How far can EQ really go towards truly equalizing headphones? - Page 12

Isn't that last 5% what we all fork over millions for in Hifi audio...?
 

The people I've seen who talk about the last 5% are te ones who really haven't addressed the other 95%. it's easy to throw money at fixing tiny little things that don't matter. Achieving a balanced response takes a lot of careful listening, lots of adjustments, and lots of work. If you do that, the last few percent won't matter.

The JH11 / JH13 / JH16 already sound so similar to me, that with 15 minutes and an equalizer, they are surely within 5%, so I'll give you that, but the ER-4 and JH11 within 5% is never going to happen.

 

Unless your niche and inclination is - per default - the last 5%.

 

Like I told you in pm, making a cheap phone sound like an expensive one isn't the point.  bigshot has it right, finding the right target FR was the hardest work for me and still an ongoing project.  But now that I have a pretty good idea what I'm after, I can find it in most of the headphones I own.

If you haven't donethe work to get the 95% taken care of, all the rest will give you is 5%... and to be honest, once you have a really flat response, I doubt you'd even hear any difference by worrying about cables and electronics.

The only people who should use eq are recording,cutting and mastering engineers.

 

if you need eq to make your system to sound good there is a fault elsewhere, maybe even in the

recording. The secret to audio heaven is finding the best masterings of the music you love.

 

I wasn't saying cheap versus expensive is the point either, I was saying any target FR you have in mind in the ER-4 and JH11 they will never sound within 5% and not 15% either, unless percentages are a subective definition, then any singular individual can say what they want, but that isn't how it works.

 

If cheap versus expensive was the point, I'd say the ER-4 is $200 overpriced, and you can achieve pretty much the same IEM by increasing the resistance of the HF5 to 90 ohms, or perhaps just playing with EQ.  I'd also say $500 for the XBA-4 at my local Sony store isn't very good, versus the $100 UE700 with clearly higher performance, in some areas, which I pointed out via PM already with the scientific reasons for you.  I've never advocated that higher price is automatically better.

 

 

 

I'm aware of your position by now, and that you've compared SACD players line-out versus the iPod Nano.

 

I use radioshack cables.

Edited by kiteki - 7/4/12 at 12:53pm

That's your opinion, and it's wrong. Ever heard of RIAA equalization (pre-emphasis)? Room correction? Crossfeed? HRTF-processing? Loudness eq? Bi-amping? What about speakers/amps with built-in EQ? ....

 

Btw, do you choose headphones on the way they sound? So what's wrong with applying an EQ to make 'em sound even better? (There's no perfect headphone.)

Edited by xnor - 7/4/12 at 12:58pm

Not to long ago I had in my possession a Beyerdynamics DT990-250 whose sonic features are described as "strong bass and tremble." Some people have described it as being mids recessed, bright, and with good amounts of bass.

 

There is a bit of different opinions as to whether it's characteristics are pleasant or fun. Some people will say that its an appropriate headphone for movies and some types of music. Regardless, I have not seen anyone say this is a neutral headphone. We are talking quite a few different heads and ears. Are these features captured in the measurements? Well lets see:

 

 

The measurement above indicates that this is a relatively smooth FR with strong bass, and even stronger tremble. It is well extended as well. Mid-range seems recessed relative to bass and tremble, but flat in the region between 1kHz to 4kHz.

 

Prior to observing the measurements, I did perceived this headphone to be very bright, but otherwise very pleasant. The tremble bothered me with certain songs: Isao Tomita's "Claire de Lune", Bob Marley's "You could be loved", among others.

 

As far as equalization is concerned, I used Audacity (Linux) to EQ a couple of "reference" songs (songs I've heard on many different rigs) using the measurements above as a reference. Here are the equalizer settings:

 

 

What happened after applying the equalizer to the songs? They sounded a lot more pleasant to me. Some details that were previously obscured by the tremble and the bass came forward, and I no longer had any issues with fatigue. I could turn up the volume a bit with out feeling discomfort.

 

Given that many other people (with different HRTF) have similar impressions of this headphone, I gather they would perceive similar improvements if they apply equalization.

 

As far as faulty equipment is concerned, I'm not aware of a single rig that is problem free (even expensive and reference level Orpheus.) There are however rigs with less issues than others. And by the same rationale that we have HRTF (among other things) differences, things can be further tailored to your preferences using an EQ.

Edited by ultrabike - 7/4/12 at 2:49pm

Wrong.

If you want to hear what the recording engineers laid down, you need to calibrate your system to match theirs. Every decent recording studio monitors using speakers adjusted for flat response. Electronics are all flat, but your headphones and speakers to an even greater extent can deviate from a balanced response. If you want to hear what the engineers intended, you have to custom EQ the response of your particular headphones or speakers.

The problem is, it isn't easy and it can't be bottled and sold to you as snake oil.

^well, or you can just buy the same speakers as the studio was using?, and dedicate one room in the house to listening.

 

Ever heard of room modes?

 

Edited by Joe Bloggs - 7/4/12 at 6:20pm

The dedicated listening room is an anechoic chamber lined with meter-thick acoustic wedges, duh!