Just installed Sonarworks Sound ID Reference...Wow!

[Redwingnine]

I had seen the blogs and ads for Sonarworks for some time now. Have been using Sound ID reference with a Sennheiser Momentum 4 for about a year now, and it definitely helps. Would not want to be without it.

Finally tried the Sound ID Reference for Windows. Although I've gone through a lot of headphones over the years, the one set I've kept as a long term reference is the Sony MDR Z7. Whilst not a high end headphone, it has two things going for it:
1) Lots of Bass, which does help out with some genres
2) Extremely low distortion, including the bass registers.

The Sonarworks SW supports the Z7, so I tried it out. Wow! What a difference. The bass registers were cleaned up nicely. Still has lots of bass, but it now seemed balanced by comparison. The midrange is where the largest difference is seen. The suppressed region without EQ was fixed. The sound was now very balanced. The treble now displayed additional extension, and sounded cleaner.

The overall results are nothing short of amazing. The Z7 sounds like a much more expensive set of headphones with this EQ. Headphone enthusiasts would be well served to look into this. You may wind up saving a lot of $$$, and get better sound in the process. A win/win.

 

[Redwingnine]

Setup with windows computer was not al that easy. It took some reading, trial and error, but in the end, all is well. Got it working very well with TIDAL and Foobar 2000. I continue to be amazed at the transformation the SW does with the Sony Z7. The difference/improvement is quite remarkable. Now that Sonarworks supports over 500 headphones, there are some decent choices to select from.

I had liked Focal headphones in the past, but found them to be just a bit bright and artificial sounding. Now with this SW, I'll give the Clear Professional MG a go. They also have the option to send in your reference headphones and they will generate a specific curve for it. May yet try that.

It does drop the output volume to compensate for boosting frequencies so as to prevent distortion. Happily, my DAC/AMP combo easily handles this.