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0:35

You're listening to 20,000 Hertz.

0:40

I wear headphones all the time. I

0:42

use them for work, at the gym, playing

0:45

video games, watching movies, and

0:47

of course, recording this very podcast. But

0:50

despite how much I use headphones, I

0:52

actually don't know that much about them. Sure,

0:55

I have a few pairs that I really like because they

0:57

sound good, and they work well for the things that

0:59

I use them for. But what actually makes

1:01

a pair of headphones good? When I get

1:03

a new pair, what should I be listening for?

1:06

Which features really matter, and which ones

1:08

are just marketing gimmicks? I decided

1:10

that it was time to educate myself and bring

1:12

you along with me. You can think of this episode

1:15

like a headphone handbook that you can refer back

1:17

to anytime.

1:20

Now, when I'm in the market for a new pair of headphones,

1:22

there's one place that I always look, and

1:25

that's the Wirecutter section of the New York

1:27

Times. And in those articles, there's

1:29

a particular writer whose name I see

1:31

all the time.

1:33

I'm Lauren Dragon. I

1:36

am Wirecutter's, I guess you call

1:38

me, headphone expert, senior staff writer technically,

1:40

and I work with audio. But primarily, I do

1:43

headphones and hearing aids. If you stick it

1:45

on your head and listen to it, that's what I do.

1:46

I love the hesitation on expert

1:49

because it's like there is no doubt that

1:51

you are the foremost

1:53

expert or very up there

1:56

because I don't know who else is. Well, I

1:57

mean, the New York Times technically claims that I've tested

1:59

more headphones than I do. than anyone else in the world. At

2:01

Wirecutter, Lauren has personally tested

2:04

almost 2,000 pairs of headphones. And

2:06

in fact, at one point, somebody in the promo

2:08

department was like, we should just do it. They were gonna get me like

2:11

into the Guinness record. Ha ha ha ha.

2:16

For every pair of headphones that Lauren reviews,

2:19

there's one question she's trying to answer. If

2:21

I bought this, for the amount of money that it costs,

2:24

would I be happy? Once I hit a

2:26

no, I'm done testing. When

2:30

a new pair of headphones shows up in the mail, the

2:32

first thing Lauren does is charge them up and

2:34

install any apps or firmware updates.

2:37

The second thing that I do is then I

2:39

do my own listening sessions. So

2:41

I have this set playlist of stuff that I listen

2:43

to to test and everything in there is very specifically

2:46

chosen for different sonic

2:48

elements, but also they're songs that I don't

2:50

hate. So I can listen to them over and over again and

2:52

not get sick of it, but also that I don't

2:54

absolutely love because

2:56

I didn't want them ruined for me.

3:00

Lauren keeps her real testing playlist a secret,

3:03

but why? It's a secret, it's

3:05

my secret and I won't tell you, I'm sorry.

3:07

But she did give examples of the kinds of

3:09

songs that work well for this. First and

3:12

foremost, it should be music that you know

3:14

really well. You want to use music

3:16

that you are intimately familiar

3:18

with. You wanna have heard it so many

3:20

times that you know every breath

3:23

sound. Breathing,

3:26

breathe out. Every fret

3:28

noise. The

3:31

amount of reverb on the bass.

3:33

Because

3:35

otherwise you don't really know what you're

3:37

listening for.

3:41

So let's dive into our hypothetical headphone

3:44

testing playlist. If you're wearing headphones

3:46

right now, listen closely and see how they

3:48

respond to this music.

3:52

To start off, Lauren recommends a simple,

3:54

intimate acoustic track. I

3:58

usually choose acoustic guitar.

3:59

and voice because this is an instrument

4:02

you'll probably have heard in person before. I know I have.

4:04

So it's a great place to start to notice if there's any

4:06

inauthenticity to the sound. So are

4:09

the fret noises too loud, which usually

4:11

means there's like a peak in the high?

4:14

Does the body of the instrument kind

4:17

of overwhelm or sound reverb-y,

4:19

which oftentimes means you've got too much low

4:21

frequency cue? Next,

4:27

she looks for something that's really sonically

4:29

dense but still has some delicate sounds

4:32

in it. Maybe a track like Teardrop by

4:34

Massive Attack, which you might recognize as

4:36

the theme song from House. I

4:40

like that there are the cracks and pops

4:42

of the recording static with sustained bass

4:45

notes. And

4:47

that gives me an idea of how nimble

4:49

the headphones are. Can they handle intense sounds

4:51

and delicate sounds simultaneously?

4:54

You'd be surprised how many pairs of headphones fall

4:56

apart by this stage. Then

5:01

I throw some serious bass notes at it. So

5:03

think Kanye. Yee. Yee is this.

