Alright, I decided to try fixing the irritating hissing issue by testing the equalizer settings using Windows Media Player on my Windows 7 laptop/notebook computer, which is an old Asus ROG PC from around 2011. I connected the Meridian Explorer2 to it, and then connected the Flares Audio FlaresPro to the Meridian Explorer2.
The results had me quite surprised by how much the equalizer actually did affect the sound, much more than I had assumed earlier when I posted here on Head-Fi about it. Unfortunately though, the graphics equalizer changed so much of the sound, that by moving a few sliders to adjust the hiss production, negatively affected some important areas of the audio.
While I was adjusting the sliders and trying to figure out how this might help, if at all, I realized something that someone here on Head-Fi had mentioned here recently, regarding their opinion that the FlaresPro are V-Shaped. It dawned on me that there are two distinct ways at perceiving a sound signature from viewing an audio frequency response graph.
One way is to primarily look around at the middle region in seeing if there is a dip in the frequency between the end of the bass and the beginning of the treble. While these dips can exist in other areas of the frequency, the main dip that forms the V-Shaped sound signature is between the bass and the treble, but can be interpreted differently, just as it can vary in sound.
That generally is how I perceive if an iem has a V-Shaped sound signature from reading an audio frequency response graph using that particular viewpoint. However, I realize there are other ways of looking at it, including taking into consideration the entire frequency response graph. I am going to repost the official graph I recently received from James at Flare Audio, right here :
When looking at the graph in its entirety, I can see how some may perceive the sound signature as being V-Shaped. I don't view it as the same kind of V-Shape as what I've learned from audiophiles and audio enthusiasts, along with those audio technology experts. However, when viewed as a whole, its an extended form of a V-Shape.
I took this into serious consideration when I was testing the graphics equalizer. I realize my sound signature preference, of which I'm having the graphics designer who drew my original preference graph, to revise it, reflecting the recent changes to my sound signature preferences now that I know the upper treble needs reduced to a certain level.
My ideal sound signature has pretty much the same bass as before, though with less on the upper part of sub-bass. Unlike some here describing the sub-bass as being quite powerful on the FlaresPro, it really doesn't sound like it to me, which since I'm not a bass fan, I prefer that it isn't powerful sounding to me. The majority of the bass, other than sub-bass, I prefer flat/neutral.
The only other change to my ideal sound signature, is to reduce the treble, to avoid sibilance. A flat/neutral treble straight from 500Hz in the mids going directly flat straight through to 10KHz, that line being 5dB above the bass line, but no longer having the treble being 5dB above the mids/10dB above the bass. Basically, I reduced the treble by 5dB.
In attempting to get the graphics equalizer to both reduce the hiss in the FlaresPro, while also getting it to sound close to my sound signature preference. I studied the FlaresPro audio frequency response graph, and created a reverse V-Shape in the graphics equalizer. I did this by adjusting the graphics equalizer in the following specifications :
31Hz is -9
62Hz is -6
125Hz is -3
250Hz is 0
500Hz is 3
1KHz is 3
2 KHz is 0
4KHz is -3
8KHz is -6
16KHz is -9
This eliminated about half of the hiss, without changing too much of the overall sound. Any further modification would have altered the sound too much in a negative way. However, by adding a bit at 500Hz and 1KHz, helped to benefit the sound in conjunction with the equal sound at 2KHz, that made up for the lesser lower treble of the FlaresPro.
While Flare Audio had told me the slight increase of the bass over the mids in the frequency response wasn't a typical showing, but rather an example of how much in a region the FlaresPro (could go), my opinion is that Flare Audio ought to have made sure the mids and the bass were always at least neutral., or better yet - have the mids 5dB above the bass.
Then the important thing in eliminating the hiss, especially easy to accomplish with the mids already 5db above the bass, if Flare Audio tuned it this way, they could simply carry the tuning straight through the remainder in most of the treble, a flat/neutral line through from 500Hz to 10KHz. Then drop the treble lower from there.
By doing this, Flare Audio would have a very evenly, well-layered treble, producing the "live" sound without the hiss/sibilance, and without any sharp spikes or lowly dips in the sound. It would sound more live and detailed not having to compete so much with bass, forcing the engineers to tune with the risk of these bad side effects interfering in the music.
I'm reconsidering my possibly getting the ifi device to help reduce the hiss. I'm first going to send an email to Flare Audio describing the issue and hopefully find out what their opinion of the situation is. Again, I think the problem is in the upper treble region, where Flare Audio was trying to tune for the "live" sound, rather than tuning the lower treble for it.
