halcyon
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Oct 21, 2002
- Posts
- 1,877
- Likes
- 283
I'm looking for extremely neutral and accurate headphones for audio signal testing and psychoacoustics research.
Reguirements are:
- non-stats (can't afford Stax, Orpheus, etc. These don't come from a lab budget, but from my own pocket)
- amplitude response as flat as possible from 20 Hz to 20+ (pref at least to 30 kHz. AND YES, I need those extra frequencies as well, too time consuming to explain, look up ultrasonic excitation and aliasing-intermodulation distortion if you're interested)
- minimal THD and IMD
- can be hard drive to load (will get a matching amp or build one)
- pref. wired for correct absolute phase
- the above pretty much covers this already, but again: tonally as neutral as possible (i.e. I DON*T want pleasant, musical, bass strong, airy or other audiophile properties out of these cans, if any of them means less accurate).
I don't want headphones that take into account the non-linearities of the human ear and try to compensate for that. I want a transducers that give a flat and measurably as faultless reproduction as possible (to a measuring device).
From what I've read here and from many of the reviews this may exclude some of the following models (please correct me if I'm wrong):
- Sennheiser HD-580 & HD-600
- Most grados (????)
SHould I be looking at HD-590, Beyerdynamics or something else? I know that my limit of not using stats (they are VERY EXPENSIVE where I live) narrows down the choices a lot.
I'm no expert on headphones so I would appreciate recommendations which hopefully are based on personal detailed comparison or absolute measured performance (as per laboratory tests).
Am I asking for too much?
regards,
Halcyon
PS I have HD-590 currently (for different use than described above) and to my ear they are not overly bright (as in deviation from neutral) for my use. For extended musical listening I do fall back on my Grados however... But now I really need *accurate* and *neutral* headphones...
Reguirements are:
- non-stats (can't afford Stax, Orpheus, etc. These don't come from a lab budget, but from my own pocket)
- amplitude response as flat as possible from 20 Hz to 20+ (pref at least to 30 kHz. AND YES, I need those extra frequencies as well, too time consuming to explain, look up ultrasonic excitation and aliasing-intermodulation distortion if you're interested)
- minimal THD and IMD
- can be hard drive to load (will get a matching amp or build one)
- pref. wired for correct absolute phase
- the above pretty much covers this already, but again: tonally as neutral as possible (i.e. I DON*T want pleasant, musical, bass strong, airy or other audiophile properties out of these cans, if any of them means less accurate).
I don't want headphones that take into account the non-linearities of the human ear and try to compensate for that. I want a transducers that give a flat and measurably as faultless reproduction as possible (to a measuring device).
From what I've read here and from many of the reviews this may exclude some of the following models (please correct me if I'm wrong):
- Sennheiser HD-580 & HD-600
- Most grados (????)
SHould I be looking at HD-590, Beyerdynamics or something else? I know that my limit of not using stats (they are VERY EXPENSIVE where I live) narrows down the choices a lot.
I'm no expert on headphones so I would appreciate recommendations which hopefully are based on personal detailed comparison or absolute measured performance (as per laboratory tests).
Am I asking for too much?
regards,
Halcyon
PS I have HD-590 currently (for different use than described above) and to my ear they are not overly bright (as in deviation from neutral) for my use. For extended musical listening I do fall back on my Grados however... But now I really need *accurate* and *neutral* headphones...