[BK201]

I see these guys who whine that a headphone resonates at certain frequencies.

Is this really audible, it's in the millisecond range too.

 

[jaddie]

Quote:

I see these guys who whine that a headphone resonates at certain frequencies.

Is this really audible, it's in the millisecond range too.

Not really a way to answer yes, no or maybe.  It's a question of degree. It's audible if it's bad enough.  Just like the whining. 

 

[Roly1650]

Quote:

I see these guys who whine that a headphone resonates at certain frequencies.

Is this really audible, it's in the millisecond range too.

 


As someone who has an acute sensibility to ringing myself, I think it's hardly whining to point out a fault that guys like me find objectionable. If you suffer from it, its pretty pervasive and ruins any enjoyment of what you're trying to listen to. For example most would think me insane for slamming say the HE500 phones, but I just can't tolerate them, they ring like a bell, whatever their other virtues might be and there's plenty of other phones/speakers I feel the same way about. And sorry, there is no time limit to the duration of the ringing, it's entirely program material dependent, based on the range and duration of the frequencies concerned. I've found some correlation between waterfall and impulse plots and what I hear, but nothing really hard and fast to be able to predict what phones/speakers are going to cause me discomfort.
 
Anyway, whine over

and as always, ymmv.

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

I'm also sensitive to ringing/excessive resonances especially in the upper-midrange/lower-highs range or say around 2kHz to 5kHz which causes the "70's radio" kind of midrange distortion. Especially with IEMs my earchannels seems to further exaggerate the 3.5kHz ringing which seems to be a pretty natural thing with IEMs why a lot of IEMs seems to have a slight drop around that part. For me if it's audible it's a problem. With CKS77 iems it was so bad I couldn't stand listen due to certain female vocals coming out in a distorted fashion like I'd be listening to a 70's radio.  The M-Audio Q40 I love also for this as there's no excessive audible resonances going on in the entire mids and highs range, naturally bass range tends to have more going on due to the nature of the slowly decaying low frequencies but it still does a very ok job there too for the amount bass it packs.
 
Ringing is very material dependant, for your upper-midrange ringing benchmark, I've found nothing coming close to point it out as well as Taylor Swift's nasal voice.  Especially the song Sparks Fly which seems to be mastered extra nasally (peak in the 2kHz or so area) further emphasizing her naturally already very nasal voice. A lot of headphones/IEMs won't pass this benchmark very well.

 

[jaddie]

Perhaps I was too terse before.  The only answer anyone can correctly pick in the survey is "Maybe" because it's a question of degree.  Ringing is a phenomenon with three dimensions: magnitude, frequency and time.  Any two of those dimensions, if taken high enough, will cause ringing to be audible.  Anyone who has heard it will want to answer "Yes", but truthfully they have also not heard it too, but it's been there.  The quest for knowledge is applaudable, but the question is really wrong.  The Yes answers will win, but that's not the real answer, because what people are answering Yes to is, really, "Have you ever heard ringing you objected to?"  And thats why we have anecdotal responses relating specifics.

 

[Roly1650]

Quote:

Perhaps I was too terse before.  The only answer anyone can correctly pick in the survey is "Maybe" because it's a question of degree.  Ringing is a phenomenon with three dimensions: magnitude, frequency and time.  Any two of those dimensions, if taken high enough, will cause ringing to be audible.  Anyone who has heard it will want to answer "Yes", but truthfully they have also not heard it too, but it's been there.  The quest for knowledge is applaudable, but the question is really wrong.  The Yes answers will win, but that's not the real answer, because what people are answering Yes to is, really, "Have you ever heard ringing you objected to?"  And thats why we have anecdotal responses relating specifics.

 


I never interpreted your initial response as terse, I find the quality of your posts to be way above the average for internet forums and am always in awe of your depth of knowledge. You are for sure correct in your second response and the major reason why the responses are anecdotal is because the average "Joe Blow" like me, is ill equipped to do better and put numbers to it . My objection to the OP was the use of the word "whine" and to the belief that response testing indicates short duration effects, which is not the reality at all.
 