5:06

I don't

5:06

know how to call them. The

5:08

artist

5:08

normally knows Kanye.

5:12

Is the bass note a pitch

5:15

or is it just a

5:15

boom? Are

5:18

the notes defined? Are they kind of mushy

5:20

sounding?

5:23

Then the speakers inside the headphones, which

5:25

are called drivers, even handle that much

5:27

bass. Sometimes you'll get stuff that

5:29

it just distorts. So you hear the flattering

5:31

sound or

5:32

a clicky sound.

5:38

Then I go into something on the complete other

5:40

end of the spectrum. So something with high end

5:42

punch. Think lots of hot, hot

5:45

tambourines.

5:45

Bulletproof

5:49

by LaRue has this kind of like steam

5:51

puff, scintzy sound that can kind of sound

5:54

biting or fatiguing if you have too much high

5:56

end energy.

5:59

And if you've ever noticed that,

6:02

maybe it's just me. So

6:10

by this point, I'm usually pretty sure I got a good

6:13

feeling for the headphones. And if they've made it this far

6:15

and I'm still exploring, that's a very good

6:17

sign for them. Because now is when I start to get

6:19

into nuances. So things that you

6:21

get some depths that are also realistic sounding

6:24

and in a smaller space. So

6:26

I like pianos that are miked inside

6:28

the body. So

6:31

the piano and vocal version of I Ain't

6:33

Got You by Alicia Keys.

6:41

The Luckiest by Ben Folds also works.

6:47

You can hear the body of the piano in these songs,

6:50

which can have depths or can fall flat

6:52

or a cell dull or sound compressed.

7:03

During her listening test, Lauren might notice

7:05

some kind of quirk with how the headphones sound.

7:08

Maybe there's a certain frequency that seems to stick out

7:10

or something seems off with the stereo

7:12

field. And then I do some detective

7:14

work to narrow down and explain

7:17

what I'm hearing.

7:19

I may listen to a slow

7:21

frequency sweep from 20 hertz to 20,000

7:24

hertz and listen to what stands

7:26

out.

7:27

She's also a big fan of an album called Dr.

7:30

Chesky's Ultimate Headphone Demonstration Disc.

7:33

It has a variety of recordings that are there

7:35

to illustrate your headphones strengths and weaknesses.

7:38

It's great.

7:38

It has shakers. It moves around

7:40

a microphone.

7:47

And directly in front of the microphone.

7:50

The disc also includes a set of

7:52

live binaural recordings. Binaural

7:55

is when you record something with two microphones

7:57

attached to the head of a mannequin. the

8:00

mics right where the mannequin's ears are facing

8:02

outwards. The idea is to capture what

8:04

it sounds like to be in that space as

8:07

accurately as possible. Here's a clip

8:09

from a live Rolling Stones album that was recorded

8:11

in Binaural.

8:30

Recordings like that can give you a sense of how

8:32

well a pair of headphones can recreate a

8:34

physical space. Another thing that works well

8:36

for this is a sonically dense movie scene.

8:39

Like the Battle of Pelennar Fields in Lord

8:41

of the Rings. That's the scene from the third

8:43

movie where the writers of Rohan charge into

8:45

the army of orcs. It

8:51

has great left and right balance, has

8:54

some like close things that happen and things

8:56

that are far away that are happening. Bluetooth

9:04

headphones can often have latency problems.

9:06

That's when the audio lags behind the video.

9:09

So to test this, she'll watch dialogue

9:11

scenes and look for any delay. He

9:13

didn't fall! Inconceivable!

9:17

You give you center horn. I don't

9:19

think it means what you think it means. Recently

9:22

enough,

9:22

really well done ASMR videos

9:24

work great for this because they're very

9:26

close to the camera. The microphone

9:28

is very closely miked. So I

9:31

can actually see their tongue and see

9:33

the T's and the P's and the B's and

9:35

their lips go together and see how

9:38

well it lines up.

9:39

Here's an example. And I know some of you out

9:41

there absolutely hate ASMR sounds.

9:43

So I'll keep it short. The

9:45

frequency response on my headphones is so

9:47

wide that when I listen to music, I can practically

9:49

hear the recording engineer's heartbeat.

9:54

If the headphones make it through Lauren's listening

9:56

test, the next thing she'll do is start pushing

9:59

them to their absolute... limits. So

10:01

for example, I will test the microphones

10:03

and how good do they sound and how do they sound in a

10:05

noisy

10:05

environment versus a quiet environment? How does wind

10:07

affect it?

