Sonneteer Bard headspace

Just bought one of these from sonneteer for £14.99
https://www.sonneteer.com/product/the-bards-headspace/
It is supposed to make your headphones sound like speakers, i will use this with my earbuds and mp3 player to see what it,s like, i dont really like that in your head sound so hopefully this helps
Sonneteer amps get rave reviews so i imagine this will be a good bang for buck item
When it comes i will give it a review
They seem to get positive results

 

Is there anything on the internet that actually says what that Bard Headspace thing actually is?
I read the product page and it doesn't say what the hell it is. The company can't even bother to tell you what the hell it is on its own product page.

So I go to Google. And I'm on the sixth page of Google results and still cannot find a link that actually says what the hell it is. I see a lot of instgram links and social tags and crap. But nothing that looks like it is going to take me to any sort of substance about what the hell it is.

Marketing fail. I'm frustrated. You don't want your customers frustrated and swearing at your marketing BS while trying to learn about your product. I already hate the company and their products and I don't even know what they are. I just hate them anyways. On principle.

 

It is fairly new, heres a forum discussion
Makes #Headphones sound like real Loudspeakers. The Bard's Headspace does that.

 

oops this is the right page
Can you make headphones sound like real loudspeakers? We're giving it a go

 

I just read through that thread. And even with a couple people directly asking the Sonneteer dude what it does or how it works all he can say is more marketing BS.

What does it do exactly? What type of circuit is inside (is there even a circuit inside or is it filed with magic crystals)? Is it passive crossfeed? Is it impedance matching? Is it something else? Is it oatmeal?

It looks like the only way we'll learn more about what it is is for someone to buy one, cut it open, and figure out what is inside.

 

Sonneteer are not DIY audiophiles like me or you, they are probably keeping tight lipped about whats inside as it is a product they intend to sell

I think it works similar to a crossfeed but no one knows for sure, someone will buy one and rip it open for that eureka moment, you would have to do than with any audio company

All their products get rave reviews (especially their amps) so i am buying on the strength of the companies reputation plus i want to eliminate some of that headphone sound
I am not affiliated to them by the way
The next amp i buy will either be the sonneteer Alabaster or sonneteer orton

 

I'm not angry at you or venting at you for mentioning the product or buying it. My frustration is directed at Sonneteer. It's not your fault.

When I saw your post I was interested and curious because products and methods for fixing headphone soundstage is something I'm very interested in. So I was "Oh neat! Let's find out what this is". Then after reading the product info on their web site about it and still not getting an explanation of what it is I became very frustrated. Then after ending up on the sixth page of Google results and still not being able to find out what it is I was EXTREMELY frustrated and that was growing exponentially. That's not your fault.

A note to anyone here in marketing. You've got about 30 seconds for me to be able to learn about your product when I land on your web page before I get frustrated and begin to hate everyone and everything involved in your company. If I have to waste time going through some awful frustrating web design with infinite scrolling and parallax scrolling and other BS that wastes my time that eats into that 30 seconds. It's even worse if the product info ends up being completely devoid of technical info about what the product actually is. You've got 30 seconds with me before my frustration at your BS causes me to blow my top. That Sonneteer web page had a chat component that kept popping up and getting in my way. The chat component was based on Facebook Messenger. I don't have a Facebook account. I couldn't use that chat to contact you if I wanted to. Yet you kept popping that damned thing up in my way as I was growing more and more frustrated at the complete lack of product info on your damned web site. After 30 seconds of that BS I was already pissed. And I spent several minutes on your damned site looking at the blog entries and anything else to try to get info. After several minutes of that BS I was down right pissed. Lessons in how not to market to me. Considering that I'm super curious about anything that has to do with getting better headphone soundstage, that is quite an accomplishment to get me to never want to try your product after just a few minutes on your web site.

 

I would not let that wind me up considering it,s a new product, patience is the virtue
The pop up was annoying but i ignored it, their old website was better i have to admit (i dont do facebook either)
For just under £15 it has to be worth a shot, i will put my findings on here when it arrives this week
From what i can gather it works similar to a crossfeed but without the negative effects
The trouble with this company is they dont advertise their products much

 

£15 (about $20) plus shipping is trivial for anything that improves headphone soundstage. I'm very interested in products that improve/fix headphone sound and soundstage. I've done impulse buys of $100+ plugins that do fancy forms of crossfeed or virtual speakers for headphones. So $20 for something like this is trivial. It would have been an easy impulse buy for me just to try if I could have found any real info about what it is. But I couldn't. So I'm no longer interested.

The best product I've found for getting a more natural sounding headphone sound is actually no special product at all. Just a very good headphone amp that naturally does a nice open and unconstrained headphone sound that just naturally has an enveloping style of headstage. Just a good amp all on its own. No special crossfeed or soundstage processing built in or added on. Just a good amp. Good amps with this sort of sound tend to have tubes. But a full solid state could also do it.

Amps that can do this are amps like the Cavalli Liquid Fire, Liquid Crimson, Liquid Platinum, Liquid Glass, Liquid Gold. Or full tube amps like Eddie Current Balancing Act or Zana Deux. Or Decware Zen Taboo. Or Apex Teton. And select similar amps.

Kind of ironic that the best most natural headphone sound I've found has been no crossfeed or soundstage processing at all. Just a good amp with that right style of sound.

 

Thanks for the heads up, just ordered one.

