[tigon_ridge]

Ah I see. Thanks.

 

[nicholars]

Quote:

 
 
No, not until you get an LCD2, HE-500 or a mad-dog and compare it to an HE-400 with eq'd treble.  Of course you'll lose air when you eq the treble down on the HE-400, it's one of the most airy headphones on the market-- way too much air.  The other 3 are more along the line of what one should be hearing in the treble, and if they sound very veiled in comparison then you're used to the HE-400, and it's not a wrong or flawed presentation with the 3 other cans.  I remember when I first implemented my treble rolloff I thought it made the HE-400 sound veiled in comparison, but eventually when I got to listen to LCD2 and the Mad Dogs I just realized it was how the treble was supposed to sound like.
 
As for the completely flat eq being turned on and off causing a slight veil over the entire sound, I call bs on it.  I'd love to see you try to tell the difference in a blind a/b.  That's very easy to setup, you'd just need someone else at the computer systematically turning it on and off and you telling them exactly when they're doing it and which one is which.

 
Yes I will eat my hat if you can consistently tell the difference in a blind A/B test with EQ on or off.

 

[jmsaxon69]

Yes I will eat my hat if you can consistently tell the difference in a blind A/B test with EQ on or off.

What kind of hat?

 

[nicholars]

Quote:

What kind of hat?

 
You name the hat and I will eat it, if you can consistently tell the difference and prove it.

 

[TMRaven]

Pull a Herzog and eat your own boot.

 

[davidsh]

Quote:

I've only heard the HE-400's on three different amps but I can certainly tell that the Lyr mates very well with this headphone. The Lyr also made my K701's a lot more dynamic and fuller sounding so I do believe the amp used can make a big difference.
 
Some have said "well, I'm getting plenty of volume from my *name the portable device* with HE-400" but I assume that just like speakers, just because you're getting enough volume doesn't mean that the headphone or speaker is getting enough juice to be controlled/driven properly. 

That is true. Even between DAC's I have found differences. I have just loaned a sa1.32. Only needed to listen to it for a couple of minutes to conclude it had more prominent bass, better sound stage width and sounded warmer than my DAD DAC 05. Both are capable DAC's and not that far away in price. I did not expect such big of a difference at all, but it sprang right into my eyes.

 

[jmsaxon69]

You name the hat and I will eat it, if you can consistently tell the difference and prove it.

I told my story honestly. I don't think I could pass the blind A/B test under gun though, it was that close. I don't think you'll be eating any hats anytime soon! I'd pick a big fancy hat like the women where to the Kentucky Derby btw.

 

[tigon_ridge]

Think I'll stick with pleathers. Sounds cleaner, more detailed or clearer, and punchier than velours to me.

 

[M-13]

Man nicholars you are really persistent at this. Let the dead horse lie down now. Same to you TMRaven, although you're not as annoying as nicholars. Both of you are going off unfounded assumptions about EQ, as am I. We all have our theories, grounded on shacky facts/assumptions at best. So no one is technically right at this point. We've all expressed our views on the matter. Do you seriously wanna talk about A/B/X blind testing now? That's another dead horse we can beat for ten useless pages, it's all been done on Head-Fi thousands of times. If you guys really want to do this we can do it. Perhaps we'll lock this thread up while we're at it. I'm fine talking about the negatives of EQ for the next 300 hundred pages if you want to keep going.
 
Just a last general point I want to make (hopefully) We're all about High Fidelity here, some of us are all about summit fidelity. We're all trying our best to minimize unintended artifacts created in our music when converting digital to analog. This is where we have high-end DACs coming in with better sigma-delta conversions and upsamping to eliminate pre-ringing, and phase misalignments, etc,etc. I'm sure I just talked over your head, but what I'm trying to get at is that EQing introduces another unknown artifact into our equation. Not surprisingly, some people don't like it. Not sure why it's so hard for you understand that there are people who genuinely don't like to mess with harmonics. Harmonics are just as important as principle notes, if not even more important. I don't see any Summit-Fi thread dedicated to EQing for this very reason. Or people who own high-end equipment talking about EQing.
 
Nicholars, the reason I find you annoying is not your views. Which are perfectly fine, but how you keep saying your views are facts and mine are assumptiions. If you know how to think like a normal human being you'll realize we're both making assumptions, that are equally unproven. So express your views without calling them facts. Or look up the definition of "fact" and then tell exactly how it's fatually correct that EQing does not mess with harmonics. If you're explanation makes sense I'll let you know and you can start calling your opinion a "fact". But for now us normal humans will consider your views as opinions based on assumptions which may be true or false.

 

[nicholars]

Quote:

Man nicholars you are really persistent at this. Let the dead horse lie down now. Same to you TMRaven, although you're not as annoying as nicholars. Both of you are going off unfounded assumptions about EQ, as am I. We all have our theories, grounded on a shacky facts at best. So no one is technically right at this point. We've all expressed our views on the matter. Do you seriously wanna talk about A/B/X blind testing now? That's another dead horse we can beat for ten useless pages if you guys really want to do this. Perhaps we'll lock this thread up while we're at it.