10:08

If they are water resistant, I will test

10:10

the water resistance. If they're made for working out,

10:12

I will take them out and do a workout in them and make

10:15

sure that they don't fall out, that they don't rub

10:17

uncomfortably or do other weird things.

10:19

To test the sweat resistance, she has a saline

10:21

spray that's the same chemical composition

10:23

as human sweat. And I spray it on

10:26

those and I do that for a couple of hours

10:28

essentially where I'll spray and press the buttons a bunch

10:30

of times and then leave it and make sure that it doesn't die.

10:33

For noise canceling headphones, she'll put on loud airplane

10:35

noise or cafe noise to see how much

10:37

sound they cancel out.

10:39

If it's kid headphones, I like tug on stuff. I

10:41

step on them in my Doc Martin to make

10:43

sure that they don't just immediately crack if somebody steps

10:45

on them. Because that's what kids do. She

10:47

tries them plugged in, over Bluetooth,

10:50

on a full battery, and on a low

10:52

battery. She tries every preset

10:55

and pushes every button.

10:56

Much to the sugar end of the manufacturers, I

10:59

look at every option and I ask them a lot of questions.

11:02

I'm like, why does this do this? And I couldn't get this to work.

11:04

And they're like, what sub menu are you in?

11:06

And if the headphones pass every test

11:08

that Lauren can throw at them, then I just, I

11:10

use them for like a week to make sure

11:12

that nothing

11:13

weird comes up. So it's

11:14

a very long and extensive process.

11:17

But that's why it's a full time job.

11:23

With so many factors to consider, it's

11:25

easy to get paralyzed by all of the options

11:28

out there. Like what's the difference between

11:30

over ear, on ear, and in ear headphones?

11:33

And how does that affect the sound quality? Do you

11:35

actually need noise canceling? And

11:37

what the heck does impedance mean? Fortunately,

11:40

Lauren is here to cut through all of the gobbledygook

11:42

and help you pick the right pair of headphones.

11:45

That's coming up after the break.

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You don't have to be a star athlete to make sure

11:54

you're taking care of your body after a workout. It

11:57

took me a while to realize how important

11:59

it was to do a few.

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15:06

If

15:09

someone got to this point and they were having decision

15:11

paralysis over all of these parameters

15:14

to think about with something like headphones, how would you

15:16

even guide them to start? So

15:17

the

15:18

first thing I say is, do

15:21

you know the form factor that's most comfortable

15:23

for you? Do you want over your headphones, on

15:25

your headphones, in your headphones? Over

15:28

ear are the big classic headphones that

15:30

you might imagine when you think of an audio technician

15:33

or a sound designer. They have big foam pads

15:35

that completely surround your ear, and the ear

15:37

cups are connected by a thick headband. Generally

15:41

speaking, they tend to have bigger drivers, which means

15:43

you can often have a little bit

15:45

of better sound quality for less money. They

15:47

also tend to be more comfortable to wear for long

15:50

periods of time. So if you sit at a desk

15:52

for 8 hours a day with headphones on, then

15:54

over ear is probably a good option. Then

15:57

you got your on ear, which essentially is just

15:59

imagine that sort of padding shrunk

16:01

down a little smaller and it sits on top

16:03

of the outer part of your ear. People who have glasses

16:06

like them because they can allow them to

16:08

put their glasses bands in a little

16:10

bit easier and not have an issue with the seal.

16:13

Finally, there are in-ear headphones,

16:15

also known as earbuds. The main

16:18

benefit of earbuds is portability. I

16:20

have my earbuds that I wear 90% of

16:22

the time, quite frankly, because I'm a mom and

16:24

I have places to be and so I'm packing

16:26

lunch and cleaning up and doing other things

16:29

while I'm listening to something. But earbuds

16:31

can get uncomfortable if you wear them for hours

16:33

on end. A lot of people don't like to feel if something

16:35

inside their ear and they find it kind of fatiguing after

16:38

a certain amount of time. And since the drivers

16:40

inside the earbuds are so small, it

16:42

usually means that you sacrifice some sound

16:45

quality. Would it be fair to say that

16:47

in that order is going to be sound quality? So

16:50

peak would be over and then down into

16:52

the concessions that have to be made for in-ear?

16:55

If you are saying at the

16:57

same price point, yes. In terms

16:59

of capabilities, no. I think you

17:01

can have things that sound excellent in

17:03

all of those categories.

