[LFF]

Quote:

 
Actually, I know it's impossible.  Just forget I brought it up.  You have no chance in hell.  Just sayin'. 
 

LOL!
 
Even more tempting now....
 

 

[purrin]

Purrin, your tools and analysis are beautiful and are representative of our curves as well vs the HD25 (a great headphone we admire).
 
Trust me, we DO and are tempted to do the exact same analysis and much more as soon as we get new headphones  (we use 8 of each competitors, 3 labs, and 50+ subjective reviewers so we can test durability and variances in their quality control and also check for statistical/calibration/lab sampling errors)...

Look at the headphones boost in the highs and how songs are mastered (I am a producer), it is VERY VERY dangerous to spike 8kHz+ in the headphone itself as every song is different and people have different volume listening levels, genres.  It is best to EQ if you need to or have hearing loss, but don't hurt the kids and younger users, I started V-MODA when I was in my mid 20s w perfect hearing and this is why we never artificially boosted our highs.
 
-v

Good to know you guys study your competitors. You did a good job tuning this one. I don't consider the treble roll-off or more precisely the slight downward tilt as "recessed", but rather as something necessary for headphones which have the drivers blasting directly into the ears. You also see the same roll-off behavior with the ESP950 and SR009 ('phones I consider linear), although they are smoother (as they should be.) The M-80 is a little more bassy than I would like, but it manages to keep under the threshold of what I would consider too much bass. In comparison, the HD25's bass volume crosses over the line for me. The M-80 worked for most of what I listened to (which includes a lot of popular music from 10-45 years ago). The ~1.8kHz bump made some trouble with K.D. Lang's Hymns..49th parallel CD. In any event, I don't think someone like me would be in your target market, but I do appreciate your efforts to not pander to the lowest common denominator and give our younger generation a nudge in the right direction.

Some thoughts on the CSDs:

1. I still can't figure out why I felt the M-80 was capable of involving me in the music (which for me means capable of extracting of low level information.) I am beginning to suspect a fast and clean decay in the 5-10kHz region plays a large part in this. This area is where all the harmonics and textures live.
2. On the 8kHz area - I agree. Any ringing near this area is bad.
3. Deep nulls or cancellations at t=0, which eventually turn into a ridge are especially bad
4. Minor ringing, if replicated an octave higher, is also especially bad.
5. Sharper ridges are worse than broader ridges.
6. For some reason, 4kHz-5kHz ringing doesn't sound as offensive as ringing in other areas. I could be that I'm deaf there. Just a hypothesis I'm throwing out.

P.S. I don't think I've thrown the overhead plots up. Will do so when I get the chance.

 

[purrin]

I don't really understand CSD plots that well, but I can speak about the sound.  What you describe doesn't sound exactly like the pair of HE-300 that I have here.  Although some points I can't deny, it almost makes me wonder if there are some variations in the build or something.
 
In my mini-review I did report an upper midrange peak/coloration, and they are fairly forward sounding.  But after listening to the HE-300 for a little while my ears/brain acclimate to the midrange peak.  It reminds me a little bit of (but not "sounds just like") a mid-level Grado with added bass.  At least I'm not hearing a nasally-sounding upper mids peak like I heard with the CD-3000, ATH-W11R, and W5000.  To me this peak is more tolerable.
 
And my HE-300 have very strong bass which doesn't sound like "some bass" (which to me implies not much). ...

Just a clarification from my notes. "some bass" what meant to mean "some decent/good bass." Hmm, very strange. The sample I auditioned did not sound like a Grado at all!? It most certainly did not sound forward. Instead it sounded like someone shoved the 2kHz lever up 10db on a cheap 5-band EQ. It was truly a horror. LFF said that I had them on for no more than two minutes, but I was actually ready to take them off after 15 seconds. I just didn't want to be impolite (LFF didn't give me any clue of what he thought about them), and also I wanted to check out a few more tracks just to make sure that I wasn't insane. I don't think my actual words were "messed up", they were a more colorful version of that phrase.

On the CSD (see overhead version below). What it says is that the membrane of the driver is vibrating like a drum at 2kHz and that this behavior has lasted for 10ms and is still continuing. This is one of the worst looking plots I've every measured; it's not even close,especially if you take into account the spotty FR at t=0. You can even see the severe gaps (at least -25db down) at ~7.5kHz and ~9.5kHz.



It sounds like we are talking about two completely different headphones. That would be some severe variation in builds.

 

[milosz]

This is a fascinating thread.
 
Purin, do you have some kind of energy-drink spigot plumbed into your kitchen or something?  Where DO you find the get-up-and-go to run all of those plots?  
 
I don't usually even have the energy to switch headphone amps all that often, and here you are beavering away in the lab taking all these measurements, LOL.  
 
Anyway, I'm sure I speak for the whole community here when I say....
 
 
              THANK  YOU!

