Earbud target curve tests

[furyossa]

and here's the compensation file!

@furyossa, your n55 64ohm peq correction files normalized to my version 1.5 target.

Ok, now we come across the problem I mentioned earlier. Mine and @assassin10000's tuning and shells are different
This driver is mid-centric and my mod has a bit intimate sound with a narrow soundstage
In Peace, the preamp value is set to -6dB. Also, I hit the "compress" button 3 times. Without compression, the sound is sharp and occasionally sibilant.
With 3x compression is very similar to my previous WIP tuning, also Sam's PEQ file has a better vocal presentation and balance in general, while my version has a slightly more pronounced low end.

"natural" version by @Sam_L (3x compressed)
Preamp: -6 dB
Filter 1: ON PK Fc 24 Hz Gain 3.18 dB Q 0.57
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 237 Hz Gain -0.15 dB Q 2.48
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 247 Hz Gain -0.51 dB Q 2.29
Filter 4: ON PK Fc 834 Hz Gain 0.66 dB Q 3.12
Filter 5: ON PK Fc 2062 Hz Gain -4.1 dB Q 1.41
Filter 6: ON PK Fc 4606 Hz Gain 3.54 dB Q 1.15
Filter 7: ON PK Fc 7138 Hz Gain -3.18 dB Q 3.19
Filter 8: ON PK Fc 9145 Hz Gain 1.88 dB Q 2.06
Filter 9: ON PK Fc 12496 Hz Gain 1.58 dB Q 1.12
Filter 10: ON PK Fc 16874 Hz Gain 2.51 dB Q 0.72

"bass" version W.I.P
Preamp: -6 dB
Filter 1: ON PK Fc 12 Hz Gain 5.4 dB Q 0.9
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 40 Hz Gain 5.4 dB Q 0.56
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 187 Hz Gain -0.7 dB Q 0.49
Filter 4: ON PK Fc 241 Hz Gain -1 dB Q 3.04
Filter 5: ON PK Fc 829 Hz Gain 1.4 dB Q 2.85
Filter 6: ON PK Fc 2059 Hz Gain -8 dB Q 1.43
Filter 7: ON PK Fc 4596 Hz Gain 6.8 dB Q 1.18
Filter 8: ON PK Fc 7136 Hz Gain -6 dB Q 3.27
Filter 9: ON PK Fc 9194 Hz Gain 3.8 dB Q 2.07
Filter 10: ON PK Fc 12644 Hz Gain 3.3 dB Q 1.11
Filter 11: ON PK Fc 16952 Hz Gain 4.8 dB Q 0.74

DaturaPro vs 64ohm N55
N55 has rolled-off sub-bass and mid-bass is a bit shy.
Mids are positioned properly, the separation between instruments and vocals is good for intimate sound, treble is smooth and not offensive.
DaturaPro has a better bass extension Sub-bass and mid-bass complement each other perfectly. The bass is not overemphasized but discreet.
Unlike N55, DaturaPro has a specious sound. Mids are nicely defined with good clarity, and even better positioning and separation in 3D space.
DaturaPro has a better treble extension. The details are clear and accentuated

These are of course first impressions. It takes a little more time to test with different music genres to see if a correction is needed elsewhere.
For now, the impressions are positive and above expectations

 

[Vannak]

Ok, now we come across the problem I mentioned earlier. Mine and @assassin10000's tuning and shells are different
This driver is mid-centric and my mod has a bit intimate sound with a narrow soundstage
In Peace, the preamp value is set to -6dB. Also, I hit the "compress" button 3 times. Without compression, the sound is sharp and occasionally sibilant.
With 3x compression is very similar to my previous WIP tuning, also Sam's PEQ file has a better vocal presentation and balance in general, while my version has a slightly more pronounced low end.

