Articles

• Headwize Headphone Guides
  Title: A Quick Guide to Headphones
  Author: HeadWize
  A comprehesive survey of headphones - covering all major technology types and styles of wear. Includes tips for evaluating headphones with special considerations for hard-of-hearing people and audio professionals.

  Title: A Quick Guide to Headphone Accessories
  Author: HeadWize
  Anyone who listens to headphones regularly will likely purchase headphone accessories, which range from the common (headphone amplifiers, cables, cases and acoustic simulators) to the esoteric (vibration transducers). The accessories market has reached staggering proportions. This guide examines headphone accessories in detail and includes a hyperlinked index for easy referencing.

  Title: Judging Headphones for Accuracy
  Author: HeadWize
  Evaluating headphones can require a different perspective than evaluating loudspeakers. Listeners must take into account the unique characteristics of headphone soundfields. This article examines various methods for, and the pitfalls of, judging headphones for accuracy and now includes discussion of using acoustic simulators in the evaluation process.

  Title: The Art of Monitoring and Mixing With Headphones
  Author: HeadWize
  Musicians and recording engineers increasingly rely on headphones during concerts and in the studio. As technologies improve, headphones are replacing loudspeaker monitors in many applications. Herewith, a guide for sound professionals discussing the use of headphones in various aspects of the music-making process.

  Title: Preventing Hearing Damage When Listening With Headphones
  Author: HeadWize
  Hearing damage from headphones is probably more common than from loudspeakers, because many people exploit the acoustic isolation by listening at higher volumes. Moreover, the risk of hearing damage from headphones is higher than with loudspeakers, even at comparable volumes, due to the close coupling of the transducers to the ears.

• General Interest
  Title: Earbuds, Equalization and Headphones
  Author: Michael Hoffman
  A survey and review of earbud (and some non-earbud) headphones and their features with tips on improving sound.

  Title: Taking Audio in Another Direction
  Author: John Sunier
  Sunier takes on the Audio Police to champion binaural recordings and equalization for headphone listening.

  Title: A Dialectic of Audible Space
  Author: Ian Stevenson
  A free ranging discussion of some aspects of the use of space in musical performance. There is a strong belief on the behalf of contemporary composers that space can be effectively and meaningfully employed as a composition tool.

  Title: Seven Darn Fine Reasons to Own a Headphone System Too!
  Author: Doug Schneider
  Although some people use headphones exclusively, this article is for those people who have a full home system, because a supplementary headphone system can add enjoyment to the music-listening experience and take you places your home system won't allow.

  Title: Headsets Improve Productivity
  Author: Karl Leif Bates
  Employees who are allowed to wear personal stereo headsets show higher productivity, better attitudes and greater satisfaction with the workplace.

  Title: A Bicyclist's Sense Of Hearing: How Important?
  Author: John S. Allen
  Laws banning headphone use by bicyclists are based on inaccurate ideas about headphone design. These laws outlaw the special advantages of headphones for bicyclists, particularly for two-way communication. Furthermore, the bicyclist is unusual among vehicle operators in having good use of the sense of hearing.

  Title: Spatial Sound - An Overview (1996)
  Author: Kimmo Vennonen
  Spatial sound is at the point now of a having sufficient technological tools to solve most of the problems.

  Title: Thoughts And Processes Relating To Recording And Mixing With Headphones
  Author: LXH2
  How to make final mixes in headphones so that they sound accurate on a variety of playback systems. The advantages to mixing in headphones are many, but can result in mixes with poor sound when played back over loudspeakers, if not done correctly. The author gives tips and techniques for successful mixing in headphones and details the construction and use of a binaural "roving mike" for the tracking process and a tunable bass filter for recording different sources with strong bass content.

  Title: Binaural In-Depth
  Author: John Sunier
  A primer on binaural recordings. The author discusses the history of binaural recordings, the current status of the binaural industry, d-i-y binaural recordings and audio equipment for binaural listening.

  Title: Depth Perception in Headphones
  Author: Ron Soh
  The author discusses how to identify depth cues in music heard through headphones (without the use of a virtualizer). Even though the soundstage in headphones is apparently in a direct line between the ears, good recordings often contain enough acoustic information for the listener to locate audio sources spatially. The article also provides an ear-training tutorial using selections from commercially available CDs.

• Expository Prose
  Title: December 19, update: a thought from Greg Roggeman's Point of View
  Author: Greg Roggeman
  "The deal was to call him with a 'sob story,' and the best sob story would win the phones."

  Title: A Headphone in the House
  Author: Clee Simmons
  "Now I was a rising buck, much like yourself, in the seventies. That's when I couldn't hear nothin but the sound in my 'head phones' except of course all the babes callin my name."

  Title: Commentary: HEADPHONES (To Graham)
  Author: HeadWize, lyrics by Björk Gudmundsdóttir
  "My headphones they saved my life...." Excerpt from Björk CD called POST.

  Title: Commentary: Statue With a Walkman
  Author: HeadWize, lyrics by Robyn Hitchcock
  "Pretty boy, pretty rooster, pretty sound...." Excerpt from Hitchcock CD called ROBYN HITCHCOCK.

  Title: Aunt Visit
  Author: Jeff Chapman
  "Before I could stop her, mainly because I was still wearing my headphones, she opened up the closet door and found all those corpses left over from my weekend down south, and the plates and cutlery and so on."

  Title: You Know You're Addicted To Headphones When...
  Author: (Adapted from an audiobook listserver list)
  Headphone addicts: there's no use denying it - here is a checklist of symptoms.

  Title: The Headphone Story
  Author: Jeff Justice
  "Conversations went as follows: 'Yes, Bob about the national sales meeting you have coming' (hit the mute button) Ahemmm, hack, ahhummmm. (Hit button again to release it) 'Oh, you already have someone. OK, maybe next year....'"