[Roly1650]

Yeah, you see it on CSD plots like this one.  Looks to be for narrower peak areas you can predict the ringing, but on the low end it's different.  Bigshot brought up whether the decay duration is audible or not, anybody have information on ringing and audibility?

OK I'll have a punt at this, which may end up being way off base and I'm only referencing the plot you posted.
The temporal pre- and post-masking of human hearing are reckoned to be 20 msecs and 100 msecs respectively. That would make them between 8 and 40 times longer than the main events in the plot., (2.59 msecs). Also, the simultaneous masking threshold is usually quoted as being about 60 dB.

See this Wiki: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auditory_masking

So my guess is that nothing in that plot would be audible on music, but maybe, just maybe on test signals.
The peaks in treble are imo, frequency response anomalies and there's no evidence that they'd cause audible ringing. In any case, there's not too much energy at 15 kHz in recorded music. The bass anomalies are 90 dB or more down anyway. IMO a pretty clean trace, I've seen much worse, even from pretty expensive phones and magnitudes better than you'd get from a speaker in an untreated/uncorrected room. Now whether anyone would actually like these phones, (I have no idea what they are), is another question entirely.

 

[castleofargh]

+1 Dr DRE said he didn't need a narrow peak to keep their heads ringin.
 
 
seriously I think @vid showed an example where the decay was nicely regulated by EQing to something flatter.
but saying the opposite I remember xnor and a few others showing that some ringing could be attenuated by physical dampening but wouldn't get away with EQ. so maybe the sad answer is "it depends"?

 

[Roly1650]

+1 Dr DRE said he didn't need a narrow peak to keep their heads ringin.

Yea but I think the good doctor was much more interested in keeping the cash registers ringin.

 

[davidsh]

 

Yeah, you see it on CSD plots like this one.  Looks to be for narrower peak areas you can predict the ringing, but on the low end it's different.  Bigshot brought up whether the decay duration is audible or not, anybody have information on ringing and audibility?

OK I'll have a punt at this, which may end up being way off base and I'm only referencing the plot you posted.
The temporal pre- and post-masking of human hearing are reckoned to be 20 msecs and 100 msecs respectively. That would make them between 8 and 40 times longer than the main events in the plot., (2.59 msecs). Also, the simultaneous masking threshold is usually quoted as being about 60 dB.

See this Wiki: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auditory_masking

So my guess is that nothing in that plot would be audible on music, but maybe, just maybe on test signals.
The peaks in treble are imo, frequency response anomalies and there's no evidence that they'd cause audible ringing. In any case, there's not too much energy at 15 kHz in recorded music. The bass anomalies are 90 dB or more down anyway. IMO a pretty clean trace, I've seen much worse, even from pretty expensive phones and magnitudes better than you'd get from a speaker in an untreated/uncorrected room. Now whether anyone would actually like these phones, (I have no idea what they are), is another question entirely.

It seems to me that a phone like the hd800 is often quoted for 'ringing' especially when unmodded, yet it measures better than above example. Is the part with ringing total BS with the hd800?
 
Then I wonder whether one can warrant getting a better headphone than the stax sr207 and properly applied EQ. Those measurements of distortion etc. are stunning and I am sure the CSD must be equally clean as with pretty much all 'stats.

 

[Roly1650]

It seems to me that a phone like the hd800 is often quoted for 'ringing' especially when unmodded, yet it measures better than above example. Is the part with ringing total BS with the hd800?

Then I wonder whether one can warrant getting a better headphone than the stax sr207 and properly applied EQ. Those measurements of distortion etc. are stunning and I am sure the CSD must be equally clean as with pretty much all 'stats.

Hold on! As I tried to explain in my earlier post, don't take my assessment of the plot as gospel, it's not proof that because the HD800 plot looks better then the "ringing" does or does not exist. The designers of such devices spend years understanding what matters and a waterfall plot is only one of a plethora of measurement they make. Anyway, I can't help you with the HD800, I've never listened to them.

I think some care is needed in taking onboard opinions expressed about transducers generally, for example, I read someone claiming to hear a difference in distortion between .1% and .06% below 70 Hz, the measured difference between two phones. If that's true, that individual has abilities that fly in the face of everything we know about human hearing. Scientists have been searching for a genuine "golden ears" for the best part of 150 years and he may be it! Or not. The sad thing is that that sort of statement is then repeated, by others, with little regard as to whether it's sensible or not and opinions like that may be the origination of the HD800's reputation for ringing.

What people hear from transducers is a pretty individual thing, what you think is great, I might hate and vice versa. I've got a list of phones which I just can't take, some stats, some dynamics and some orthos. On the other hand I've enjoyed phones which others didn't rate. Wait, maybe that's a reflection on my lack of taste! But if you're interested in any phone or speaker, go listen to it along with any other comparable in price, there is no one size fits all.

