Well these are my ideas:

1) Real quality materials for headphones beyond $300, if you spend that money for a pair of headphones you want them last for a long time. So no plastic whatsoever (I don't mind all the b...t about the acoustic properties of plastic) but well built headphones with high quality materials and obviously a good service for replaceable spare parts. I don't even want to mention the materials that should be used for headphones that cost $1000+ (one example for all is the outrageous plastic stuff is used for the Sennheiser HD800s).

2) My second idea for the future is about acoustics. Our auditory system is too "special", one headphone even if it is of outstanding quality can't simply match with everybody's ears (especially at the high frequencies). I wish somebody could come up with an easy system to measure the individual frequency response at the eardrum from two loudspeakers "in stereo mode" (in open earcanal mode using a flexible/soft calibrated microphone?) and adjusting the frequency response of the headphones accordingly. Everything could be done with the support of a well designed software, some microphones and loudspeakers (maybe using an easy to use dsp system?). After all, this is what's happening for most of the high-end monitors for studios, a few companies understood that monitors have to be coupled with the room in which they are played  (see Genelec and others). In a similar way the headphones have to be coupled with our ears (I'd suggest at the eardrum in open earcanal mode). It would be also wonderful doing this for binaural recordings, in this case some things should be changed and probably will get a little bit more complicated, but I guess that the results would be fantastic!

So that's it, these are my two little ideas for the future of the headphones. I hope somebody can hear out there.

Have a nice trip Tyll!

I pretty much agree with most of your suggestions, Tyll. For one thing, your points 1 and 3 would probably go hand in hand, just because of the rise of smartphones. iPhones being the more ubiquitous, both for audiophiles and the general public. With this increase of smartphone adoption, most would want something good sounding, something quite dashing in looks, yet not look like some kitsch endorsed menace, along with a few extra bells and whistles like NC or Bluetooth; or in the case of the Parrot Zik, a smart-'phone.

Because of this phenomenon, I predict that portable full-size headphones would be rapidly on the rise. 

But on the more audiophile side, I would sadly think that the price ceiling would just rise and rise, with arguable benefits. Not saying that there aren't any gems to find in the lower price bracket, but with the rising 'summit-fi' price barrier, so too would people's mindset of "expensive = quality" be more prevalent, especially so from people that just moved on from fashion headphones and thinking that there might be better headphones for a lot more price than "Insert good mid-fi" headphones.

A pet dream of mine is wanting to see companies compete on more esoteric technology, much like how it was back in the '60s to the late '90s. Orthos, piezodynamic, electrets, hybrid dynamic-electrets, all manner of quirky and interesting concept. It all seems glorious back then, and the current landscape of headphones all seems so... boring, whenever I look with my engineering-tinted glasses... The trend seems to have (re)started with how many different model of new orthodynamic headphones are out there (even if it's relatively still miniscule compared to dynamic-driver headphones). Hopefully some of the more interesting concept are resurrected.

Also, have fun there at RMAF. Wish I could go there, but not when I'm half way around the world.

The future of headphones is wireless. It happened with phones, it's happening with Video and it's going to happen with headphones. Streaming audio to headphones will become the rule rather than the exception.

I know there will always be wired holdouts in the enthusiast community, but they will become a rarity.

Personally, I'm interested on the Parrot Zik. I would look out for it's DSP features (proper implementation) , as well as it's bluetooth connectivity (reliability and range.) They look aesthetically pleasant and very convenient (automatic on/off)... As far as amplification and DAC, the Sansa Clip+ HW has proven that one can do a decent job with limited size, weight, and power (SWAP) at accesible prices. If this is combined with a decent driver inside a well thought out housing then it could potentially be a killer product. Having the ability to bypass the features would be nice to for purists...

As far as the classics, not sure. I believe some will likely carry on in the near future. It would be nice if new cans were derived from the classics with some extra features like the ones provided by Parrot Zik without sacrificing strenghts.

Celebrity endorsment will carry on IMO, as can be seen with other products. I feel shelf life will be short though as the product may be tied to the celebrity's status and not necessarily performance.

I don't think we will see underperformer celebrity cans disappear from the shelfs. We probably will see more variety with wild price swings. I think we may see more decent mid-fi wireless/wired feature crammed cans at accessible prices... Again, not sure about the classics (Some like Denon seem eager to kill theirs, while others like Senn are more keen at keeping them.) As far as Orthos and Electrostats, I feel they will continue to exist and grow in market share, but may not hit mainstream yet due to portability (SWAP + outdoor safety/practical issues)... For home though, an SRS-2170 seems sweet deal at $700. HiFiMan/Audeze is also proving there is a market (like HiFiMan price/performance better though.)

