Amplification power requirements for EQ (+3db rule)

[castleofargh]

The vibrating toy... suggestion is potentially the answer for you. There has been some research done on that, and it seems just as promising if not more than bass boost when it comes to feeling the sub freqs. As always when discussing subjective substitutes, not everybody responds the same way, so I cannot guaranty it would work great for you. Also it is my understanding that not all those ”shakers” are equal.
But in general, feeling a physical vibration(no matter where we feel it or if it's the same frequency as the music... seems weird, but Floyd Toole mentioned that, so it's more than likely to be true), tends to make the listener feel more/better bass.
Even if it only made you listen to music slightly quieter, that would still be a win for your ears. And who knows, maybe you’d actually enjoy it. Or not. Trying to replace sensory cues with others is ultimately a subjective gamble. Just like how you can enjoy music with a massive EQ boost in the subs, but for many people it soon starts to ruin the perception of everything else. An army of clones wouldn't bring up all those personal ways of interpreting the same cues. For a good audio future, vote general castleofargh!

 

[ADUHF]

These are diffuse field plots of some closed headphones which have a neutral-ish (imho) response in the bass and sub-bass. Versus the Audeze LCD-2 Classic and HFM Sundara on the 2nd graph.

If these plots are more or less correct, then in addition to the flatness in the bass, the two open planars are also showing a fairly pronounced dip at different points in the upper mids. Which is likely also effecting your perception of the rest of the frequency range to some degree. A dip of 5 dB or so at around 2k is fine, and probably not such a bad thing. But both the above headphones appear to be somewhat below that. And the Audeze also has a fairly pronounced dip at 4k, which really should not be there at all. It is quite possible that the above graphs are not current though. So I would take some of the info in the upper mids and treble with a little grain of salt.

Most open planars appear fairly flat in the bass on a diffuse field graph though. So the levels in that area are probably pretty close to correct. And the two open planars appear to be lacking alot of the smooth approximately 10 dB rise (give or take) from the upper mids to the sub-bass on the closed headphones shown above.

 

[ADUHF]

These are some other raw (as opposed to diffuse field) graphs of the Audeze LCD-2 Classic. And fwiw, most of these are also showing a dip at 4k. Audeze is known for doing alot of revisions within their existing models though. So these may also not all be up to date.

https://github.com/jaakkopasanen/AutoEq/tree/master/results/crinacle/ears-711_harman_over-ear_2018/Audeze LCD-2 Classic
https://github.com/jaakkopasanen/AutoEq/tree/master/results/crinacle/gras_43ag-7_harman_over-ear_2018/Audeze LCD-2 Classic
https://github.com/jaakkopasanen/AutoEq/tree/master/results/innerfidelity/innerfidelity_harman_over-ear_2018/Audeze LCD-2 Classic
https://www.rtings.com/headphones/1-4/graph#691/4011
https://www.rtings.com/headphones/1-4/graph#691/4012

 

[71 dB]

What is the actual issue though? You should check that reddit thread i created, i would like your input. Pretty interesting conversation going on there.

Sorry, but I'm not going to read 47 posts on reddit about this. I have told you my opinion about this and you do with it what you do. I am not a basshead myself (I don't EQ headphones. I only cross-feed) so I don't know how the ears of a basshead works. I gave you examples of how to calculate things, but it is you who decides how much boost you use. Usually there is barely any musical content below 30 Hz, and below 20 Hz we stop "hearing" sounds and instead feel them with our body, that is if the sound hits our body which does not happen with headphones.

Live concerts have live concert sound. Who says you need to have the same amount of (low) bass when you listen to headphones?

 

[luizffgarcia]

Sorry, but I'm not going to read 47 posts on reddit about this. I have told you my opinion about this and you do with it what you do. I am not a basshead myself (I don't EQ headphones. I only cross-feed) so I don't know how the ears of a basshead works. I gave you examples of how to calculate things, but it is you who decides how much boost you use. Usually there is barely any musical content below 30 Hz, and below 20 Hz we stop "hearing" sounds and instead feel them with our body, that is if the sound hits our body which does not happen with headphones.

Live concerts have live concert sound. Who says you need to have the same amount of (low) bass when you listen to headphones?

This is the part that matters the most:

"
There's some research into this matter that suggests that:

• for 64 % of people, the "correct" amount is around 5.5 dB
• for 15 % of people it's more than that, somewhere from 6-15 dB
• for 21 % of people it's less than that, somewhere from 0-3 dB.

"
I appreciate your opinion but i am trying to get a non subjective answer to this question. From all i heard so far there is no real problem related to having a bass boost, it is all personal opinions about how the music should sound. I wanted to find something that can be reproduced, that will not vary from person to person, such as "you will not hear this frequency", "you will not hear this detail in this song", something like that.

When people say "it will sound bloated" that is subjective and it does not for me, "it will kill the mids", also subjective, also does not happen for me.

I am not trying to be difficult here, i am genuinely trying to understand why people are so against it and if they are against it because the sound can really sound awful to them but not to others, and i am not talking about personal preference, i am talking about how their ears / brains perceive the sound.

