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Many people ask, “why do you need ear enlargement?”
Everyone ignores an important fact – ear enlargement is everywhere, but you don’t notice it! There are earpieces in mobile phones, laptops, and even wireless headphones. Therefore, our question should be changed to: why do we need “independent” earpieces!
As we all know, the sound system is composed of three parts: signal source, amplifier and speaker. For the compact headset system, the headset is like the speaker in the whole system. However, the earphone system is essentially different from the speaker based sound system. The brain’s perception of sound is not only through the tympanic membrane, but also integrates the integrated perception caused by the auricle, head and body. The earphone system that receives sound only through the tympanic membrane is difficult to achieve the depth perception of the sound system and the 3D stereo sound field (including stereo sound field and depth), It is caused by the time difference between the sound source and the left and right ears. The left channel sound of the headset will not reach the right channel, and vice versa. The other is the residual sound of space. There is no residual sound of space when using headphones, so the sound is clean, but there is less sense of space).
The way the human ear receives sound is not like when listening to headphones. The left ear only hears the left channel and the right ear only hears the right channel. Instead, the left ear will hear part of the sound from the right, and the right ear will also hear part of the sound from the left. Stereo is made by the time difference between left and right in the brain, so it forms the brain’s judgment on the direction and distance of sound.
Personal music world
The earphone system cannot achieve the near real auditory feeling caused by the sound system, but because the listening distance of the earphone is closer to the tympanic membrane, it can drive enough sound pressure without high power. In addition, in addition to the distortion of space and isolation from the external environment, the sound transmission is more direct and the frequency response is more flat, It is easier to hear the original appearance of the recording and the real texture of the instrument. This feature makes the headset system very suitable for you to enjoy music in a noisy environment or in the dead of night without affecting others.
Ubiquitous ear enlargement
In order to simplify the architecture, the headset system usually integrates the information source and the amplifier, which makes many players mistakenly think that the headset does not need to be driven, but the real situation is that products such as mobile phones or DAP (digital audio player, usually turned into “portable player”) specially used with headphones actually have built-in “headset amplifier” (hereinafter referred to as “ear amplifier”).
Just like the amplifier in the sound system, the function of the ear amplifier is to “drive” the headphones. The basic principle of earphones is the same as that of speakers. Except for a very few electrostatic earphones on the market, the moving iron (balance armature) type or plane diaphragm type commonly used in the moving coil and ear canal earphones with the highest market share adopt the same type of ear amplification. Electrostatic earphones need high voltage, so they must be equipped with special ear amplifiers.
Low noise and distortion are good earpieces
Earphones can be roughly divided into ear canal type and earmuff type. The volume of the single body of the ear muff earphone is much larger than that of the ear canal earphone. On the contrary, the diaphragm, voice coil and magnet inside the single body are much larger, so the ear muff earphone is usually more difficult to drive than the ear canal earphone. Except for some IEMs (in ear monitor earphones) with multi unit design, ear canal earphones usually do not need to be equipped with an ear amplifier. They can achieve sufficient volume and ideal sound quality with a mobile phone or DAP. Another reason why earmuff type needs ear enlargement more than ear canal type is the distance between monomer diaphragm and tympanic membrane, which is also easy to understand, because the closer the distance, the higher the sound pressure that the ear can feel.
The sensitivity unit of earphones (commonly used) is dB / MW, which is 1000 times worse than that of speakers. The output power of earphones is not the focus of purchase, and the specifications of “sensitivity”, “efficiency” or “maximum sound pressure” of earphones are actually just reference, not the absolute standard for matching earphones.
Since there is no need for too much current, what we should pay attention to when choosing ear enlargement is the ability to reduce noise and anti-interference. This is similar to the design focus of the front stage amplifier. We should effectively reduce noise and distortion in order to make the music signal received by the tympanic membrane pure and pollution-free.
