[Resolve]

Trying more set will never do the job because there are no two different sets on the market that have exactly the same frequency response realized with different kind of drivers. As I said, not even different units of the same model have exactly the same response due to unit variation, and also, different fit with each listening. I don't know why you think simply trying more sets will help make your point.

Manufacturers use a certain type of driver in a frequency range because it is easier to achieve the desired frequency response in that region, at least for the more scientifically minded manufacturers. DDs more easily get your that healthy bass shape. ESTs more easily give you a smooth treble response. BAs more easily give you narrow frequency bands to fine tune the midrange. these choices don't presuppose the existence of factors not related to frequency response.

There is nothing wrong with paying thousands for tuning, if tuning is indeed all there is to sound in iems. and tuning to these complex shapes that are deliberately and meticulously designed as in the subtonic storm is no easy feat. even if eq-ing can theoretically realize all of that, coming up with the target itself is already a job that takes a lot of work. and realizing the response with purely analog means is something to appreciate in itself, just like mechanical watches. quartz and electronic watches have long overtaken mechanical watches in accuracy and reliability. but there is still a point of making and buying mechanical watches, just for the mechanical marvel they pull off. the same goes for iems and headphones. even if someday we have accurate "FR at the eardrum" measurement and every model is easily imitated with eq, there is still a point with making expensive analog iems and headphones that realize complex response, just to appreciate the marvels of acoustic design.

Thank you for saying this! This is exactly it. This hobby has a tendency to cause people to praise acoustic systems in terms of the driver story and so on, maybe because it's easier for people to understand. But when it comes to the acoustics themselves, the measured effect is regularly downplayed or dismissed. Maybe it's that folks feel it reduces the richness of their experiences of a given acoustic system to a graph - and the reality is it probably shouldn't be seen that way. The graph is just the description of the acoustic effect in a given condition.


But... I also can't expect everyone to get there when they've thought of it differently for so long. I remember having the same concerns about FR even just a few years ago, until I started doing the manual sweeps, EQing to my HRTF and so on. Although I suppose people just want to get good headphones and enjoy themselves - rather than going that deep into the rabbit hole haha.

 

[Resolve]

I do not follow your response. The current graphs only show one line…essentially it shows an IEM can play each frequency. The graph does not show any Timbral information other than if some basic overtones might be excited. Each instrument has its own set of overtones. How does that graph explain all of them for a musical track?

Yes, so as mentioned before, the graph can be shown with a music stimulus as well. Like provided you had a track with sufficient range, you would end up getting the same FR result as what you get with a sweep, or an FFT. It's just... extra steps, which is why we don't do it that way.

 

[Frankie D]

I have to disagree simply based on real world comparisons. I have heard IEMs that graph in a similar fashion, yet sound completely different. My point was not that it cannot be done. My point was I do not feel the current graphs provide enough data to make an exacting timbral prediction other then some basic info.

A video was mentioned. Where is it?

 

[Rolu]

Do you have a reason for believing that the subjective bass performance is not affected by the rest of the frequency response?

I meant to say I don't believe it can be the only thing.. right? How does one determine bass slam, resolution, decay etc. from the left side of a single line of an FR graph? Isn't that just a measure of earphone audio output at different frequencies?

Similarly how does a FR graph tell someone about imaging, holography, that an earphone will have an odd zing towards the ends of voices, or that treble will sound 'sweet' and inaccurate from real-life instrument reproduction, etc. etc.?

 

[Doltonius]

I do not follow your response. The current graphs only show one line…essentially it shows an IEM can play each frequency. The graph does not show any Timbral information other than if some basic overtones might be excited. Each instrument has its own set of overtones. How does that graph explain all of them for a musical track?

It shows how loud the iem plays each frequency relative to one another, which directly determines the timbre of each instrument, because timbre is the relative amplitude of the overtones and the fundamental.

What notes and what instruments are involved in a musical track is not information about the iem; it is information about the music. If you bring the info about the music, and combine it with the info about the iem, i.e., the frequency response, then you are able to predict the timbre of each instrument in the music. Of course you can’t say anything about the music if just know about the iem but know nothing about the music. But indeed this tells us that when we discuss the timbre of iems, it should be relativized to each instrument. The same frequency response can impact different instruments differently.