17:07

Of course, there are variations on all

17:09

of these, like open back and closed

17:12

back. Basically, open back

17:14

headphones allow air to pass through them,

17:16

which gives them a more natural sound. They

17:18

can be great for listening to high-quality music

17:20

in a controlled environment. But that open

17:23

design also means that they don't block as

17:25

much noise from the outside. On top of that,

17:27

they also leak out a lot of sound. So

17:30

if you don't want your whole office to know how much you

17:32

love meatloaf, you'll want to go with closed

17:34

back headphones. For

17:46

Lauren, the biggest thing to think about when choosing

17:48

a pair of headphones is your specific lifestyle.

17:51

In other words, what you're doing when you're

17:54

wearing headphones. Are you going to be wearing them to

17:56

the gym after you're finished with your day

17:58

of work? You know, if you're a an avid biker

18:00

and it's going to rain, then you probably want water resistance

18:03

or sweat resistance. Another thing to consider

18:05

is how many calls you're going to be taking on these headphones.

18:08

Because if you want to sound professional on a Zoom meeting,

18:11

you probably don't want your voice to sound like

18:13

this. So if voice quality is

18:15

important to you, And you might want to invest in something

18:17

that has multiple microphones and some

18:19

sort of software-based noise

18:21

reduction or a boom mic.

18:23

That's the little microphone that sticks

18:25

out in front of your mouth. These are really common

18:27

in gaming headphones. Alright, John's off. Ready,

18:29

guys? We're through this.

18:30

V-R-A-N-E-R-I-G-A-N.

18:35

Oh my God, he just ran in. Now

18:37

if you're a frequent flyer or just sensitive

18:39

to noisy environments, then you might want

18:42

noise cancellation. In general, noise

18:44

cancelling does an excellent job of covering

18:46

up persistent sounds like a plane engine

18:49

or an air conditioner. But

18:52

with random sounds like barking dogs or

18:55

crying babies, it

18:57

doesn't reduce those sounds quite as much. At

18:59

this point where the technology is, it's very

19:02

hard to be able to respond

19:04

quick enough to quick, high-pitched

19:06

sounds. Noise cancelling can also

19:08

subtly change the characteristics of the audio.

19:11

So if you're a musician or a sound professional,

19:14

it's probably not the right choice for you. And

19:16

to be absolutely clear, when you're riding a

19:18

bike or walking around a city or crossing

19:20

at a crosswalk, really just anytime

19:22

you need situational awareness, noise

19:25

cancelling can be a safety hazard. So

19:27

be safe and please keep that in mind. But

19:32

there is another thing to think about with noise cancellation.

19:35

For some people, it can feel a bit uncomfortable.

19:39

Lauren and her colleagues have a term for this. We

19:41

call it eardrum suck, which

19:43

is the phenomenon that happens when

19:45

you put

19:46

on noise cancelling headphones and it feels

19:48

like you need to pop your ears. And

19:50

for some people, the effect is even more

19:53

pronounced. In fact, about me, I

19:55

start to get a headache and then after a while I start to get nauseous

19:58

if I wear noise cancelling headphones.

19:59

for too long. In Lauren's

20:02

experience about 40% of people seem

20:04

to be sensitive to this. Personally I love

20:07

my noise canceling headphones and I take them on every

20:09

single trip but I do notice

20:11

this icky feeling if I wear them for too

20:13

long without a break.

20:17

But while these things can all make a difference in your

20:19

listening experience some other things you'll

20:21

see advertised just aren't as important.

20:24

This is one that I've always loved because I

20:26

don't think I have a handle on this at all.

20:29

What is impedance? Okay

20:33

so generally speaking impedance

20:36

is how the driver of

20:38

the headphones, the little speaker in there, react

20:42

to

20:42

the energy

20:45

coming through

20:45

the cable. So you

20:48

talk about low impedance high impedance very

20:51

few headphones that anyone buys now are high impedance.

20:53

It used to be a lot more common in

20:55

studio headphones because if you

20:58

were in a studio and you have a very very powerful

21:00

mixer and you leave the volume

21:02

up and you plug your headphones in and too

21:04

much sound comes through and there's very low impedance

21:07

you're gonna blow your headphones. So

21:09

they would have higher impedance

21:11

which is to say like think of it as like a resistance

21:14

so that essentially it would prevent

21:16

that from happening but it also meant that you needed

21:18

to have a more powerful amp to be able

21:20

to drive them.

21:23

Basically you only want high impedance

21:26

if you're connecting headphones to a really high

21:28

powered sound source like an old-school stereo

21:30

system with an amplifier but nowadays

21:33

that's not that common. You know you're not plugging

21:35

into your hi-fi as much as people used to in ye

21:37

olden times. You know it's your phone driving

21:39

it which doesn't have as much power behind it because it's

21:41

a tiny little phone. When

21:45

it comes to headphone cables another term you'll

21:47

hear about is shielding. In today's

21:50

world we're almost always surrounded by

21:52

electromagnetic signals and

21:55

radio waves and sometimes

21:58

audio equipment can pick up these signals

23:52

mouth,

24:00

pass the pickle park over.