"natural" version by @Sam_L (3x compressed)
Preamp: -6 dB
Filter 1: ON PK Fc 24 Hz Gain 3.18 dB Q 0.57
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 237 Hz Gain -0.15 dB Q 2.48
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 247 Hz Gain -0.51 dB Q 2.29
Filter 4: ON PK Fc 834 Hz Gain 0.66 dB Q 3.12
Filter 5: ON PK Fc 2062 Hz Gain -4.1 dB Q 1.41
Filter 6: ON PK Fc 4606 Hz Gain 3.54 dB Q 1.15
Filter 7: ON PK Fc 7138 Hz Gain -3.18 dB Q 3.19
Filter 8: ON PK Fc 9145 Hz Gain 1.88 dB Q 2.06
Filter 9: ON PK Fc 12496 Hz Gain 1.58 dB Q 1.12
Filter 10: ON PK Fc 16874 Hz Gain 2.51 dB Q 0.72

"bass" version W.I.P
Preamp: -6 dB
Filter 1: ON PK Fc 12 Hz Gain 5.4 dB Q 0.9
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 40 Hz Gain 5.4 dB Q 0.56
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 187 Hz Gain -0.7 dB Q 0.49
Filter 4: ON PK Fc 241 Hz Gain -1 dB Q 3.04
Filter 5: ON PK Fc 829 Hz Gain 1.4 dB Q 2.85
Filter 6: ON PK Fc 2059 Hz Gain -8 dB Q 1.43
Filter 7: ON PK Fc 4596 Hz Gain 6.8 dB Q 1.18
Filter 8: ON PK Fc 7136 Hz Gain -6 dB Q 3.27
Filter 9: ON PK Fc 9194 Hz Gain 3.8 dB Q 2.07
Filter 10: ON PK Fc 12644 Hz Gain 3.3 dB Q 1.11
Filter 11: ON PK Fc 16952 Hz Gain 4.8 dB Q 0.74

DaturaPro vs 64ohm N55
N55 has rolled-off sub-bass and mid-bass is a bit shy.
Mids are positioned properly, the separation between instruments and vocals is good for intimate sound, treble is smooth and not offensive.
DaturaPro has a better bass extension Sub-bass and mid-bass complement each other perfectly. The bass is not overemphasized but discreet.
Unlike N55, DaturaPro has a specious sound. Mids are nicely defined with good clarity, and even better positioning and separation in 3D space.
DaturaPro has a better treble extension. The details are clear and accentuated

These are of course first impressions. It takes a little more time to test with different music genres to see if a correction is needed elsewhere.
For now, the impressions are positive and above expectations

Great!

 

[Sam L]

someone asked me about differences between headphone FR and earbud FR in terms of arrive at a target curve. I'm archiving my initial thoughts here, in this thread.

The journey in understanding these differences from a measurement perspective and practical, real-world experience has been inordinately complicated. And I admit that my early work in basing a target curve on IEM targets was not a sound approach. I'm a big fan of oratory1990's work and thought a blend of his target, its associated similarities with harman iem target, and some averages of my favorite buds (mainly fiio em5) would be a good launching point. This was not true.

A better start would of involved starting with headphone targets and making changes from there. After months of testing and hearing your feedback, this is one of the simple conclusions I've arrived at -- 20hz to 1k should be pretty much flat for earbuds. Don't be misled thinking that this will result in anemic bass. The bass response is still unavoidably present. This further highlights how wrong earbuds are often tuned, with a pronounced bass that almost always bleeds into the lower mids. The 75hz to 500hz range has critical impact in determining whether the sound will appear boomy, muddy, boxy, sludge-like. Bass bleed, of the levels often found in earbuds, offers no chance in presenting a decently clean sound, not to mention a saturated bloom that dominates lower region timbre (negatively.)

Post 1khz is where things get tricky with earbuds. It doesn't look like iem or headphone reference work will be of help here. So, from version 1.6 forward most of my tweaks will involve upper mids and treble adjustments. I wrote about an aspect of this challenge in a post on another thread. I'll copy and past that info here to keep pertinent information readily available to those following this thread.

_______________________________________________________________
from other post:

Ok, I mentioned in my previous post how the BK2 graph highlights some things about earbuds that seem really confusing to understand in relation to IEMs and headphones.

Context here

On Pinna Gain and Earbuds...

In case new users are not familiar with what "pinna gain" is, here's my explanation. The short description is along the lines of, "there should be a gain centered around 3khz because of how our ear hears sound." Without this gain, earphones will sound lifeless and flat. For the purposes of our earbuds discussion, it's worth digging a bit deeper into this pinna gain. Similar to pinna gain, is a concept of head gain where sound emanating from headphones pass through the ear even differently from IEMs and require a gain as well (different from IEMs, typically a bit higher in frequency). The differences between pinna and head gain are well understood and pretty obvious if you think about it -- iems, with their insertion into the ear canal, actually bypass the pinna which affects how we hear differently from headphones.