A notable example is ie900. Its rather special response makes high orchestral instruments brighter but male vocals darker. Completely predictable from the frequency response and the acoustic characteristics of these instruments.

 

[Resolve]

I have to disagree simply based on real world comparisons. I have heard IEMs that graph in a similar fashion, yet sound completely different. My point was not that it cannot be done. My point was I do not feel the current graphs provide enough data to make an exacting timbral prediction other then some basic info.

A video was mentioned. Where is it?

It's not published yet - but it's basically a video version of the talk that was given at CanJam NYC and SoCal.

 

[aaf evo]

Trying more set will never do the job because there are no two different sets on the market that have exactly the same frequency response realized with different kind of drivers. As I said, not even different units of the same model have exactly the same response due to unit variation, and also, different fit with each listening. I don't know why you think simply trying more sets will help make your point.

Manufacturers use a certain type of driver in a frequency range because it is easier to achieve the desired frequency response in that region, at least for the more scientifically minded manufacturers. DDs more easily get your that healthy bass shape. ESTs more easily give you a smooth treble response. BAs more easily give you narrow frequency bands to fine tune the midrange. these choices don't presuppose the existence of factors not related to frequency response.

There is nothing wrong with paying thousands for tuning, if tuning is indeed all there is to sound in iems. and tuning to these complex shapes that are deliberately and meticulously designed as in the subtonic storm is no easy feat. even if eq-ing can theoretically realize all of that, coming up with the target itself is already a job that takes a lot of work. and realizing the response with purely analog means is something to appreciate in itself, just like mechanical watches. quartz and electronic watches have long overtaken mechanical watches in accuracy and reliability. but there is still a point of making and buying mechanical watches, just for the mechanical marvel they pull off. the same goes for iems and headphones. even if someday we have accurate "FR at the eardrum" measurement and every model is easily imitated with eq, there is still a point with making expensive analog iems and headphones that realize complex response, just to appreciate the marvels of acoustic design.

Thank you for saying this! This is exactly it. This hobby has a tendency to cause people to praise acoustic systems in terms of the driver story and so on, maybe because it's easier for people to understand. But when it comes to the acoustics themselves, the measured effect is regularly downplayed or dismissed. Maybe it's that folks feel it reduces the richness of their experiences of a given acoustic system to a graph - and the reality is it probably shouldn't be seen that way. The graph is just the description of the acoustic effect in a given condition.


But... I also can't expect everyone to get there when they've thought of it differently for so long. I remember having the same concerns about FR even just a few years ago, until I started doing the manual sweeps, EQing to my HRTF and so on. Although I suppose people just want to get good headphones and enjoy themselves - rather than going that deep into the rabbit hole haha.

I'm sorry, but the fact that neither of you can comprehend or accept that we "experience" music reproduction differently down to something as simple as different driver types being used makes discussing this topic any further irrelevant. You cannot look at a frequency response and tell me if it's an all-BA, hybrid, tribrid etc. and this directly impacts how we may hear things differently. Although I am not sure what to believe at this point. In Resolve's own Storm review he mentions that the BA bass in Storm can likely be confused for DD, which is indirectly acknowledging and agreeing with my claim. However, when I make this same point that something like different driver configuration of a similar frequency response can lead to a different experience/perception in our ears it just seems to go completely ignored, or it is disregarded because the frequency response between two IEMs is not identical. Which likely will never exist due to driver and unit variance.

I understand the frequency response claims that altering X hz could lead to perceiving Y hz as such, but claiming it is the reason we might have said "experience" is just not something I will agree with.

You can have your own opinion, I respect it but I don't agree with it. But coming in here and acting like your input is correct and others are not is just arrogant. Frequency response is massively important to what we hear, but how it is achieved and what drivers are used to achieve it also plays a big role.

Anyways, that is the last post I will make regarding this topic of discussion. I don't want to have to respond to any more accounts created today

Happy listening, all.

 

[Doltonius]

I meant to say I don't believe it can be the only thing.. right? How does one determine bass slam, resolution, decay etc. from the left side of a single line of an FR graph? Isn't that just a measure of earphone audio output at different frequencies?

Similarly how does a FR graph tell someone about imaging, holography, that an earphone will have an odd zing towards the ends of voices, or that treble will sound 'sweet' and inaccurate from real-life instrument reproduction, etc. etc.?

