[aaf evo]

And quite frankly, I'm not bothered if people who are interested in a $5k IEM don't get that FR is responsible for their experience.

So I don't think we should be claiming it's the sole reason you may be having a given experience. There are other factors that contribute to your experience. Yes...

Perhaps the thread can get back to the Storm now.

 

[Resolve]

Perhaps the thread can get back to the Storm now.

I mean this isn't the best faith representation of my statements on the subject. Provided all else is equal, it's FR at the ear drum. But there can be differences in other aspects as well, like harmonic distortion. In the case of the Storm though, it's quite low, so I don't expect that's really much of a factor for the experience.

EDIT: I suppose I should also amend this by caveating that this is just to do with the acoustic stuff. There may be various other non-acoustic factors that make the experience of using a product good or bad - like the fit, form factor, aesthetics, and so on.

 

[jude]

Hiya Jude! Fancy seeing you here


Indeed this is a perennially-continuing conversation in our discourse, one I rather enjoy when it’s had in good faith (which is the case here, from everything I can see).

Likewise, Griffin! It's always a pleasure to discuss this stuff with people who love these topics as much as I do. I always learn something I didn't previously know in the process.

So yes, the issue is largely that we cannot prove this to be the case yet, as measuring in-situ on a human being is Damn Hard, and human beings are the only ones that can confirm if things that measure the same actually sound the same. I’d say “I wish rigs could speak,” but they might not have very nice things to say to us after some of the things we put them through

As someone who is greatly interested in anything you have to say on the subject, I would love to hear more about your disagreement with the theoretical argument of “equivalent/identical SPL at the eardrum means equal sound.”

Starting things off with a question (and @Resolve might want to chime in, too): First, assume one could measure frequency response from Person 1's eardrums. If Headphone A ended up with frequency response X (for Person 1), and Headphone B (a completely different headphone design) also ended up with frequency response X (for Person 1), do you believe that Headphone A and Headphone B (both with frequency response X at Person 1's eardrum) would be completely sonically indistinguishable to Person 1, in terms of anything and everything we're talking about here (detail retrieval, impact, texture, soundstage/imaging, etc.)?

Also, do you believe that a multi-driver in-ear could have a frequency response (as measured at Person 1's eardrum) that's identical to the frequency response of an over-ear headphone?

EDIT 2024-04-24 1345 EDT: Added "soundstage/imaging" to the list of things at the end of the first paragraph.

 

[listenerwww]

Starting things off with a question (and @Resolve might want to chime in, too): First, assume one could measure frequency response from Person 1's eardrums. If Headphone A ended up with frequency response X (for Person 1), and Headphone B (a completely different design) also ended up with frequency response X (for Person 1), do you believe that Headphone A and Headphone B (both with frequency response X at Person 1's eardrum) would be completely sonically indistinguishable to Person 1, in terms of anything and everything we're talking about here (detail retrieval, impact, texture, soundstage/imaging, etc.)?

Also, do you believe that a multi-driver in-ear could have a frequency response (as measured at Person 1's eardrum) that's identical to the frequency response of an over-ear headphone?

EDIT 2024-04-24 1345 EDT: Added "soundstage/imaging" to the list of things at the end of the first paragraph.

Thanks for the response!

I believe that if the two IEMS—which is what I’ll go with since the positional variables are less numerous than headphones, and the thread is about an IEM—were indistinguishable externally (identical in look, weight, feel) and that they measured identically at the eardrum, that they would be heard as identical in the ways you say, yes.

Very keen to hear your response

 

[listenerwww]

All of a sudden, this thread is full of audience

"are we in the right thread? guys? any info on the Regular Edition Storm release? i just want that info please... help? Why do i feel like i'm in the wrong thread I'm lost.."

Yeah, someone better call the mods, this jude guy is hijacking the thread

 

[Resolve]

Likewise, Griffin! It's always a pleasure to discuss this stuff with people who love these topics as much as I do. I always learn something I didn't previously know in the process.



Starting things off with a question (and @Resolve might want to chime in, too): First, assume one could measure frequency response from Person 1's eardrums. If Headphone A ended up with frequency response X (for Person 1), and Headphone B (a completely different headphone design) also ended up with frequency response X (for Person 1), do you believe that Headphone A and Headphone B (both with frequency response X at Person 1's eardrum) would be completely sonically indistinguishable to Person 1, in terms of anything and everything we're talking about here (detail retrieval, impact, texture, etc.)?

