Advanced Knowledge of Buying Headphones

--Moving Coil, Moving Magnet and Electrostatic Units

Generally speaking, when it comes to buy headphones, we are more concerned about the category of headphones, such as headset, wired headphones, true wireless headphones and in-ear headphones, etc..

For consumers who are concerned about the sound quality of headphones, the important components of headphones - the sound generating unit is also worthy of attention.

The most commonly used sound generating unit of the mainstream headphones on the market can be roughly divided into moving coil unit, moving magnet units and electrostatic units.

Among the most common sound generating units are moving coil and moving magnet units, and electrostatic units due to the complexity of the process, higher cost and fragile feature, making it seldom to be found on the market, but more likely to be used on the HiFi wired headphones with higher prices.

Moving coil unit is the most common sound unit on the market. In usually, the cost of the moving coil unit are proportional to the sound quality of the headphones, the sound quality depends mainly on the diaphragm within the moving coil unit, coil and magnet strength. In theory, the size of the diaphragm is directly proportional to the sound quality, the larger the diaphragm, the better the sound quality. And the volume is directly proportional to the magnetism of the permanent magnet.

   Moving magnet unit , also known as armature or balanced armature units, is simple in structure, and its main components are coil, balanced armature and miniature diaphragm. On the one hand, the small size of moving-iron units makes them more suitable for in-ear headphones with smaller size. On the other hand, its feature of focusing on the control of the sound details makes it difficult to achieve excellent sound performance in the full frequency range. In order to solve this problem, manufacturers usually choose to equip multiple units with earphones as a solution, but it also make earphones bigger to a certain extent.  In addition, moving-iron units have better transient performance and sound density compared with the moving coil earphones in the same price range.

Electrostatic unit is relatively uncommon. It is mainly composed of a diaphragm and two polar plates. Due to its highly demanding manufacturing technology,  electrostatic units are mainly used in Hifi headphones of over 10,000 yuan price range.

Theoretically, electrostatic units will bring better sound quality performance, but due to the difference in its driving method, the sound quality performance of electrostatic headphones also needs to be additionally equipped with amplification equipment to reflect.

In general, dynamic headphones are the ideal choice for consumers who pursue full-frequency listening performance, and soft, natural sound. Moving magnet earphones can meet the needs of consumers who are more focus on sound details in spite of the size of the earphones. For consumers who have ultimate pursuit of sound quality and sufficient budget, buying electrostatic headphones can be a good choice.