It is about interpretation. We don’t know how to interpret the graph to give us these judgements. But the graph does contain basically the information we need about the iem. It is clear that if you mess with the response of an iem with eq, likely all of the properties will change. This already shows the causal relationship between the response and these properties. It is just that our understanding of the graph is not advanced enough so that we can just look at the graph and immediately tell about bass slam, imaging, etc.

Some of the things you talked about are known to be predictable from frequency response even now, like treble accuracy and naturalness, zinginess of vocals. These are fairly straightforward to deduce from the response, because they are about timbre, which is the one thing that is most clearly represented in the graph.

 

[Resolve]

I understand the frequency response claims that altering X hz could lead to perceiving Y hz as such, but claiming it is the reason we might have said "experience" is just not something I will agree with.

So I don't think we should be claiming it's the sole reason you may be having a given experience. There are other factors that contribute to your experience. Yes... there are various biases that influence our experiences, but more importantly there are both acoustic and psychoacoustic factors as well - and it's worth taking that stuff seriously. As @MayaTlab mentioned earlier, BA based IEMs will typically have elevated third and fifth harmonic distortion. Whether these products are audible is a bit of an open question, since they're often still quite low. However, the higher order products being farther away from the fundamental means they may be outside the masking window at certain volumes. And the audibility threshold of distortion products is something that's not really that well understood on a person to person basis.


I will say... a few years ago, Oratory1990 came to visit our office, and he brought an IEM with him and had me listen to it. I couldn't tell there was any meaningful distortion, and neither could he, but he told me afterwards that it was close to 10% in certain places, which is super high.

You cannot look at a frequency response and tell me if it's an all-BA, hybrid, tribrid etc. and this directly impacts how we may hear things differently. Although I am not sure what to believe at this point. In Resolve's own Storm review he mentions that the BA bass in Storm can likely be confused for DD, which is indirectly acknowledging and agreeing with my claim.

It's not about the graph telling you what drivers are being used - although there are some instances where it does. Rather, it's that you can achieve a given FR result in many different ways, and it's the FR result that's ultimately what matters here, provided other factors like harmonic distortion are sufficiently below audible. And the point about BA bass vs DD bass in the storm video is essentially saying that as well, the issue is primarily the limitations on 711 rigs for not being able to accurately show the bass performance. To illustrate the point, we recently did a video that explains acoustic Z differences for each rig and this may help with that.

 

[Somafunk]

I won’t drive a car that performs best on a dyno test because I know that won’t translate to the track.

Not really a suitable analogy, a dyno of known calibration to iso376 uk/europe will tell you the power curve and torque curve which will directly translate to the track, it will not tell you anything regarding setup of suspension/brakes etc

You are viewing this in terms of absolutes, when in fact our senses do not work this way. You can have a different perception of hearing, vision, smell, or taste simply by just having a headache or being tired

If that is the case then a subjective description of how an iem sounds will vary wildly depending on the conditions you have mentioned

 

[Doltonius]

I'm sorry, but the fact that neither of you can comprehend or accept that we "experience" music reproduction differently down to something as simple as different driver types being used makes discussing this topic any further irrelevant. You cannot look at a frequency response and tell me if it's an all-BA, hybrid, tribrid etc. and this directly impacts how we may hear things differently. Although I am not sure what to believe at this point. In Resolve's own Storm review he mentions that the BA bass in Storm can likely be confused for DD, which is indirectly acknowledging and agreeing with my claim. However, when I make this same point that something like different driver configuration of a similar frequency response can lead to a different experience/perception in our ears it just seems to go completely ignored, or it is disregarded because the frequency response between two IEMs is not identical. Which likely will never exist due to driver and unit variance.

I understand the frequency response claims that altering X hz could lead to perceiving Y hz as such, but claiming it is the reason we might have said "experience" is just not something I will agree with.

You can have your own opinion, I respect it but I don't agree with it. But coming in here and acting like your input is correct and others are not is just arrogant. Frequency response is massively important to what we hear, but how it is achieved and what drivers are used to achieve it also plays a big role.

Anyways, that is the last post I will make regarding this topic of discussion. I don't want to have to respond to any more accounts created today

Happy listening, all.

You state your opinion as fact, as well, that people's perception of sound is impacted by driver type independently of frequency respsonse. However, there is never any conrtrolled experiment where frequency response is held constant, unless you are listening to just the same iem, in which case you can manipulate the driver type as an independent variable.