24:01

And

24:03

I couldn't talk back, which is unfortunate. And

24:06

I just searched, maybe I did change out the cables

24:09

because everything is shielded and I was just like where

24:11

is this coming from? I'd just be sitting here working

24:13

and then a trucker out of my left speaker. 10-4, Rusty,

24:16

don't want no bear bites, so we'll back it down. And

24:18

I'm just like, that is so bizarre.

24:25

Since Lauren started in this industry, she's

24:27

seen headphones evolve quite a bit. So

24:30

I asked her to imagine it was 2030

24:32

and she had infinite money to design the perfect

24:34

headphones for her. What would that be

24:36

like? It

24:39

would be 3D printed earbuds. It

24:41

would involve a custom scan of my

24:43

ear, so like a laser scan or a mold,

24:46

so it'd be bespoke to my ear. And it would

24:48

have multiple drivers with a couple crossovers.

24:50

A crossover splits the audio into two

24:53

so that each one can go to a dedicated driver.

24:55

So you might have one speaker for treble and the

24:57

other one for bass. It would have

25:00

a pretty large processor on it so

25:02

that I can run programs on it. Things

25:04

like navigation, noise cancellation, translation,

25:08

like instead of Google Translate, looking on your

25:10

phone and reading it, you could have it in your ears

25:12

live as you're talking to someone. It's

25:15

a yearly restaurant through there. Hello,

25:17

mouth-gatherers. Their milk carts are so amazing.

25:20

And it will be super water

25:22

and sweat resistant, so I could swim with it if I

25:24

need to. I can shower with it. It won't be affected

25:26

by it. Depending on the age I am down the line,

25:29

maybe I'll need some sort of hearing enhancement and

25:31

it will transmit lossless so I can

25:33

listen to higher resolution music.

25:37

These developments are already in the works.

25:39

Eventually, we might be wearing high-tech hearables

25:42

that do all of that and more. But

25:44

until then, you'll just have to think about which

25:46

features make the most sense for your

25:48

individual lifestyle. At the end

25:50

of the day, the headphones that you can

25:53

wear

25:53

comfortably and that

25:55

work with what you do in your life are the best ones

25:57

for you.

25:58

So maybe if you already have a... good

26:00

set of headphones and you're not thinking

26:02

about them and you're fully immersed in

26:05

the emotion of whatever you're listening to

26:08

maybe already have the headphones that you need if

26:10

i tell people that all the time make people

26:13

com os and hundred and you need your your own these

26:15

other his sons are amazing and i love them in

26:17

the this is why i love that minimalist lead author

26:20

like i'm not mad at you for that legs

26:21

that yes

26:23

i don't know what it's a problem here you are happy

26:25

like less my

26:27

nowadays in the tell you that you're happy years

26:42

twenty thousand her to screw some of the sound

26:44

design studios of the factors this

26:46

episode was written and produced by casey

26:48

everly with some free grace east

26:50

it was sound design and next by brandon

26:53

press and just and house

26:59

thanks to our guest lauren dragon to

27:01

find lawrence picks for the best headphones in

27:03

all kinds of categories had to wire

27:05

cutter dot com or follow the link

27:07

in the show notes on dallas texas

27:14

congratulations

27:14

to any warrant for correctly

27:17

guessing last episodes mystery sound

27:22

that's

27:22

the sound of cortona microsoft

27:24

virtual assistant

27:25

i

27:26

am cortona cortona

27:31

never quite made it as biggest siri or alexa

27:33

and was just recently phased out for good

27:35

in august of this year the virtual assistant

27:38

was actually named after the synthetic intelligence

27:40

character from halo which was also made

27:42

by microsoft

27:43

as for us all

27:45

the from reese at my smile

27:47

maneuvering options were limited and

27:49

here's this episodes mister he said

27:59

that sound, submit your guess at the web

28:02

address mystery.20k.org. Anyone

28:05

who guesses it right will be entered to win a super

28:07

soft 20,000 Hz t-shirt. And

28:09

I'm going to put out a call to action on this one. I

28:12

challenge any 20,000 Hz listener, if you

28:14

see someone wearing a 20,000 Hz t-shirt, go up

28:17

to them and say, hey, you might just find a new

28:19

friend. And if you're wearing a 20,000 Hz t-shirt,

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wear it proudly.

28:28

Hey, listeners, a little reminder. 20,000 Hz

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And just so you know, I personally reject a lot

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28:54

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