AES British Section lectures - October 2007
Headphone measurement
Keith Howard
www.audiosignal.co.uk
High quality headphones are a neglected item in today's hi-fi magazines but the burgeoning of MP3 and other personal stereo players means that many people's music listening is principally via headphones. Moreover, the UK's headphone market is the biggest in Europe and recent years have seen important developments in headphone design. Previously headphones have been difficult to measure meaningfully for a variety of reasons. Early artificial ears were unrealistic of real ears and uncertainties existed as to what an ideal headphone frequency response might be. In recent years many of these problems have been addressed, making reliable headphone measurements a realisable aim. This lecture will outline these and other issues related to headphone measurement, particularly as it is being implemented for Hi-Fi News.
Keith Howard fell into journalism by accident during a year between universities, working as an editorial assistant first on Popular Hi-Fi and then Hi-Fi Answers. Shortly after returning to the latter in 1980 he became editor, a post he held until going freelance in 1989. Job titles on Audiophile and What Home Entertainment followed before he became Gramophone's audio consulting editor in 1995, a post he held until late 1999. In early 2000 he became consultant technical editor on Hi-Fi News. He began a parallel career writing about automotive technology for Autocar in 1991. Subsequently he became the magazine's technical editor, then technical consultant. He also now writes for Motor Sport.
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