If you’re planning on getting yourself a new pair of quality headphones, you’ll be surprised by how many different headphone styles and brands are available on the market today. This may make it harder for you to choose the right ones. Headphone specs are complex and very technical, and can easily get confusing. This guide cuts through the jargon to shed more light on one of the common headphone components, the headphone driver, and how it affects audio quality.
Good to know: not sure which type of headphones to get? Read here about the most popular types of headphones and their particularities.
What You Need to Know About the Headphone Driver
The driver is the heart of any pair of headphones, responsible for transforming electrical signals into an auditory experience that you can enjoy. Put simply, it’s the element that produces the sound that reaches your ears. Think of headphone drivers as tiny loudspeakers that go inside your ear canal.
A driver unit includes three main components:
- Diaphragm – moves back and forth to create sound waves that human ears can pick up
- Voice coil – moves the diaphragm to create the sound you hear when an electric current passes through it
- Magnet – generates a magnetic field that can affect the overall sound quality of the headphones
A headphone driver is typically disc-shaped, and its size varies depending on the manufacturer and the required sound output.
Tip: learn how to set up you headphones for single-ear use in Windows.
Types of Headphone Drivers
As mentioned earlier, the type of driver used in earphones influences the quality of sound that comes out of the audio device. We’ve listed below the various types of drivers commonly used in earphones and headphones.
1. Dynamic (Moving Coil) Drivers
Dynamic drivers boast the most straightforward configuration of all driver types discussed here. They use a magnet, typically a neodymium, which generates a magnetic field that interacts with the voice coil. When an audio electric current activates the voice coil, it engages in rhythmic oscillation, inducing the diaphragm to participate in synchronized resonance.
Despite dynamic drivers offering benefits such as covering the entire frequency spectrum and being easy to power, one of the biggest complaints against them is that they can produce harmonic distortion at louder volumes. Fortunately, the effect can be countered by good engineering.
Dynamic drivers are usually the norm when it comes to lower-end, cheaper headphones, but they can make their way into some high-end models, such as the Sony MDR-Z1R.
2. Planar Magnetic Drivers
This is the driver type you’ll find in most of the high-end headphones in the market today. While usually found in open-back, over-ear headphones, some in-ear models are also available, such as the Moondrop Golden Ages TWS.
In this technology, a diaphragm is sandwiched between magnets. Much like dynamic drivers, planar magnetic drivers function through the manipulation of a magnetic field. However, instead of relying on a coil, these drivers rely on the thin, flat diaphragm that directly responds to the magnetic field, producing sound as a result.
Planar magnetic drivers produce a very accurate and clean sound, giving you every bit of detail, without adding too many sound effects or other modifications. You’ll find them in most high-end headphones, such as the HiFiman Susvara, so they’ll usually (but not always) be more expensive.
Tip: with a good pair of headphones you can then take full advantage of Spotify lossless audio.
3. Balanced Armature Drivers
These are very small drivers, and their typical use is with in-ear monitors. Due to their size, manufacturers can opt to add multiple drivers in a single earpiece. Typically, most in-ear monitors have one to four drivers.
This type of driver consists of a coil wrapped around a miniature arm (armature). Two magnets flank the armature. When an electric current flows through the coil, it generates a magnetic field that interacts with these magnets, causing the armature to oscillate. Since the diaphragm is connected to the armature, it will move synchronously with the latter, thus producing sound waves. When the armature becomes centered within the magnetic field, there’s no net force applied to the armature, which gives it its “balanced armature” name.
One major downside of balanced armature drivers compared to dynamic drivers is that they have difficulty reproducing the bass response. This is why it’s not uncommon for some in-ear monitors to include multiple balanced armature drivers and a dynamic driver, as the latter makes up for the lack of bass response. One such product is the Shure AONIC 4.
4. Electrostatic Drivers
These are rare and extremely expensive. Like charges, electrostatic drivers operate based on repelling each other while opposite ones attract. Vibrations are produced as the diaphragm pushes and pulls against two conductive plates (that may be positively or negatively charged) or two electrodes. The diaphragm drives the air through the perforated walls and, in conjunction with the fluctuating electrical signal, generates sound waves.
These usually require special amplifiers to perform to their full potential. Thus, you’ll find this type of driver in high-end headphones that usually sport an open-back design.
That said, they tend to produce exceptional sound quality with breathtaking accuracy. For this reason, they have a hefty price tag and are only found in premium headsets, like the STAX SR-X9000 flagship model.
FYI: you can further enhance your audio experience by using tools like FxSound.
5. Piezoelectric Drivers
Not to be confused with electrostatic drivers, piezoelectric drivers (or PZT) are a unique type of driver that has made it into some modern hybrid headphone models, such as the distinctive-looking Geekfly GF3, which also pairs a 10mm dynamic driver.
Piezoelectric drivers operate by having a piezoelectric material (usually a crystal or ceramic) sandwiched between two electrodes. When an electrical signal is applied across the electrodes, the piezoelectric material either expands or contracts, depending on the polarity of the signal. This mechanical deformation produces sound waves using the diaphragm.
