The first element of earphone: sound quality
Sound quality refers to the quality of sound. Many people confuse it with "sound color". What is the quality of sound? When you are talking about a pair of shoes of good quality. You must mean fitting, comfortable and durable, not whether it looks good or fashionable from time to time. Similarly, when you are talking about the sound quality of an audio headset, you are not talking about its level and positioning, but specifically referring to the "patience" of the equipment! It's like whether you can bear to wear or fit your feet. A piece of equipment with good sound quality is comfortable and durable. You don't have to explore the reason why it sounds comfortable and durable. It's the business of experts. You just need to judge it with your ears. Some devices are powerful, fast and analytical, but they don't last long. That may be the problem of sound quality. A good sound equipment should sound like a good voice, which makes people not tired of listening. Maybe you still think it's abstract when I say so. In fact, it is not. I can cite real columns to illustrate. When you mention cloth, you will say: this material is of good quality. When you are eating steak, you will say: the meat quality of this steak is very good. When you praise a child, you will say: the child has good qualifications. Therefore, when you listen to a sound equipment or an instrument, you will also say: its sound quality is very beautiful. From the above examples, you can clearly know that "quality" is innate nature. The noble, good and beautiful sound quality means that the nature of this equipment is very good. It makes people sound very comfortable. I can say that sound quality is the most important part of audio equipment, so I put it first.
The second element of earphone: timbre
Timbre refers to the color of sound. In English, tone quality and tone color are not the same thing. However, in Chinese, sound quality and timbre are often mixed and misused. We often hear that the violin's timbre is really cold and the violin's timbre is really warm. This refers to the timbre of the violin. Sound, like light, is colored, but it is not seen with the eyes, but heard with the ears. Usually, the warmer the timbre, the softer the sound; The colder the tone, the harder the sound. Too soft or too hard, of course, is not very good. Sometimes, timbre can also be described by words such as "noble" and "beautiful". Basically, it is also one of nature. However, just like cloth, cloth quality refers to its material, but cloth color refers to its color, which still has obvious boundaries. In the headphone equipment review, timbre is like color, which refers to its unique color. The timbre of some equipment is yellow, some white, some cold, and even you can say that it is blue with a little worry. In short, audio headphones are like musical instruments, which can hardly be separated from the fact that the more expensive the sound, the more beautiful the sound. A two million dollar violin may have a golden tone; A violin of NT $5000 may sound like a faded picture. Although everyone has different views, "beauty" still has a recognized "consensus". You can't say that a person with a nose to the sky is the "embodiment of beauty"; Similarly, you can't say that a cold blue sound equipment is beautiful. This is our consensus on the beauty of timbre.
The third element of earphone: the distribution and control of volume sense in high, medium and low frequency bands.
This project is easy to understand, but it is also easy to misunderstand in text communication. How to put it? Everyone will say: the high pitch of this pair of speakers is too strong and the low pitch is too few. This is the quantity sense distribution in the high, medium and low frequency bands. The problem is that if the bandwidth from 20Hz to 20kHz is divided into only three segments, it will inevitably lead to confusion of "imprecision". Where exactly does your bass mean? How low? In order to make the description more accurate, it is necessary to subdivide the bandwidth of 20Hz-20KHz. According to the division method of American TAs and Stereophile, it is very simple. They subdivide each section of high, medium and low into three sub sections, that is, it becomes the division method of "lower intermediate frequency, intermediate frequency and higher intermediate frequency". This division is like the law of twelve averages, which is quite regular. However, some translation problems arise when it is used in Chinese people, such as "low intermediate frequency", which we call "medium low frequency" or "low intermediate frequency"? What about the higher low frequencies? "High and low frequency"? Referring to the bandwidth of musical instruments and the title of sound by the orchestra, the frequency of 20Hz-20KHz is divided into seven segments: extremely low frequency, low frequency, medium low frequency, intermediate frequency, medium high frequency, high frequency and extremely high frequency. The nouns in these seven paragraphs are in line with the customary address of ordinary Chinese people, and they are easy to remember and will not be confused. The extreme low frequency is from 20Hz to 40Hz. This octave is called extreme low frequency. There are few musical instruments in this frequency band. Probably only bass, bass bassoon, tuba, organ, piano and other instruments can reach such a low range. Because this extremely low frequency is not the most beautiful range of the instrument, composers rarely write the notes so low. Unless pop music is deliberately arranged with an electronic synthesizer, extremely low frequencies are of little use to headphone fans. Some people mistakenly believe that although the pitch of an instrument is not so low, the overtone can be as low as below the pitch. In fact, this is not correct, because the pitch of the instrument is the lowest sound of the sound. The sound will only climb up twice, triple, quadruple, quintuple... And there will be no downward sound. This is like tightening a string. The vibration frequency of the full length of the string is the pitch, and the vibration of half, third, quarter and fifth of the string length is the overtone. The addition of pitch and overtone is the timbre of the instrument. In other words, even if the pitch of Violin and flute is the same, the timbre will be different.