I find it puzzling that resolve's comment on the bass of the storm is interpreted in your favor. The fact that well-tuned BA bass can sound like DD bass, should definitely mean that driver type is not that important.

My arrogance, if you can call it such, is just the kind of arrogance that is necessary for science; it is just Occam's Razor. In science, you don't believe in the existence of a certain causal effect unless all other reasonable confounding factors have been removed and the correlation still exists. We know for sure that FR causally impacts the sound, because with EQ that targets only the FR, we are able to change the sound in significant ways. But we don't have evidence that driver type, independently of FR, impacts the sound, because the relevant controlled experiment has never been done.

 

[emdeevee]

I'm sorry, but the fact that neither of you can comprehend or accept that we "experience" music reproduction differently down to something as simple as different driver types being used makes discussing this topic any further irrelevant. You cannot look at a frequency response and tell me if it's an all-BA, hybrid, tribrid etc. and this directly impacts how we may hear things differently. Although I am not sure what to believe at this point. In Resolve's own Storm review he mentions that the BA bass in Storm can likely be confused for DD, which is indirectly acknowledging and agreeing with my claim. However, when I make this same point that something like different driver configuration of a similar frequency response can lead to a different experience/perception in our ears it just seems to go completely ignored, or it is disregarded because the frequency response between two IEMs is not identical. Which likely will never exist due to driver and unit variance.

I understand the frequency response claims that altering X hz could lead to perceiving Y hz as such, but claiming it is the reason we might have said "experience" is just not something I will agree with.

You can have your own opinion, I respect it but I don't agree with it. But coming in here and acting like your input is correct and others are not is just arrogant. Frequency response is massively important to what we hear, but how it is achieved and what drivers are used to achieve it also plays a big role.

Anyways, that is the last post I will make regarding this topic of discussion. I don't want to have to respond to any more accounts created today

Happy listening, all.

Yeah, that's how it is...a squig cannot reveal a multitude of things about an iem. It gives you a mathematical representation of the FR and tuning, but generically because they can't measure at the eardrum. In the end it seems helpful but hardly dispositive of the "experience".

 

[Doltonius]

Yeah, that's how it is...a squig cannot reveal a multitude of things about an iem. It gives you a mathematical representation of the FR and tuning, but generically because they can't measure at the eardrum. In the end it seems helpful but hardly dispositive of the "experience".

Your sentiment is actually different. At least you entertain the possibility that the FR graphs are not good enough because they are not measured at your own eardrum. @aaf evo on the other hand dismisses even that possibility. they seem to believe that even if we know the actual FR at your eardrum the driver type still has a separate effect on the experience.

 

[Resolve]

Yeah, that's how it is...a squig cannot reveal a multitude of things about an iem. It gives you a mathematical representation of the FR and tuning, but generically because they can't measure at the eardrum. In the end it seems helpful but hardly dispositive of the "experience".

Just to be clear, the measurements are actually taken "at the ear drum", just not at the ear drums of individual people. So the various features of the human anatomy that impact sound on the way to the ear drum are simulated anthropometrically by the various measurement rigs out there.

But also, I would agree that there's currently a limit on the analysis of FR for various qualities to the experience, and for that reason it's essential to also report the subjective experience as well. Nobody is saying an FR graph should replace subjective reports - certainly I wouldn't say that.

 

[Rolu]

It is about interpretation. We don’t know how to interpret the graph to give us these judgements. But the graph does contain basically the information we need about the iem. It is clear that if you mess with the response of an iem with eq, likely all of the properties will change. This already shows the causal relationship between the response and these properties. It is just that our understanding of the graph is not advanced enough so that we can just look at the graph and immediately tell about bass slam, imaging, etc.

Some of the things you talked about are known to be predictable from frequency response even now, like treble accuracy and naturalness, zinginess of vocals. These are fairly straightforward to deduce from the response, because they are about timbre, which is the one thing that is most clearly represented in the graph.

Ok so you agree interpretation of some aspects of the audio experience is at least currently not available. That takes me back me the first point I made- why should one look at the graph to determine the audio experience, probably except for general overall signature, roll-off, channel imbalance?
The problem that if an FR graph cannot capture everything one hears, or that it cannot be interpreted for everything it contains, is 2 sides of the same coin for me.