All this to say, this is why IEM curves are different from Headphone curves. But we already knew this.

One more thing to highlight with earbuds and target curves. There is also a pinna notch, typically around 10k but can occur anywhere between 6k to 15k. This notch is due to a combination of phase cancellation affects that occur as sound enters our ear. The impact of this phenomenon can result in some users having treble sensitivity -- these users' pinna notch may be much higher in the spectrum or less impactful to where they actually hear more treble because of less pinna cancellation. So when these users hear an IEM producing upper frequencies that are near a notch region (for other users) of the graph, it can be overwhelming and fatiguing. This can also explain why various dips and notches in measurements do not affect some users at all, while negatively affecting other users.

Back to Earbuds...

I'm left with these questions to explore.
- Should an earbud target mimic head gain over pinna gain?
- The BK2 has virtually no pinna gain, yet it sounds great in the upper mids. How?
- It there such a thing of an earbuds version of pinna gain, maybe we should coin the term, earbud gain?
- Since the bud rests outside of our ear canal how do earbud graphs interact with our pinna notch?
- Should there even be a pinna notch with earbuds?

 

[assassin10000]

- It there such a thing of an earbuds version of pinna gain, maybe we should coin the term, earbud gain?

I vote for eargain.

 

[furyossa]

This looks nice but only work on Mac
https://www.rodetest.com/

 

[Sam L]

This looks nice but only work on Mac
https://www.rodetest.com/

I rotated into a macbook after my windows laptop was stolen (I build support infrastructure and as a habit rotate between windows and mac os every couple weeks.) I found a couple options for system-wide peq implementation but they were all restrictive in one issue or another. I'm back on a 7 year old samsung laptop. I need peace/apo -- such a good system-wide eq and effects solution.

But that rodetest does look impressive, though.

 

[furyossa]

and here it is cleaned up.

I came across this blog by chance https://tinyurl.com/yybqqg8w
Are you using this method to extract curve data from image https://apps.automeris.io/wpd/

 

[furyossa]

@Sam_L I'm new in this calibration stuff and I need your opinion about this setup https://www.audioreviews.org/rig-calibration/
Is this a good and right way for measuring earbuds frequency responses or there are some differences between IEM and the earbuds in the REW setup
I have similar devices to put together this DIY rig. I already own Dayton IMM-6 and the other day I bought a small audio interface iRigStream. With it I can independently control
volume level for the microphone and earphones and signal is much better than laptop sound card.
I'm also wondering if it's better to use the Dayton IMM-6 separately (as in the example in the previous link) and to connect earbuds in external DAC. In previous example he use Dragonfly DAC and my plan is to use SMSL IQ which has SE & balanced output + volume control.
So I can connect earbuds with SMSL IQ and Dayton IMM-6 mic with iRigStream. What do you think about that rig?

 

[waynes world]

peace/apo

I use foobar2000 for playing my music files, but I also stream a lot.

If I use peace/apo, do you think it would also effect my foobar2000 output? I think I'll just download it and try.

I presume you can also use your presets, correct?

 

[furyossa]

I use foobar2000 for playing my music files, but I also stream a lot.

If I use peace/apo, do you think it would also effect my foobar2000 output? I think I'll just download it and try.

I presume you can also use your presets, correct?

For stream (Tidal, Deezer, Spotify etc) work very nice. Also, I use MusicBee player and peace/apo affect the sound and of course, you can use presets

 

[assassin10000]

@Sam_L I'm new in this calibration stuff and I need your opinion about this setup https://www.audioreviews.org/rig-calibration/
Is this a good and right way for measuring earbuds frequency responses or there are some differences between IEM and the earbuds in the REW setup
I have similar devices to put together this DIY rig. I already own Dayton IMM-6 and the other day I bought a small audio interface iRigStream. With it I can independently control
volume level for the microphone and earphones and signal is much better than laptop sound card.
I'm also wondering if it's better to use the Dayton IMM-6 separately (as in the example in the previous link) and to connect earbuds in external DAC. In previous example he use Dragonfly DAC and my plan is to use SMSL IQ which has SE & balanced output + volume control.
So I can connect earbuds with SMSL IQ and Dayton IMM-6 mic with iRigStream. What do you think about that rig?

I use my IMM-6 via my TC35B (usb-c dac/amp) and a usb-a to usb-c adapter. I plug whatever earbud (or IEM) into the IMM-6 as well.

