Any benefit to headphones able to playback wider than the human hearing range?

[Daybreak]

So I was looking around on studio headphones, and noticed a trend in that most of them were able to play stuff under 20 Hz and over 20 KHz, like this one:

http://www.thomann.de/gb/superlux_hd681.htm

That's 10Hz-30KHz. Is this beneficial in any way? I know I've read articles speculating that information both under and above the human hearing range can affect the "feel" of a track without actually being able to hear those frequencies. Anyone have any reasonable explanation to this? I'm really curious, haha.

 

[botus99]

the 30khz would only matter if you're listening to something at, say, a 96k sample rate because of the nyquist theorem. 10hz... errrrr good question. Thankfully the "brown note" is at 7hz, so you have some insurance there haha

 

[nspacestd]

Yeah, the extended high frequency response isn't going to matter unless you use higher sample rates, but keep in mind that many people here including Andy himself record at 44.1k with perfectly fine results. As far as the 10hz goes I don't think there is going to be any useful information that low in a rock/metal mix, unless you're after some kind of particular effect

 

[SoundsLikeFog]

I know nothing of speaker designing, but I think the point is more about the performance in the audible 20-20 area. If you can get a phase / distortion / you name it-free representation all the way up to 40khz, you can pretty much trust the speaker to perform well in the standard audible area..

Or that's how I've understood that.. If anybody knows something about speaker design, please do chime in.

 

[Sloan]

See that post with the digital audio video to get some answers on this. but overall, don't worry about it 20hz-20khz is pretty standard.

 

[egan.]

Honestly frequency response specs are nearly useless for speakers and headphones. Everyone seems to claim hilariously round numbers. Just listen and make a decision.

 

[Kohugaly]

One benefit comes to my mind... if the range is bigger than 20Hz-20kHz you can be more sure, nothing fishy happens around the end points of the spectra, like weird high frequency attenuation near 20kHz or resonances arount 20Hz.

 

[Fox Mulder]

Why bother about anything above 20khz unless the headphones are for your dog?

 

[Studdy]

+1 Kohugaly

 

[egan.]

One benefit comes to my mind... if the range is bigger than 20Hz-20kHz you can be more sure, nothing fishy happens around the end points of the spectra, like weird high frequency attenuation near 20kHz or resonances arount 20Hz.

I guess that's sort of my point only I wouldn't judge based on manufacturers numbers alone.

Pretending a flat response in between, two headphones could both be accurately 20-20k +/-3dB, but one of them could be down 2.9dB from 10k up while the other is flat to 19k. And then factor in that 20-20k is a marketing dept number and not the real number. It's just too convenient.

 

[botus99]

One benefit comes to my mind... if the range is bigger than 20Hz-20kHz you can be more sure, nothing fishy happens around the end points of the spectra, like weird high frequency attenuation near 20kHz or resonances arount 20Hz.

How? You wouldn't be able to hear it Personally, I can only hear 22hz-17.5khz and I've never met anyone who could hear lower than 20hz or higher than 20khz. Never even met someone that could hear 20-20 for that matter.

I could maybe understand the potential use of higher and lower frequencies from a SPEAKER so that the body could feel the vibrations, but in headphones, it's straight to the ears that don't make use of those frequencies. This all seems like marketing to me...

 

[TheWinterSnow]

Biggest and only reason that I am aware of for extended range speakers/headphones is phase response. If the half power point is way beyond the human hearing range then the extreme end of the spectrum will have less phase distortion, meaning the sound will be tighter more accurate especially in the lows. There will be less phase smearing and overall muddiness in speakers with a response of 10Hz-30KHz than a speaker with a 20Hz-20KHz response.

 

[He's Dead, Jim]

For 19 euros or whatever, I don't really think they're telling the truth about the range of those speakers hahah.

 

[Kohugaly]

How? You wouldn't be able to hear it Personally, I can only hear 22hz-17.5khz and I've never met anyone who could hear lower than 20hz or higher than 20khz. Never even met someone that could hear 20-20 for that matter.

I could maybe understand the potential use of higher and lower frequencies from a SPEAKER so that the body could feel the vibrations, but in headphones, it's straight to the ears that don't make use of those frequencies. This all seems like marketing to me...

what I've meant is that if the range of the speaker/headphones is wider than 20-20, than you have better assurance that the frequency & phase response is flat (or as desired) across 20-20 range. But yes, it is mostly a marketing... you buy any good pair of headphones and you learn how stuff sound's in them - that is what matters.