What i see is that the absolute majority of audiophiles say "you cannot color the sound" and they don't even know why, either they always heard that EQ should not be done or they believe in that "the way the artist wanted it to sound" BS...

 

[luizffgarcia]

These are some other raw (as opposed to diffuse field) graphs of the Audeze LCD-2 Classic. And fwiw, most of these are also showing a dip at 4k. Audeze is known for doing alot of revisions within their existing models though. So these may also not all be up to date.

https://github.com/jaakkopasanen/AutoEq/tree/master/results/crinacle/ears-711_harman_over-ear_2018/Audeze LCD-2 Classic
https://github.com/jaakkopasanen/AutoEq/tree/master/results/crinacle/gras_43ag-7_harman_over-ear_2018/Audeze LCD-2 Classic
https://github.com/jaakkopasanen/AutoEq/tree/master/results/innerfidelity/innerfidelity_harman_over-ear_2018/Audeze LCD-2 Classic
https://www.rtings.com/headphones/1-4/graph#691/4011
https://www.rtings.com/headphones/1-4/graph#691/4012

Yep that is one of the reasons i always EQ, i have the LCD2C not for its sound signature, but for its technical capabilities. The first thing i did was to compensate for that dip, hahaha

 

[bigshot]

There's some research into this matter that suggests that:

• for 64 % of people, the "correct" amount is around 5.5 dB
• for 15 % of people it's more than that, somewhere from 6-15 dB
• for 21 % of people it's less than that, somewhere from 0-3 dB.

The correct amount of what?

The Harman curve is an average of preferences of many people. There are going to be outliers, but the majority of people prefer the Harman curve. You can google up the stats on that, but it's pretty much a bell curve.

It's perfectly fine to prefer a particular response imbalance. But you have to remember that frequency masking is caused by significant imbalances. If you boost one frequency, you may be totally cancelling out the frequency an octave or two above it. That's why mid bass bumps tend to make upper bass/low mids weak. You can than boost the upper bass/low mids to compensate, and it pushes the masking up another octave in the range.

If you want maximum clarity, a balanced response gives the most detail. And if you want big fat sub bass, speakers and a good subwoofer can do it a million times better than headphones. And as Castle said, a butt shaker would probably go a long way to getting you the sound you're craving. Sub bass is felt as much as it is heard.

 

[luizffgarcia]

The correct amount of what?

The Harman curve is an average of preferences of many people. There are going to be outliers, but the majority of people prefer the Harman curve. You can google up the stats on that, but it's pretty much a bell curve.

The "correct" amount of bass, regardless of the Harman curve, this is oratory's post from the thread i created here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/oratory1990/comments/n4dkf7/how_much_bass_is_too_much_bass/

He says that yes most people would prefer the Harman curve, but there is a big discrepancy when it comes to bass for the same group of people.

So he is pretty much saying 15% of people like that +15dB bass boost, same as me (well 6dB to 15dB).

 

[luizffgarcia]

If you want maximum clarity, a balanced response gives the most detail.

That is what i am trying to figure out, i know for sure i dont want maximum clarity what i do want is maximum enjoyment, but that doesn't mean super strong bass at the expense of screwing up all the other frequencies, i still want soundstage, instrument separation, detail retrieval, etc.

The thing is, people will just say "boosting the bass is wrong. PERIOD", and what i am noticing more and more is that this is not even close to be true, it is about personal preferences and tradeoffs. IMO if you have a bass anemic headphone such as the Sundara and you don't EQ then you are already accepting a tradeoff (no bass but extreme clarity).

I am doing A/B comparisons with and without the low shelf for the bass, paying attention only in the mids and highs, looking for anything i may be missing in terms of detail and sharpness because of all the extra bass and i just can't find that difference. I am doing this in Rock / Metal songs though because i don't boost the bass at all for acoustic and classical songs.

 

[bigshot]

I'm sorry, but we're having a conversation right here in Sound Science. I'm not going to go over to Reddit either. If you want to talk to Reddit, talk to them. If you want to chat with us, chat with us.

Now that you've defined your terms. Yes, a small percentage of people will like deviations from Harman. The bigger the deviation, the smaller the percentage. And remember the people polled to create the Harman curve weren't just audiophiles. There were a lot of ordinary people too. Sub bass is something that small speakers and inexpensive headphones struggle with. Most people aren't used to sub bass and ascribe to the "more is better" theory. When I was a kid, I really pushed the bass and treble. I listened to music with the timbre of a car accident. As I got older and had more experience, I preferred a more natural sound.

It doesn't really matter though. If you want to push the bass to extremes, go ahead. But if you want clean emphasized bass, speakers will do it much much better than headphones will. Maximum enjoyment is pure subjectivity. It isn't scientific. It's fine, but it is particular to your tastes and ears.

 

[luizffgarcia]

I'm sorry, but we're having a conversation right here in Sound Science. I'm not going to go over to Reddit either. If you want to talk to Reddit, talk to them. If you want to chat with us, chat with us.