The earbud measurements are done with my adapter. No specific compensation besides the provided one from dayton which I tweaked to match closer to the IEC clones (below 100hz).

Since it is a usb-c dac I couldn't make a compensation for it.


Do not use the laptop soundcard, it's probably garbage for measurements.

 

[furyossa]

I use my IMM-6 via my TC35B (usb-c dac/amp) and a usb-a to usb-c adapter. I plug whatever earbud (or IEM) into the IMM-6 as well.

The earbud measurements are done with my adapter. No specific compensation besides the provided one from dayton which I tweaked to match closer to the IEC clones (below 100hz).

Since it is a usb-c dac I couldn't make a compensation for it.


Do not use the laptop soundcard, it's probably garbage for measurements.

Last time we spoke I tried to pair IMM-6 with SonataHD and this combo didn't work. That's why I bought iRigStream.
In link that I posted in previous post, they don't suggest to use calibration file for IMM6 but to create new calibration file for DAC.
Probably because of that, they connect the earbuds to DAC and not to the microphone output.
For DAC i can chose between SonataHD (3.5mm out), iBasso DC01 (balanced out) but for that setup I will need two different calibration files.
On the other hand I can use SMSL IQ which has both outputs (SE and balanced) and also it has your own volume knob. THD+N: 0.0003% is also good.

One more question. I noticed when they calibrate SPL (in SPL Meter), SPL figure need to be set at 85.0
But in this example they suggest to use 94.0 for IEM's and 84.0 for Headphones. Does this depend on the type of microphone or something else?

 

[Sam L]

Just got my replacement Monk Lite 120ohm in. I missed these! Default tuning is pretty terrible, as some of you already know.

VE Monk Lite 120ohm
Version 1.5 Neutral

I'm running wavelet at 70% eq strength.
Guessing Peace/APO will need the "compress" button hit twice (and preamp @ -12dB)

**edit**
I'm actually going to keep it at 100% eq strength for a couple days. Let me know if you try it at 100% and what you think.

 

[Sam L]

@Sam_L I'm new in this calibration stuff and I need your opinion about this setup https://www.audioreviews.org/rig-calibration/
Is this a good and right way for measuring earbuds frequency responses or there are some differences between IEM and the earbuds in the REW setup
I have similar devices to put together this DIY rig. I already own Dayton IMM-6 and the other day I bought a small audio interface iRigStream. With it I can independently control
volume level for the microphone and earphones and signal is much better than laptop sound card.
I'm also wondering if it's better to use the Dayton IMM-6 separately (as in the example in the previous link) and to connect earbuds in external DAC. In previous example he use Dragonfly DAC and my plan is to use SMSL IQ which has SE & balanced output + volume control.
So I can connect earbuds with SMSL IQ and Dayton IMM-6 mic with iRigStream. What do you think about that rig?

Nice link with good information. Wish I found that before having to experiment endlessly. I use a Creative SB Play3 usb sound card for my mic input and either a qudelix 5k or oppo ha2 for the output. As the link mentioned building a calibration file by looping a 3.5mm cable to both input and output is important.

The dayton mic is a great mic. @assassin10000's setup is quite accurate from 20hz to 10khz.

Oh, and to answer your question regarding separating the signal path from the dayton and dac, yes it is much better to connect the earbuds to the external dac.

 

[Sam L]

Last time we spoke I tried to pair IMM-6 with SonataHD and this combo didn't work. That's why I bought iRigStream.
In link that I posted in previous post, they don't suggest to use calibration file for IMM6 but to create new calibration file for DAC.
Probably because of that, they connect the earbuds to DAC and not to the microphone output.
For DAC i can chose between SonataHD (3.5mm out), iBasso DC01 (balanced out) but for that setup I will need two different calibration files.
On the other hand I can use SMSL IQ which has both outputs (SE and balanced) and also it has your own volume knob. THD+N: 0.0003% is also good.

One more question. I noticed when they calibrate SPL (in SPL Meter), SPL figure need to be set at 85.0
But in this example they suggest to use 94.0 for IEM's and 84.0 for Headphones. Does this depend on the type of microphone or something else?

hmmm... I don't agree that a calibration file for the IMM6 shouldn't be used and the dac calibration file alone is enough. The deviations that are corrected by dayton's measurements can add up to altering the resultant measurement. Besides it's pretty simple to just import dayton's file into REW, only takes a couple clicks and you're done.