[chris.d.m.]

Hope to check out the Auteur soon.

 

[chris.d.m.]

HD600 has been a standard mixing and mastering headphone for a very long time.

One of the most "neutral" measuring headphones is the Audio Zenith PMx2. It seems like this would be worth researching if money isn't a concern.

I’m curious about this one.
Considering it’s price (not sure about its availability) it seems one should also seriously be considering the ZMF Auteur.
Which as I understand it, might be a very good mix consideration pair.

I personally will check out Sundara in a few days in the <500 category.
Might be a good HD--6xx alternative.
Soon to see.

 

[Liu Junyuan]

I’m curious about this one.
Considering it’s price (not sure about its availability) it seems one should also seriously be considering the ZMF Auteur.
Which as I understand it, might be a very good mix consideration pair.

I personally will check out Sundara in a few days in the <500 category.
Might be a good HD--6xx alternative.
Soon to see.

I just received an Auteur.

 

[chris.d.m.]

I just received an Auteur.

& ?.......

Any thoughts on if there are any glaring peaks or valleys, ...level of engagement.

Please mention as well if you've ever heard Sundara. They're said to have a less than exciting sub region which might be of concern.

I'd like to think this thread could be of help for mix/master folks serious about finding the best options for their needs. It's highly subjective of course, pretty much pick your favorite compromise that speaks to you most.

 

[belgar]

It's an old thread, I know, but I just included an HD800s in my mixing process and I LOVE IT. For the last 10 years or so an HD650 with Sonarworks calibration was my workhorse.

I think the more important question is, what are you using the headphones for. I don't use them to finish the mix, I have monitors for that, but to check details. How does it sit in the mix? I'm well aware that a lot of music is consumed over headphones these days.... The HD800s delivers a stelar performance. It is so fast and transparent that I hear things I couldn't hear on my HD650 before. I will still use the HD650 for managing the soundstage and the tonal balance (with calibration for flat response), but the HD800s for surgical work.

Lastly, the most important thing is that you KNOW your headphones, so that you can trust them. It is exciting to try out new gear, I now, but when it comes to mixing, you want to understand the frequency response and dynamics in the context of the hardware you use. This is even true for calibrated headphones. Anyway, I'm covered now for the next 10 years!

 

[Kammerat Rebekka]

I have a couple of friends who work with sound professionally. They ALWAYS mix on monitors...with the odd sneak peak via the HD600. Both of them have owned the 800 and both of them sold them off. Apart from being too bright in the treble area the real problem with the headphone, 800 as well as the 800s, is the dip in the uppermids. This can potentially pose a huge problem simply because you can’t hear when fx vocals turn sibilant.
This is easy to fix with EQ though - especially as the 800 comes with such low distortion numbers. Still wasn’t something they wanted to keep either for work or for play.

 

[ADUHF]

I do not work in audio production. But from what I have read and heard over the years, mixing and mastering are different tasks, which may require different tools.

Mixing often seems to be done with somewhat brighter-sounding speakers (or headphones, in some cases) which are better at revealing high-frequency detail. While mastering can be done with a variety of transducers to approximate something close to the end-user's listening conditions. In the not-to-distance past, for example, some very crappy (by today's standards) speakers were often used for mastering to better approximate the rather poor sound quality of car radios and home audio systems of the time.

To the best of my knowledge, there is still no per se standard today for either of the above tasks. So engineers must still rely, to a large extent, on their knowledge and experience of the specific characteristics of the particular transducers they're using for a given job to assess how it will translate to an end-user. There are some folks, such as Floyd Toole who've been trying to move the industry more in the direction of standardization though. And various digital tools and standards which also attempt to do the same thing. Since I'm not in the industry though, I can't provide much more detail or insight into the effectiveness or lack thereof of such tools and standards.

In terms of tonal balance, what I personally look for is a headphone that approximates the sound of anechoically flat speakers in a good room. Or something close to it. That = "neutral" to me.

 

[belgar]

I have a couple of friends who work with sound professionally. They ALWAYS mix on monitors...with the odd sneak peak via the HD600. Both of them have owned the 800 and both of them sold them off. Apart from being too bright in the treble area the real problem with the headphone, 800 as well as the 800s, is the dip in the uppermids. This can potentially pose a huge problem simply because you can’t hear when fx vocals turn sibilant.
This is easy to fix with EQ though - especially as the 800 comes with such low distortion numbers. Still wasn’t something they wanted to keep either for work or for play.

