sized solo guitar was never much of a problem, but I did recognize it from time to time when they were first set up...but it was really rare
- over time, as I have reduced and reduced and reduce the vibrations in the system and particularly the speakers...I have noticed that the soundstage becomes more secure, solid, and defined. And those few times when guitars seemed too big, those guitars have now become properly life-sized.


I think the reason in my case was that the vibration was causing the speakers to be unable to hold still the image of the guitar...and at volume...it got worse so playing electric guitar at high volume (while fun), was not always the right scale. But as the vibrations have lessened, the speakers ability to seriously plant/place the sound in just ONE spot...has meant the image shimmer is less, and the image is thus in one small defined space rather than loosely spread throughout a larger space. (ie, no more giant guitar)

Thanks Lloyd. These are interesting observations. I don't really understand what you mean when you write "...when size is put to good use".

I do think reducing vibrations can play a role, in so far as it may focus images by lessoning blurring and distortions and thus aid in reproducing what is on the recording. Absorption at first reflection points may have a similar effect. I'm surprised your Alexandrias have an issue with vibration with the modules or cabinet. I have heard the Wilson XLFs in a well designed room in a good system and thought those cabinets to be quite inert. I also have heard the Magico Q7 in a good room and system. Yet each of these large, full range systems with inert cabinets had some trouble portraying solo instruments or voices in a realistic size. The images were larger than life and somewhat diffuse or unfocused.

I'm sure these speakers can scale down and sound superb, I just did not hear it on those occasions. I attribute it to system set up, room placement or attributes in specific components, perhaps causing phase issues. Also, driver coherence or listening distance could have been a factor. And I'm sure it depends a lot on the quality of the recording and the mic locations, mastering etc. There are plenty of testimonials describing large systems performing very well on small scale material. Perhaps, as you write (bold above), it is just more challenging with larger, complex systems.

 

[Al M.]

I have heard the Wilson XLFs in a well designed room in a good system and thought those cabinets to be quite inert. I also have heard the Magico Q7 in a good room and system. Yet each of these large, full range systems with inert cabinets had some trouble portraying solo instruments or voices in a realistic size. The images were larger than life and somewhat diffuse or unfocused.

I have also briefly heard the Magico Q7, on an acoustic guitar piece. The guitar sound, while great, was 3 feet wide, with diffuse image. But as you say, it may depend on set-up, recording, or a number of other factors, and perhaps under optimal circumstances imaging from these speakers is superb.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

I guess I am just impressed. So do you think large floor standing speakers have trouble with this because of the height of their drivers? Is it really as simple as that?

The shock was a joke; I'm a big fan of monitors and subs. And I think the height of tweeters can be a source of trouble, though no, it's not that simple. But it doesn't take much thought to understand why they don't sound quite right in some very large designs -- tweeters bear most of the weight of communicating attack transients, and attack transients are hugely important in image location, so it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense for them to be above ear level. But that's just one of many challenges that all kinds of speaker designs face in creating a realistic image. Imagine a small jazz ensemble. Drum kit at center (though only in a rather simplistic sense, given that the various pieces of the kit are spread out in the horizontal plane), piano on the right, vocals front and center, trumpet to the left...you get the picture. Even if all of these instruments had the same dispersion patterns, and they're not even close, the challenge of creating some reasonable illusion of reality with two speakers is huge, and I'm just not sure how the task is served by vertical columns of midrange drivers, tweeters on the top of big speakers, etc. It's probably not served all that well by small monitors and subs either, but to my ears, nothing images quite as well as the closest thing you can get to single point sources at ear level -- simple, active two-ways or, even better if they had the range, single "full-range" drivers. Of course the problem is they're not "full-range." Subs work because low bass is so non-directional. And they work better than huge woofers in big speakers because they are independently powered, individually adjustable, and physically moveable.

Scale? As often as not, I think it's just a euphemism for impressively large. Really big speakers are fun, but I've never heard them add more realism to stereo unless they were in a very large room at a pretty serious distance from the listening position. Up close, in most listening rooms, I don't think they sound natural. YMMV, of course, and consider the source: I listen to very little orchestral music.

Tim

 

[GaryProtein]

I guess I am just impressed. So do you think large floor standing speakers have trouble with this because of the height of their drivers? Is it really as simple as that?

I don't think so.

With large/tall symmetrically designed speakers, the "height" of the soloist is essentially resolved to the height of the midpoint of the drivers from top to bottom. The large speakers that come to mind [The IRS, Genesis 1.X and other line sources, Evolution Acoustics MM7, Raidho D-5, Nola Grand Reference, Arrakis, ML Statement e2, the large Maarten Coultrane among a few others] have drivers (woofers, midranges and tweeters) arranged symmetrically around the midpoints of their heights so the sound wave is resolved to the mid-height of the speaker.