 
Only you seem to be annoyed about it. Did you get out of the wrong side of bed this morning?

 

[M-13]

Quote:

 
The glare only gets nasty in very specific tracks (out of my whole music archive of over 5000 lossless tracks, there are about a dozen or so tracks that emphasize the glare issue), that have a ton of harmonic filters that emphasize the 600-800 Hz region.

Just got home jerg and I guess I didn't catch this before. We were talking about shoutiness, and me saying it has to do with resonance/ringing in the upper-mids. Anything going on in the 600-800 region would not be called shoutiness. Any ringing measured there would just be artifact error and part of the typical "ortho wall" when measuring planars. You can confirm with master pirate if you want.
 
Now that doesn't mean nothing is going on between 600-800. I'll take a listen to your youtube track later and see if I can figure out what you're trying to say. All I know is that ringing/resonance at 600-800 hertz would not be a problem, and be considered benign, so something else most be happening for you to be concerned.
 
BTW, you and I have almost exaclty the same number of lossless tracks. I would estimate my collection at 5,000 too. Trying to get to 10,000 of course. LOL.

 

[jmsaxon69]

Think I'll stick with pleathers. Sounds cleaner, more detailed or clearer, and punchier than velours to me.

I pretty much swapped my pleathers for velour right away and have listened to nothing but since. I thought I heard an improvement straight away, but I may go back to the pleather now and see what I think. I thought the pleather made the upper midbass ringing or smearing or whatever it is more prevelant. I'll check it out tomorrow....

 

[M-13]

Quote:

 
Only you seem to be annoyed about it. Did you get out of the wrong side of bed this morning?

No look back at your last ten to twenty posts. How many times do you keep mentioning "based on false assumption", "based on wrong assumptions"
 
I actually stopped responding to you and TMRaven about EQ, trying to let this topic die, but you just won't let it die. You mention it virtually in all your posts. So I really want to know:
 
What are these "false assumptions" may I ask? And what are these "facts" you have, that are so right and I'm wrong? I'm curious please answer me so I understand where you're coming from.

 

[TMRaven]

Definitely do not want to go back to regular pleather.  The mids are so much less focused.  It's not even a 2db elevation issue, it's a damping issue.  That was my first reaction when I went to velours.
 
 
 
Quote:

Man nicholars you are really persistent at this. Let the dead horse lie down now. Same to you TMRaven, although you're not as annoying as nicholars. Both of you are going off unfounded assumptions about EQ, as am I. We all have our theories, grounded on shacky facts/assumptions at best. So no one is technically right at this point. We've all expressed our views on the matter. Do you seriously wanna talk about A/B/X blind testing now? That's another dead horse we can beat for ten useless pages, it's all been done on Head-Fi thousands of times. If you guys really want to do this we can do it. Perhaps we'll lock this thread up while we're at it. I'm fine talking about the negatives of EQ for the next 300 hundred pages if you want to keep going.

 
 
You're the major one making assumptions here, guy.  I support EQ based on my subjective impressions using it.  Jmasxon69 brought some of his subjective impressions using one, which I respect as well.  My blind ab test comment is justified because there's literally no reason an eq on or off that has absolutely 0 deviation should affect sound, unless the program itself is in question.  On the other hand you're throwing out ridiculous assertions without any backing like 'EQ messes with harmonics' and 'EQ introduces unknown artifacts into the equation.' First of all, if EQ'ing the treble down on the HE-400 messes with harmonics, then an LCD2 in comparison messes with harmonics, an HD650 messes with harmonics, I could keep going on.  Second of all, what are 'unknown artifacts?'  Did you just make that up on the fly?  I would personally love to stop talking about it because everybody has already gotten a good idea if they want to use equalization or not, but it's hard not to respond to the type of things that you spew out.
 
What you probably wouldn't know is that I'm generally heavily against EQ, I wouldn't use it if I didn't have to.  But in the case of the HE-400 I have to and actually want to, because it improves the HE-400's sound and experience for me tenfold.  Literally the most ridiculous thing in the world is seeing gobs of people simply brush the HE-400 off because they refuse to alter its treble and are afraid of a hypothetical 1% quality loss in sound fidelity or clarity when they could achieve more like a 20-30% increase in quality just by mitigating the HE-400's trouble spot.  It is what it is.  I'm sad for those people.  
 
 
Btw M13, do you actively use that filter setting on your dac?  Where's your 'unknown artifacts' in that?

 

[tigon_ridge]

Quote:

I pretty much swapped my pleathers for velour right away and have listened to nothing but since. I thought I heard an improvement straight away, but I may go back to the pleather now and see what I think. I thought the pleather made the upper midbass ringing or smearing or whatever it is more prevelant. I'll check it out tomorrow....

I just feel like vocals are clearer somehow. There's a bit more bass, too. I find it more musical. *shrug* Anywho, stick with whichever you like better.