thanks for the response. since majority of these audiophile terms are just subjective definitions, what is the best way to sonically compare 2 products ? from what I understand, testing things like distortion and frequency response can't really say overall resolution of a headphone.  so how can we say A headphone is overall sonically superior than B without giving our bias personal impressions ?

appsmarsterx said:

thanks for the response. since majority of these audiophile terms are just subjective definitions, what is the best way to sonically compare 2 products ? from what I understand, testing things like distortion and frequency response can't really say overall resolution of a headphone.  so how can we say A headphone is overall sonically superior than B without giving our bias personal impressions ?

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u can't. that's why all reviews abt headphones around here are just subjective impressions & subjective comparisions. frequency response graphs are the only semi-objective measurement, but even then different sites have different ways of measuring it & the graphs dont always correlate to what ppl hear...

lol its kinda funny if u think abt it.

appsmarsterx said:

  from what I understand, testing things like distortion and frequency response can't really say overall resolution of a headphone.  so how can we say A headphone is overall sonically superior than B without giving our bias personal impressions ?

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It depends on what you are after - again, it comes down to definition. What do you mean by "overall resolution" ability to render microdetails clearly? we can measure that.
 
What do you mean by sonically superior? For some people that will mean relatively neutral presentation, for others a big W curve and wow factor, for others airy and spacious presentation. We can demonstrate and measure all those things. But just saying "sonically superior" is a bit vague. You could, however, say that a given headphone performs better across a wide range of metrics. It has been my experience, that headphones which do, sound better to me - so I can look at those numbers and make a judgement call on the likelihood of a given headphone being pleasing to my ear. 
 
That's using subjective judgment, but backed by objective measures and predictive value. 

So based on the objective criteria alone which headphone is technically the most 'accurate'?

What do you mean by accurate? Most neutral frequency range? Least distortion? All of the above? 

liamstrain said:

What do you mean by accurate? Most neutral frequency range? Least distortion? All of the above? 

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All of the above I suppose. On paper I think the HD800 And SR009 pretty much nail it yet many think they are bright. My personal preference is the hd600 but on paper not as good as the other 2. Bass distortion on the 600 is pretty high although I hear it as 'fuller' sounding .

james-uk said:

All of the above I suppose. On paper I think the HD800 And SR009 pretty much nail it yet many think they are bright. My personal preference is the hd600 but on paper not as good as the other 2. Bass distortion on the 600 is pretty high although I hear it as 'fuller' sounding .

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That's a joke right?  It is bright and it shows on the FR.  It's FR is the reason why you can only listen to it with certain music genres.  People try to fix it with expensive amps and dacs.     They just can't face the reality.  It's brightness and harshness is it's true nature and people find colored sources to hardware EQ the damn thing.  People avoid genre with emphasis on harsh frequenices.  The audiophile genre which doesn't emphasize those frequencies.
 
HD800 thread is the worst subjective thread I've ever read.  Bunch of unless info in there.

money4me247 said:

u can't. that's why all reviews abt headphones around here are just subjective impressions & subjective comparisions. frequency response graphs are the only semi-objective measurement, but even then different sites have different ways of measuring it & the graphs dont always correlate to what ppl hear...

lol its kinda funny if u think abt it.

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I just want to know is there any way we can avoid the subjective bias. I believe subjective bias can lead in to myths. 
 

liamstrain said:

   
It depends on what you are after - again, it comes down to definition. What do you mean by "overall resolution" ability to render microdetails clearly? we can measure that.
 
What do you mean by sonically superior? For some people that will mean relatively neutral presentation, for others a big W curve and wow factor, for others airy and spacious presentation. We can demonstrate and measure all those things. But just saying "sonically superior" is a bit vague. You could, however, say that a given headphone performs better across a wide range of metrics. It has been my experience, that headphones which do, sound better to me - so I can look at those numbers and make a judgement call on the likelihood of a given headphone being pleasing to my ear. 
 
That's using subjective judgment, but backed by objective measures and predictive value. 