 

[FrantzM]

Hi

I'll chime in and get out .. for now. Will come back on this later.

I am a fan of large speakers. They get the foundation of the music right (the very good one) the so important information in the mid-bass... The low bass can always be handled by a good subwoofer but the critical mid-bass and lower midrange is where the mini + subs often have trouble portraying anything real, even small instruments. Also i sincerely don't find peaks of 90 dB to be all that loud. In a concert hall, 100 dB is routinely reached... But it is not a matter of SPL only

As for the big speakers not being able to portray small or solo instruments, i would say it is likely a matter of set-up for in most instances. The Q7 in particular does an incredible job of becoming as small as the music asks for.. Another speaker which will spook in to making itself small is the Wilson X-2, if the X-2 doesn't disappear in the room you should know you have set-up problem and it is not the electronic kind.. The room acoustics are wrong and/or the speaker is improperly placed...

One more point. Set-up is not only speaker placement but and to me as importantly, listening position with respect to speaker placement ...
more on this later I must go to bed now!

 

[JackD201]

Scale is tricky because like it or not it is linked to visual interpretations/imaginings of image sizes of the sound events. Large scale would thus be analogous to filling your "screen" which in our case would be the human field of view. That would be almost 180 degrees horizontally and about 2/3s of that vertically when looking straight forward. I have said before that this is indeed relative. If you have a small format system just sit closer and the images projected get larger/fill up your field of view. For large format multi driver systems sit farther if the images are too large. Same principle. Then there's what Kal says, go multichannel where the other channels fill space directly forward and beyond field of view discreetly. Wear headphones and that's as big as it gets for any recording. That of course is my simplified version

Now if we're talking realism and not just image size, that would mean activating all the senses in a manner that is most similar to (uh-oh, here we go…) a sound event experienced first hand, hopefully more than once. Feel it, not just hear it. See my earlier mention of mid-bass. Where's the Basspig, our resident realistic level guy? In any case this is still a case of relativity since sound pressure of direct sound will drop 5/6 dB for every doubling of distance from the source. Doubling of the source adds 3dB. Again you can see Kal's point of adding even more sources.

As for the sources themselves these are aided by room gain. See Al's rear facing radiators and how they fit in with this concept.

All this brings us to the ol' audiophile truism. For every room, there's the right loudspeaker and IMO this in no way conflicts with the likes of Linnies who say the source is the most important thing.

 

[JackD201]

Large rooms don't need large speakers. What rooms need is sufficient speaker efficiency and the dynamics that come from low wattage producing enough spl without having to turn the volume control up too much. Feedback amp technology (mostly solid state) does not do well in these regards, while power paradigm (tubes,,,but It can be ss) do much better. No doubt we all like loud or should I say realistic sound, and both a so called small system or huge speaker that burns up the first watt with no appreciable output, system can get there. The hi-fi industry ideas of huge speakers demands a lot of power to handle loud volumes with fidelity. That is why often a so called smaller system (I don't like the term...its about the illusion it creates not the size of the soundstage) can sound great, they don't need lots of power and thus the amplifier spends little time in clipping situations. Simple is also another virture. Have you ever noticed how you can listen to a one speaker table top radio at sufficient volume all day long and not have fatigue? Turn up a large speaker system to an equitable pleasing sound level and you will not want to listen all day long IMO. Al M system has 2a3 tubes, folks there is a lot to do with the particular sound right there. And simplicity of the system, and not to take away one bit from the process of assembling a system that sounds good nothing to do with how many speakers or watts there are. Hi-Fi does not mean huge speakers and huge watts.

You contradicted the laws of physics so many times here my head spun

 

[LL21]

Thanks Lloyd. These are interesting observations. I don't really understand what you mean when you write "...when size is put to good use".

I do think reducing vibrations can play a role, in so far as it may focus images by lessoning blurring and distortions and thus aid in reproducing what is on the recording. Absorption at first reflection points may have a similar effect. I'm surprised your Alexandrias have an issue with vibration with the modules or cabinet. I have heard the Wilson XLFs in a well designed room in a good system and thought those cabinets to be quite inert. I also have heard the Magico Q7 in a good room and system. Yet each of these large, full range systems with inert cabinets had some trouble portraying solo instruments or voices in a realistic size. The images were larger than life and somewhat diffuse or unfocused.

