Prepare yourself for an entirely random Geek rant.

I'm reading through a crappy review of Apple's new in-ear headphones, when I trip over this sentence:

"Before I get started, let me answer a question that's always being asked. "What's the deal with these "In-Ear" headphones?" Believe it or not, that's actually easy to answer. Bass frequencies are rather loose, which makes them the least directional of all sound frequencies."

I'm really not sure what the reviewer means by "loose," so I'll leave that alone. What really bothers me is the (quite common) idea that low frequencies are somehow "less directional" than high frequencies or that they are non-directional.

There are no special laws of physics that apply to low frequencies. They behave like sound of any other frequency.

The issue with low frequencies has to do with the size and design of the transducer, or speaker, creating the low frequencies. Often, the size of the transducer is so much smaller than low-frequency wavelengths (relative to high-frequency wavelengths) that the transducer spews sound in every direction. Once produced, the low-frequency sound travels predictably.

Speakers are non-directional, rather than the sound they produce.

Thanks for letting me vent.