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yes. that's what I meant by "overall resolution" - ability to render microdetails clearly/better than.... by term "sonically superior",  I meant ability to render microdetails better /ability to render instrument timbre better than another product (headphone) clearly . may be the term "refined" can probably mean the same thing..
 
if we can measure the microdetail rendering capability of a headphone, how can we do that ? is there any particular tests for that ? (without subjective hearing tests)
 
 
as an example, let's compare hd558 and hd600 for a moment, how can we sonically measure, which headphone has better resolution (overall better sound quality) than another by objective tests ? (without biased, subjective hearing tests).

appsmarsterx said:

  I just want to know is there any way we can avoid the subjective bias. I believe subjective bias can lead in to myths. 
 
yes. that's what I meant by "overall resolution" - ability to render microdetails clearly/better than.... by term "sonically superior",  I meant ability to render microdetails better /ability to render instrument timbre better than another product (headphone) clearly . may be the term "refined" can probably mean the same thing..
 
if we can measure the microdetail rendering capability of a headphone, how can we do that ? is there any particular tests for that ? (without subjective hearing tests)
 
as an example, let's compare hd558 and hd600 for a moment, how can we sonically measure, which headphone has better resolution (overall better sound quality) than another by objective tests ? (without biased subjective hearing tests).

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There is absolutely no objective standard test for anything in this hobby. Everything is subjective... even stuff that sounds objective is usually either taken out of context or overstating the importance of certain measurements that do not have that big of an effect in real life. You will learn soon enough that most people here form their opinions first, and then cherry-pick information to support their view. If you have come for objective-talk, this website is probably not the best place for you.
 
There is the frequency response curve serves as a rough guideline on how to expect headphones to sound overall. There is harmonic distortion curves, square wave response, and cumulative spectral decay (waterfall) plots/impulse response. I am not sure how valuable any of these objective measurements are. I am actually in the pro-measurements/objectivity camp, but it doesn't seem like any of those measurements really means much in real life applications except the frequency response curve. Everything else seems kinda just bragging rights that it measured well. 
 
However, I think there is actually a lot of value in an ear test. If you have ears (no need for special ears), and just do a double blind ABx comparison between two headphones that you have done no research about in terms of price/reviewed performance... I think whatever the difference you hear would probably be pretty accurate (as after you remove expectation bias, our ears are quite good at picking random differences).
 
In fact, I honestly think that the lack of objective criteria is one of the reasons some people are drawn to this hobby. They like the fact that you can be a "golden ear/audiophile" and sound like a really legit expert without really saying/knowing anything beyond owning something expensive. The fact that there isn't a comprehensive sticky about common audiophile myths & what current scientific testing has found (cable difference, burn-in, decay, the real-world impact of amps/dacs) and the fact that head-fi is actually ad-sponsored... I really think that the main purpose of this website is really just to promote purchasing 'audiophile' gear and for people who enjoy the gear to socialize. Questioning sketchy manufacturer practices like charging an additional >$100+ for a small tweak for essentially the same product doesn't really get anywhere around here. Questioning priceerformance ratio usually just piss off owners of expensive stuff. Anytime you try to get into any objective type debate on the general forums, any random person's subjective impressions is always "more legit" due to the head-fi mentality that statements about headphones are only valid after hearing them. 
 
Just what I've found from my experiences here. Didn't mean to sound negative about this place, but I think you have to see this website for what it is: bunch of headphone geeks that are using it as a platform to express their opinions and have people listen to them as audiophile experts.

money4me247 said:

frequency response graphs are the only semi-objective measurement, but even then different sites have different ways of measuring it & the graphs dont always correlate to what ppl hear...
 

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I was able to use frequency response graphs from a single site that included all of the headphones that I had either auditioned or owned to get a rough idea of the characteristics that I preferred, and those that I did not favor as much.  Then, I read through countless posts and user reviews/experiences to get additional information and feedback on the headphones I was researching.  I had to find people that had similar tastes as mine, so that I could trust their impressions over another with completely different preferences in sound signatures.  The last few headphone purchases that I have made, even without auditioning them beforehand, provided the sound signature that I was fully expecting to hear based on this research.
 
Frequency response graphs can be extremely helpful, if they are consistent with regards to how they are generated.  