In my case it doesn't seem to bear any relationship to the inherent quality of the transducers in question. I've already stated my dislike of the HE500. On the other hand, I have no problem with a phone like the DT990/600, which although very bright sounding, is as clean as a whistle to my perception, even on heavy sibilance. Sorry, that's the best I can do to describe it, knowing these my posts have done bugger all to advance the science.

 
 

 

[xnor]

I'm with jaddie on this one. "Maybe" it is.

 

[bigshot]

I've been in rooms that had resonant frequencies, but I've never heard it in headphones. I'm guessing that's because I prefer open headphones rather than closed.

 

[Roly1650]

I'm with jaddie on this one. "Maybe" it is.

So how are those sh**ty HE500's for you? Lol

If it's being interpreted from my remarks that I'm claiming some kind of "golden eared" status, then I've done a lousy job of explaining. I don't view my sensitivity to ringing as anything but a curse as I'm obviously missing out on the pleasure of hearing any number of really great phones/speakers. Could be the years of machine shop work....

 

[bigshot]

Is it your ears ringing or your headphones? If it's your ears, perhaps just equalizing out the frequencies you're sensitive to would help.

 

[jaddie]

So how are those sh**ty HE500's for you? Lol

If it's being interpreted from my remarks that I'm claiming some kind of "golden eared" status, then I've done a lousy job of explaining. I don't view my sensitivity to ringing as anything but a curse as I'm obviously missing out on the pleasure of hearing any number of really great phones/speakers. Could be the years of machine shop work....

No, you've done a good jobs, you're sensitive to ringing. It would be useful to know about what frequency range or critical band that happens for you. There actually is a type of tinnitus that is aggravated by specific spectral content, and knowing the frequencies involved is important to treatment. I've experimented with tinnitus "conditioning" treatment, it does work.

 

[Roly1650]

Quote:

No, you've done a good jobs, you're sensitive to ringing. It would be useful to know about what frequency range or critical band that happens for you. There actually is a type of tinnitus that is aggravated by specific spectral content, and knowing the frequencies involved is important to treatment. I've experimented with tinnitus "conditioning" treatment, it does work.

Thanks for the understanding and I guess you've forced me to do something "scientific". Using an iphone 4 with iOS6.1.2 and FreqGen by William Ames, (which, according to a couple of the reviews, appears to test accurately), through a pair of DT880/32, I get:
 
Lower limit 23 Hz, upper limit about 14.5 Hz, naturally neither was a the same level as at1kHz, but then the phones weren't corrected for flat response either, so some error there as well, but ballpark is probably OK at this stage.
 
The tinnitus ringing in my head seems to be at about 7.5 - 8.5 kHz. The voices however appear at random frequencies.

I've tried a few OTC remedies, they don't work for me, not even slightly, but if you have any recommendations, no problem with trying them out.
 
As for the spectral content, I can't accurately tell you. There is an instrumental track on James Taylor, "One Man Dog" which uses acoustic bells, on "good" phones the track reproduces with no problem, on "bad" phones the whole track can "ring". But at a guess I'd have to say in the range of 1.5 - 6.5 kHz.
 
If it helps, at this stage, I'd group as "good" phones that I've owned, AKG K340, (the old ones, not the newer ear buds), DT 880 & 990, Koss ESP 9 and 950, Stax SR-3/SRD5, and SRXMkIII, PWB Electrostatic and Moving Coil, (yes I owned both at one time!) and Wharfedale Isodynamics. And I accept your premise that any/all could have been ringing at inaudible levels.
 
Phones I'd call "bad" are AKG 701,(slight), Senn HD 580, (slightly worse), a pair of electrets from either Micro-Seki or Audio Technica, can't remember now, (worse), Sony MDR somethings, and the already mentioned HE 500. Very disappointed in the latter, I really wanted to like them. I'm sure there are others I've forgotten, because I didn't own them for very long for obvious reasons.
 
I'm not sure an eq would help, I think I could end up throwing the program out with the ringing. It also doesn't seem to be an open back/closed back issue.
 
Anyway, that's it.

