Thanks for the good summary of the research, and pointing out some of the misconceptions about its purpose and application. Indeed, there is no pressure we put on competitors to adopt our research into their products, and I'm not even sure how or why such pressure might be applied? In fact...

I watched this video again. I do not dispute that the new B&K 5128 may be more accurate than the old 711 at low and high frequencies. That is not at issue. However, the measurements of different samples of an IEM headphones on different 711 couplers, measured by different people at different...

Your proposed method doesn't take into account that there are significant differences in bass between headphones measured on the 5128 vs the original GRAS45 CA -MOD pinnae. So if you measure an calibrated loudspeaker in a room with a 5128 and then equalize an on-ear headphone to that curve...

As far as Harman consumer models that closely meet the Harman Target Curves: the AKG N700 MI1 comes very close with a predicted score of 92% based on measured deviations from the Target Curve (see measurement below). For IE models the Samsung Galaxy Buds come very close, as does the AKG N5005...

Quote:   To answer your questions:   1. (a) Yes, all of the headphone and in-room loudspeaker frequency response measurements were steady-state. The in-room loudspeaker measurement for RR1_G and RR_G are based on measurements of the LSR 6332 + subs made with a 43AG flush mounted to...

Quote: No, in the virtual test the LCD-2 was ranked one place lower than in the standard test. We speculated this may have been due to biases in the real test (its weight and feel) but we can't be certain without repeating the standard test with the weight/feel removed as a nuisance...

Quote:   We recently looked into listener preferences for different headphones equalized to different target responses. The diffuse and free-field options were indeed perceived by listeners as sounding  too thin and bright. The most preferred headphone target response was based on...

Quote:   Yes, I think the paper shows that bass leakage was more of a problem on certain headphones than others. See slides 34 to 39.  HP2, HP4 and HP6 tended to have more variation in measured in-ear response across subjects due to headphone  fit / air leaks.  You see the same variance...

Quote: The measurements are based on an average of 5-6 re-seatings. They aren't equalized in the sense that we haven't tried to remove the transfer function of the GRAS 43AG , which has nothing to do with free or diffuse field equalization.   What you are talking about is what the ideal...

Quote: We now have both large (male) and small (female) pinnae. The smaller ones give a better fit-seal for intra- concha type phones, but we are using the large ones now for circumaural type phones.   We are all equal opportunity research lab when it comes to dummies and pinnae...

Quote: Perceived spectral balance is based on the average spectral rating given by the listeners in each trial.  For each headphone, the listeners give a rating from -5 to +5 in 7 equal log spaced frequency bands where -5 is too little energy, 0 is ideal, and +5 is too much emphasis. If...

I've posted a summary of the paper in my blog yesterday. There is a link to the slides from our talk as well.   http://seanolive.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-relationship-between-perception-and.html

You might get in trouble for breaking AES copyright. As AES Prsident Elect I might be obligated to have your AES membership revoked if you give out free copies of AES papers :)

Quote: First, you have to establish and define what you mean by "subpar" quality of audio gear in today's market. Is this based on an opinion, electroacoustic measurements, listening tests, etc? What evidence do you have that audio gear in general has gotten worse?    For example, the...

Quote:   Thanks for the thorough review of our paper, which I hope to soon discuss in my blog. I would disagree with your statement that the Audeze model we tested is closest to the diffuse field (DF) response recommended by the IEC spec. When measured on our GRAS 43 AG coupler/ear...

Thanks. Yes, I intend to blog about this research and will include links to the paper and slides that were presented at the AES Convention in San Francisco last week.

Quote: When I talk about trends I refer to the means of untrained groups of listeners compared to trained groups. In several published studies on loudspeaker preference I have done ANOVA where training was an independent variable and the effect is statistically significant. 

Quote:   Agreed. It would be nice to have a larger, balanced sample size across groups, but the trends and conclusions about training effects are pretty consistent across different studies done by myself and others. Trained listeners tend to be more discriminating and consistent in their...

The graph represents the "relative" performance of different groups of untrained listeners relative to the trained listeners. Here, the performance metric is based on the average individual listener Loudspeaker F-statistic within each group. The F-statistic is calculated from an ANOVA on the...

I didn't write the article (Matthias did), but I think the title comes down to the writer's last paragraph where he says it is more likely the volume at which kids listen to headphones will be cause of damage to their hearing and taste in sound quality - rather than the quality of the music...

  Can the Germans be really proud of MP3 or has the digital stroke of genius desensitized the hearing of a complete generation? Read on here:

Thanks!!  You're welcome :)

Thomas Edison was probably the greatest stereo salesman that ever lived. He believed that "listeners will hear what you tell them to hear", and apparently he was very successful at convincing thousands of listeners that his 1910 Edison Diamond Disc Phonograph reproduced music recordings that...