Yes, a highly capable driver should be able to imitate the behavior of a less capable driver more easily than the reverse. But it's not clear what the value would be in someone owning e.g. Stax L700s using them to hear what cheaper headphones sound like without buying them. This might make sense if it was a showroom somewhere where they'd use their best headphones to let you listen to a lot of other sets they could sell you without having to keep everything in stock. But if you're the owner of cheap headphones investigating an upgrade path and trying to test more expensive and more capable headphones via DSP only, you're just not going to be able to do that.
I get the impression a lot of people in the headphone community (and Head-Fi in particular) tend to shy away from signal processing either because they're purists
Misguided purists for the most part. All headphones in existence (but not so much earspeakers like the K1000 or the KD-P1) already distort the frequency spectrum very much by completely separating the left and right sound, by firing it into your ears at a completely wrong angle and by adding cup reflections and other nonsense. If you care about natural sound you absolutely need to think of fixing that as much as possible, including some necessary adaptations to your personal HRTF. That's what one would do if they were a purist of perceived sound, not a misguided purist focused on electrical signal purity. It's not the hardware that's supposed to be sacred here but the music.
From what I've seen, miniDSP has a solid reputation.
I'm afraid some of it is undeserved though. It's easy to find discussions of miniDSP devices prior to the 2x4 HD generation(?) producing disturbing amounts of hiss, particularly detectable to people who tried to use miniDSP boards in bi-amped or multi-amped speaker designs, amplifying the sound after the miniDSP and therefore amplifying its self-noise as well (because it is self-noise, it's emitted even with no signal coming in).
That's my biggest worry with the HA-DSP, and the reason I'd be reluctant to buy it even if I could find it at a discount: that it might have audible self-noise. The high output impedance isn't reassuring in this respect either.
Misguided purists for the most part. All headphones in existence (but not so much earspeakers like the K1000 or the KD-P1) already distort the frequency spectrum very much by completely separating the left and right sound, by firing it into your ears at a completely wrong angle and by adding cup reflections and other nonsense. If you care about natural sound you absolutely need to think of fixing that as much as possible, including some necessary adaptations to your personal HRTF. That's what one would do if they were a purist of perceived sound, not a misguided purist focused on electrical signal purity. It's not the hardware that's supposed to be sacred here but the music.
I'm afraid some of it is undeserved though. It's easy to find discussions of miniDSP devices prior to the 2x4 HD generation(?) producing disturbing amounts of hiss, particularly detectable to people who tried to use miniDSP boards in bi-amped or multi-amped speaker designs, amplifying the sound after the miniDSP and therefore amplifying its self-noise as well (because it is self-noise, it's emitted even with no signal coming in).
That's my biggest worry with the HA-DSP, and the reason I'd be reluctant to buy it even if I could find it at a discount: that it might have audible self-noise. The high output impedance isn't reassuring in this respect either.
Should work well eq'ing and ISine 20. Otoh, its lower power than everything else I have. If it (amp section) was a class A biased amp, I'd overlook that. But cards on the table, that is my concern.
Should work well eq'ing and ISine 20. Otoh, its lower power than everything else I have. If it (amp section) was a class A biased amp, I'd overlook that. But cards on the table, that is my concern.
I was about to post it to classifieds last week when i plugged it in again to find that it won't take a charge now. I'm trying to get in contact with minidsp but they haven't responded in over a week now.
If they ship a new one back I could do $275 shipped.
Initially I planned on doing a full review on the miniDSP EARS (which I received at no cost as a review sample very early this year (should’ve been last year but the shipping company decided to procrastinate)) with photos and all that stuff, and I had even started one that was already 5 pages long, but I ditched that and decided to do a short write-up instead, since many useful things have been already said about the EARS around the web, especially in this reddit post, since nobody needs those many unnecessary photos in a review (like hey, isn’t there something called the internet where one can look up the photos in case of interest, and the manufacturer’s site?), and since the started review contained too much basic stuff.
So the above-linked reddit post already summarises the important stuff about the EARS in a precise way – kudos to the author for the well-summarised and precise information.
Some additional thoughts (/review) on the EARS, by me, even though most things have been already said in various places:
Matching of the two microphones seems to be good, at least in my case.
The artificial ears are a theoretical advantage over most DIY measurement station.
Measuring in-ears and earbuds is almost impossible – the artificial ears’ conchas are just too small to really fit and measure them.
The provided calibration files (mainly the “RAW” ones) are not of much help and quite inaccurate – resonances above 1 kHz are in the wrong place, too narrow and of wrong quantity. So unfortunately without substantial correction of the provided calibration and compensation files, what we see above 1 kHz deviates way too much from pro-gear measurements. And even with manual calibration as made clear in that reddit post, we still don’t always get the correct response, although something that is rather close and at least relatable and more than just okay for hobby standards.
Measurements in the lows appear quite accurate though.
The provided compensation curves are better than the provided raw calibration files – the simulated ear canal resonances are still in the wrong places etc., but the result is more accurate (although in ultimate terms still too inaccurate) and plausible.
Since it’s necessary to make your own calibration for more or less absolute and not relative measurements, I wonder if building a DIY rig wouldn’t be the better solution, and since most people who are into measurements are not afraid of DIY, this might be the way to go despite the EARS’ reasonable price.
-> In stock form with the provided calibration files, the EARS is only good for relative measurements (comparisons of headphones) but the results are not anywhere near absolute measurements from industry-standard pro rigs. If you want to achieve anything close to that, you have to adjust the provided compensation almost entirely, and strongly (but as the reddit poster properly explains, you won’t get 100% perfect results for every headphone either, but likely good enough for the price and hobby purpose). And if you want to do that and since re-doing the whole calibration is necessary for that, going with a self-built measurement station would probably be a considerable option as well, unless you don’t want to build one and want an affordable ready-made solution with artificial ears that however still requires severe modifying of the calibration to make it somewhat accurate.
Sennheiser HD 600 provided "RAW" calibration:
Sennheiser HD 600 provided ""Headphone_Compensated" Compensation:
I'm surprised there aren't more post on this promising headphone amp also. But, I'd like to see a touch screen user interface and the ability to store say about 25 different correction curves. Because I have four pairs of headphones on my desk now with others elsewhere in the house. It'd be nice to able to store three curves set of cans (flat, mids emphasized, and v shaped frequency response). And, I'm sure more cans will join my collection.
That being said, I'll wait for the folks at miniDSP to provide their second generation HA-DSP. I'm also looking forward to more post on this unit!
Can a delay be set on this MiniDSP HA-DSP while using an analog line input? If so, what are they priced at? I would actually consider one without the headphone amp if it meant I could use my own outboard headphone amp, of which I have several.
Can a delay be set on this MiniDSP HA-DSP while using an analog line input? If so, what are they priced at? I would actually consider one without the headphone amp if it meant I could use my own outboard headphone amp, of which I have several.
Late to the party... The HA-DSP is not available from MiniDSP anymore, maybe you can find a used one. I got mine from them in March '21 for US$347 and a couple months later the HA-DSP listing was removed from the MiniDSP website. The only info they provide on the HA-DSP now is on their legacy products page. MiniDSP has a dongle device now, IL-DSP.
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This might make sense if it was a showroom somewhere where they'd use their best headphones to let you listen to a lot of other sets they could sell you without having to keep everything in stock. But if you're the owner of cheap headphones investigating an upgrade path and trying to test more expensive and more capable headphones via DSP only, you're just not going to be able to do that.
