Question about flat response preference?
May 7, 2003 at 2:53 AM Post #16 of 23
Quote:

Originally posted by Mike Scarpitti
How much are these?

Never let me stand in the way of anyone wanting to spend some bucks. (I used to work in retail.) About 8 years ago I sold a pair of Leica binoculars ($900) to a woman who did not want to spend more than about $300. When she looked through them and compared them to the Nikon and others that we had for sale, she plunked down the money. Her camera had been stolen, and the insurance check had come. It took about 1 1/2 hours, but she bought, and I assume she is as happy as a clam to this day.


Etronics.com has them for $249.99

HeadRoom.com has been selling HD-600 B stock for $229 but they are currently out of stock.
 
May 7, 2003 at 3:14 AM Post #17 of 23
Quote:

I want to become a headphone collector but I need some help getting started.


Move in with Joelongwood.
 
May 7, 2003 at 4:29 AM Post #18 of 23
The HD-600s should only be purchased if the buyer will power them with really good associated equipment.

On my setup ($120 amp and $200 SACD player) the 600s are decent-sounding but are absolutely much better when powered by equipment that matches them. That kind of stuff can cost thousands of dollars.

The HD-600 is a "hard" headphone, just like a "hard" drug: It creates a strong physical and psychological bond with the user.
very_evil_smiley.gif
Most headphones in its category are just the same, if not even worse.

Buyer beware.

Cheers,
Geek
 
May 7, 2003 at 5:17 AM Post #19 of 23
Quote:

Originally posted by Tinnitus
I am suprised nobody picked up on my hearing related moniker.


I'm sure most have. They're probably just trying to be nice to a noob, and not get too personal....this time! Let this be fairwarning!
very_evil_smiley.gif
 
May 7, 2003 at 6:50 AM Post #20 of 23
Flat frequency response of the headphones is not enough.
The goal should be to achieve flat perceived response for the
combination of amplifier, headphones and hearing.
Of course, the source is expected to be flat.

The procedure is described in http://www.linkwitzlab.com/reference_earphones.htm
 
May 7, 2003 at 12:09 PM Post #21 of 23
Quote:

Originally posted by sliberman
Flat frequency response of the headphones is not enough.
The goal should be to achieve flat perceived response for the
combination of amplifier, headphones and hearing.
Of course, the source is expected to be flat.

The procedure is described in http://www.linkwitzlab.com/reference_earphones.htm


As much as I admire SL, I think he's wrong on this. Yes, in contrast to loudspeakers a flat frequency response is wrong for headphones. But, you also absolutely don't want to percieve the same loudness at all frequencies (at a constant SPL), because that isn't how our hearing works, as the equal loudness curves (Fletcher-Munson/Robinson-Dadson) show. For example 90dB SPL at 1kHz in freefield is percieved as 90 phon, while at 4kHz it's 100 phon.
Sennheiser e.g. does a 'diffuse field loudness correction', i.e. they eq the phones so that in a anechoic chamber the sound in the diffuse field of a number of loudspeakers is percieved to be the same as that of the phones. Basically, this would need to be done individually for every person (I think AKG even offered this once for their BAP1000 processor) as not everybody's got the same head and ears - what they do is take the average of a number of tests... Headphones can be a very complicated subject, and looking at the response curves doesn't help you at all if you don't know what the curves should look like in the first place. I guess this is also why Headroom doesn't publish the absolute frequency response curves, but the relative frequency response to the average response of several headphones.
 
May 7, 2003 at 6:51 PM Post #22 of 23
Quote:

Originally posted by PeterR
As much as I admire SL, I think he's wrong on this. Yes, in contrast to loudspeakers a flat frequency response is wrong for headphones. But, you also absolutely don't want to percieve the same loudness at all frequencies (at a constant SPL), because that isn't how our hearing works, as the equal loudness curves (Fletcher-Munson/Robinson-Dadson) show. For example 90dB SPL at 1kHz in freefield is percieved as 90 phon, while at 4kHz it's 100 phon.
Sennheiser e.g. does a 'diffuse field loudness correction', i.e. they eq the phones so that in a anechoic chamber the sound in the diffuse field of a number of loudspeakers is percieved to be the same as that of the phones. Basically, this would need to be done individually for every person (I think AKG even offered this once for their BAP1000 processor) as not everybody's got the same head and ears - what they do is take the average of a number of tests... Headphones can be a very complicated subject, and looking at the response curves doesn't help you at all if you don't know what the curves should look like in the first place. I guess this is also why Headroom doesn't publish the absolute frequency response curves, but the relative frequency response to the average response of several headphones.


Actually, I think that SL's procedure tries to achieve equal
perceived loudness over the frequency response range, and
that means that the SPL will be quite different for each frequency
(and each channel), because of the equal loudness curves as well
as because of variations on each particular person hearing and
individual ear variations. The procedure finds the specific
equalizer for each channel that flatens the perceived response,
correcting for the frequency response variations introduced by
the amplifier output impedance interacting with the headphone
impedance, and the above mentioned variations in hearing for each individual.
 
May 7, 2003 at 9:11 PM Post #23 of 23
Quote:

Originally posted by sliberman
Actually, I think that SL's procedure tries to achieve equal
perceived loudness over the frequency response range, and
that means that the SPL will be quite different for each frequency
(and each channel), because of the equal loudness curves as well
as because of variations on each particular person hearing and
individual ear variations. The procedure finds the specific
equalizer for each channel that flatens the perceived response,
correcting for the frequency response variations introduced by
the amplifier output impedance interacting with the headphone
impedance, and the above mentioned variations in hearing for each individual.


I'm not saying EQ is generally a bad idea, I just don't agree with the method. If I've understood him right, what SL does is just how the Fletcher-Munson curves were derived - apply EQ until the loudness through headphones (loudspeakers were used for the similar looking Robertson-Dadson curves) is the same at all frequencies . But we don't want a flat percieved response. Our hearing isn't flat. A tone at 3kHz will sound louder to us than at 1kHz. So if I hear those tones over the headphone one should sound louder to me than the other as well.
Nobody's EQ'ing loudspeakers for equal loudness either, and that's for a reason. We perceive the whole world through our non-flat hearing-system, and therefore this is what sounds natural to us.
So for loudspeakers, the goal is a more or less flat SPL response. The difference between loudspeakers and headphones is that the head related transfer function (i.e. what our head and outer ears do to the sound) gets removed. This needs to be taken into account for the response of headphones, so the ideal here isn't a flat SPL response, agreed. But this something else than what SL proposes.
 

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