[gakaudio]

Hi, my name is Garth. I primarily listen to my stereo setup through Salk Sound Songtowers. However, I would like to use Headphones as a tool to diagnose what is “good” and what is “bad” in my system.

Let me explain. I feel that my system has some midrange harshness in it, particularly around female voices and electric guitar. I generally listen to acoustic music to minimize the harshness that I hear. I would like to use headphones to try to isolate my various components to determine where this “harshness” originates, DAC, Preamp, speakers or lack of acoustical treatments.

Is this a reasonable endeavor?

Will a set of headphones plugged into my DAC, that has volume control, capture the same sonic signature as the DAC feeding the speakers?

Likewise, I have the same question regarding my Sonic Frontiers Line 2 preamp. When I plug my headphones into the SF Line 2, the Mute light illuminates. Consequently, I don’t know if the tubes are engaged when driving the phones so am I capturing the sonic signature of the SF Line 2 through headphones?

I could go into a lot more details but I will stop here to see if there is any input regarding this topic. If so, I can elaborate based on any feedback.

Thanks, Garth

 

[ProtegeManiac]

Hi, my name is Garth. I primarily listen to my stereo setup through Salk Sound Songtowers. However, I would like to use Headphones as a tool to diagnose what is “good” and what is “bad” in my system.

Let me explain. I feel that my system has some midrange harshness in it, particularly around female voices and electric guitar. I generally listen to acoustic music to minimize the harshness that I hear. I would like to use headphones to try to isolate my various components to determine where this “harshness” originates, DAC, Preamp, speakers or lack of acoustical treatments.

Is this a reasonable endeavor?

Will a set of headphones plugged into my DAC, that has volume control, capture the same sonic signature as the DAC feeding the speakers?

Likewise, I have the same question regarding my Sonic Frontiers Line 2 preamp. When I plug my headphones into the SF Line 2, the Mute light illuminates. Consequently, I don’t know if the tubes are engaged when driving the phones so am I capturing the sonic signature of the SF Line 2 through headphones?

I could go into a lot more details but I will stop here to see if there is any input regarding this topic. If so, I can elaborate based on any feedback.

All headphones will do for diagnosing speakers is eliminate room modes, ie, you basically take the room out of the equation. However, this is a flawed test, since:

1. The headphones don't have the same response as the speakers to begin with

2. Headphones trade room modes for other variables and issues : left ear can only hear left driver and ditto on the right (unlike how both ears hear both speakers), which affects imaging negatively; earpad wear and driver position position relative to the ear canals affects the sound in ways similar to room acoustics and toe-in

If you want to diagnose your system you're better off getting an RTA and looking at how your system actually performs on a sine sweep. Midrange harshness will show up as a spike somewhere between 500hz and 5000hz.

 

[gakaudio]

Thank you for the input. I can see your point.

Any thoughts regarding using headphones to isolate the sonic signature or flavor of individual components? Or is the sound being fed to the headphones different, only loosely related to the sound being fed to the speakers?

 

[serman005]

Headphones, speakers--it doesn't really matter what you use. The bottom line is you have to have something to compare what you are listening to to. Otherwise there is no way to know whether a particular component is sounding one way or the other, or is contributing what to the overall system's sound.

 

[Muinarc]

Swapping components is the only way to find something like that, headphones alone won't pinpoint the DAC as your problem, and especially the amp for your speakers since it wouldn't have headphone outputs. If your speakers are resolving enough they should be able to reveal the difference if you swap components to identify the origin of the harshness you describe.