[ph0rk]

I think you can get a good idea of a sound signature from a graph -

Whether or not its a bright, bassy, or midrangey headphone, for example. I can look at a graph and know without ever touching one an SA5000 is not for me. I am sure it is still a very fine headphone for those that appreciate its signature, however.

 

[markh78]

From the graph, I can tell if the phones are base heavy or not, or have good treble extensions, but it's never the entire indication as to the whole sound quality issue.
I can't tell from the graph if it has good soundstage, instrument separation, resolution, etc. all of which are just as important, if not more, as to how good the phones sound.

 

[donunus]

cant always tell from a graph except when the dips or peaks are steep and wide enough to cover a good area of frequencies. But then again these things cannot be all just from the headphone measured. Ex... a company measures headphone a to be almost flat but with a big peak around 8khz and you start noticing that most headphones measured have that same peak in the graphs then the microphones or measuring method starts to get fishy. It could very well be the measuring equipment and not the headphones peak.

 

[northfaceseen]

Just tell him that is the frequency response that Wolfgang's (As they call him) synthetic ear drums vibrate. Everyone's ears are different, have different ear canals, lol and amounts of ear wax. That is why Headphone.com has there 30 day no questions asked return policy, because everyone is different. IMHO I never make a comparison without doing a A/B test, but heh that's me.

To quote one of my favorite movies...
"I can get a good look at a T-bone by sticking my head up a bull's ass, but I'd rather take a butcher's word for it."

 

[chinesekiwi]

No you can't. However you can get a indication of the sound signature of that particular audio product.