Hello! I am new to this website so lets see how things go! Over the last two years ive dedicated almost all of my time to the creation and experimentation of membrane based speakers like planars and ribbons. And I like to post about some weird experiments from time to time, this is one of them. Some months ago I custom made a multi speaker headphones with two custom 90 x 45mm planar drivers per side like an open book.
The point was to try make a larger "ring" of sound around your head, hence why they had no pads, since your ears are meant to be "immersed in sound" and pads would push your ears away from the speakers. This ended up being fairly successful? Although not enough to make it worthwhile over a normal, single larger driver. However, when i posted about it on reddit, people gave me an idea. What if i connect each separate speaker in surround through a 5.1 speaker amplifier to improve imaging directionality? So i did, which was clearly a nightmare..
The experiment was slightly successful, it had slightly better imaging, but not too noticeably. So Ive thought about it and decided the issue was the MASSIVE speakers this thing uses. They were so big that even when i just played the front speakers, i couldn't tell very easily from listening that the speaker was placed in front of my ear which is important when im trying to make it easier to tell what direction sounds are coming from through surround, however they were not designed to do this.. So i decided to start working on a pair that were designed with this in mind. So ive been developing a 3 speaker headphone using much thinner ribbon drivers again, custom made by me for better directionality, using 7.1 surround this time. (Thank god i made sure to buy a 7.1 amp) I will be sure to make a post once they're done, but i hope atleast some of you enjoyed this weird experiment. Also, in case any of you were curious what happened to this iteration of the idea, the magnets snapped through the housing a month ago, breaking one of the diaphragms, so yeah even more motivation to finish a V2
The point was to try make a larger "ring" of sound around your head, hence why they had no pads, since your ears are meant to be "immersed in sound" and pads would push your ears away from the speakers. This ended up being fairly successful? Although not enough to make it worthwhile over a normal, single larger driver. However, when i posted about it on reddit, people gave me an idea. What if i connect each separate speaker in surround through a 5.1 speaker amplifier to improve imaging directionality? So i did, which was clearly a nightmare..
The experiment was slightly successful, it had slightly better imaging, but not too noticeably. So Ive thought about it and decided the issue was the MASSIVE speakers this thing uses. They were so big that even when i just played the front speakers, i couldn't tell very easily from listening that the speaker was placed in front of my ear which is important when im trying to make it easier to tell what direction sounds are coming from through surround, however they were not designed to do this.. So i decided to start working on a pair that were designed with this in mind. So ive been developing a 3 speaker headphone using much thinner ribbon drivers again, custom made by me for better directionality, using 7.1 surround this time. (Thank god i made sure to buy a 7.1 amp) I will be sure to make a post once they're done, but i hope atleast some of you enjoyed this weird experiment. Also, in case any of you were curious what happened to this iteration of the idea, the magnets snapped through the housing a month ago, breaking one of the diaphragms, so yeah even more motivation to finish a V2
Last edited:
Did those play sounds from each speaker independently? Like front sounds play off the front speaker and so on? For these i had to attach 4 3.5mm mono ends to power each speaker as a separate channels to do the breakdown, and for the newer design im going to have to use 6 mono or 3 stereo connections. This whole concept is weird and ive yet to find a headphone designed for playing each side independently depending on surround position.
Yes the old Quad headphones all had four independent channels, always on two 1/4" stereo plugs. Front drivers on one plug, rear on the other. Many had a switch so that you could play stereo from just one plug, it combined the two drivers on each side to give you stereo from four drivers. Of course you could use just the front or just the rear if you plugged in only one jack.
Surprisingly, all the Quadraphonic headphones I've owned have been 8 ohm. Why? - I don't know, but it seemed to be standard.
Surprisingly, all the Quadraphonic headphones I've owned have been 8 ohm. Why? - I don't know, but it seemed to be standard.
maybe 8 is the magic number, that's also coincidentally the impedance of my custom ribbons (; It seems im already on the right track! The switch idea is also interesting, for these i didnt solder connections and just switched them around to play all at once stereo, which was annoying and wonky, so i'll make sure to try do that too