Having spend around £100-£150 on headphones a few times and doing some research to buy my first new headphones in a decade, if anything deciding what to do is harder now than before.
Ten years ago there were not many reviews. Now there are loads, from YouTube, to forums to the reviews left by customers. There is almost information overload. What is noticeable, is the number of reviews that discuss differences in sound, as opposed to improvements in sound. I watched a couple of YouTube reviews were cheap Grados and Beyerdynamic headphones were compared to far more expensive headphones from the same company, and it was clear that more money does not guarantee a better sound, just a different sound, in that case.
More money does pretty much guarantee headphones made out of more expensive materials, a nice box, may be a choice of cable, but it does not appear to guarantee better sound. "Better" is subjective. "Different" is more objective. "Better" tends to mean all the instruments are clear and you can really hear the music. I remember letting a friend listen to some Grado SR80s and she realised she had misheard some lyrics on a track she had been listening to for years. The "better" SR80s meant she could hear the vocals clearly. "Better" would also be the bass sounds more bass like and not thin. "Better" would tend to mean no tizzy sound on cymbals and generally no distortion. "Different" could also mean more bass, where the bass on both headphones sounds fine, it is a matter of preference as to how much bass the listener would like to hear.
How much money is needed to guarantee a "better" sound than £100ish headphones, such as the AKG K271 Mkii, K702 Grado SR80 or Beyerdynamic DT990? Or does more money just mean a different sound that is not necessarily better?
The question simply is “does more money buy a better headphone”. To a point, that’s completely subjective. But also I think we say there is a place (somewhere) were “said” headphone offers a moderately competent FR and technicalities? Still it also depends what you need as far as these values. Is $2000 and up all color? Truly I don’t know. And can simple EQ dial in the imperfections?
A convolution EQ can create any possible linear distortion (but also can't add non-linear distortion) because that's how math works. So in theory, any headphones' linear distortion could be matched to each other. The problem is that it's practically impossible to find the correct impulse for the EQ that would change a certain headphone's linear response to "perfectly" match an other set of headphone. I don't know exactly why it's so hard but I've heard of certain problems. Matching two headphones even on a good and precise measurement rig still doesn't guarentee that the headphones will match once you put them on someone's head to listen to them. If someone wanted to make two headphones sound identical to them they would need to somehow measure and match the headphones' response on their heads at their eardrums. Results will be less than perfect without individualized measurements but that is not a shortcoming of the EQ, it's just how measurements and the interaction between the headphone and one's ear works.
Nonlinear distortion can't be added by EQ but they seem to be low on plenty of headphones. I don't think there's any signal processor that's meant to reduce or remove the nonlinearities of headphones so if the headphones are different enough in that regard to be noticeable, that's impossible to fix.
I know that the wood of guitars can cause overtones....different harmonics to show-up......if they can be created with EQ......... I would have to see that.
Equalizers can't add (or at least in principle shouldn't add) harmonics to the signal although they could be saturated to the point they start to add harmonics but I doubt that would sound pleasurable in any way... Just adding random overtones to a signal is easy to do with other forms of signal processing but doing it in a particular manner like recreating how a wooden body of a guitar changes the signal of the string or maybe simulating classic analog hardware sound effects are challenging though. Companies making and selling DSP often times try to recreate analog hardware sound effects or synths with more or less success. The more expensive ones are actually simulating the analog circuitry to nail the sound and the behaviour of the analog units.
EQ is for balancing response. DSPs can do all kinds of things and introduce harmonic distortion and time shifts.
The word distortion can mean two things here. Any deviation from accuracy can be called a distortion, even response deviations. I was using the word distortion in the general sense, the same way coloration can mean response coloration or tube amp coloration that is harmonic distortion.
Matching two headphones even on a good and precise measurement rig still doesn't guarentee that the headphones will match once you put them on someone's head to listen to them. If someone wanted to make two headphones sound identical to them they would need to somehow measure and match the headphones' response on their heads at their eardrums. Results will be less than perfect without individualized measurements but that is not a shortcoming of the EQ, it's just how measurements and the interaction between the headphone and one's ear works.
This is something where I think that I'm starting to get into a position where I can provide some illustration of that phenomenon.
The DIY probe / tube microphone that I’m making has been quite helpful in characterising this issue above the range where in concha microphones (of this type for example : https://www.soundprofessionals.com/cgi-bin/gold/item/SP-TFB-2) start to become useless. It’s based on this video from David Griesinger : . Although at this point it deviates quite a bit from it.
