Headphones causing nausea?

Hi!

Recently I bought noise cancelling headphones Philisp SHN9500 (frequency range 20-22000Hz) and I have no problem with them at all.

But then I also tried two hi-end consumer headphones from Sony - noise cancelling MDR-NC500D (5–24000Hz) and bass heavy MDR-XB700 (3-28000Hz). Both made me feel sligtly nauseatic within minuttes and cause headache.

Could it be, that it is caused by low frequency sounds? I read in a medical article that motion sickness (kinetosis) can be caused by low freqencies ~10Hz being transmitted inside the head by vibrations and I'm quite prone to the kinetosis (but not in trains). Maybe the same effect has the transmitting of low frequnecy sounds via headphones?

Thanks for your opinion.

Um...that's weird. Really weird.

Could be the low or high frequencies. My Swan m200mkii's (speakers) did that for me at first until I EQ'ed out past the audible soundrange. At the your hearing cutoff, frequencies won't sound right because your hearing is slowly decaying. Also, the high freq's above audible are higher energy and could be causing some kind of disruption.

That or the kinetosis. I'd lean towards high freq issues though because I experienced similar with my Swans listening to them for a long period before I EQ'ed them well. Also the source can make a difference too. Switching to a Xonar that gives more direct control of the EQ and higher quality than my previous crappy Creative X-Fi Platinum did wonders in that regard.

Deep reverb and "EAX" like effects with echo do that to me even on outboards.

Usually it happens to me the next morning after a night of heavy drinking.

I always wondered if I was the only one. But I have to say the low frequencies, and sometimes a buzzing sound coming from the actual headphone. I used to have some Logitech ones that used to give me headaches when used during long periods of time. I was forced to use them because my World of Warcraft guild requires me to use it. I solved the problem somehow by boosting the sound in Ventrilo, and lowering it on the actual headset. This gave me loud sound, but eliminated the buzzing on the headset. If that doesn't help you, I do also encourage that you lower the bass. Most soundcards provide you with an equalizer to adjust it.

I also have this problem somehow with my current regular 7.1 setup. When I sit close to the monitor to just surf online, I get dizzy rather fast. This is because the subwoofer is next to it. However, when I sit back on my regular spot I use for movies, the problem disappears. This is normal I guess, since the subwoofer is tuned to sound good on my main listening position, not when I sit next to it to check stuff online.

Odin, your problem sounds very similar to a related problem I had with my Swans. The first few days I had them, I had them way too close. The monitor was right in front of me and the speakers were right next to it. It was pretty brutal. There were a number of adjustments I had to make to get the speakers to sound comfortable to my personal tastes, but by far the most important before all the others was listening distance. If you're too close to the speakers it'll cause you all sorts of problems because you're getting hit with too much sound energy at once.

This is also why I'm inclined to believe it's more higher frequencies, since they have the most energy but decay rapidly over distance. The other possibility (though it doesn't have to be one or the other) is that when you're too close to the speakers you're getting hit more directly, whereas the soundwaves would disburse more before reaching you when you're further away.

I would recommend that you pull your speakers back a bit like I did, maybe on speaker stands or something of the sort so you have them at a comfortable listening distance. I also moved my monitor back, but I have a somewhat nonstandard format desk that allows me to organize it somewhat differently.

I've only had this problem when playing my bass (using headphones) for extended periods of time. I have no idea why.

One thing you may want to try, is if using them on the PC, use a crossfeed or some other method to reduce the stereo effect, making the sound a bit more natural. Although the bass would be pretty much the same, the adjustment of the position may help. I say this because I never get any issues when listening to stuff on my PC, no matter how bass rich.