Ref the Stax phones, I looked at the waterfalls for a few Stax phones, allowing for probable different measurement sources, they all had longer overhang, slower decay in the 1 kHz range than the posted plot. That statement needs to be treated with a very large dose of caution for reasons I've tried to explain. Having owned a few pairs of Stax phones, I've always rated them very highly.

 

[SilverEars]

Can you guys post the CSD graphs for HD800 and the STAX?  I'd like to see how the ringing looks like.

 

[Head Injury]

  Then I wonder whether one can warrant getting a better headphone than the stax sr207 and properly applied EQ. Those measurements of distortion etc. are stunning and I am sure the CSD must be equally clean as with pretty much all 'stats.

I plan on getting a SRS-2170 system some day soon. Mostly just to try out a 'stat, so I can say I've at least sampled all the different kinds of full-sized headphones. I don't plan on it replacing my current setup, which I love, but I can hardly dismiss it if a bit of EQ proves it superior 

 
I'm most interested in seeing if I can get the bass volume and impact up to LCD-2 standards while retaining quality. Tyll's graphs don't look as bass-light as I've always heard tell, just scooped out in the 200-300 Hz range, and not a whole lot different than the SR-009 except in extension.

 

[Roly1650]

Can you guys post the CSD graphs for HD800 and the STAX? I'd like to see how the ringing looks like.

How do you know there'll be any ringing?
Google is your friend!

 

[SilverEars]

Ref the Stax phones, I looked at the waterfalls for a few Stax phones, allowing for probable different measurement sources, they all had longer overhang, slower decay in the 1 kHz range than the posted plot. That statement needs to be treated with a very large dose of caution for reasons I've tried to explain. Having owned a few pairs of Stax phones, I've always rated them very highly.

 
Quote:

How do you know there'll be any ringing?
Google is your friend!

If there is or not, please show it.  Back up what was mentioned please.  

 You did talk about the STAX's decay characteristics, so I would assume you would have a graph to support it.

 

[Roly1650]

If there is or not, please show it.  Back up what was mentioned please.  :bigsmile_face:  You did talk about the STAX's decay characteristics, so I would assume you would have a graph to support it.

Now your just being ridiculous, I don't have to back up anything, neither you nor I or anyone else, could possibly know whether an HD800 or various Stax phones ring or not and I already stated as much. "That statement needs to be treated with a large dose of caution, for reasons I've tried to explain" is a caveat, no? As in waterfall plots aren't that easy to interpret with certainty, particularly if you've never plonked the phones in question on your head!
Like I say Google is your friend if you want waterfall plots, there's a few out there, I didn't save them, but not hard to find.

 

[SilverEars]

I meant the ringing on the graph, and wanted to the see the graphs you were referring to.  Here are 007 and 009 graphs I found online.  

 

[Roly1650]

They're not the graphs or phones I looked at, but they show the same characteristics as the 3 or 4 I saw, one was the Omega I do know. Anyway, I was looking at the "lump", ( for want of a better expression) in overhang or slow decay centered around 1kHz. I didn't then and wouldn't now classify that as ringing, it's you who keeps calling it that, but it does seem to be a feature that all the Stax waterfalls show. It was only Davidsh's post prompted my to mention this anyway, because he felt sure the csd's would be clean, due to the low distortion figures. Just another side of the coin, the Stax CSD's that I looked at aren't as "clean" in that frequency band as the original plot. Further proof that caution is needed when interpreting the graphs.

 

[davidsh]

Nvm, CSDs and measurements are annoying anyway, hard to interpret 

 
Modded hd800:
 

 
Can't we all agree that is impressive?
 
Stock without dust cover:

 
At -60dB:

 

[eliteboy]

Hello, everyone.

I have a big issue.
 
I have a Kennwood 3090 (year 197x) with 270ohms in the output impedance for Phones, and it has speakers with (4ohms each channel)
 
I have a Xonar DX that has 100ohms in the output impedance.
 
I have a HD558 that has 50ohms of load impedance, which can reach 300ohms depending of frequency.
 
The major problem is the "boomy" bass because of the eletrical damping, problem with the impedances in between, a mismatch.
 
I read some articles that it says about the 1/8 rule and I was thinking to use it, changing the resistors from the Receiver under 6ohmns to handle the headphone. The headphone sensitivity is 112dB.
 
I was thinking then:
1 - Change to something around 50ohms (to match with the headphone)
2 - Under the 6ohms 
  2.5 - Under 32ohms (to handle the 300ohms impedance???)
 
What is the best suggestion?
 
Im really afraid to change the resistors under 6ohms and the headphone stop working, because it couldnt handle it, there is a supposed mismatch.
 
I connect the Receiver in the "Front Jack" where it comes to Headphone.
 
Is there any possible the change cant help? Because of the 100ohms of the Xonar DX?
 
Anyone could help me?

Thanks in advcanced.
 
Best regards,
John.

 

[davidsh]

Search for robinette box and use that resistor setup. Hope that helps