I'm sure these speakers can scale down and sound superb, I just did not hear it on those occasions. I attribute it to system set up, room placement or attributes in specific components, perhaps causing phase issues. Also, driver coherence or listening distance could have been a factor. And I'm sure it depends a lot on the quality of the recording and the mic locations, mastering etc. There are plenty of testimonials describing large systems performing very well on small scale material. Perhaps, as you write (bold above), it is just more challenging with larger, complex systems.

When I mean size is put to good use...it was a more simplistic statement than it may have seemed. I meant to say a well-designed big speaker that. among other things, uses its size to move lots of air well (as opposed to a big speaker that was designed just to be big/brash/boomy, but not necessarily accurate, articulate, etc...we have all seen a few of those.)

As for the Q7 and Alexandria, I know the Wilsons but not the big Q7. I think its fair to say my X1s are older and perhaps less robustly designed. At the same time, in my own experiences, if I place my fingers on top of the module and I can tell the speaker is playing because my finger can feel even micro-movement/vibration, I have found getting it down to where I CANNOT tell if the speaker is on or off by that test...can really help 'still' the image.

The best example is the Arrakis...I placed my fingers by the bass module while my pants were flapping gently and shockingly, I could not tell if the woofer was playing or not. I have never experienced that before, and I have never experienced natural and ease of placement of Nirvana Unplugged like that before either. In my own system, its far from that...but its better, and the only thing that got the occasional large guitar right down to size...was the isolation/vibration stuff. The grounding helped with tonal and clarity...but the size/positioning/depth came from vibration/isolation and also from adding a TA Ref jumper cable to the jumper plate of my X1s...greater articulation in bass. I suspect when bass waves are less than articulate, they probably muck up other frequencies as well?

Also, one reason I think I find that sometimes at low levels, orchestral can sound surprisingly lifelike in scale (ie, from the back door of the hall kind of scale...not front row)...is because I have fewer room reflection issues to deal with at lower volume?

 

[Al M.]

Hi

I'll chime in and get out .. for now. Will come back on this later.

I am a fan of large speakers. They get the foundation of the music right (the very good one) the so important information in the mid-bass... The low bass can always be handled by a good subwoofer but the critical mid-bass and lower midrange is where the mini + subs often have trouble portraying anything real, even small instruments.

We've had this debate before, Frantz. I fully agree with you that mini monitors often have trouble with mid-bass and lower midrange, but that does not mean all of them. It is likely that you haven''t heard my speakers so I don't think you can comment. They don''t have those problems. The Stereophile review specifically points out their performance in those frequency regions and discusses it at length. A listener who plays jazz himself has repeatedly commented on how realistic upright bass sounds in my system. This would be impossible without proper mid bass and lower midrange, obviously, which are played by the main speakers, not the sub (try playing double bass through a sub with main speakers turned off, it sounds funny, to say the least). The sub though flawlessly integrates with the main speakers. Peter's Magico Mini II are also not deficient in mid bass and lower midrange.

Also i sincerely don't find peaks of 90 dB to be all that loud. In a concert hall, 100 dB is routinely reached... But it is not a matter of SPL only

I said greater than 90 dB. Also, I don't like to listen routinely at 100 dB peaks even if they are short (it all accumulates). In order to avoid hearing damage, I follow NIOSH recommendations. My ears are already less capable than at young age, and I don't want further degradation if I can avoid it. That doesn't mean that I shun live classical concerts, obviously, but those are not an everyday matter (and you don't see me going to rock concerts anymore). Hearing damage in also classical musicians, alas not an infrequent phenomenon, is well documented.

***

But this thread is not about the technical capabilities of mini monitors in terms of sound production. It is about imaging and sound projection, and I'd like to hear some more thoughts on why some systems perform well in that area, and some don't. If large speakers are critically dependent on set-up, what is it that makes all the difference? How do room, seating position and room treatment play into this? Can all large speakers project small when set up properly? Probably not. What makes some perform better than others in this area?

As for my situation, room treatment and speaker placement has played a critical role, as did electronics, in particular the acquisition of the external power supplies which have removed electronic noise from the amps that suppressed important low level spatial information on recordings. For palpability of images, laser measurement of even distances of speakers to listening position, as well as making sure that my listening seat was precisely in the middle between speakers (estimating by eye won't do) -- all contributing to correct time alignment of arriving sounds -- was crucial as well. Taking care of first reflections points with sound panels not only removed some high-frequency ringing, but also prevents solo voices singing in a concert hall to swell in perceived physical size as they become louder.

 

[LL21]

...I'd like to hear some more thoughts on why some systems perform well in that area, and some don't. If large speakers are critically dependent on set-up, what is it that makes all the difference? How do room, seating position and room treatment play into this? Can all large speakers project small when set up properly? Probably not. What makes some perform better than others in this area?

