Is a gizmo, detailed in the accompanying link, which I think, does what it claims..
I listen to a fair amount of music via in-ear stylee earphones and the introduction of this little doodad has improved the experience.
I thought that I may have simply decided that the sound was different with / without it..and went for a scientific trial scenario, involving my mate Dave and the Hump album by Sopwith Camel – which if you don’t know it, you should !
We both agreed that the sound without the BH unit sounded inwardly driven whereas incorporating it made the sound erm, outward.
( Doubtless someone with more grey matter than Dave or I will explain this more coherently.)
Anyway, it’s well worth £15 – or 2 metropolitan elite pints..
https://www.sonneteer.com/product/the-bards-headspace/?v=79cba1185463%20
I’m sure @fentonsteve will have an opinion on this. Even if it is “buy a Fiio.”
The mere fact that you chose the Miraculous album to test-drive the gizmo speaks volumes. I’ll give it a go and see what i think – and i’ll be basing my opinion upon the listening experience provided by an Astell & Kern, so there’s not much room for confirmation bias.
The clue is in the tags: Crossfeed.
It takes some of the left signal and add it into the right, and some of the right signal and adds it into the left, using a resistor network. Since it is passive, it is bi-directional as claimed.
Some headphone amplifiers also have this option.
The idea is to get your ears to hear the signal as if it is coming from in front of your head, as if you are listening to speakers (because you hear some of the left speaker with your right ear and vice versa).
It won’t make your trousers flap though, like big speakers do.
Big speakers…. and big dinners.
Thanks to all for your responses..
I get the Crossfeed explanation and that broadly aligns with my experience..
Which headphones feature this adaptation pls ?
I think it’s £15 well spent and massively improves my ropey oneplus sound output..
Thanks
This is a feature found in headphone amplifiers rather than headphones.
There is some explanation (and some audio samples with and without crossfeed) at Meier Audio:
http://www.meier-audio.homepage.t-online.de/crossfeed.htm
Thanks for the pointer.
I rarely listen to music on headphones or those pesky earbuds unless the situation demands – mostly for practical purposes only, so this is interesting. As an aside, I have recently replaced my hifi amp which has a quite dramatically improved soundstage and dynamics, fantastic detail etc., but it often occurs to me how stereo can ‘get in the way’ of just listening to the music. Maybe it is because I grew up listening to mono..? Live concert music isn’t really experienced in head turning stereo either…it comes at you in one slab of sound.
When I’m working the sound desk, one of the joys of a venue with decent acoustics is the ability to mix in stereo. It really makes everything pin-sharp.
Sadly, venues with nice acoustics are few and far between.
As most of what I work on is just speech, ie one or two presenters on a stage, we have a saying, “conference stereo.”*
*Not stereo
Sounds interesting. I’m pretty much wireless now but it’s tempting nonetheless.
Thanks for the tip – why not