What’s great about these drivers is the capability to convert even the weakest audio signal into sound, reproducing it with clarity and reliability. Since manufacturers can do only limited fine-tuning of these drivers due to the nature of the piezoelectric materials, this can result in low-quality sound and large power consumption.
6. Bone Conduction Drivers
These drivers are capable of transferring vibrations directly to the user’s inner ear (bypassing the eardrum) via bone conduction. Headphones equipped with this driver type are designed for users who require situational awareness, allowing them to remain aware of environmental sounds while using the headphones, or users who have hearing impairments.
However, with bone conduction drivers, you’ll certainly be trading usability for quality. This category is currently no match for the other types of drivers with regard to the delivery of high-class sound.
However, more and more manufacturers are releasing bone conduction headphones, including more affordable models such as the Nank Runner Diver2. For more suggestions, check out our bone conduction headphones guide.
7. Ribbon drivers
Ribbon drivers are a rare type of headphone driver that uses an ultra-thin metal diaphragm (called a ribbon) that is suspended in a magnetic field. In this setup, the ribbon serves as both the conductor and diaphragm.
When an audio signal passes through the ribbon, it generates and interacts with the magnetic field. This causes the ribbon to move back and forth, creating sound.
Headphones equipped with ribbon drivers typically deliver lightning-fast response, as well as exceptional detail, and very low distortion. The trade-off is poor efficiency, as most require powerful amplification, making them impractical for portable use. As a result, ribbon drivers are largely confined to niche designs, such as the RAAL SR1a. Newer models such, as the Sineaptic SE-1 bring a more practical form factor, while also boasting a dual ribbon array driver.
How Headphbone Drivers Affect Audio Quality
Many factors come into play when it comes to the sound quality of headphones. We tackle some of the key aspects below.
Driver size
A standard earphone driver is usually in the range of 8mm to 15mm in diameter, while a headphone driver ranges from 20mm to 50mm in diameter. Generally, a driver’s size determines the loudness of the headphones.
Many believe the bigger the size, the better the sound quality. This is not entirely true, although due to a larger diaphragm, the bass may be a little cleaner. At the same time, headphones with large drivers also tend to struggle to reproduce high frequencies (treble).
While bigger drivers are capable of producing higher output, this doesn’t necessarily mean they deliver overall better output. It’s the quality of the driver unit and the variation of materials inside that make a huge difference. Take Google’s Pixel Buds as an example. These earbuds are quite small with very small drivers, yet they produce sound quality that rivals other brands with larger drivers.
Driver unit enclosure & tuning
Audio Technica provides another example of headphone drivers determining audio quality. This company makes two high-end headphone models: the M40X and the M50X. The M40X uses 40mm drivers, while the M50X uses 45mm drivers. While you may automatically assume that the M50X produces better sound due to its larger drivers, that’s not entirely true.
The thing is, manufacturers tune headphones very differently. The M50X has tuning, pads, and enclosures that deliver a slightly sharper sound, while the M40X has a flatter and more neutral signature. It should be noted that the type of padding used and the enclosure of the cup actually have a larger impact on the sound than the drivers used.
In a nutshell, the size of the driver does affect the output and the frequency range of headphones. However, you should not base your buying decision on the size of the drivers alone. There are other factors, such as the type of drivers or padding used, that affect the quality of sound more than the size of the drivers used.
Quality of drivers
Just as with driver size, having multiple drivers (per side) on board a pair of headphones does not guarantee better sound.
Multiple driver headphones use each driver to manage a specific range of frequencies, including audio bass, mids, treble, etc. On paper, that should be enough to get superior sound quality, but a poorly produced multi-driver unit will always perform worse than a high-end single driver.
As driver technology has recently become more capable, and our understanding of headphone sound tuning has improved, using multiple drivers is no longer an absolute necessity. It’s possible to get better sound from headphones featuring a single type of drive.
Tip: check how to easily fix audio file metadata, if you ever need to.
Which Headphone Driver Should I Choose?
The choice of headphones boils down to your personal preferences and what you’re going to use them for. If you’re an avid music lover and want something that delivers quite a punch, to immerse yourself in the atmosphere in no time, go for the headphones with dynamic drivers. These do a stellar job when it comes to delivering powerful bass and attaining good sound pressure without consuming much power.
But if you intend to use the headphones solely for gaming, you most likely won’t care much about the bass or the mid-lows. In this case, audio devices with balanced armature drivers should be a good choice. If you usually listen to music while out and about, you may want to look at models with bone conducting drivers, as they promote spatial awareness.
If you’re an audiophile, you probably don’t need our advice on what headsets to buy, but we’re offering it anyway. Go for planar magnetic drivers. If budget is not a constraint, headphones with electrostatic drivers will satisfy your curiosity more. But if you’re working in a specialized field, where high-frequency accuracy is crucial, such as audio engineering or certain aspects of music production, you may benefit from the specific sound profile of piezoelectric drivers.
Since you’re soon going to welcome a new audio accessory into your life, you should also learn how to safely clean your earbuds and headphones and prolong their life cycle.