 

So essentially, are we talking about taking the soundstage that headphone listeners percieve that "exists" from ear-to-ear, and restores it to the more "forward" image we miss from sitting in front of a pair of speakers?

 

Yes

 

All anyone knows is it makes your headphones sound more like speakers in presentation and reduces listening fatigue, if you email sonneteer they will more than likely tell you more tech info
It has only been around for just over a month so there wont be much info on the web about the product, in fact some people are surprised they are still in business due to lack of advertising, any second hand sonneteer amps for sale usually get bought quick here in the UK

I have a pair of vintage stax that are out of the head sound and have no listening fatigue whatsoever, but for my dynamic headphones i will try the Bard, i mean for £15 it has to be worth a try, some other companies would charge you more for something like this

 

You are welcome
Post your findings when you have a listen, im going to try mine both ways to see if their is any difference

 

And...that's all it does...?

I guess, having lived so much of my life with the soundstage stretching through my brain's axis, it never occurred to me that might be something worth pining for. But, it's certainly not that expensive to find out, is it.

 

I prefer the presentation of speakers than headphones, for the price im in

 

Well it finally arived today (Thursday), i got in from work after midnight and opened the package
Everything comes in a little blue pouch with the sonneteer logo on it, the bard, a 3.5mm cable and card
I had a spare 4 inch length of kimber pbj with 3.5mm stereo jacks on each end so used that instead
Thought i would start LO FI with my Sony NW A35 mp3 player and sound magic E10 ear phones
I tried the bard both ways and found it sounds slightly distant and less defined one way (this is the wrong way) put it the other way and leave it (it is directional)
Played "sunday morning" by the Velvet underground first and it seemed to sound a little more out of the head and took away a bit of the harshness/brightness without robbing the mix of it,s original sound, this made it more enjoyable to listen to the music and a lot less fatiguing
Next i plugged a pair of heavily modded superlux 681 headphones (AKG K240 clones) in to the Bard and then in to a Toshiba Laptop running Windows 10
Listening to Youtube it sounded better again than the mp3, the sound moved away from the ears a little bit more and sounded more enjoyable to listen too
It also sounded more musical and that seem to stick out the most
I listened to "pagan place" by the waterboys, "Great gate of Kiev" by Mussorgsky , "Theme for a new world Largo" by Dvorak, "The Robots" by Kraftwerk and videos of people doing covers on a guitar and singing just to test it out on different material
A good test for the Bard is listen to someone on youtube solo singing with a Guitar and you will hear it a little more in front/out of head than without the Bard
Also it seems to clear the sound up a little, so you could enjoy the music more and listen for longer
What struck me the most is the music was the main focus, i just listened to the music without Scrutinizing it, it seems more open and mellow
If you dont like un natural bright sound then maybe this might be for you
I done listening tests without and with the Bard, make sure you listen to all of the song and not just bass treble etc
Well worth the £15 and i will be trying it on more expensive headphones and equipment , plus after it has "burned in" it will sound better again
I would upgrade the supplied cable for a better one though
Again i am not affiliated with sonneteer

 

Looking forward to mine, but I'm in the USA so it's going to take longer. Just got AQ Nighthawks at the new normal price of $299 - wow, seriously delicious but the cord is too short.

 

It should come any day for you hopefully

 

Hi marketing BS man from Sonneteer here ;-). Just kidding. I am sorry if it seems you haven't quite clocked what we are saying. We are just trying to keep it simple, but I will give it a try here:
Essentially it is exactly as we say: a correction circuit that emulates how you would hear it from loudspeakers in front of you. It is a passive circuit and philosophically it is a cross-feed type circuit. We do however stretch back to the original concept of stereo of which much is documented. Look up Alan Blumlein and move on from there. So we employed some clever maths to try not to employ the compromises others have employed in crossfeed networks which often involve inversion and attenuation.

I hope this helps. If there is anything else more specific you can ask us directly or I am now here too.

I agree with the notion that good headphones and a good amp play a big part in a decent sound. That is not at question at all. Some even employ correction themselves. However if you are using two separate amps, not coupled in anyway and the sound is direct to the earpiece on the headphones and the music is recorded in stereo then you are most likely not hearing it as the recording was intended which is sound coming from two loudspeakers, some distance away and the music passing through air before it gets to you. As ever components employed affect sound and so on and so forth. No exception here. I (we) have spent no end of time determining the difference and acceptability of sound in an amp or CD player just by changing the dielectric of a capacitor of seemingly insignificant value in a circuit. The dark arts of science and audio
Haider

 

I got mine after about 2 weeks to West Coast USA. It helps with long term listening fatigue. I've switched from the suede pads back to the pleather earpads for my Nighthawk Carbon headphones using the headspace.

 

Thank you and glad to hear it's working for you.



Haider

 

Out of curiosity, anyone tried it in line and playing back through amp and speakers? I know it's not what it says on the tin, but we are also trying something to see if we can emulate coupling in cartridge pick up. The theory is not a million miles away (coincidentally) from the headphone stereo correction. Though it's kind of in reverse so to speak.

Just a thought.

Haider

 

We are now doing them in a few colours. White seems to shine.
More feedback welcome.
They seem to have caught on with Gamers and musicians. I record music myself and makes quite a big difference when recording with headphones (at night when kids are asleep). Mix translates better to speakers.
Haider

 

Hi Haider. I love my the Bard's Headspace. It makes my late night headphone listening much more enjoyable! I bought one off your website a few months back. Definitely worth the price!

Thanks!
David