[HPiper]

I was looking at a bunch of headphone graphs the other day and one thing I started to notice was what some very highly regarded headphones do very poorly at reproducing a square wave, while others not nearly so well regarded do a very good job. Why do they include a graph that appears to be pretty meaningless. They all do better at 30 than 300 hz, but there was one brand I was looking at that could not reproduce a 300hz square wave to save its life, just looked like a burst of noise. What should this tell us about that headphone vs one that produces a nice clean square wave.

 

[NA Blur]

Check this link out:
 
http://www.headphone.com/pages/evaluating-headphones

 

[MacedonianHero]

Or this:
 
http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/headphone-measurements-explained-square-wave-response

 

[RRod]

  Or this:
 
http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/headphone-measurements-explained-square-wave-response

 
Can someone explain this tidbit from there:
"For example, in the third plot down, you can see little spikes before the transitions. This is called "pre-ringing." How could an analog system know the signal is about to change and create the pre-ring? Answer: it can't."
 
I'd assume that the DAC is correctly sending out a higher voltage at those spikes before the drop to the next 1/2 cycle; why does the analog system need to "know" that is coming?

 

[HPiper]

Thanks for those links, that was very interesting reading! Now to go look at my headphones on there. Maybe I shouldn't lest I be disappointed.

 

[bigshot]

Square wave graphs are just about the least accurate way to judge sound quality for the purposes of listening to music on a home stereo system. Square waves exist only in theory. They don't exist in music.

 

[RRod]

  Square wave graphs are just about the least accurate way to judge sound quality for the purposes of listening to music on a home stereo system. Square waves exist only in theory. They don't exist in music.

 
You should listen to chiptunes now and then 

 

[mindbomb]

open back headphones tend to have problems with low frequency square waves. IEM and closed back don't. So you have to sorta grade open on a curve. I think that is the phenomenon you were noticing.