Important note : the measurements below are NOT VALID FOR YOU. Using the same methodologies on your own head would most likely yield different results. They're just a way to rationalise and illustrate what happens with these headphones on my own head.
I’m now starting to get quite confident about using it for comparative evaluations up to around 10kHz. During the same measurements session I like to bookend it by measuring a pair of known headphones with a low positional variation to make sure that the probe didn’t move to any signifiant degree during the session. This is the typical sort of variation that you’ll see between the beginning and the end of a single session, here with a HD650, normalised at 500Hz (so basically within 1dB and the variation at higher frequencies is quite linear to begin with) :
Note that the pads are "near fresh" in the sense that they're new from a few months ago and I never really use it outside measurements as I prefer to use Dekoni's Elite Velour ones (for comfort mostly, they ruin the SQ without EQ).
Across different sessions (on a different day) the variation tends to be higher than I’d like, essentially because of the probe’s position within my ear canal being different (and not the headphones' position over my head, which in the case of the HD650 measurably is a non-issue). Here is a difference between a session two days ago and one a couple weeks ago, still with the HD650 :
I’m getting better at consistently locating the probe but it’s a work in progress. That being said, in two different sessions comparing my HD650 to my HD560S yielded very similar comparative results (HD560S in blue, HD650 in red, two sessions one week appart) :
So I think that it’s a pretty solid method for comparative evaluations (and therefore comparative EQing), regardless of the probe’s exact position within my ear canal. It's not rock solid mind you, and certainly should not be used to assert things such as "on my head, headphones X has 3.765dB more than headphones Y at 4327.3Hz", but just to assess trends in a somewhat loose way ("at 7300Hz or so, headphones X tend to be 2.5-3dB higher than headphones Y").
So, in regards to how headphones vary on your head vs. test rigs measurements, something quite simple to do, since comparative results are quite effective with this probe, simply is to apply Oratory1990’s (or others) presets and measure. This is how the HD650 and HD560S measure on my head with Oratory’s Harman presets, first with the DIY probe mics and then with in-concha mics (valid for comparative results up to around 3 kHz or so with these large open over-ears ? - please don't over-interpret the absolute values below 50Hz with these, they are not accurate, look only at comparative results) - solid traces with Oratory’s EQ, dotted traces with no EQ :
The remaining differences are still easily audible. And in fact it’s debatable whether or not applying the preset made them sound closer to each others past a few kHz. In the 5-6.5kHz region it actually made them diverge more (well if you normalise at 500Hz that is).
And remember that we’re talking here about two Sennheiser open back passive headphones with fairly low seatings variation and which already adhered quite well to the target. With other headphones the differences when applying Oratory’s presets may be higher.
So, theoretically, that would mean that I'd be able to EQ one pair of headphones against another. But there are some tangible limitations. A temporary one that I'm bound to solve at some point is that right now I only have one probe, and only use it for one ear canal. But since our ears are physically asymmetric to a degree and since EQing both channels with a common PEQ for both is an art in compromise, I'd need to evaluate both ears to make sure that the relative differences between the headphones are the exact same or not on both ears.
A more problematic one is that some headphones simply can't be EQed effectively because they have a FR that's far too problematic to start with, or are far too inconsistent from seating to seating.
As an illustration of the first problem, the first copy of the Sundara I received has a number of significant, high-Q features that I just can't solve. Here's the right channel with my probe vs. HD650 and HD560S :
The narrow bandwidth accident you see at 1.2-1.3Hz (and interestingly its multiple at around 2.5Hz) is difficult to EQ and because it's surrounded by two gentle slopes the total area affected is significant and the problem very audible. The general hash higher up is not that audible in detail but unsolvable as well (and actually difficult to measure as it operates on such narrow bandwidths that the smoothing that my probe calibration process applies is excessive to fairly represent it).
Besides, the resonance between 1 and 2kHz is slightly different for both channels (here with the in-concha mics) :
So that's a typical example of an un-EQable pair of headphones.
My AKG K371 would be a typical example of a pair of headphones I can't reliably EQ because of seating / positional variation (if only when I lean forwards or backwards). Well, and channel matching as well. Oh and there's the issue that it broke so... really difficult to EQ right now.
Going back to that thread's subject, the more I'm in a capacity to fine-tune my EQ, using various data points as references (such as measuring my speakers with this probe), the less and less I find justifications to use something higher up the food chain than my current pair of HD650 + Dekoni Elite Velour pads. The HD650 has very low THD above 200Hz and very few high Q resonances / dips, combined with very low seatings variation on my head and very good channel matching that all makes it a very EQable pair of headphones for me. I would also argue that at the listening volume I tend to be at, even with a hefty bass boost, THD is a non-issue with the HD650 and most reports of the bass being "loose" after EQ from people listening at a moderate volume simply is an improperly shaped FR curve.
