What is it with Sennheiser's angled drivers? Do they bring some advantage?

Submitted by Fearless-Physics t3_100ev9s in headphones

Two of the companies that create quality products are Beyerdynamic and Sennheiser.

The entirety of Beyerdynamics products have flat-on earcups while most Sennheiser products have angled earcups - and therefore angled drivers.

It's a design choice obviously, but I thought that there had to be more to it.

So I looked it up and read things about the reason for this being that our ears are angled too, and that the angled drivers make for a better soundstage and being able to locate sounds better.

Is that true? Does this mean that headphones with angled earcups&drivers always have some kind of advantage/superiority over headphones with flat-on earcups&drivers?

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The_D0lph1n t1_j2hdl4n wrote

Not all Beyers have flat drivers. The T1 line uses an angled driver inside the ear cup. Focal, Audio Technica, Sony, and some other brands also have models with angled drivers.

From what I've heard, the difference is not as pronounced as audiophiles think it is. Yes, it changes how the sonic wavefront interacts with your ears, but that does not intrinsically produce better soundstage or imaging. I've also seen cases where an angled driver actually hurts imaging accuracy by over-focusing frontal sounds and creating a dead zone to the sides (the Stax SR-L700mk2 has this, and my friend reported the same effect on the Focal Elex).

In headphones, you rarely can say that X feature always makes B property better. Feature X can improve that property if used in conjuction with other features that also help produce that property, but you can't take any feature in isolation and make claims about a headphone's performance from that.

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Fearless-Physics OP t1_j2hdqk5 wrote

Thank you!

Does it perhaps also depend on the individual using them...?

To give an example, could one person using angled-driver-Sennheisers (or anything else) get the same phenomenon as from those Stax SR-L700mk2, only due to that person's head shape?

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The_D0lph1n t1_j2hf5s4 wrote

Maybe. I didn't notice the weird imaging on the Elex to the extent that my friend did. I also wasn't impressed with the soundstage on the Sennheiser HD800S: it was the widest I'd heard by a small margin, but the increase in frontal depth didn't match the increase in width. I thought that many Hifiman headphones have a better soundstage presentation despite having flat drivers.

One interesting example would be the Ultrasone headphones and their S-Logic system. The drivers are not only angled, but placed lower and fire upwards at the ear. For some people, this produces a much wider soundstage. But other people's ears just don't work with S-Logic, so all they hear is a screechy mess.

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AntOk463 t1_j2hkdk8 wrote

I don't think it's with the goal of better imaging or soundstage. Having the drivers point towards your ears is better. It's like comparing speakers placed in front of you with speakers placed behind you, the ones properly facing you fun the front are better.

Also he asked about different head shapes and people wanting different angels. Gyrations aren't set to an angle, they have some rotation in the cups that can change delegating on who is wearing them, I'm thinking of the Hifiman Arya design that allows for infinite rotation of the cups. Even the Beyerdynamic DT 770 lineup has some rotation for the earcups.

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imacom t1_j2ivkdb wrote

I think it has more to do with ergonomics and comfort.

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The_D0lph1n t1_j2iydhx wrote

As someone with highly protruding ears, I agree that angled drivers can be good for comfort (though again, not a strict rule that angled is better for comfort) because they naturally make more space at the back, which means that my ears are not pressed as hard against the driver.

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