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West-Cheek-156 OP t1_ja4ep9e wrote

Reply to comment by mcjasonb in How do I listen for "detail" in music? by West-Cheek-156

Thanks, added question, what other things should I be listening for other than FR (assuming a decent enough set can just be EQ'ed to your liking)?

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mcjasonb t1_ja4gjia wrote

Overall smoothness and not rolled off at the top helps.

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West-Cheek-156 OP t1_ja4hgd4 wrote

Do you think that means you can just buy one really good pair and EQ it to the FR of other headphones and it will sound exactly the same?

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SupOrSalad t1_ja4iqqi wrote

No, this is something that's often misunderstood, but in real world use, you can't easily EQ one headphone to another without knowing how that headphone or IEM response on your own ear. Even if you could EQ two headphones to appear to have the same FR on a measurment rig, on your own head the FR at your eardrum can still be drastically different

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sunjay140 t1_ja60xmx wrote

Sharur in shambles.

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Egoexpo t1_ja657i7 wrote

Regardless of Sharur, Harman performed virtualizations (EQ) so that one headphone could sound like another, which is part of the methodologies used to develop the Harman Target. Among the studies conducted, individuals did not report significant differences between the original headphone and the equalized one, although there may be differences when wearing them in your ears. It is worth noting that the main differences will be found in the range of 1 kHz to 20 kHz, as these are the ranges with the greatest variations among HRTFs. u/West-Cheek-156

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josher814 t1_ja8hil2 wrote

How? He understands this concept and he repeatedly states that he hates equalizing headphones/IEMs in his videos.

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sunjay140 t1_ja8job3 wrote

He reviews headphones without seeing them in real life and simply EQuing his Moondrop Variation to whatever headphone he's reviewing. He says that the Frequency Response the only thing that matters in a headphone's sound as headphones as they are pressure chambers.

He says that a $20 Moondrop Chu can be EQued to sound exactly like a $500 Moondrop Variation. He calls anyone who questions this and his review methodology a "noob".

He doesn't hate EQ for the reason you stated. He says he hates EQ because a headphone that needs EQ is a bad headphone. He says that they sound the same after EQ but EQ is just cope for buying bad headphones and that he only buys good headphones.

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MilkManPhil t1_ja8qkxi wrote

Actually his view kinda changed. Sure he still eq's to hear frequency response, but you gotta buy the headphone to see if it has polarity and phase issues.

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West-Cheek-156 OP t1_ja4j7n2 wrote

Yeah that's what I've heard particularly in the upper frequencies. Thanks

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huemac5810 t1_ja5960h wrote

Folks who believe it's all or almost all about FR are fairly odd to me.

Try convincing music studios of the mentality. They'll laugh at you. Sound is more than just FR, otherwise post effects beyond equalizers would be far more rare. It definitely is of great importance, but the whole story has much more going on, or music production would be much simpler.

For example, closed headphones often lack acoustic dampening materials on the inside. In studio monitors, you'll often find polyester fiberfill inside their cabinets to kill excess resonances, which muddy the sound and can give speakers a "boxed-in" sound. Closed headphones tend to "sound closed" for their lack of fiberfill inside, or sound like they apply a "hall reverb" to everything. Occasionally, some may actually have fiberglass for dampening. Equalizing the headphone can never mitigate this issue as it has nothing to do with frequency response in the first place. The Beyerdynamic DT660 (discontinued) was famous for being a closed headphone appropriate for classical music. It had dense cotton padding inside to kill excess resonances, in addition to a balanced FR. It "sounded open" rather than "closed" as a result, so it wouldn't mask and muddy music with a "hall reverb" over everything. A comparable, more modern headphone (but also discontinued now) is the Pioneer MHR5. Another closed headphone with dampening to purge internal excess resonances is the HRM7, a superb studio can.

Cleaner and finer articulation of sound is also related to other aspects of headphone design; you can't make it happen with EQ, but it can help subtly at best. I'm guessing this is affected by the voice coil and chemical treatment of the diaphragm. I have no idea. The articulation of sound is fuzzier in cheap headphones versus my HD650 and K701, for example.

Clearer, tighter bass out of a headphone is a bit of a tough job to pull off, but the kinds of modifications that can contribute would probably blow your mind. Impossible to replicate with only equalizers.

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Egoexpo t1_ja65lof wrote

If you listen to a speaker in a room with some reflection, you will likely also hear bass reverberations. Harman's research takes into account these reverberations because they consider the type of environment in which people normally listen to music.

You are unlikely to see someone listening to music in an anechoic chamber.

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huemac5810 t1_ja66m56 wrote

And tweaking a closed headphone to be pretty close to an anechoic chamber is not a difficult thing to do.

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thatcarolguy t1_ja8fouv wrote

What do you think that post effects are manipulating besides timing based ones like reverb/delay?

I see what you are getting at but there is no true equivalent to reverb/delay in the physical behavior of resonances in headphones. Resonances affect the FR in an exact 1:1 fashion to the point that one can be calculated from the other.

A resonance at a certain frequency causes a peak at that same frequency. Or does the peak cause the resonance? I dunno, they are inseparable.

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09212 t1_ja4th0s wrote

not exactly, but not too far off either

tuning isn't what makes a headphone, technical performance (which includes detail retrieval, staging and imaging, etc) has an equal part to play. the entire build/fit of a headphone also drastically affects the sound. placing one headphone's driver in another's casing would not give you the same sound, for example

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huemac5810 t1_ja5a1ax wrote

Sennheiser takes advantage of this by using the same drivers in their whole HD5x5, HD5x8, and HD5x9 lines. Each line uses the same deiver elements, the differences in sound boil down entirely to the housing. HD595, 598, and 599 get the best housings and achieve the best sound. Many would mod the next model below to get the 595/598/599 sound for less money. I've gotten my HD558 sounding better than the three top models.

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CrelbowMannschaft t1_ja5mfgs wrote

There's also driver matching. If the FR of the left cup is very different from the FR of the right cup, it'll never sound right unless you EQ each cup specifically to match each other.

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mcjasonb t1_ja4mh8a wrote

Not exactly. But probably pretty close.

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