Also, do you believe that a multi-driver in-ear could have a frequency response (as measured at Person 1's eardrum) that's identical to the frequency response of an over-ear headphone?

So... my thoughts on this also originated from having had similar conversations with Oratory1990 on the subject, and then doing some "HRTF-searching" with tone-gen and EQ.

At the moment I'm of the opinion that provided all other metrics are equal, if the FR between two products is identical at the ear drum of a given person, the sound would be the same. With that said... it is at best only likely they will report the same qualities of the experience (like detail, texture and so on). The reason for this is that we can't account for various effects, sighted, psychoacoustic or otherwise, that could influence the experience. And I don't mean this to denigrate such reports, as they are absolutely part of the experience of a given headphone.


An example of this might be if one of the headphones is an open-back, and the other closed. With the open-back, even something as inconsequential as room tone leaking in could have an effect on the experience of 'openness', and could affect the report. Another example might be the effects of a heavier headphone on the experience. I was just evaluating some headphones where by all acoustic metrics the sound is very good, but I wonder if people will report them proportionally given the particularly lightweight nature of their design - you may also know which ones I'm talking about haha.

 

[Doltonius]

Ok so you agree interpretation of some aspects of the audio experience is at least currently not available. That takes me back me the first point I made- why should one look at the graph to determine the audio experience, probably except for general overall signature, roll-off, channel imbalance?
The problem that if an FR graph cannot capture everything one hears, or that it cannot be interpreted for everything it contains, is 2 sides of the same coin for me.

we shouldn't just look at the graph and conclude everything, at least for now. concluding things about timbre is definitely ok.

But an important corollary of my side in the debate is that you really are paying for basically just the tuning (in terms of sound at least), no matter how expensive your iem is. this noticeably bothers some people. although I don't think they should be bothered. see my reasoning here https://www.head-fi.org/threads/subtonic-storm-impressions-and-discussion.966015/post-18089572

Another corollary is that with more accurate measurement systems like the 5128, you should indeed be able to eq one iem to another quite reliably and approximate the vast majority of the latter's tonal characteristics and technical performance, given that the iem you use to take the eq is decent in the usually unproblematic areas, like harmonic distortion, group delay, channel imbalance, etc.

 

[jude]

Thanks for the response!

I believe that if the two IEMS—which is what I’ll go with since the positional variables are less numerous than headphones, and the thread is about an IEM—were indistinguishable externally (identical in look, weight, feel) and that they measured identically at the eardrum, that they would be heard as identical in the ways you say, yes.

Very keen to hear your response

For the sake of this discussion, I think we can go with a multi-driver IEM and an open-back over-ear headphone if we go with the assumption that the measured frequency response at Person 1's eardrum is exactly the same.

Of course, we have to disregard the variables like how they feel on the head, in the ears, etc., for the sake of this discussion. I just mean sonically.

So, as I understand it, if an open-back, single-driver over-ear headphone (assuming Person 1 is in a perfectly quiet room) and a multi-driver IEM (also assuming Person 1 is in a perfectly quiet room) have the same measured frequency response at Person 1's eardrum -- and the only thing we know is that the frequency response is exactly equivalent -- you'd assert they'd be sonically indistinguishable in all respects? (Correct me if I'm wrong.)

So... my thoughts on this also originated from having had similar conversations with Oratory1990 on the subject, and then doing some "HRTF-searching" with tone-gen and EQ.

At the moment I'm of the opinion that provided all other metrics are equal, if the FR between two products is identical at the ear drum of a given person, the sound would be the same. With that said... it is at best only likely they will report the same qualities of the experience (like detail, texture and so on). The reason for this is that we can't account for various effects, sighted, psychoacoustic or otherwise, that could influence the experience. And I don't mean this to denigrate such reports, as they are absolutely part of the experience of a given headphone.


An example of this might be if one of the headphones is an open-back, and the other closed. With the open-back, even something as inconsequential as room tone leaking in could have an effect on the experience of 'openness', and could affect the report. Another example might be the effects of a heavier headphone on the experience. I was just evaluating some headphones where by all acoustic metrics the sound is very good, but I wonder if people will report them proportionally given the particularly lightweight nature of their design - you may also know which ones I'm talking about haha.

