jaakkopasanen
100+ Head-Fier
There seem to be popping up new headphone manufacturers doing hearing test based equalization. As far as I know these are divided into two groups: ones that are using hearing test with user input while testing for hearing thresholds and the ones that are using otoacoustic emission test. The first kind is the traditional hearing test where you press a button when you hear a beep. The latter is based on sound waves reflecting back from your inner ear and can be measured with a microphone without user input. Otoacoustic emission test can be used for sound levels that are above hearing threshold.
Some players in the first camp are: Ameo Audio, Audeara, Even H1. The page for Even H1 even has an online demo where you can test it for yourself. So far I have only found two products doing the otoacoustic emission test: Nuraphone and Hefio Play.
Reactions (cherry picked by the manufacturers) are extremely positive for all of these products and it seems that they surely can outperform cheap headphones that average consumer uses. However more critical listeners accustomed to better headphones are not that convinced. Tyll's review for Ameo Audio's "dongle" can be found at Innerfidelity. In his review Tyll says that the Ameo produces too bright sound signature.
What I'm really wondering is that how could these work wonders since our brains are (supposedly) doing the compensation for us. Adding a DSP compensation on top of that would result in double compensation. And this is actually what Tyll says also; brains are already on it so there is no need to do it twice. However I'm not sure how much brains compensate for the frequency response since clearly people with hearing impairments are not enjoying complete compensation by the brains. Maybe brains do a bit of compensation and the rest can be handled with DSP. Perhaps Ameo Audio is doing too heavy compensation for Tyll in the high frequencies.
Certainly people prefer headphones with different sound signatures so that could indicate that brains are not compensating it completely. If that's the case then why nobody seems to ever talk about sound signatures of speakers the same way we talk about it with headphones. Dips in the ears' frequency response should have the same effect when listening to speakers.
Anybody have any insights into this topic? Anyone have compared these products against high end headphones? Is it possible that brains are not doing the compensation to same degree when using headphones because it's so unnatural to begin with?
Some players in the first camp are: Ameo Audio, Audeara, Even H1. The page for Even H1 even has an online demo where you can test it for yourself. So far I have only found two products doing the otoacoustic emission test: Nuraphone and Hefio Play.
Reactions (cherry picked by the manufacturers) are extremely positive for all of these products and it seems that they surely can outperform cheap headphones that average consumer uses. However more critical listeners accustomed to better headphones are not that convinced. Tyll's review for Ameo Audio's "dongle" can be found at Innerfidelity. In his review Tyll says that the Ameo produces too bright sound signature.
What I'm really wondering is that how could these work wonders since our brains are (supposedly) doing the compensation for us. Adding a DSP compensation on top of that would result in double compensation. And this is actually what Tyll says also; brains are already on it so there is no need to do it twice. However I'm not sure how much brains compensate for the frequency response since clearly people with hearing impairments are not enjoying complete compensation by the brains. Maybe brains do a bit of compensation and the rest can be handled with DSP. Perhaps Ameo Audio is doing too heavy compensation for Tyll in the high frequencies.
Certainly people prefer headphones with different sound signatures so that could indicate that brains are not compensating it completely. If that's the case then why nobody seems to ever talk about sound signatures of speakers the same way we talk about it with headphones. Dips in the ears' frequency response should have the same effect when listening to speakers.
Anybody have any insights into this topic? Anyone have compared these products against high end headphones? Is it possible that brains are not doing the compensation to same degree when using headphones because it's so unnatural to begin with?
