[KaiSc]

...I've been listening to a lot of Emma Ruth Rundle lately, and she produces a lot of very distorted guitar (extreme example, 'The Ecstasy in Thinking of Final Exits' from Electric Guitar: One). Comes through just as much on my Hedd as on my other cans -- Utopia, HEKse, Auteur, RAD-0, Ether 2. .

Thanx for pointing me on this track.
I listened to it on both the HEDDphone and the Sennheiser HD-650 and that just made clear how far out of average the HEDDphone's tonal balance is.
The distortion of the ostinato guitar that blends into the 2nd half of the track is half wiped out on the HEDDphone.

Well, I have the Heddphone now for 3 weeks or so and indeed it needed around 60 hours for phone/brain burn in. Now I prefer it to my Lcd4(for sale...anyone?)and Diana but I don’t use them for mixing or anything professional.
They can sound darkish but it depends on the song,..

I'm a professional recording engineer and can't afford to "tune" my ear/brain system to something that's far out of average.
This would end with a catastrophe when producing music.

I too noticed how different the HEDDphones sound balance is depending on the song.
Reason might be the extreme cut out in an important treble frequency range.
Usually tracks do not sound that different, recording engineers and producers have an eye on being somewhere in the herd.

Also of note is the volume or how loud you listen. Myself, I am a low volume listener as I do a lot of reading at the same time but they open up in all directions tremendously when you increase the volume.
I have sold my SR009S with KGST amp because I really couldn’t connect emotionally to the music with it.

I am too not listening very loud, somewhere in the range where normal speech lies.
Might be the HEDDphone sounds much better when listening louder.
But that's not for me, I have to protect my ears and even don't enjoy that.

I still have two SR-009s, but they don't get much headtime, for the same reason as with yours.
I keep them for their relatively neutral sound.

 

[KaiSc]

Here's the measurement I am talking about.
A remark: I first listened and much later did the measurements, which in fact explains a lot I did notice when only listening.

For reference I put the Sennheiser HD-650 curve in too, witch clearly shows it's wellknown character.

The HEDDphone curve doesn't look too bad in the 1st place,
But - the 5 dB jump at 600 Hz is in a tonally very critical frequency range.
The lots of peaks and dips above 4 kHz, and the deep notch 5-7 kHz speak for themselves.

5-7kHz is exactly the frequency range where distorted rock guitars have their harmonics.
It's where the typical Celestion 12" speaker (think Marshall guitar amp) have their peak and frequency limit.

 

[Uebelkraehe]

That graph formatting sure makes the drop look as dramatic as possible...

 

[KaiSc]

That graph formatting sure makes the drop look as dramatic as possible...

My standard scaling, and you see the HD 650 looks quite OK.
It's not the purpose to make it look dramatic, but clearly readable.
It's kind of the opposite to what salesman do, use a scaling where every measurement looks like being perfectly linear, even if it's not.

15dB down between 5 and 7 kHz is dramatic and clearly points to a strong resonance.

 

[LCMusicLover]

Thanx for pointing me on this track.
I listened to it on both the HEDDphone and the Sennheiser HD-650 and that just made clear how far out of average the HEDDphone's tonal balance is.
The distortion of the ostinato guitar that blends into the 2nd half of the track is half wiped out on the HEDDphone...

Hmmm...I guess I'll have to go A/B that track from my Hedd & HD-6xx tonight. I'll be quite surprised if I hear what you report -- I listened to that track from the same systems (Hugo2go & A2 Gumby ==> DSHA-3F) through Hedd, RAD-0 & HEKse back-to-back (-to-back) this weekend. I thought HEKse produced slightly less emphasized distortion, while RAD-0 & Hedd were neck-and-neck. I'll get back to you with Hedd vs HD-6xx results

 

[Uebelkraehe]

It's not the purpose to make it look dramatic, but clearly readable.
It's kind of the opposite to what salesman do, use a scaling where every measurement looks like being perfectly linear, even if it's not.

15dB between 5, 6 and 7 kHz is dramatic and clearly points to a strong resonance.

If you think so. It doesn't seem very probable that everone who likes this headphone is either a salesman or deaf, but you are hearing what you are hearing.

 

[LCMusicLover]

...It doesn't seem very probable that everone who likes this headphone is either a salesman or deaf, but you are hearing what you are hearing.

I'm used to folks talking back-and-forth about how various cans sound, and I've been an active participant in such discussions, especially in the Utopia thread. These can be amusing discussions or somewhat prickly debates. But @KaiSc 's report is much further from what I hear than is generally the case. Don't quite know what to make of the whole story.

 

[KaiSc]

If you think so. It doesn't seem very probable that everone who likes this headphone is either a salesman or deaf, but you are hearing what you are hearing.

That's true and what I mentioned in my review.
Even the 6 kHz cut out must not come out that strong for everybody, the interaction headphone and concha (outer ear) is highly individual and might reduce or even enhance it.

The general (averaged) describtion here points to, that at least some effect is there.

 

[JaZZ]

Here's the measurement I am talking about.
A remark: I first listened and much later did the measurements, which in fact explains a lot I did notice when only listening.

For reference I put the Sennheiser HD-650 curve in too, witch clearly shows it's wellknown character.