“Pushing” is very different from “pushing well”
The functions of ear enlargement are “push to move” and “push well”. What will happen if you can’t push? The most common condition is that the sound sounds dull. This condition usually occurs in the insufficient driving force or impedance mismatch of ear enlargement (which will be described later). Without the above situation, another situation also belongs to “unable to push”, that is, the sound pressure pushed out by the ear enlargement is not enough, the volume cannot be turned on loudly, or you will hear the distortion of the unpleasant ear, sharp sound or loose low frequency. These are the reasons why you need to buy another ear enlargement.
After “pushing”, it enters the stage of “pushing well”. Pushing well means that the sound is clearer, the details are more and the levels are richer. It not only improves the overall resolution, but also represents a more complete frequency domain performance at the high and low ends. However, the combination of earphones and earphones should be considered, which can only be known by actual matching. High-end earphones often use the design of changeable wires, and different earphone wires are also a matching means.
Pay attention to the headphone output terminal
At present, there are two mainstream earphone terminals: 3.5mm and 6.3mm. The traditional earphone plug of 3.5mm or 6.3mm adopts three plugs collectively referred to as TRS (tip, ring and sleep), each of which is left channel, right channel and grounding respectively. 3.5mm is what we usually call “small head”, which corresponds to “big head” 6.3mm. Of course, 6.3mm has better sound effect. This is the same as the principle of sound wire matching. The larger the contact area of metal, the better the transmission effect and the better the sound performance.
Due to the need to carry around, most headphones use 3.5mm headphone terminals, and 6.3mm terminals are mostly used in home or recording room. When purchasing ear amplifiers, you must pay attention to the output terminals of ear amplifiers. In addition to the common 3.5mm and 6.3mm, high-order ear amplifiers or daps are equipped with high-order balance terminals. The more common are the 2.5mm trrs balance terminal commonly used by daps and the common 4 pin XLR balance terminal on ear amplifiers, In addition, there are Sony’s 4.4mm trrrs balance terminal and the relatively rare 3.5mm balance terminal.
The more advanced double XLR terminal further separates the signals of the left and right channels to further reduce the crosstalk impact of the left and right channels, which is the most high-end practice at present. However, because this kind of balanced wire rod is not the mainstream specification, the wire rod factory will not invest in the production line, and many must be produced with customized specifications.
The higher the impedance of the headset, the more difficult it is to drive. Low impedance does not mean good driving
At present, the average impedance of household speakers on the market is mostly 4-8 ohms, but the common earphone impedance is about 32 ohms at the lowest and 600 ohms at the highest. With such a wide range, it is difficult to have an earphone that can fit all impedance. Usually, high impedance headphones are difficult to drive. They must be matched with ear enlargement to meet the requirements of “moving” and “good pushing”.
The principle of dynamic earphone is the same as that of dynamic phonograph. High impedance means that more layers of voice coils are used, and the magnet is also larger. The advantage is that it can drive more air and emit greater sound pressure and lower frequency. The disadvantage is that it needs more power, greater voltage and greater current. Compared with low impedance headphones, high impedance headphones have better resistance to noise. Although the earphone with low impedance is easy to drive, it does not mean that it does not need ear amplification. As mentioned earlier, the matching of earphone and ear amplification still needs to be “pushed well”.
Let you know your headphones again
Did you notice? Except for a few multi unit earphones, most earphones use full range earphones, which eliminates the interference of passive sound splitter and the problem of multi unit voice color integration. Earphones usually have very good if performance, but the performance difference between high and low ends is very large, which is the key to determine the quality of a pair of earphones. An excellent earphone can give full play to the performance of the high and low ends of the headset, so that you can hear the real performance of the headset.
DAC and ear enlargement is the first choice for entry
In ancient times, almost every front-end or comprehensive expansion had the function of ear expansion. Until recent years, there were more and more kinds of headphones, and everyone’s demand for ear expansion was higher and higher. More kinds of independent ear expansion began to come out. How should entry-level players choose ear enlargement? As long as the impedance of the earphone you are used to using is not too high, your personality is not too tricky, the integration of DAC and earpiece is high, and the driving force is enough to cope with it. It also saves the trouble of connecting wires. It is definitely the first choice for high C / P value that best meets the needs of entry-level players.