[RojasTKD]

I remember hearing Tyll say that he's not sure there is such as thing as "Neutral", and I would agree. I would say that things are "neutralish". What one person says is neutral, others will disagree.
 
One individual recently was praising the T1 in this thread, many others have said that it's too harsh in the treble. Many LOVE the HD 600 while I have other headphones I prefer to listen to over my HD 600 (HE-500, HE-400i, DT 1770, X2). I miss the bass extension while the mids are very lush and pleasing.
 
Personal taste play I big roll also... So it's not really worth arguing over.
 
Personally I like neutralish well balanced headphones with a little extra in the bass with not bright (harsh) treble. Some like the bright treble and equate it to clarity and air to me it's harsh and it hurts my ears to listen for too long. To each their own....
 
Best we can do is try and determine if we have similar taste to the person giving the opinion and decide of their recommendation will please us.

 

[illyria]

  Is it FocusPads?

 
Yeah, FocusPads.
 
Gluing them back together wasn't bad, honestly.  May just invest in some Vegan Pads.

 

[obsidyen]

  Compared to HE-500 (and even other Hifiman headphones), T1 (or actually any other Beyer headphone) is less transparent. 

 

 

[nickwin]

Quote:

  The gray lines are the actual frequency response based on various positions of the headphones on a test dummy. The red and blue line are the average compensated for the Harman target response curve. This response curve "expects" a healthy boost in the 2-5kHz range and "expects" a hard shelf dip past 10kHz. The "dip" you're describing past 1kHz is merely the headphone not rising to the level that the Harman curve suggests it should rise to, and the "rising" past 10kHz means that the frequency response drops past 10kHz like the Harman curve suggests it should.
 
If a headphone measured +/- 0db from 0Hz to 100kHz, the innerfidelity graph would look like this:
 
                                                                            /
                                                                           /
-----------------------------           ----------------/
                                         \        /
                                          \      /
                                           \    /
                                            \  /
                                             V
 
and blasting off to infinity. That's an official diagram btw
 
I don't quite understand the "point" of arguing in terms of neutrality. The actual definition of neutral (no gain at any given frequency) would yield a very boring and unpleasant headphone as per the Harman curve, and no product currently does this anyway.

 
The Harmon HP compensation curve and the independent direction HRTF curve are simply used to correct for measurement problems that come from measuring HP responses in ear.  Most audio measurements are done in free space which means a mic is placed right where the head would be and these measurements are considered to be accurate representations of what we hear in those situations. 
 
Both of these compensations simply try to convert an in ear HP measurements (which is not an accurate representation of what we hear) into the response you would get if it were measured in free space (which would be an accurate representation if the compensation curve were accurate). 
 
Is the compensation 100% accurate? Probably not, but its as close as we can get, and as far as I'm concerned its close enough.  Remember that both of these curves were created by the leading researchers in the field with the goal of creating an accurate compensation for what we hear in the real world.  Notice that these two curves are almost identical which says something.  I will say though that when it comes to headphones "objectivly neutral" is probably more of a gray area than it is with speakers or live sound where its pretty cut and dry but I still think we can get pretty damn close.
 
If you're familiar with speaker measurements I think its pretty clear that uncompensated HP measurement graphs are not an accurate representation of there sound.  If there really was a 3k peak like you see in that uncompensated he500 graph you would definitely know it and it would be really fatiguing.  
 
As far as a how a flat response subjectively sounds that's a whole different topic.  Then your getting into preference and psychoacoustics whereas these compensation curves are just trying to correct for measurement artifacts that occur when taking in ear measurements and to get graphs that reflect what we actually hear in the real world, which is also what we would hear from a speaker or from live sound.
 
Note: If anyone looks these curves up don't confuse the Harmon HP compensation curve with the Harmon target house curve.  The Harmon house curve intentionally deviates from flat to match peoples perceived flat and is intended for use with speakers.  Made that mistake...
 

 

[bracko]

   

 
?

 

[thefitz]

As far as a how a flat response subjectively sounds that's a whole different topic.  Then your getting into preference and psychoacoustics whereas these compensation curves are just trying to correct for measurement artifacts that occur when taking in ear measurements and to get graphs that reflects what we actually hear in the real world, which is also what we would hear from a speaker or from live sound.

The point I am making with this discussion is that when someone suggested the HE-500 was more "neutral" than the Beyer T1, almost everyone responded like he brought up the Beats Solo. How can people flail their arms like that when the concept of "neutral" isn't even conclusive? I've never heard a T1, but I've heard people say that it's hard up-top. I don't get how so many people can immediately furrow their brown over something that isn't conclusively defined.
 
I am a big fan of the Harman target headphone response curve (I'll make sure I include the word 'headphone' for clarity), and do indeed think it's a great reference point. However, can something compensated truly be "neutral"?

 

[elwappo99]

I was thinking about picking up the brainwavz hybrid pads instead of the hifiman focus or focus-a. Has anyone found a comparison?

 

[nickwin]

  The point I am making with this discussion is that when someone suggested the HE-500 was more "neutral" than the Beyer T1, almost everyone responded like he brought up the Beats Solo. How can people flail their arms like that when the concept of "neutral" isn't even conclusive? I've never heard a T1, but I've heard people say that it's hard up-top. I don't get how so many people can immediately furrow their brown over something that isn't conclusively defined.
 
I am a big fan of the Harman target headphone response curve (I'll make sure I include the word 'headphone' for clarity), and do indeed think it's a great reference point. However, can something compensated truly be "neutral"?

Thats a fair point, and I agree that no matter how close it gets, a HP measurement will probably never be a perfect representation of what we hear.  Its just different from how we hear live sound.  But you also need to consider what these curves are compensating for and what the end result of the compensation is suppose to be.
 
Is this really any different than the calibrations and offsets that pretty much all measurement devices have?  I honestly don't know.

 

[bracko]

I was thinking about picking up the brainwavz hybrid pads instead of the hifiman focus or focus-a. Has anyone found a comparison?

I've only tried Brainwavz velours with my HE-500. The sound became darker and smoother overall. Not really to my liking.

 

[thefitz]

  I've only tried Brainwavz velours with my HE-500. The sound became darker and smoother overall. Not really to my liking.

Haha, I was considering them too just now. My research told me, at least, that it's quite difficult to get the mounting ring out of your old pads and onto the Brainwavz one (which is an oval, btw).

 

[bracko]

 
Haha, I was considering them too just now. My research told me, at least, that it's quite difficult to get the mounting ring out of your old pads and onto the Brainwavz one (which is an oval, btw).

Actually it is not that hard. 

 I've done it a couple of times with the same mounting rings, back and forth.

 

[raybone0566]

You really don't need the mounting rings. Use some double sided tape and make sure you get a bit of lint on the side you attach to the pads so you don't tear them if they need to be removed. I gave up on the rings long ago.

 

[bracko]

You really don't need the mounting rings. Use some double sided tape and make sure you get a bit of lint on the side you attach to the pads so you don't tear them if they need to be removed. I gave up on the rings long ago.

In the long run it is probably best to use double sided tape.

 

[raybone0566]

From past experience sooner or later I always managed to snap the ring when swapping pads. I believe you get a better seal with the tape as well. Really love those 500's with the 560 headband. Going to get around to that soon.

 

[bracko]

From past experience sooner or later I always managed to snap the ring when swapping pads. I believe you get a better seal with the tape as well. Really love those 500's with the 560 headband. Going to get around to that soon.

Actually I think it is best to use both HE560 ear cups and HE560 headband. It is much easier to do the mod in that way.