As for my situation, room treatment and speaker placement has played a critical role, as did electronics, in particular the acquisition of the external power supplies which have removed electronic noise from the amps that suppressed important low level spatial information on recordings...

+1...same for my own personal experience.

 

[microstrip]

Although I dislike the subject of "what is the most important contribution (source, electronics, cables, speaker or room)", as I feel the important parameter is the interaction of the whole system, and any mismatch can kill the performance of the whole system , I feel we are under-valuating the importance of the three first items (source, electronics and cables) in this thread.

Provided with proper source, electronics and cables any of the many good speakers I have owned could have a big scale in a decent room - even the Rogers LS3/5A when powered by a Krell FPB600c and ancillaries - I still remember friends thinking that the sound was coming from the big main speakers (B&W 801 S3 at that time) and only believing after seeing the cables.

An important aspect of scale is the capability of making the room and speakers disappear, replacing the boundaries of our room with the specific boundaries of the recording. As this process is strongly dependent on the listener participation, IMHO it can not be fully explained by the simple arguments, such as bass power, wall reflections or millimetric setup.

Most excellent systems I have listened to only "scale" well after a proper warmup of the whole electronic units, sometimes going up to a full couple of hours. I would love to know why.

 

[microstrip]

(...)
As for my situation, room treatment and speaker placement has played a critical role, as did electronics, in particular the acquisition of the external power supplies which have removed electronic noise from the amps that suppressed important low level spatial information on recordings. (...) .

Al M,

Although I can not agree with your too simple explanation, it was your comment that triggered my previous post. Some very noisy equipment by modern standards had excellent scale capabilities.

 

[Al M.]

Al M,

Although I can not agree with your too simple explanation, it was your comment that triggered my previous post. Some very noisy equipment by modern standards had excellent scale capabilities.

Hi Microstrip,

it depends what you define as 'scale'. In my view the size of the soundstage very much includes its depth, and that is where noisy components are at a disadvantage. The noise removal by the insertion of the external power supply units (PSUs) to my amps has allowed much more low-level information to come through which portrays spatial depth.

To be more precise: I had a number of recordings that portrayed great spatial depth already before I had the external PSUs. This spatial depth has not been expanded by the insertion of the PSUs. Yet there are many more recordings that now exhibit great spatial depth as well. I have to assume that their spatial information is more subtle than the one on the recordings that had already great depth before, and thus can be more easily overridden by electronic noise. Most dramatic example of a recording that has benefitted spatially from the PSUs: a CD of choral works by Maxwell Davies. The sound was on a flat plane between the speakers before; after the external PSUs came in, the image of the choir receded far to the back behind my speakers into a very large and believable acoustic.

You are right about the role that the source plays. I remember from a session at a dealer 23 years ago just how shockingly the soundstage expanded (width and depth) with a Linn LP12 turntable as the source, rather than the Meridian 208 CD player which we had listened to earlier. In my system, the depth of the soundstage and the width in the front did not increase by the switch from the 20 year old Wadia 12 DAC to the Berkeley DAC *), yet the width of the back of the soundstage did increase substantially. With the Wadia 12 the soundstage had become narrower in the back (it thus had trapezoid shape), with the Berkeley it is fully rectangular.

Also imaging within the soundstage has greatly improved with the Berkeley DAC. Images are now much more precise and focused also in the back of the soundstage, whereas with the Wadia DAC receded images were a bit fuzzy. And that is of course where the distinction between scale of soundstage and imaging comes in; one thing are the dimensions of the soundstage, the other the images within it. I agree with you that treating first reflection points and millimetiric setup have preciously little to do with the scale of the soundstage, but they have everything to do with the precision and palpability of imaging within it.

_____________

*) that was before I had the external PSUs, and with the recordings that already earlier had exhibited great depth. It is very well possible that the low-level depth information on recordings that so benefitted from the insertion of PSUs might not have been reproduced as well by the Wadia as it is by the Berkeley DAC.

 

[PeterA]

There have been a few comments about how volume effects scale. Do people find that when the volume increases, the size of images and sense of scale also increase? Does the piano seem larger or does just the sound that the piano produces seem larger? IOW, does the scale remain the same with just the projected sound being louder?

The successful systems that I have heard seem to maintain a constant or stable instrument and soundstage size and location, but the size of the projected sound increases to fill the room with more pressure or energy. The images of the performers do not increase is scale. Very similar to what happens when the live singer or musician plays louder. They obviously remain the same size as they perform, but the projected sound increases in volume, energy and scale.