My mum says that mines are prettily and lovingly symmetrical. But I'm not sure that I should be trusting my mum's opinion on such matters. I think that my probe may have the last word.
The enemy of 'good' is 'better' and the enemy of 'better' is 'the best'. I try to cut out enemies from my life so I simply don't think about 'better' or 'the best' after I have reached a level that allows me to enjoy music. I believe with healthy attitude we can "get used to" minor issues making 'good' audio gear better for us than what it would be if we keep thinking about better options.
What is 'good'? For me it is performance that is on reasonable level taking into account what technology allows. The price versus performance curve tells a lot. Typically 'good' audio gear has exhausted most of these benefits but not all, because after a point the price has to go way up for a significant change in performance. To me this sweet spot for over the ear headphones is around 200 euros. I believe competitive 200 euros hedsphones can offer most of the sound quality possible and paying 10 times more won't give much more. I believe 200 euros headphones don't prevent enjoying music, especially if one is used to the sound. A few decades ago my 200 euros headphones would have been the best in the world. It means the the exact same sound would have been the greatest sound on this planet. Why should I enjoy the sound less today than someone would have enjoyed it some 50 years ago? Just because today we have even better options on the market? Well, isn't that a silly reason to ruin the fun for yourself? But wait!?! Why not spent only 100 euros for headphones? 100 years ago they would have been the best in the world!! Yes, true, but paying only 100 euros more you can get significant improvement in sound quality. It is about at what price point most of the improvements are exhausted.
For me the experience of music listening is mostly sabotaged by bad production and mixing of music. For me badly mixed music would still sound badly mixed with the best headphones in the World. Similarly well produced music can sound fantastic on my 200 euro cans. So, for me it is more about how the music is produced and mixed then it is whether the headphones have a 200 euro or 2000 euro price tag. As everybody here know the biggest issue for me regarding headphone listening is excessive stereo separation (loudspeaker stereo) and the more expensive headphones generally do not address this at all. So I use crossfeed which for me improves the experience dramatically, but that is me. I have learned that people can experience spatiality on headphones very differently so each to their own.
Colour in music is a complex issue. The general idea of colour = distortion is simple, but I believe sound can have also negative colour which is a bad thing. If I create music on my computer using pure sinewaves without any kind of effects the result has tons of negative colour. It sounds really crappy, unnatural and lacks any kind of physicality, because existing physically causes colourization. The correct amount of colourization cancels the negative color. For example if I play that "sinewave song" on loudspeakers in a room and record the result with a pair of microphones I have added color: The color of the loudspeaker, the color of early reflections, the color of reverberation, the color of high frequencies attenuation more in the air than low frequencies and so on. Maybe this is not enough to make the "sinewave song" sound great, but it will sound less crappy, more natural and more physical. It has the sonic marks of having existed physically. Vinyl adds distortion (color) and if the music itself has negative colour, vinyl might actually sound "better" than digital counterparts, but this is not because vinyl is a better format (it is an old inferior format with tons of problems). It is because the music was produced and mixed badly in the first place. This is also why most people find CD superior to vinyl on music genres such as classical music: The music is produced, recorded and mixed well. It has the correct "colour neutrality" and marks of physical existence. Adding more colour can only make the sound worse. Transparent formats are merciless: You better make sure the sound doesn't have negative colour (unless intented by the artist, of course) because transparent formats don't "fix" anything adding distortion.
Doing the job is what counts. Perfection isn’t a realistic goal. My ears aren’t symmetrical, but they do the job, and my barber makes them look fine.
You are spot on… Natural acoustic coloration from speakers in a room is an expected part of music playback. Sound mixers use that as part of their calibration. Coloration from wow and flutter, inner groove distortion or surface noise of an LP aren’t an expected part of playback.
Posted many times before.
I remember seeing this explained and at one point the concha gain was questionable; being of a slightly different place. And Tyll simply said “OK” then if that then is what is is then “OK”. He didn’t argue that these are the basic theory of how it works.
Posted many times before.
I remember seeing this explained and at one point the concha gain was questionable; being of a slightly different place. And Tyll simply said “OK” then if that then is what is is then “OK”. He didn’t argue that these are the basic theory of how it works.