 

[cappellano]

Dear Purrin,
 
thanks for your great thread!! It's really informative.
Please, I know that it can be different from your measure methodology but can you comment this graph? Is the Sony mdr z-1000.
Thanks in advance
 
 
04.CSD_SONY_MDR-Z1000.png

 

[arnaud]

Quote:

Your brain and ears tend to filter certain things after a short amount of time. However, if you play some well mastered music like "Layla" from Eric Clapton's "Unplugged" album on a can like the Stax 009 and then immediate jump over to the HE-300, you will hear a HUGE difference. This is how I initially noticed the flaws of the HE-300. I hooked my FA-002w and the HE-300 at the same time, same volume level, playing the same music. No contest. I agree that the HE-300 does have good bass but from the low midrange onwards...not so good. That said, given some time, your ears will adjust.
 
I'm also a person who believes the FA-003/FA-002w sound better than the HD600 and I agree that the HD600 sounds better than the HE-300.
 

Lol, this reminds me of when I heard the Edition 10 for the first time. It was just after listening to the SR009, for the first time as well. Suffice to say, the Ultrasone did not sound quite right in its own, but even more so comparatively to the 009...
 

 

[Reticuli2]

I'd definitely like to see what the DT1350 decays look like.  Anyone got DT990 Pro or DT880-600s they can send him?
 
If there are harmonics on these plots, are they just overlapped onto the side bands from the originating band?  Is this generated with a sweep over time that would be capable of distinguishing this, or by abruptly stopping pink noise (which would not allow differentiation of direct decay & reflections from 2nd or 3rd harmonics, etc)?
 
I suppose if they're big enough, you can just see the ringing harmonic at half or double the frequency somewhere else in the plot.  But there could be a lot of smearing I would think that might go unnoticed in these.

 

[plin]

Quote:

This is a fascinating thread.
 
 
              THANK  YOU!

x2 !
 

 

[plin]

Quote:

On the 8kHz area - I agree. Any ringing near this area is bad.

 
Very interesting. I have compare Hifiman’s HE-500 with my HD-650 and found them pretty amazing (but I have very limited headphone experience, just these two). Tyll seems to think also that they are very - very good. What bugs me is that according to Tyll’s measurements, there is a significant ringing around 9KHz, apparent on FR and impulse response.
I believe I heard also a slight ringing around 1KHz, which actually gave body to midrange.
 
It would be very interesting to see HE-500 CSD waterfall plots. Do you need a HE-500 or you can use Tyll’s data?
 

 

[Tyll Hertsens]

He can use my data, but my current methods of data acquisition seem to provide rather murky CSD plots. Slowly but surely looking into it.
 
Arnaud has a little conversion routine for my spreadsheets  Maybe he'll post a coupe here just for a look-see.
 
Purrin, I really admire the work you're doing dude.  Lots of information in those plots.  Thanks mang!

 

[purrin]

Thanks Tyll; and a "you are welcome" to everyone else. It brings me a smile when folks send me e-mails to the effect of "Dude, you got people talking about ringing on <x> headphone." The more knowledgeable we are, the better products we can expect.

 

[olor1n]

Cool custom tag purrin. Almost as cool as mine. Almost.

 

[purrin]

 
Quote:

...
Please, I know that it can be different from your measure methodology but can you comment this graph? Is the Sony mdr z-1000
 
04.CSD_SONY_MDR-Z1000.png

Again, that's not my measurement. If the plot is to be believed, the 2k ridge doesn't look that bad since it dies to below -30db in 1ms. The 10k ridge is more troubling. "ssss" "szssss" sssszss" Can't tell how bad it is because the plot looks smoothed a bit.
 
Quote:

 
Purin, do you have some kind of energy-drink spigot plumbed into your kitchen or something? 

 
Without going into details, the MLSSA impulse sounds a like white noise and contains a lot of interesting information. It's simply a matter of recording the MLSSA response and processing the data in different ways to extract the information. I have all the info on my laptop, so if someone had a request, it's just a matter of generating it. The actual measurement process takes no more than 10 seconds per side. Usually longer because there is a lot of noise pollution where I live. Helicopters, planes, rice-rockets, and monster trucks, and water heaters mess up the measurements.
 
Also my job demands that I sit at the computer a lot and wait for automated tasks to finish. During those times, I have nothing better to do.
 
Quote:

 
Very interesting. I have compare Hifiman’s HE-500 with my HD-650 and found them pretty amazing (but I have very limited headphone experience, just these two). Tyll seems to think also that they are very - very good. What bugs me is that according to Tyll’s measurements, there is a significant ringing around 9KHz, apparent on FR and impulse response.

Tyll's measurements also include the effect of the headphone enclosures. You can say there is a peak at 9kHz on Tyll's FR graph, but you cannot say for certain there is ringing (or at least ringing caused of the driver.) IMO, the fleshy supercomputer that we have between our ears is very good at filtering out enclosure effects and hear what the drivers are actually doing. This is why the CSD plots are a useful supplement to Tyll's FR data.

 

[purrin]

 
Quote:

Cool custom tag purrin. Almost as cool as mine. Almost.

Just noticed that. I wonder if there is a double entendre to it? 

 

 

[CEE TEE]

THANKS for your plotting, @purrin.
 
And I do mean that in (2) ways:  

• The CSD graphs teach me another way of thinking about what I am hearing... 
• The different component configurations that you try and are always "plotting" to put together sound great!