@mahgister loudspeaker systems give a different presentation than headphone systems. I don’t believe that one, regardless of equipment used or set up, is it necessarily better or worse than the other. Like I said, they are different presentations altogether.
Headphones and speakers present sounds with different results for sure...
Like our friend mastering92 just said:
However, the 6db rule applies whereby headphones cannot perfectly recreate bass frequencies due to the limited size and mass of their respective transducers. However, textural resolve, attack, decay, and the overall styling of the bass is far more important (and they can do each of these things well). Where speakers win is with visceral bass that we can feel within a room.
But it is NOT only about the superior rendrering of bass frequencies...
In a room you can mimic the 3 dimension spatiality of the sound...
None of my 7 headphones never did it like my room/speakers...
In acoustic there is a concept which is very important:
The relation between the "listener envelopment" (LEV) and the "source width" (ASW)...
the relation between these 2 factors is related to the timing of back and front reflections and the general ratio of their timing in relation to side direction...
Also we can acoustically control with Helmholtz resonators of different size the first frontwaves coming from each speakers and differentiate them for each ears....
Only these factors i just mentioned are impossible to control with headphones drivers and shell limitations and size...
This is the reason why they all sound "artificial" in relation to a good speakers/room settings.... Not only the bass....but we dont perceive it to be artificial if we compare them to a non controlled speakers/room system for sure... on the contrary 8 years ago i weas convinced that my speakers will never beat a good headphone...
And the point where headphones seems to crush my speakers/room could be some details.... BUT details without 3D immersion in a space volume and only in a 2D space are unrealalistic and unnatural and without life compared to the room/speakers...
I was in love with my 2 Stax Headphone system, the Sr5 and the Lambda.... My hybrid was very good .... But ALL my headphones were different and each one were lacking on a factor or an another one relatively and compared to the other headphones....
My room/speakers under controls never give me a detail without the whole....nor a 2D sound only in front of my head or only between my ears....
My room/speakers, in relation with the recording quality i use for sure, give me a sound where i am among the players or where some players are beside me and not in front or behind the speakers only or only between them...( it is relative to the recording initial process a bad recording cannot deliver that for sure to begin with)
My speakers/room as imperfect as it is now, is SUPERIOR on all counts... Because each factor is LINKED to the others in a BALANCED way which none of my headphones were ever able to delivers...
Then the apparent more detailed presentation of some aspects of the sound, which 8 years ago convince me of the superiority of headphones, was only a manifestation of the defect of my room/speakers settings at this time....In a non controlled room, headphones, any of them, are more detailed or seems to be...But they never are more livelier than a good speakers/room system...
And the Timbre experience is unnatural in most headphones anyway compared to a room/speakers rightly done because of the limitations of their enclosure and drivers...
I am not a scientist and even not an audio mature expert...
But i have my own journey....
A 500 bucks system can be more than good.... If each piece is well chosen and if the three working dimensional embeddings, mechanical, electrical and acoustical are minimally controlled....
No system i had listen to in my life even better one than mine completely crush mine....
The reason: a balance between all acoustical factors in play are realized.... Then i am behind all superior costly audio systems but way less behind than people could imagine, even me....
In audio my system is very good in the scale price/sound quality ratio....
After all when the piano is in my room in 3D not behind or between the speakers with a good recording what i can ask for more?
A more perfect system will cost me between 12,000 and 16,000 bucks...I know what i could buy to beat each single piece of my gear.... The speakers cost is the more difficult choice by the way...
I dont need it.... I prefer to surprize my children with my 500 bucks incredible system...
I forgot an important point...
My room /speakers system give me 2 different experiences...
One is more like an headphone listening but 3D with sounds coming sometimes around my head ... The near listening field at 3 feet of my speakers on my desk...
The regular position in my small room of 13 feet 1/2 square is at 8 feet from the speakers....And there the sound is more realistic and seems a bit less detailed but it is an illusion...The details are there but more realistically linked to the whole of the sound...
In near listening field All my headphones are crushed on all counts...
In regular listening fields the apparent lack of details is an illusion, the details are there but in a more natural way ... Here regular listening position my speakers dont beat the headphones on each of the acoustical count to be compared like in near listening position, they introduce a completely new sound presentation that none of my headphones were able to do deliver....
Also bear in mind that a SMALL room is not a big room....And the controls of a small room is more difficult but can deliver possibilities less easy to reach and way more costly to reach in a 20 feet room...It is linked to the timing ratio of the wavefront of each speakers and the reverberation time which we can use more easily in a small room...
