I humbly would like to offer some '
food for thought' in regards to sound signatures especially in regards to earbuds.
A BRIEF STUDY OF EARBUD SOUND SIGNATURES
Although, earbuds do exhibit
strong/weak secondary and/or
complementing/opposing tertiary signatures that may reach out towards
U-Shaped and
V-Shaped tuning, their
primary signature are generally and heavily
Mid-Centric which is inherent of and intrinsic to their open-air (open-back like) design. Thus, explaining why earbuds tend to lean more heavily towards
W-Shaped mid-forward sounding tuning. Often forgotten and/or misunderstood a
W-Shaped sound signature is one that has emphasized bass, midrange, and treble (lows, mids, & highs)... completely opposite of a
Flat sound signature that doesn't have emphasized lows, mids, or highs.
Simply put,
W-Shaped is a
V-Shaped signature with pronounced
Mid-Centric (mid-forward) traits.
Therefore, when an earbud exhibits a
V-Shaped signature please consider that perhaps it is more than likely a
primary W-Shaped characteristic that is being heard instead. Not to say, that in certain cases, that some earbuds are not displaying a rather
strong secondary signature reaching out to
V-Shaped because they very well may indeed be! My point is that one should first consider
W-Shaped as being the exhibited signature as it is, more likely than not, the correct choice being both a strong
Mid-Centric identifier and a common
primary sound signature for a many earbud to date.
SOUND SIGNATURE CHART
It is crucial that you do not interpret this chart two-dimensionally but rather three-dimensionally using all axes offered. Optimally, this would be best presented as a sphere but in turn that would make it difficult to clearly see and read all the labels and sections. Thus, we are limited to two-dimensions for the sake of presentation and clarity. Please note that I tried my best to stick to the "classic" (more basic) sound signature & tuning characteristic definitions as used by recording professionals & audio engineers.
Sound Signature Chart - Multi-Axis Interpretation
=
Mid-Centric - Neutral
Secondary (Strong) =
Warm (not muddy, nor muffled)
Secondary (Weak) =
Sharp & Detailed
Tertiary (Complementing) =
Hard-Harsh (enhanced female vocals; sometimes aggressive though)
Tertiary (Opposing) =
Hard-Harsh (not overly bright, nor sibilant though);
Thin & Tinny (aggressive)
The
primary sound signature (red dot and red-shaded oval) of the
Ks Bell-LBBs is "
mid-centric - neutral" with a very
strong secondary sound signature (dark-blue shaded balloon) that reaches out to "
warm" but is far from being muddy, smeared, or muffled. A non-overpowering
weak secondary sound signature (light-blue shaded balloon) reaches out to "
detailed" for greater resolution and more realistic, natural-sounding timbre. Prominent
complementing tertiary sound characteristics (green shaded arrows) are exhibited in the upper mids and very lower treble that may/can come across as being rather "
hard-harsh" but in-turn also provides enhanced female vocals and reproduction of bright-leaning instruments. Due to mildly recessed mid and upper highs a sneaky and quite "
aggressive" ("
thin & tinny")
opposing tertiary sound characteristic (green shaded arrow) may rear it's ugly head occasionally with certain recordings and music genres.
Please Note - The other shown earphone plots (gray dots) are only indicating the
primary (strongest sounding) signature and does not take into account other possible
strong/weak secondary sound signatures and/or
opposing/complementing tertiary sound characteristics. Some transducers may exhibit multiple and opposing tonal attributes all at the same time. I tend to plot earphones by their strongest attribute(s) first and then do my best to fine tune their position based on their other (minor) attributes.