BTW have a great time @ RMAF!

Enjoy the ride and the 'helmet time'.

As for ideas of the future of headphones…

I got nuth'n, well, that would be of any real help anyway.

Gen 2 of the HD800 mod is one step better…

I like.           JJ

the new headphones will have mp3 type players on them as well as phones so their will be no need for wirless or cords of any type just batteries

I agree on celebrity endorsements, up to a point. Celebrity headphones are what gave headphones visibility. They made it seem to people that never before thought of spending money on headphones that it is in fact OK to do so. Obviously they weren't the first, the Senn HD414 made the same statement years ago and Stax were the first to show that headphones could actually sound good decades before that. But we have a short attention span, and as far as today's youth goes, the Beats were the first to popularize headphones and make them more mainstream.

Never mind that youth constitutes only a small portion of the market; we live in such a youth-driven culture that the rest of the market has a lot less visibility, at least as far as the advertisement that gets shoved down our throat daily.

So yes the celebrity phase could end when headphones become accepted, but there's always going to be a niche for it. As you said.

Unfortunately the phase is also a double-edged sword; not only did it show people that headphones are something desirable, they also showed manufacturers that fashion instead of sound sells, and to many people they also showed that so-called "high-end sound" really isn't any better than low-end sound - at least the people that never strayed past the usual shiny plastic fashion statement headphones. I'm pretty sure you can't really look at the lineup of today's overpriced and utterly mediocre flagships and not connect them to this.

As to what the future holds? More headphones of all shapes and sizes, certainly. Headphone listening will overtake speaker listening, and it will gain much more momentum when music actually starts being mastered for headphones rather than speakers. When physical formats die, distribution of parralel recording mixes - for speakers or headphones - will be really easy. It's already really easy. That will give headphones yet another push to sell more and more.

I think Balanced Armatures are the technology of the future. Dynamics are getting a bit better just by virtue of the enormous budgets lavished on them, but they are still far behind the electrostatics of yesterday in most respects ([troll]and if you think otherwise you're wrong[/troll]) but balanced armatures have come a really long way in a really short time and with investment from only professional audio brands thus far. They've cracked the 20kHz barrier in customs, now I expect them to do it in universals. As 4G coverage spreads, as more people get high bit rate streaming of quality music on the move, the practicality and desirability of high-end portable headphones is only going to go up, and when they sound better than full-size dynamic headphones (I think they already do for the most part) who's going to bother with anything else?

This is not going to be a death knell for anything else by any means. A thriving mainstream just opens up more areas for niche markets. Electrostatics aren't going away, and there's plenty of room in them for improvements.

In the short term, I see more overpriced mediocre flagships at more bloated prices. Voicing tends come and go in phases, right now we're in a artificial detail/brightness phase. People will get tired of that, negative feedback will get back to corporate suits and they'll stop telling their engineers that hyped-up treble is what the market wants. Then we'll have a warm phase. And back and forth.

In the long term, I'm a bit more optimistic, and I think the practicality and portability of balanced armatures will win out over the awkward fitting procedure (we're talking about universals here, but customs will be more widespread, too).

New headphones should start to actually sound honest and neutral and stray away from the bright peaky treble trend. Also headphones should actually have weight to instruments, a real skin and bones feel to human voices and fingersnaps, etc...like they do in real life.

I think the future of headphones is stereo width at 180%.

mmmmmm......delish!

For amplified music this isn't a big deal, but for recorded performances stereo images aren't a great source of information for the locations of sounds.  Ambisonics can record the entire environment, including the direction of every sound.  Take the resulting ambisonic file and then process it through an HRTF profile that could be easily created using this technology, and calibrate the output to the headphones using in ear microphones.  

...those with damaged ears and those without. 

Both headphones and mixing seem to be affected by this issue. Prefer strong vocals or forward mids? Get your ears tested.

Horribly, modern music is often mixed/mastered to 'bring out' the singer's voice. But for those of us with normal hearing it recesses the instruments and makes the voice piercing. No wonder so many prefer a V or U shaped headphone; yet so much is lost since the instruments become 'thinned' which even parametric equalizers can't help with.

I can't not listen to modern music: it's too good. But if I want to relax I listen to old stuff, like Tim Buckley.

It's a bit of a mucking fuddle.

