Instrument Separation: What it is and why it matters

As many of you know by now, our goal at Status Audio is to explore a wide range of audio topics. You don’t need special qualifications, an acute sense of hearing, or a ton of money to be passionate about music. So, in this newsletter, we’ll go over another topic to help you build your literacy in audio tech. Today's topic is instrument separation.

Pretty straightforward right? When it comes down to it, instrument separation is truly just a measure of how clear a headphone is across the entire frequency range. Now, there are a number of more complex topics that feed into this simple concept. Here are two of the most important ones:

1. Frequency Response
2. Harmonic Distortion

We’ve already covered harmonic distortion, but here’s a recap: In essence, harmonic distortion measures how clear a headphone sounds the more volume you put through it. If it begins to distort at higher volumes, frequencies (and therefore instruments) begin to blend together into a harsh “fuzz”. Has anyone ever listened to those airline earbuds? That's the best example of poor harmonic distortion control we can think of.

Now, frequency response is the other contributor to instrument separation, and it's a tricky one!

In other words, how loud is the bass? How quiet is the treble? Check out the below frequency response.

The Harman curve allows us to appreciate a device’s frequency response settings.