The Neutral / Balanced Thread - Page 19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Head Injury 

This is assuming that a flat curve sounds neutral, though. That's not true for everyone, or compared to every reference.

That's also generally assumed untrue for headphones, seeing as most recordings are created for speakers, and headphones do not allow for higher frequencies to have attenuated before they hit the eardrum.  (as you said, reference is key here)

The entire direction of this thread has turned out to be very silly.

I haven't read through this thread simply because perhaps two of the most neutral phones ever made aren't even listed.  The UERM and HP1000.

 Almost no one has heard the W11R and I don't think anyone has heard all those headphones in the poll

I have the LCD-2 rev2 and HD600 and HD580.  I've not heard the SR-009.  Maybe one will show up at a Seattle meet (a head-fier in the Seattle area has one).  I don't think anyone in the Portland area has one (I'm in Portland).

It is interesting that the LCD-2 does a similar shelf to the SR-009 and some of the other Stax.  Visually the shelves look similar.  Just not sure if they sound as similar as they look.  That shelf is a curious thing.  You wouldn't think it would sound right, but it does.

I know comparing graphs are fun but this talk of the 009 and LCD2 sounding similar is quite misleading.  I would caution anyone drawing quick conclusions unless you've heard both.  

Even if we used the Innerfidelity graphs, at 5kHz, the LCD2 is ~15db down from 1kHz. The 009 is ~5db down. It's best to not to compare FR graphs from different sources.

Sometimes I feel that FR graphs are a great dis-service because they let people who actually haven't heard headphones present "evidence" when they really have no idea what they are talking about.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anaxilus 

I haven't read through this thread simply because perhaps two of the most neutral phones ever made aren't even listed.  The UERM and HP1000.

The UERM is the most neutral thing I've heard. Even more than the 009. Your HP1000s are more neutral than mine and LFF's.

       Quote:

Originally Posted by bcasey25raptor 

OK guys. I have had my HD 25 1 II for a couple days now. I will tell you right now there is no way these are neutral. They are bassy and trebly with a slightly laid back midrange. If anything i consider them bass heavy. But extremely good quality bass though.

100% agree. My measurements also agree.

I don't think FR is the only thing that determines neutrality when talking tonality.  For instance, what if two headphones have the same FR but one has slow decay in the upper mids and another has slow decay in the midbass?  They won't sound the same because there's so much more energy in one area of the FR than another.  I think it'd be kinda cool to take something like purrin's CSD measurements to calculate the 'volume' of a given frequency (based on decay) and then illustrate it as a 2D graph similar to normal FR plots.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Draygonn 

People are saying the LCD-2 is neutral?

Where have you been?

WRT LCD and SR009, it is interesting that the graphs are so similar looking and yet clearly they sound very different (I haven't heard the SR009 but I have heard the HE60, HE90, multiple other Stax so I can imagine their sound to a degree based on the impressions).  So I guess either the graphs are inconsistent or the different technologies accounts for more of the difference in sound than FR (doesn't seem likely)

Quote:

Originally Posted by n3rdling 

I don't think FR is the only thing that determines neutrality when talking tonality.  For instance, what if two headphones have the same FR but one has slow decay in the upper mids and another has slow decay in the midbass?  They won't sound the same because there's so much more energy in one area of the FR than another.  I think it'd be kinda cool to take something like purrin's CSD measurements to calculate the 'volume' of a given frequency (based on decay) and then illustrate it as a 2D graph similar to normal FR plots.

Would that look like his overhead views? 

Kinda but the overhead views are a little more complex due to color.  This would be completely two dimensional.  I guess I suck at explaining it :p  It'd be calculated something like: "volume at any given frequency in the CSD" converted to a number, number would then be plotted accordingly on the y axis for the given frequency on the x axis.