There are several objective measurements that can tell you if something produces accurate sound... frequency response, distortion, noise floor/dynamic range, etc. As long as these criteria measure better than the threshold of human perception, they are audibly transparent. That means accurate. If something doesn't reach audible transparency, but gets closer than something else, it is more accurate. Specs represent sound. If you look at specs that were measured properly and you understand what the numbers represent, you should be able to know pretty well how something is going to sound.
 
Audiophiles love to argue that specs don't represent how things sound. They like to say you can't measure that sort of thing and everything is subjective. That's because they are afraid of being proven wrong yet again. I don't have a lot of respect for people who value their own ego over the truth.

sonitus mirus said:

 
I was able to use frequency response graphs from a single site that included all of the headphones that I had either auditioned or owned to get a rough idea of the characteristics that I preferred, and those that I did not favor as much.  Then, I read through countless posts and user reviews/experiences to get additional information and feedback on the headphones I was researching.  I had to find people that had similar tastes as mine, so that I could trust their impressions over another with completely different preferences in sound signatures.  The last few headphone purchases that I have made, even without auditioning them beforehand, provided the sound signature that I was fully expecting to hear based on this research.
 
Frequency response graphs can be extremely helpful, if they are consistent with regards to how they are generated.  

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I do agree that frequency response graphs are extremely helpful. but really more helpful when you are comparing headphones with drastically different sound signatures or to get a general sense of the sound signature.
 
however, like this example: 

beyond the general sense of the sound signature, I feel like micro-analyzing the slight curve differences is counter-productive. The thing is that these graphs are all smoothed out, so there is probably even more detailed rough spots that you can see if you zoom. I feel like simply doing a blind ABx listening comparison test would be much more productive than trying to extrapolate how a difference in curve at spot X over spot Y affects the sound. I feel like sometimes people do get biased by looking at frequency response curves first and then attribute perceived XYZ sonic changes due to X spot on a graph. Expectation bias can happen from both subjective data and objective data!! That's why I personally prefer blind listening comparisons as the best standard for 'objective' judging. I feel like if it is a well-controlled comparison, it gives that individual a very good and realistic sense of how the headphones perform without any biases.

money4me247 said:

  There is absolutely no objective standard test for anything in this hobby. Everything is subjective...

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Suffice it to say, I disagree entirely. 

Apparently, I prefer an elevated bass. I was running around with a pair of Sennheiser PX100 with my DAP, and I really liked the sound.  I purchased a Sennheiser HD595 thinking it would be a better version of the cheaper PX100, but they were missing the bass oomph that I was seeking.  I used the same FR graphs on HeadRoom to identify similar FR graphs that matched the PX100 to get a list of headphones to investigate further.  Maybe I just got lucky, but the Denon AH-D5000 has a very similar FR, and I have not found a better headphone to my ears.
 
Alternately, as a reference, I knew the AKG-701 was another headphone that I had that was lacking in bass (to me).   I avoided headphones with a similar FR. 
 
In the end, I found that I do enjoy a flatter FR response, as long as this extends to sub-bass, as my Denon's have been modded to tame the bass a bit and I also enjoy my Mr. Speaker Mad Dogs, which are much flatter than the V-shaped signature of my D5000.  I still prefer the D5000 to the Mad Dogs overall, and I am not able to EQ to achieve a similar sound.  So, maybe I don't want accuracy in my headphones?

money4me247 said:

 
beyond the general sense of the sound signature, I feel like micro-analyzing the slight curve differences is counter-productive.

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When I look at that chart, I see almost identical response out almost to 10kHz +/-3dB or so. Then a considerable variation beyond that. I apply that to what I know about human hearing... i.e.: the most important octaves for balanced response are the ones between 40Hz and 10kHz, 3dB is the just noticeable difference for frequency response variation in music, the last octave from 10kHz-20kHz is the least used octave in music... and it tells me that barring any significant distortion or problems with fit and comfort, these headphones would all sound pretty similar. Odds are the variation due to manufacturing tolerances between two headphones of the same make and model might be as different as the differences between these different makes and models.