 

[chewy4]

Quote:

No, you've done a good jobs, you're sensitive to ringing. It would be useful to know about what frequency range or critical band that happens for you. There actually is a type of tinnitus that is aggravated by specific spectral content, and knowing the frequencies involved is important to treatment. I've experimented with tinnitus "conditioning" treatment, it does work.

Can you elaborate on this? Is the conditioning short-term treatment? Not sure that my type of tinnitus would apply, but it might be worth looking into.

 

[jaddie]

Quote:

Thanks for the understanding and I guess you've forced me to do something "scientific". Using an iphone 4 with iOS6.1.2 and FreqGen by William Ames, (which, according to a couple of the reviews, appears to test accurately), through a pair of DT880/32, I get:
 
Lower limit 23 Hz, upper limit about 14.5 Hz, naturally neither was a the same level as at1kHz, but then the phones weren't corrected for flat response either, so some error there as well, but ballpark is probably OK at this stage.
 
The tinnitus ringing in my head seems to be at about 7.5 - 8.5 kHz. The voices however appear at random frequencies.

I've tried a few OTC remedies, they don't work for me, not even slightly, but if you have any recommendations, no problem with trying them out.
 

The response test is probably flawed, because you haven't corrected for hardware response.  It's fairly hard to do, but may not matter anyway.
 
My tinnitus files are a bit disorganized, but PM me and I'll send you something.  The basic idea is auditory cortex reorganization, here's an abstract of one paper that describes it:
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/12/15/0911268107.abstract
 
The basic procedure is to identify discreet tinnitus frequencies, then prepare a filter than notches out those frequencies, and play "conditioning" material through it at prescribed exposures.  There are commercial products and practitioners that do this, which is the recommended way.  Doesn't stop me from trying it a bit though.  You have to be very careful with exposure levels of course, but it does work.  Expect a good six months to a year to make a decent difference.
 
Quote:

 
If it helps, at this stage, I'd group as "good" phones that I've owned, AKG K340, (the old ones, not the newer ear buds), DT 880 & 990, Koss ESP 9 and 950, Stax SR-3/SRD5, and SRXMkIII, PWB Electrostatic and Moving Coil, (yes I owned both at one time!) and Wharfedale Isodynamics. And I accept your premise that any/all could have been ringing at inaudible levels.
 
Phones I'd call "bad" are AKG 701,(slight), Senn HD 580, (slightly worse), a pair of electrets from either Micro-Seki or Audio Technica, can't remember now, (worse), Sony MDR somethings, and the already mentioned HE 500. Very disappointed in the latter, I really wanted to like them. I'm sure there are others I've forgotten, because I didn't own them for very long for obvious reasons.
 
I'm not sure an eq would help, I think I could end up throwing the program out with the ringing. It also doesn't seem to be an open back/closed back issue.
 
Anyway, that's it.

I really can't speak to individual headphones unless I know them well.  But, you have an iPhone 4.  Go get this from the App store:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/amp-audyssey-media-player/id569331902?mt=8
 
Look and see if any of your favorites are done in the app, and try it.  I was totally amazed at what it did for all my headphones.  It literally but the fun back in, and took the annoyance out.  The short story of what they did was apply the high resolution Audyssey analysis to headphones via a well calibrated test method that "knows" about the difference between full size, on-ear, and IEM, then made precision curves for specific units.  They add more all the time.  The app allows for basic hand tuning too.

 

[chewy4]

Quote:

 
My tinnitus files are a bit disorganized, but PM me and I'll send you something. The basic idea is auditory cortex reorganization, here's an abstract of one paper that describes it:
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/12/15/0911268107.abstract
 
The basic procedure is to identify discreet tinnitus frequencies, then prepare a filter than notches out those frequencies, and play "conditioning" material through it at prescribed exposures. There are commercial products and practitioners that do this, which is the recommended way. Doesn't stop me from trying it a bit though. You have to be very careful with exposure levels of course, but it does work. Expect a good six months to a year to make a decent difference.

So to put it simply: identify the frequency tinnitus is at and put a notch filter on it when listening to music?
 
This is definitely something I want to look into, I've never heard about it before.