The colors on the ear match the graph below, about ear resonance. Not the graphs showing df and ff. You should probably remove that to avoid confusing people with the unfortunate similarities in color choices.
The colors on the ear match the graph below, about ear resonance. Not the graphs showing df and ff. You should probably remove that to avoid confusing people with the unfortunate similarities in color choices.
The enemy of 'good' is 'better' and the enemy of 'better' is 'the best'. I try to cut out enemies from my life so I simply don't think about 'better' or 'the best' after I have reached a level that allows me to enjoy music. I believe with healthy attitude we can "get used to" minor issues making 'good' audio gear better for us than what it would be if we keep thinking about better options.
This is me. As long as my music sounds really good, I'm totally fine with it. I do not obsess over getting better sound, or the best sound. Really good is good enough for me.
It doesn't make much sense to make an effort to improve sound if you can't articulate what is wrong with what you are hearing. That would just be random changes for changes sake.
I recently got a Lenovo alarm clock, to replace the ancient battery powered no make one I had used for years. The Lenovo comes with google assistant, my first experience of that. The music i can get it play from YouTube is surprisingly good. I think frame of mind is important. I do not expect much from a Lenovo alarm clock, so when it plays OK music, I think great. My AKG K44 headphones, too uncomfortable to wear for long periods due to the horrible pads, are like that. My frane of mind states for cheap headphones, where I do not expect much, they sound great.
When I got a loan of the Hifiman, I was expecting a lot, and was a little disappointed. They sounded different rather than better than my K702s. They did sound better than the K44s, as it was like I was now infront of the music, rather than listening from behind a curtain that muffled the sound. But I also get that with the K702s.
I worry that with very expensive headphones, I expect lots and are likely to be left disappointed, whereas with cheaper headphones, I expect less and an often plesantly surprised. Maybe it is just me and how I am. But, I don't get the same issue with cars or motorbikes. The more expensive ones are not just different, they are better. My Jag S Type was better in every way than the Vauxhall Astra I owned. My Versys 1000GT is better in every way than my KLE500. I just don't get that with headphones.
I recently got a Lenovo alarm clock, to replace the ancient battery powered no make one I had used for years. The Lenovo comes with google assistant, my first experience of that. The music i can get it play from YouTube is surprisingly good. I think frame of mind is important. I do not expect much from a Lenovo alarm clock, so when it plays OK music, I think great. My AKG K44 headphones, too uncomfortable to wear for long periods due to the horrible pads, are like that. My frane of mind states for cheap headphones, where I do not expect much, they sound great.
When I got a loan of the Hifiman, I was expecting a lot, and was a little disappointed. They sounded different rather than better than my K702s. They did sound better than the K44s, as it was like I was now infront of the music, rather than listening from behind a curtain that muffled the sound. But I also get that with the K702s.
I worry that with very expensive headphones, I expect lots and are likely to be left disappointed, whereas with cheaper headphones, I expect less and an often plesantly surprised. Maybe it is just me and how I am. But, I don't get the same issue with cars or motorbikes. The more expensive ones are not just different, they are better. My Jag S Type was better in every way than the Vauxhall Astra I owned. My Versys 1000GT is better in every way than my KLE500. I just don't get that with headphones.
I’ve been comparing headphones since 1975. I have owned many pair with my first nice pair in 1982. Gradually the sound got better. But not in a linear fashion. The Sony V6 I had in 1990 was still too treble like. Later around 1998 I purchase the MDR-CD-870, that was special as it transformed the way I understood bass. It wasn’t really bass-centric but had something? When I go back and give that a listen it seems way to rolled off now (rolled off in the treble)? Later I tried the AKG-701 and found it interesting but really not totally my cup of tea. So really that CD-870 was my favorite for about 10 years. I even took it to my first Head-Fi meet in 2009. There; at the Head-Fi meet I met someone who was selling a pair of Denon AHD7000. I tried a number of headphones but fell in love with the Denon sound. So I can say that 2009 was a big move forward in sound. In 2018 I purchased a pair of MDR-Z1R, that was another advance? I truly believe that as time progresses I find better sound? Since then I have moved more toward IEMs but again the sound has improved.
Also I agree there is many ways of sidestepping progress, but I feel there has been true advances made in the way I’m listening to music. Has the headphones always costed more? No, but my Sony CD-870 were under $200. They had issues except I didn’t know they had issues as I never heard anything better? Could I have stayed locked into 1998 headphones for my entire journey? I don’t think so?
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(well if you normalise at 500Hz that is).