I'd like to see manufacturers include more options for DSP but only if implemented well.  Although I haven't had the opportunity to hear the Smyth Realizer, it has some great technology but is expensive and I think they have a blind spot when it comes to the requirement of taking personal measurements for each individiual and sound room / setting. Sometimes perfection can be the enemy of something which is very good and it has been interesting to monitor the Hi-Fi conversation with Realizer owners who are sharing their PRIF files, sometimes with excellent results.  I think if there was a headphone / software combination which would deliver some of the Realizer goodness but also with the opportunity to buy "sound flavours" from top end equipment / rooms then this would be something many would be interested in.

Another thing I'd like to say is that, although I only have limited equipment (1 good closed can, 1 good open open, 2 iems and 2 mediocre amps), I originally decided to invest in headphones because of portability, convenience, functionality (able to listen to music at work without disturbing others or while commuting) but also price-performance reasons.  With the latest trend for top-end headphones and associated amps to cost significant $'s there is no real incentive to continue doing so.  I've decided to take a break from future headphone purchases to invest in a pair of speakers in the $2k-$4k range.  It's ironic that it is now possible to arguably get a much better sound experience from a 2 channel speaker system than headphones but at less $'s.  

Headphones are personal and each individual is unique. Headphones in the future should be fashion conscious. It is a tool, but like your phone/smartphone, it would be great to make it suits to your style.

I also like the idea of wireless headphones. Headphone cables is often a problem to people. Some thinks they're too long, some thinks they're too short, tangley, microphonic, etc.

Lastly, they should not be expensive. At least we have to get what we paid for, in terms of sound.

Tyll, what bike do you have? I'm a Suzuki (GSX750F) man myself. Enjoy RMAF.

------

On the topic at hand, I was actually thinking about this recently myself. I had an encounter at work with a colleague who is a "professional" mixer and DJ. We got talking about headphones, as you do, and I mentioned I had Audezes. He looked at me with a wry smile before reaching into his bag and said "Well I've got THESE" and produced a pair of Beats by Dr Dre Studios.

For all the anti-hype about Beats on Head-fi and the like, they have successfully managed to appeal to even semi-professionals trying to prove their audiophile credentials. People either genuinely don't know or they do know but don't actually care about the negatives of what they listen to, setting aside sound quality in the name of asethetics and perhaps more importantly, public image.

I don't see that changing much in the future. Big names will most likely remain big and the shifting of the trends will attempt to be met or even influenced by Monster, Bose, Apple etc. Good headphones and audiophilia will likely always remain marginalised and more likely a cigar and armchair hobby.

As for differences, well I imagine at the top end there will be all the more-so diminishing returns. Unless new technology is developed/discovered, there's only so many times you can re-invent the wheel. I don't personally see high end planar magnetics and electrostats falling behind the competition within the next 20-30 years. Incrimental improvements will yeild questionably better results over time, but there most likely won't be improvements of leaps and bounds enough to marginalise them.

At Mid-fi, things will continue as they are, constantly striving for the sweet spot of price-performance and further narrowing the gap of audible sound quality over the rest. That of course doesn't always apply, as we've seen many half-assed and indeed, no-assed, mid-fi headphone attempts this last year alone from companies presumably hoping to sell on brand recognition alone (See: Sennheiser HD700, new Denons etc). This inconsistancy doesn't help combat the feeling that good headphones will be doomed to relative obscurity.

My colleague may mix and DJ with Beats, but then that muddy and compressed sound he hears may well not be different from that experienced by the inebriated revellers who he plays to. So too, the plethora of iBud users are blissfully happy in their (inexpensive) ignorance and will continue to be so. Where headphones will go outside of that, I can't say for sure.

But I feel the future for headphones would be essentially for it to really disappear via neurophones. I hope manufacturers be able to make the technology safe and "high fidelity", combined with HRFT or DSPs, that will really be a winner. The technology is already out there but no one bothers to develope it further.

On a more realistic side, I would like to see "active" headphones where amps/dacs can be flashed with the compensating filter so users get a headphone that is truly theirs like impermanente and others said. Something like a JH-3A or the new unique melody flagship.

Not quite a comment on the future of headphones themselves, but rather questions about the impact of the increasing popularity of headphones.

At what point, if ever, will consumers demand that Apple and others stop the lossy nonsense?

As headphone listeners become more educated about audio and attuned to what they're actually hearing, will we see the end of the "loudness wars"?

As the economy continues its stagnation, will those "top tier" audio manufacturers that would normally sneer at headphones and related equipment realize that there's some money to be made, albeit at presumably lower prices?