The HEDDphone curve doesn't look too bad in the 1st place,
But - the 5 dB jump at 600 Hz is in a tonally very critical frequency range.
The lots of peaks and dips above 4 kHz, and the deep notch 5-7 kHz speak for themselves.

5-7kHz is exactly the frequency range where distorted rock guitars have their overtones.
It's where the typical Celestion 12" speaker (think Marshall guitar amp) have their peak and frequency limit.

It's dangerous to take one single FR graph as a reference.

Here's another, massively deviating one, which has served my own EQ efforts:

That one can also be found on the net:

The only clear common feature of the three is the dip at 6 kHz.

I've had really good succes with this compensation curve (with the Neutron player):

So I don't share your experience about dissatisfying results from equalizing. Anyway, there's no justifyable reason why some headphones should react favorably to equalizing and others unfavorably – it's just a matter of finding a really adequate compensation curve (which admittedly is hard enough).

What I share with you is the criticism about the ringing rear grille. My corresponding tweak looks like this:

.

 

[KaiSc]

I'd like to clarify one thing:
I'm professional audio engineer and am always used to start with listening, that's the main approach.
Measurement is only an auxiliary, to quantify my findings.

I've developed a measurement system and calibration that gives much more reasonable results than most of what you find in the Internet.

Suggest me 10 of the headphones you have.
I post the curves for those that I got too.
Then you see if this corresponds with what you hear.


Measurements, of course, help very much if you start with equalizing, because it can be much more precise instead of going the intuitive way, which I do too.
But equalizing based on measurements can only be as valid as the measurement is.
The curves you showed in your posting are really hard to interpret and build an equalizer from them.

BTW: At a second look I see that your compensation curve nicely fits to my measurement in the upper range.
You compensate the 6 kHz notch about the amount I measured.

 

[LCMusicLover]

I'd like to clarify one thing:
I'm professional audio engineer and am always used to start with listening, that's the main approach.
Measurement is only an auxiliary, to quantify my findings.

I've developed a measurement system and calibration that gives much more reasonable results than most of what you find in the Internet.

Suggest me 10 of the headphones you have.
I post the curves for those that I got too.
Then you see if this corresponds with what you hear.

You've actually already done this for 2 of my cans -- Hedd & HD-6xx. But I don't see what I hear or hear what I see for either of them, or perhaps I'm mis-understanding these graphs. For example, your comparison seems to show HD-6XX at least 3dB and as much as 6 dB louder than Hedd from 30hz up to 500hz. Not what I hear at all -- not even close. Or am I just mis-interpreting your graph?

I'd be happy to look at some more graphs for: HEKse, Utopia, and Ether 2.. Also RAD-0 and Blackwood Auteur, although I get that those two (and maybe Ether 2) are unlikely to be available to you.

 

[KaiSc]

Sorry, neither of those available,
Focal I got the Clear, HIFIMAN the HE-1000, 1st version.
That doesn't fit.

The HD-6xx is, averaged, overall 5-6 dB louder then the HEDDphone, if plugged into the same, low impedance output source.
Might be even 1 dB more, depending on the music, as they sound so different.

Difference Sennheiser HD-6xx minus HEDDphone
Smoothed 1/3 Octave for better readability:

 

[SilverEars]

My standard scaling, and you see the HD 650 looks quite OK.
It's not the purpose to make it look dramatic, but clearly readable.
It's kind of the opposite to what salesman do, use a scaling where every measurement looks like being perfectly linear, even if it's not.

15dB between 5, 6 and 7 kHz is dramatic and clearly points to a strong resonance.

The results of your measurements look to be of questionable accuracy since I know how HD650 response looks. Anyway, I understand your sentiment. I don't find HEDDphone anything special. The talk about $2k being a value is quite ridiculous. Another hype.

 

[LCMusicLover]

Sorry, neither of those available,
Focal I got the Clear, HIFIMAN the HE-1000, 1st version.
That doesn't fit.

The HD-6xx is, averaged, overall 5-6 dB louder then the HEDDphone, if plugged into the same, low impedance output source.
Might be even 1 dB more, depending on the music, as they sound so different.

Difference Sennheiser HD-6xx minus HEDDphone
Smoothed 1/3 Octave for better readability:

Are you saying 5-6 dB louder for the same input level?

BTW, I heard NO vocal distortion @ 3:03 on that Shelby Lynne track from Qobuz or Spotify (out of Hedd, HD-6xx, Utopia or HEKse) so it must be an artifact of the Tidal track.

 

[silversurfer616]

Did listen simultaneously to the Emma Ruth Rundle Song with the HD650 and Hedd( balanced, though) on the GSX-mini and the distorted guitar is there on both headphones. One could get the impression that it is not as intense on the Hedd compared to the HD650 but I think that’s because the soundstage on the Hedd is more spacious which means the distribution of the sound bits are not as closed in and as focussed as with the HD650.
On the Diana the guitar is absolutely blistering like static noise on steroids. Of course the Diana tuning is brighter and that’s why.
In the end, we really don’t know how it sounded in the Studio anyway.
Again, I am not a sound engineer and probably the Hedd is not the best choice for such activities...but that doesn’t bother me at all.