stereocilia said:

 

 
http://xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html
 

Notice the HeadRoom graph for the LCD-3, between the 1Khz and 10Khz, now notice the bottom red line for the "threshold of hearing" graph, notice how sensitive the human ears are to freqs in 1Khz to 10Khz range, if the LCD-3 isn't considered "flat" why call it a tier 1 headphone? 
 
   

 All this "Flatter" talk sounds like BS! HD 800 Technical Data, Frequency response (headphones) 14 – 44100 Hz (- 3 dB), everybody knows the HD 800 sounds flat especially in the low end  http://en-us.sennheiser.com/dynamic-headphones-high-end-around-ear-hd-800

Click to expand...

 
 the only thing that most professionals agree upon is that there still isn't a perfectly flat headphone compensation(for several reasons more or less important or objective). so "top tier headphones are flat" can't pretend to be a rule if flat isn't really defined to begin with.
 
 
now you're making a comparison between fletcher's curve and the headroom one except that the headroom one is compensated.(and nice job showing this one with a 50db amplitude to make them seem flatter than they are BTW).

that's what they look like in raw measurements:

so now who's the flat top tier one? and what relation do they have with the equal loudness contour?
 
and last but not least, your opinion that the hd800 sounds flat is your own, certainly not everybody's and certainly not mine. I find it to sound disturbingly bright and don't own one for that very reason.

I think it's worth noting that the amplitude scale is measured in dBr, AKA decibel reference value.
 
Disadvantages of decibel reference value, excerpt taken from Wikipedia
 
According to several articles published in Electrical Engineering[26] and the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America,[27][28][29] the decibel suffers from the following disadvantages:
 
The decibel creates confusion.
The logarithmic form obscures reasoning.
Decibels are more related to the era of slide rules than that of modern digital processing.
Decibels are cumbersome and difficult to interpret.
Representing the equivalent of zero watts is not possible, causing problems in conversions.
 
Hickling concludes "Decibels are a useless affectation, which is impeding the development of noise control as an engineering discipline".[28]
 
Another disadvantage is that quantities in decibels are not necessarily additive,[30][31] thus being "of unacceptable form for use in dimensional analysis".[32]
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decibel  
 
Like I said it's all BS
 
http://whalerider.bandcamp.com/album/was-it-only-a-dream
Was it only a dream

Good thing we're not discussing dimensional analysis or the development of noise control as an engineering discipline, we'd be in trouble otherwise.

stereocilia said:

  The decibel creates confusion.

Click to expand...

 
Just as I figure out decibels they go and change to something else! It's the metric system all over again!

Here's my BS (Belief System)
 

 
I'm looking at the "equal loudness curves derived from Fletcher and Munson" go right to 1Khz mark and then up to 90dB mark...the curve is about as "flat' as the human ear gets. Now compare this curve to the Sennheiser HD800 (2013) below
 
HeadRoom "All measurements are done with the volume at the headphones at 90dB SPL@1kHz. A Sound Pressure Level of 90dB is a little louder than normal listening volume; headphones should be able to reproduce well at this level."
 

The trace is not an exact match and if it was an exact match I wouldn't believe it because Fletcher and Munson research was derived using human ears (plural) while HeadRoom is using a simulated head with ears and microphones (singular). Anyways the two traces share common characteristics.. both traces start out relatively flat and then roll off into a smooth dip in the 1Khz to 5Khz range and then back up again. Of course this analysis is not going to reveal much about the actual way the Sennheiser HD800 sound..this is where the science ends and the ear of the beholder begins    

nice to see you didn't understand my post about the compensations applied to a graph.
so here is my BS:
 


this is 24h of air pressure measured somewhere in Kazakhstan, see how it goes up on the right? well clearly that shows the hd800 is bright.
you've been trying to do the same stuff by making a direct comparison of one graph that is a statistical response from human testing, and another that is a measurement from a microphone that was then compensated to whatever Headroom chose to apply. and then you go blame the difficulties of interpretation on decibel and the limits of science...
sorry but just NO!
 
 
the fact that our ears roll off at both ends of the audible range doesn't mean that the world needs to compensate for it. sound in the real world is neutral, and we will hear it how we will hear it. then our brain will with experience, tell us that it is how we should hear that sound, and we will call it "neutral". do we need to EQ a bird in the forest? no, it will sound pretty darn realistic just the way it is.
 