He rides an FJR set up to cruze…

JJ

Wow! Thanks so much for all the good thoughts. Not really able to comment now, but keep 'e coming. Some really good stuff up there. 

Headphones will become must have fashion accessories. Watch out for models made under license to Nike, Adidas, Prada, Bvlgari, Burberry etc. They will be absolutely fabulous darlings! 

The majority of headphone manufacturers will continue to thumb their noses at the headphone measurement fanatics by releasing headphones with "tipped-up treble" and "doof doof bass" in even greater numbers. Is hand wringing measurable? 

Oh, and I will continue to buy them. ; ) 

I personally believe that the headphone/speaker we listen to does have the greatest impact on what is heard by the user.  Having said that, I don't see the point of bemoaning the the dying art of listening when *.mp3's still rule the earth.  Trying to get around the fact that 90% of the population doesn't care about the lack of sound quality from the beginning to the end of the chain is telling.  Convenience and price (in that order?) still dominates most people's thought process.  My friends offer me *.mp3's by the dozens and I tell them not to bother - I'll buy the CD and rip it myself (wma lossless) and they look at me funny.

I think (more) bass has been coming at us in music since the serious advent of rap and along with it, BEATS.  Along comes insane clown car audio and the need for overpowering bass then bleeds into the picture.  When people get the idea that they  can feel bass as well as hear it we then come to where we are (forgive my simplistic scenario if you can). 

If we can improve things incrementally from start to finish I think things might improve.  More information in less space (convenience) at the current pricing might help.

Money talks and bullshit walks. We'll see an end to the loudness wars if it becomes financially profitable to make uncompressed records. And we'll see lossless when there's universal demand for lossless. Frankly, because of how quickly bandwidth is increasing and because of how quickly storage is increasing, lossless is pretty likely going to become commonplace simply because there will soon be no reason not to use it, regardless of whether or not you think it makes a difference. In fact, there may not be a reason to not use 24/96 or some other hi-rez formats soon from the standpoint of size and practicality alone.

Loudness is a bigger issue. Here what needs to happen is someone making a point to release uncompressed recordings and that someone needs to specifically start making money on them. They need to show people that this is a viable form of business, and of course if the industry standard is junk, then it creates a niche for non-junk, so in that sense I'm fairly optimistic that it can happen, though I doubt it will happen soon.

How far into the future you want to go?

I think in the near future mass produced stuff that's marketed well (whether it sounds great or not) will tip the scales. Media is a powerful thing and can make people believe what ever the advertiser wants, especially those uninformed.

I think headphones (Good or otherwise) will continue to rise in price. This is not a good thing. Someone posted earlier that materials in a high cost headphone should be nothing but the best, and I agree 100%.

What I would like to see is a fully customisable headphone. You buy a shell and can outfit it with whatever drivers/pads/wiring/electronics/comfort features you want. It should be customisable to the enth degree. This I hope is the future with everything not just headphones, that is the only way to save on materials and waste.

In the far future, I don't think people will be wearing headphones at all. There will be a device implanted to your auditory nerves that you may switch on at will. It will be a phone/music player/noise canceller/cause of cancer and biological rejection. All of which you can customise to your hearts content with brain software.

Perhaps even the cancer. (O)_o

All hail the future!

Further to my comment about headphones and mix/mastering being designed for those with damaged hearing (ie. mids-forward or boosted vocals), further complicating the scene is the effect of sources and amps.

As most of us now know through NWAvGuy, high output impedance of a source or amp coupled to low-impedance headphones (ie. less than 80 Ohms) weakens the low bass and higher treble, while paradoxically boosting at 80Hz. A lot of headphones are likely designed around this issue.

If NWAvGuy's efforts pay off then the future is more neutral headphones. However the omens aren't so good. The Iphone 5 has a higher ouput impedance than the Iphone 4. I doubt this is a mistake or cut-corner on the part of Apple. Rather a calculated compromise.

Their logic may influence the competition, such as Sansa and it's marvellously cheap, low output impedance, hifi (according to NWAvGuy's measurements) Clip,clip+, ClipZip and (the original, not '+') Fuze. Is the Clip Zip going to be the last low-impedance source? 

What a mess it all is.

(PS, if you want to avoid overly strong vocals then don't get remasters of the classics; and you'll likely have better dynamic range also).

DSP is getting cheaper while also getting better.  The Smyth SVS Realiser A8 points the way toward where things are headed in processing, but it also has made compromises (such as down sampling to 48_kHz sample rate before processing) that leave alot of room for improvement, while associated prices should plummet.

Future headphone designs will be optimized to make better use of DSP response correction.