why does music sound so different through headphones compared to listening in your computer or in your car?
In: Technology
3 things, first is that bigger speakers can push more air so they can recreate more of the low end than smaller speakers in headphones can
second is the space, headphones directly put the sound in your ears. Where as speakers in a car, some of the sound goes to your ears but some of the sound also reflects off the surfaces in the space your in before hitting your ears and that can change your perception of the sound. If you’ve ever clapped in a large empty space and heard the reverb or echo that’s one way the space can change the sound.
And third, which is related to the second. The way sound moves, it moves as a wave out in every direction from the source. So sound from the right speaker moves out in every direction and when it hits your right ear, some of the sound is still moving and hits your left ear. So both your left and right ear hear what’s in the right speaker. But in headphones you only hear the right speaker in your right ear. So this also effects the perception of the sound
Depending on the quality of the speakers in your headphones, and your car/computer some frequencies could be “muddied” or you could have the sound be “tinny” overall. Your car and computer might also have different equalizer settings so some frequencies are made louder and quieter there.
Acoustic. headphone pump the sound directly into your ears.
Where as in car, the sound leaves the speaker then propagates to your ears, assuming all quality of speaker are equal.
Here’s an experiment. play a song at the same volume and setting, having the headphone directly to your ear, on your head, and half a meter away from you will produce notable difference.
I would like to indirectly answer your question. Sound from a distant speaker (i.e., not-headphones) is, of course, “acoustic” (sound waves). However, when the source of the sound is actually touching you as headphones do, the sound waves can actually bounce around your skull which changes your perception. With sophisticated computer software, we have a pretty good idea of how skull resonance works so we can do fun things like use stereo headphones to fake 3D sounds. Sound processing can make it *seem* like you can hear sounds in front or behind you, or above or below you, even though you don’t have speakers in front/behind above/below your ears. Pretty wild stuff.
An extreme example of this is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bone_conduction. And here’s a product review that you may find interesting: http://www.techmoan.com/blog/2019/1/13/bone-conducting-headphones-aftershokz-trekz-air-review.html
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