Can you clarify the "provided all other metrics are equal" part? (Again, setting aside how they physically feel, look, non-sonically present to Person 1.)

 

[listenerwww]

For the sake of this discussion, I think we can go with a multi-driver IEM and an open-back over-ear headphone if we go with the assumption that the measured frequency response at Person 1's eardrum is exactly the same.

Of course, we have to disregard the variables like how they feel on the head, in the ears, etc., for the sake of this discussion. I just mean sonically.

So, as I understand it, if an open-back, single-driver over-ear headphone (assuming Person 1 is in a perfectly quiet room) and a multi-driver IEM (also assuming Person 1 is in a perfectly quiet room) have the same measured frequency response at Person 1's eardrum -- and the only thing we know is that the frequency response is exactly equivalent -- you'd assert they'd be sonically indistinguishable in all respects? (Correct me if I'm wrong.)



Can you clarify the "provided all other metrics are equal" part? (Again, setting aside how they physically feel, look, non-sonically present to Person 1.)

I’ll agree to that characterization!

It's an intriguing and worthy discussion to be sure, but I am considering moving all of it to it's own thread somewhere, so that we stop derailing this one.

I have to imagine there are some, perhaps many, followers of this thread who'd like to return to the good old days of Storm-centric chatter. Maybe this?

I feel like I’m in the minority that likes the “cuter” and less busy design on the right more than the original on the left. If memory serves a lot of people didn’t like the redesign, but I love it.

 

[Resolve]

Can you clarify the "provided all other metrics are equal" part? (Again, setting aside how they physically feel, look, non-sonically present to Person 1.)

I would go as far as to say that as long as other metrics are similarly not having an audible impact, so like if harmonic distortion is below the audible threshold in both cases - they wouldn't need to be equal. Where that threshold is, however, I'm not entirely sure. But the same for things like excess GD, channel matching and so on. Channel matching is a particularly interesting one because that also somewhat depends on the listener. Because a product can have excellent channel matching on a rig, but less good channel matching in situ on a human, especially in the treble.

To bring it back to the Storm discussion, the harmonic distortion is reasonably low, at least for a BA-based IEM, but I don't know if that's below audibility given it's elevated H3 and H5 (and slightly odd order as is typical with BAs), and certainly this may be different depending on the person. Like, even if I can't hear any of it, maybe Cameron could. I don't want to give anything away but we did some testing and he actually has hearing that is... abnormally good.


But with regards to additional stuff, I also didn't notice anything else out of the ordinary with the storm for excess group delay to indicate it wasn't minimum phase, and at the moment I'm of the opinion that once that's the case we don't really need to deep dive on time-domain stuff, unless for example we wanted an alternative view of the FR.

 

[slumberman]

100%. Cards on the table, I'm not really really swayed by aesthetics unless it's choosing a custom but I've never really given Storm a second thought for looks, it's not really why I'm in this hobby...

Edit : can you squiggly science guys move the chat to the appropriate channel as its getting a bit old in the tooth now. If you want to talk an out FR graphs etc and theory then there's a place for that. If it's specific to Storm, then be my guest.

Agreed.

It’s not the place.

It would be good to have a dedicated thread.

 

[antdroid]

Just keep in mind also that Storm is a rather large IEM with a short nozzle. It may not fit the same from user to user ears and we know that can play a huge impact on each person's listening experience (and also the relative FR to that specific user). Two iems that have the same FR on a test rig coupler may have different FR to a user ear just based on fitment or tips used.

 

[Resolve]

You either die an audiophile or live long enough to become a squiggly science guy

I'll see myself out.

 

[listenerwww]

You either die an audiophile or live long enough to become a squiggly science guy

I'll see myself out.

Begone, squig pig!

Now, everyone else, what tips are people using with Storm? I found they make a pretty massive difference on Storm in particular.

I tended to go for narrower bore tips that are really compliant & thus allowed for deeper insertion, but I’d be interested to hear what works for others.

 

[BeowulfTheFoldin]

Just keep in mind also that Storm is a rather large IEM with a short nozzle. It may not fit the same from user to user ears and we know that can play a huge impact on each person's listening experience (and also the relative FR to that specific user). Two iems that have the same FR on a test rig coupler may have different FR to a user ear just based on fitment or tips used.

Seems worth picking up tws tips then, ive found fit wise short nozzles tend to be way more comfy with tws iem tips