How to evaulate specs for different earbuds?

[Ryan41488]

Call me dumb, but I'm not really the best on reading specs for earbuds--so, how would I know what has the better sound quality, and etc?..An example would be comparing these two pairs of specs:

Driver Unit: 15mm
Impedance: 32Ω
Sensitivity: 105dB/1mW(S.P.L at 1KHz)
Frequency response 17-23kHz

Driver Unit: 9mm
Impedance: 32Ω
Sensitivity: 107dB/1mW(S.P.L at 1KHz)
Frequency response: 17-23kHz

I've heard that the driver size has nothing to do with sound quality. But is it that, the higher the driver size (such as 15mm on the bottom) the deeper the sound and base?..or is it frequency that determines everything?..-confused-

[S2_Mac]

Well, being smart about specs won't really help you here, since these specs are pretty much meaningless for the questions you have ;-)

Theoretically the larger driver will produce lower/stronger bass, but there's no accounting for ports/vents, materials, coil strength, and bunches of other stuff. (Likewise, the larger drivers should be better protection against being blown by too-high output, but again there's just no way to know for sure.)

As with all things "speaker"-related, the only trustworthy spec is the size of your grin when you listen' to 'em....

[hyroboarder]

I've heard you really don't need to look at headphone specs, they don't really make much of a difference. Look online for reviews on the headphones you want or better yet find them at a store and audition them.

[Hyper-X]

I learned that boxed paper specs mean little to nothing to me, I've seen too many products that appear to have amazing printed specs on the back only to find that the item has lackluster performance. What does this mean? It means that for the most part, manufacturers can print whatever they want on their products since it's not like an unbiased 3rd party actually tests them in a standardized, universally-acknowledged testing format then prints out the results. The specs might as well say "MY FRIEND SAYS IT SOUNDS GREAT!!!"

[boobaloo]

yup, sadly its rather consumer unfriendly. the average punter when faced with a shelf to choose from can't make an intelligent decision based on packaging. driver size has little to do with quality of said driver, and acoustics design and engineering isn't something that can be easily explained on a box. some do try, i guess the aurana creative packaging does do a good job at it but its also because its using a rather different armature driver and is far more distinctive, you probably couldn't do that with regular types. at least now its starting to get a little less hazy because of online reviews. its driving up quality finally.

[S2_Mac]

Since no transducer is perfect (if there was such a thing, it would be the only thing out there and there'd be no need to make a choice ;-), take each "breakthrough" with a grain of salt. Revolutionary new principles or design or materials typically means "we can make it work, we can make it cheap, and so we're gonna promote the hell out of it as the Next Big Thing."