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tiny_rick__ t1_iy3qpp0 wrote

I am not against the harman curve and people having fun with EQ but I miss the time when we were able to appreciate headphones with different sound signature for what they were without looking at the FR.

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MachineTeaching t1_iy3ziiv wrote

Then just don't?

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radrod69 t1_iy5jh2f wrote

He means as a community. Hence "we."

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MachineTeaching t1_iy7ck6w wrote

Ok, why should other people looking at FR impact his enjoyment?

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radrod69 t1_iy7kk5s wrote

Probably because part of their enjoyment of the hobby is derived from partaking in the community, and they've been around long enough to see the meta shift from something they had fun with to something less appealing to them.

Come on man, use your imagination a little bit lol.

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G65434-2_II t1_iy3y5iq wrote

Tbh, I feel there's been so much collective circlejerking going on over the Harman target curve that it must about close to spilling over...

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JustAu69 t1_iy5mvrn wrote

Yeah. What a random sample of people like isn't what you like necessarily. And your headshape and ears might mean even if the headphone measures completely according to the Harman target, you might not hear it sound like the Harman target.

There is this channel on YouTube run by a clown who doesn't even physically try the IEMs, just looks at the FR and labels them trash

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dirthurts t1_iy3vkqx wrote

This.

Charts are ruining headphones. Accuracy is overrated. Preference is king.

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H3rpad3rpapotamus t1_iy49wr0 wrote

Being able to see the FR graphed let’s you know what your buying and what the baseline is. It doesn’t mean that you can’t make literally any other purchasing decision based on preference.

MF’ers out here totally shook by science 😂

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dirthurts t1_iy4llhy wrote

It can give you an idea, but not tell the whole story.

It can tell you that the treble is a little high, but not necessarily if it's harsh or sharp. It's really just volume levels. If people understand that, it goes a long way.

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blargh4 t1_iy4tl81 wrote

actually I'd say that's quite easy to judge from an FR plot, "harsh" and "sharp" are words that usually map to frequencies well below where measurements get shaky. of course, knowing how FRs maps to what you hear subjectively takes some experience.

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Gimp_Ninja t1_iy3ylt6 wrote

Charts are fine. They give you at least something of a sense of what you're buying before you buy it. But there are three things about headphones culture that really annoy me right now:

  1. Treating any deviation from the Harman target as a sonic defect that must be corrected rather than appreciated as the flavor of that headphone.

  2. Referring to the Harman target and headphones that fit it well as "neutral" when that is clearly V-shaped. Neutral is flat, damnit.

  3. Publishing frequency response graphs that are normalized to the Harman target. I guess this is done to allow one to pretend that V-shaped is neutral?

I don't understand why a person would EQ every headphone to Harman. Why even have multiple headphones? This is like the people who just want everything chocolate-flavored all the time and will invariably choose a chocolate ice cream over the hundreds of other available flavors. Hey, chocolate is tasty, but sometimes I want vanilla, or strawberry, or pistachio.

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SupOrSalad t1_iy4alhx wrote

>2. Referring to the Harman target and headphones that fit it well as "neutral" when that is clearly V-shaped. Neutral is flat, damnit.

I think when people think of Harman, they hyper focus on the bass, which is meant to be adjusted to your liking. More important to the Harman target are the mids and treble. That's why things like the HD600 are considered as following the Harman target really well, even though it has neutral bass

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Merkurio_92 t1_iy7hj00 wrote

And what is worse, they think that the "bloated Harman bass" is just mid-bass interfering with the rest of the sound, when it's actually sub-bass concentrated below 100 Hz and only comes out with content that has a great emphasis in that region (in a generally pleasant way, like physical rumble) whereas in the rest of music with low energy in bass frequencies, it's pretty much like a "neutral" Diffuse Field response.

I wonder what kind of brain explosion they would have if they listened to a good flat speakers in a well-treated room and realized that the bass is not only heard, but also FELT, just what the Harman target tries to replicate in headphones.

But hey, being an edgy lords that sails against the current always gives them a feeling of false superiority.

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Thuraash t1_iy5r3q4 wrote

Personally, I find EQ an interesting toy, but to my ear, when EQ'ing a headphone that was already good, it causes more oddities and distortions than it helps. I screwed with all kinds of curves for my HD6XX (it was the main reason I bought the ADI-2), but the artifacts and imperfections that resulted eventually returned me to the stock sound.

I tried messing with the VOs as well, both via the RME and Roon's rather awesome DSP interface. Either way, I could make it sound different in a whole lot of ways, and I could make it sound better for a few minutes' listening. However, I could never make it better, and again, I'm back at stock.

Turns out, Zach knows what the fuck he's doing with headphone tuning. Who'da thunk?

And EQ'ing my Sony WH-MX2 headphones was an exercise in futility. There isn't a force in the universe that can make those shitcans sound good. It's a lucky thing they don't need to sound good to do their job.

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agentzune t1_iy8iniy wrote

The 6XX is pretty much perfect the way it is. Just keep your pads relatively fresh and you are good to go.

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Thuraash t1_iy8xz6i wrote

It's a very well-sorted set of headphones. I ended up replacing my pads with the ZMF perforated leather pads a year ago when I'd crushed the stock pads down to roughly the consistency of cardboard. The ZMF pads sound really good as well. Different than the stock velour pads, but good.

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oglocayo t1_iy43dcz wrote

Fr, every headphones have different characteristics, people always overdone every headphones and tuned the eq to those target/curve, and forgets what sound signature they actually like to listen.

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