Plug series, part 4: Plastic, metal or wood?

In the last part of our series, you could learn the difference between a round cable and a flat cable. You know which cable will tangle less and which is more flexible. In this article we will talk about the material properties of headphones.

Does it matter what material the headphones are made of? Does it matter if it's plastic, metal or wood? Of course, we're talking about the shell that houses the tiny speaker. The auricle, which is stored in your ear, serves as an ear canal for the flow of the sound of the guitar, piano, drums or singing. We know from physics that sound travels in waves and is reflected in the environment. This means that sound waves are reflected even in a tiny shell.

Each material reflects or transmits sound waves differently. You can hear a strong echo in the caves, but none in the foam-encased studios. Can changing the material of your headphones bring better sound quality to your ears? Most common headphones are made of plastic. Nowadays, we still often come across plastic headphones, but they are mostly from the cheaper price category. An example can be headphones from the series JBL T100A or basic types from Vivanca.

Immediately, when we start looking for headphones with metal elements, we have to count on the fact that we will get below €25 only in really exceptional cases. But if you wanted to be real extremists, you can pay up to €999 for really elaborate metal headphones with everything that goes with it. We are talking about AKG K3003, which you also get with spare attachments, a case and much more.

But back to our topic. Why are metal headphones more expensive? Metal headphones are not used that much and are still finding their place among fans, while almost everyone has had plastic headphones in their ears. Metal also has the best properties for reflecting sound waves. Of the many metals such as copper or gold, aluminum has the best properties, which can reflect sound at the highest speed.

The problem is that with small headphones, the sound doesn't have enough space to hear the difference between propagation in plastic, metal, and wood. This leads to a much more complicated discussion than it might seem at first glance. Resonance can also play a role in sound qualityance. Rezonance is actually an echo, an echo or a reflection of sound. Every object and every subject has its own frequency of vibration and the length or size of the instrument, in our case the headphones, determines the wavelength of the fundamental tone. ResonanceancHowever, e is more important mainly for musical instruments or large speakers, so it is not that important for us.

With small headphones, the tuning of the transducers is the most important, where the material of the baffles does not have such an effect on the final sound quality. Of course, reflection and vibration are different for each material, but it depends more on the size of the space and the air cushion on which the converter works. The advantage of metal headphones is that, for example, aluminum is a solid casting, not glued like plastic, which also has its share in the sound.

It can generally be said that metal headphones are better than plastic ones - but this is not a rule. The truth is that most users won't notice any difference. But we forgot about the wood. I wrote above that most instruments or speakers are made of wood. How about wooden headphones? In fact, we hardly ever come across wood in headphones, and the properties that wood has are almost negligible in earphones. Rather, we can look at them as a decorative material for this topic. You can notice this at T`nB ESWOOD, which are available in three color combinations.

And we are at the end of the article that was dedicated to headphone materials. Now you can choose whether to be modest and listenchat music without demanding on its quality, or you can indulge in comfort in the form of a "metallic" sound. Of course, the Špuntový series will continue. From the topics related to the construction of headphones, we will move on to sports activities. Listening to music while running or exercising will no longer be a problem for you.