I hear you and see that as well. I have a treated room and there I can trust my monitors. On the road and for checking details, I rely on headphones and when you know them, you can adjust and as you say, EQ. What I love about the HD800s is the precision and the speed, working with it and a linear response, I feel comfortable making decision. Here's a screenshot of my HD650 calibration, the blue lines show how different left is from right (remarkable and scary!) and how they peak and drop across the frequency spectrum. The purple line is the simulated response I'm working with.

 

[belgar]

Btw, "flat" and "neutral" are obviously not "fun"! The biases work in favor of certain genres and both, the HD800s and HD650 are actually quite musical listening to Jazz and classical pieces - or with anything really that doesn't really on a full low end. I just re-discovered my tube amplifier with the HDS800s and it is magical! It's a new workhorse in the stable but I find ways to have fun with it too .

All this to say that I needed a while to get around to pick up the HD800S but sometimes it takes time for us to appreciate classic headphones. Just like the 600-series from the 70ies, I believe the 800 is here to stay.

 

[ADUHF]

Btw, "flat" and "neutral" are obviously not "fun"!

Accurate = fun to me. And if the headphone is doing a good job of accurately reproducing what an anechoically flat speaker sounds like in good room, then that's all the fun I need! But I get yer point. Alot of content was mastered before "neutral" was discovered. And consequently may not sound best on neutral HPs.

May I ask, btw, what compensation curve was used for the above HD650 plot?

 

[belgar]

Accurate = fun to me. And if the headphone is doing a good job of accurately reproducing what an anechoically flat speaker sounds like in good room, then that's all the fun I need! But I get yer point. Alot of content was mastered before "neutral" was discovered. And consequently may not sound best on neutral HPs.

May I ask, btw, what compensation curve was used for the above HD650 plot?

Yes, it is fun to get work done accurately, absolutely . The compensation is quite extreme and what looks great on paper, is something the drivers need to deliver in practice. Frankly, no idea if they are even capable of delivering.

Then again, I don't just rely on (one set of) headphones, there are the monitors in the treated room, my car hifi, the cheap clock radio in the bedroom and.... a separate set of ears mastering!

 

[ADUHF]

Thank you for posting that, belgar. What I was actually lookin for though was the correction (aka compensation or transfer function) curve used to create the initial compensated HD650 plot in your first graph before any correction was applied to get it to a "flat" response. Is it possible for you to post that curve as well? I'm sorry I didn't make that clearer before.

It might look something like a diffuse or free-field curve. Or the Harman headphone target...

Example of DIffuse & Free-field Curves:

Harman Target for Over & In-ear Headphones from this article...

https://www.innerfidelity.com/content/harman-tweaks-its-headphone-target-response

It could also look like one of the above inverted, with a valley instead of a peak at around 3 kHz.

 

[belgar]

Great article, thanks for sharing! Unfortunately, I don't have any equipment here to measure it myself so I have to rely on what Sonarworks provides me with. With my limited understanding, I thought that the green curves of my 2nd chart exhibits the volume compensation required, to get the flat response (purple line in first graph).

Here's Sonarwork's opinion/insights on the HD800S.

 

[ADUHF]

Great article, thanks for sharing! Unfortunately, I don't have any equipment here to measure it myself so I have to rely on what Sonarworks provides me with. With my limited understanding, I thought that the green curves of my 2nd chart exhibits the volume compensation required, to get the flat response (purple line in first graph).

Thanks you again for that, belgar.

I don't know how Sonarworks works. Do they measure the frequency response of your headphones? Or just have the measured FRs of a variety of different headphones already built into their software?

I think the Target curve on the above graph might be what I'm lookin for. But I'm not sure. I'm tryin to google it though, and can't seem to find any images of it. So maybe they prefer to keep it a secret... In which case, you probably shouldn't post it. In some articles, they refer to it as their headphone "transfer curve". If someone else can provide an official Sonarworks link to it though, I'd be curious to see what it looks like.

 

[ADUHF]

The headphone review site rtings also uses a target headphone compensation curve similar to the Harman target. There's a graph of their current target curve at the bottom of this article, with the original Harman curve for comparison...

https://www.rtings.com/headphones/tests/sound-quality/raw-frequency-response

I usually look at the Raw FR plots in their graphs and articles, rather than the compensated ones btw. Because I trust my knowledge of what the raw response should look like more than their target curve.

Here is the raw frequency response for the left and right channels of the Senn HD650...

https://www.rtings.com/headphones/1-4/graph#245/4011

https://www.rtings.com/headphones/1-4/graph#245/4012

And their compensated FR reponse for comparison...

https://www.rtings.com/headphones/1-4/graph#245/3992

You can choose other curves and headphones using the drop-down menus above the graphs. The above tool works alot like the old Headroom Graph Comparison tool.