I suggest you read a little more about the reasons why the sound changes before reaching our ears. IEMs, headphones, and speakers won't sound the same with the same signature, and the corrections we're trying to find are mostly aimed at making headphones sound like flat speakers in a room(so not a flat sound in fact). this has absolutly nothing to do with fletcher munson.

The guy's just trolling his random pseudoscience.

Well, I'm always looking for useful cut and paste obfuscation. You never know when that might come in handy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fletcher%E2%80%93Munson_curves
 
Please... to make the claim that Fletcher–Munson does NOT apply to headphones design and implementation is not only wrong it's a whack statement.
 
I wish Head-Fi came with a warning, a disclaimer that reads... Castle of BS ahead.
 
http://www.heilsound.com/pro/support/mic-primer/fletcher-munson-curve
 
http://ehomerecordingstudio.com/fletcher-munson-curve/
 
http://www.lindos.co.uk/cgi-bin/FlexiData.cgi?SOURCE=Articles&VIEW=full&id=17
 
Equal-loudness contours were first measured by Fletcher and Munson using headphones (1933). In their study, listeners were presented with pure tones at various frequencies and over 10 dB increments in stimulus intensity. For each frequency and intensity, the listener was also presented with a reference tone at 1000 Hz. The reference tone was adjusted until it was perceived to be of the same loudness as the test tone. Loudness, being a psychological quantity, is difficult to measure, so Fletcher and Munson averaged their results over many test subjects to derive reasonable averages.
 
How's that for random pseudoscience?

The music is mixed and mastered by human beings with ears that conform to the Fletcher Munson curve, so shouldn't playing it back into human ears require no compensation? Just a flat transfer straight across should already conform to Fletcher Munson. No?

bigshot said:

  The music is mixed and mastered by human beings with ears that conform to the Fletcher Munson curve, so shouldn't playing it back into human ears require no compensation? Just a flat transfer straight across should already conform to Fletcher Munson. No?

Click to expand...

what's more music is played by people who also happen to have ears and sometimes use them.
 
anyway, I tried explaining twice, it didn't work, good luck if someone else wants to try.

"The Fletcher Munson Curve is a graph that illustrates an interesting phenomenon of human hearing.  As the actual loudness of a sound changes, the perceived loudness our brains hear will change, depending on the frequency." (that's hard science folks)
 
"Loudness, being a psychological quantity, is difficult to measure, so Fletcher and Munson averaged their results over many test subjects to derive reasonable averages." (subjective)
 
What it means...(if your on the same page so to speak)
 
"At low listening volumes, mid range frequencies sound more prominent, while the low and high frequency ranges seem to fall into the background." (I agree with this)
 
"At high listening volumes, the lows and highs sound more prominent, while the mid range seems comparatively softer." (I agree with that)
 
"Actual loudness"  is going to vary between different listeners right? Some like it softer others louder (subjective)
 
I'm never going to listen to my Grado GS1000's @ 90dB however I think it sounds great at lower softer volume levels and the trace below suggest why
 

 
Different strokes for different folks and different listening levels and different amps and so on. Class dismissed 

Amps have DRC buttons to fix that. Just pop that button on and it's the same response at any volume. Works like a charm.

bigshot said:

The music is mixed and mastered by human beings with ears that conform to the Fletcher Munson curve, so shouldn't playing it back into human ears require no compensation? Just a flat transfer straight across should already conform to Fletcher Munson. No?

Click to expand...

No. A listener with speakers setup in a room is fully susceptible to F/M effects driven by the amplitude of the playback material. You're dead wrong.

How is applies to headphones is beyond me.

bigshot said:

Amps have DRC buttons to fix that. Just pop that button on and it's the same response at any volume. Works like a charm.

Click to expand...

Boy, do we shop in different stores for totally different equipment. Haven't been to Best Buy in years.

shaffer said:

Boy, do we shop in different stores for totally different equipment. Haven't been to Best Buy in years.

Click to expand...

 
You should. Midrange solid state amps are just as good as high end ones nowadays. Electronics is electronics.