A cellist whom Al M. and I heard recently play Bach's Suites for Unaccompanied Cello told us that the main difference between a recording and the live event from the performer's point of view is that the microphone picks up the details in the studio while the musician performing live has to project the sound out into the audience. He/she plays differently depending on the setting. He told us that this is similar to how stage actors wear exaggerated make up for the audience while TV actors wear makeup that looks more natural.

 

[JackD201]

In my case Peter the images shrinks and grows with volume just as it does when I go nearer or farther away. Not that much though though. On the extremes there are limits to the sizes but more significant is that the level of saturation changes. At the lower end outlines are there, played to loud I get what is analogous to over saturation in a picture, yuck. One of my goals is to do my best to tune my system so that it can have a natural palette over a wide range of SPLs because as a classical music junkie, that is a huge part for the suspension of my disbelief. No anorexia on silent passages and no coughing up furballs on crescendos with peaks in the 3 digit range.

 

[JackD201]

Originally Posted by tomelex View Post

Large rooms don't need large speakers. What rooms need is sufficient speaker efficiency and the dynamics that come from low wattage producing enough spl without having to turn the volume control up too much. Feedback amp technology (mostly solid state) does not do well in these regards, while power paradigm (tubes,,,but It can be ss) do much better. No doubt we all like loud or should I say realistic sound, and both a so called small system or huge speaker that burns up the first watt with no appreciable output, system can get there. The hi-fi industry ideas of huge speakers demands a lot of power to handle loud volumes with fidelity. That is why often a so called smaller system (I don't like the term...its about the illusion it creates not the size of the soundstage) can sound great, they don't need lots of power and thus the amplifier spends little time in clipping situations. Simple is also another virture. Have you ever noticed how you can listen to a one speaker table top radio at sufficient volume all day long and not have fatigue? Turn up a large speaker system to an equitable pleasing sound level and you will not want to listen all day long IMO. Al M system has 2a3 tubes, folks there is a lot to do with the particular sound right there. And simplicity of the system, and not to take away one bit from the process of assembling a system that sounds good nothing to do with how many speakers or watts there are. Hi-Fi does not mean huge speakers and huge watts




yes, could have been better worded, but there are some here who get it. Bolded some stuff to help you out some.

Tom look at your first sentence and tell me with a straight face that the folks at WE, Siemens and RCA had it all wrong when a few watts is all they had regardless of room size. You want bass? You need that big cabinet. You wan't a small cabinet? Bring more power to the table with you. In the days when power was limited, room size dictated speaker size. That's where I'm coming from.

I'm talking about coverage here, where you get consistent tone and levels throughout the space. Now if what you are saying is that you don't need large speakers for a large space IF you only need to cover a small portion of the space, I would agree. I don't think this is what is being talked about in this thread though.

One thing a lot of people overlook is that those of us that have gone for large format loudspeakers haven't done so purely for the sake of higher SPL. I would go out on a limb here and say 99.99% of us did so for better "ease" of presentation relative to the scale we are after. Less stress, less distortion, less fatigue. Now crank up a table radio to anywhere near the levels you would rock out to without blowing it up.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Then there's what Kal says, go multichannel where the other channels fill space directly forward and beyond field of view discreetly. Wear headphones and that's as big as it gets for any recording. That of course is my simplified version

Ouch. Headphones never get big no matter how loud or how clean they are. They are simply unable to provide the interaural cues necessary unless there is lots of DSP (as with Smyth).

Where's the Basspig, our resident realistic level guy? In any case this is still a case of relativity since sound pressure of direct sound will drop 5/6 dB for every doubling of distance from the source. Doubling of the source adds 3dB. Again you can see Kal's point of adding even more sources.

I've heard his system a few times and it is impressive. However, although the levels can be intimidating, they do not imbue it with any other special powers. OTOH, it has been about 2 years since I've heard it and I know he will have made lots of changes by now.

 

[JackD201]

Ouch. Headphones never get big no matter how loud or how clean they are. They are simply unable to provide the interaural cues necessary unless there is lots of DSP (as with Smyth).

I've heard his system a few times and it is impressive. However, although the levels can be intimidating, they do not imbue it with any other special powers. OTOH, it has been about 2 years since I've heard it and I know he will have made lots of changes by now.

Good point. I'll add binaural at least as far as immersion goes but not strictly size. While I do use headphones quite a bit, its out of necessity. Very few have given me a plane out in front of my nose with normal stereo recordings. Most of the time I feel stuff is being crammed into my skull. My way of saying that is way bigger than I would ever want. The common thing with these headphones maybe coincidentally, maybe not is that they are designed to fire partially at the Pinnae. I'm not complaining, I can easily get used to the in your head thing. It's just not my cup of tea.