Now that you've defined your terms. Yes, a small percentage of people will like deviations from Harman. The bigger the deviation, the smaller the percentage. And remember the people polled to create the Harman curve weren't just audiophiles. There were a lot of ordinary people too. Sub bass is something that small speakers and inexpensive headphones struggle with. Most people aren't used to sub bass and ascribe to the "more is better" theory. When I was a kid, I really pushed the bass and treble. I listened to music with the timbre of a car accident. As I got older and had more experience, I preferred a more natural sound.

It doesn't really matter though. If you want to push the bass to extremes, go ahead. But if you want clean emphasized bass, speakers will do it much much better than headphones will. Maximum enjoyment is pure subjectivity. It isn't scientific. It's fine, but it is particular to your tastes and ears.

Sure, i didn't just post a question on reddit, i asked Oratory on reddit because he has a sub there and he is an acoustic engineer. I was interested in his research on the matter and not looking for random input. There is only one really important post in there, his response, and that is what i pasted in here.

Yeah i know speakers do much better and i do have decent speakers, but i only get to listen to music without headphones like 1% of the time.

Again, the only reason i deviated from this thread's original purpose was because eventually the +15dB was mentioned as an "issue", i am trying to get to the bottom of that "issue" but i am about to declare (to myself) this "issue" as non existent. You know, i started playing piano when i was 7, did 8 years of classical piano lessons with Pozzoli and all that stuff, then i started with guitars, drums, bass guitar. I am a musician for over 30 years, i can tune instruments by ear and i know a little bit more about music than the average person. That is what cause strangeness to me when people say i am loosing stuff in my music because of the bass which i know i am not missing, i have asked before for examples in music, like listen to music X at Y seconds you will not be able to hear a pickup hitting a string if you boost your bass, so far i got zero examples.

Audiophiles love to brag bout their "trained ears" and how they can listen to nuances that can't even be measured by equipment that will detect changes in the decimals of decibels, stuff like premium USB cables, so i ask where do those "trained ears" come from and how can they be more accurate than mine? Like, you listen to good headphones for a while, spend over $10k in gear and that makes your ears special? lol

I am not saying this applies to anyone in this conversation, just to be clear. Just trying to explain why i have created that thread with Oratory and that i am trying to get away from the subjective side and find actual data / proof that i am missing something in my music because of the extra bass.

 

[bigshot]

The bottom of the issue is that +15dB is the outer extreme of what consumer audio components can handle in the way of an EQ boost. I would bet that most headphones would distort at normal listening volumes with that broad of a setting. They just aren't designed to be pushed that far. You're taking the weakest range for headphone transducers and goosing it to an extreme. That's asking for trouble. You can feel free to do it. I'm not trying to stop you. Maybe it gives you the effect you're looking for. If so, great. I'm just pointing out that what you're doing is an inefficient way of achieving your goal and will quite possibly introduce a lot of masking issues and distortion. If you don't care, that's fine.

As I said before, I suspect what you are missing when you compare headphones to a concert experience is the kinesthetic thump of sub bass- the vibrations you feel in your chest and ears. No amount of boosting is going to give you that in headphones. They are too small to push that much air.

If you think that distortion and masking are subjective issues, then none of us here can help you and reddit might be a better place for you to get the the validation you're looking for.

 

[castleofargh]

Not sure if those stats base the amount on what comes out of the headphone, or what gets in the ear. Because Sean Olive often mentions how a lot of the preference variations for bass can be explained by placement and quality of seal. Where basically, some people want more bass because they're not getting as much as the other guy from of a poorer seal based on how they wear the headphone/IEM.
I doubt that would turn out to be why you want +15dB, though.

 

[luizffgarcia]

The bottom of the issue is that +15dB is the outer extreme of what consumer audio components can handle in the way of an EQ boost. I would bet that most headphones would distort at normal listening volumes with that broad of a setting. They just aren't designed to be pushed that far. You're taking the weakest range for headphone transducers and goosing it to an extreme. That's asking for trouble. You can feel free to do it. I'm not trying to stop you. Maybe it gives you the effect you're looking for. If so, great. I'm just pointing out that what you're doing is an inefficient way of achieving your goal and will quite possibly introduce a lot of masking issues and distortion. If you don't care, that's fine.

If you think that distortion and masking are subjective issues, then none of us here can help you and reddit might be a better place for you to get the the validation you're looking for.

You have a very good point about headphones distorting with that EQ, many do! And that is why i like planars, to my ears they don't.

I am not looking for validations, at all. If you read my previous post again you will see that i am asking for a song and a moment in the song that will showcase to me what the problem is, i am trying to get to the bottom of this but the conversation usually ends similar to this, like common man what type of statement is that? "we are too good for you here go look for reddit with other stupid people like yourself?" lol

I never said distortion or masking is subjective, it is either there or not, i am stating i was not able to find it and i am asking for help finding it.

 

[bigshot]

Look for masking issues one octave up from your bass boost. You'll find it there.