[MacedonianHero]

Quote:

 

Yeah, that's what I always suspected when I looked at its chart, but some people keep telling me its bass is close to the D7000. I've had people tell me the DX1000 and W1000X and D5000 are all very similar to D7000's bass too, and while they had good bass, they didn't extend quite as deep or have quite the same bass weight as the D7000 when I A/B'd them recently. I've read a few people saying the T1 doesn't extend deep enough either, so that means all those are now off my list, except for the JH16/JH3A combo. I have never seen a chart for any of the JHAudio IEM's though, and I wonder why?
 
I have a feeling it's going to end up being a duel between the LCD2 and the 007MKII.

While I do agree that the D7000's bass is deeper with more impact than the closed headphones you listed, the T1s simply go deeper with much better definition (but no where the amount of impact).
 
Cheers!

 

[oqvist]

 
Quote:

 

Yeah, that's what I always suspected when I looked at its chart, but some people keep telling me its bass is close to the D7000. I've had people tell me the DX1000 and W1000X and D5000 are all very similar to D7000's bass too, and while they had good bass, they didn't extend quite as deep or have quite the same bass weight as the D7000 when I A/B'd them recently. I've read a few people saying the T1 doesn't extend deep enough either, so that means all those are now off my list, except for the JH16/JH3A combo. I have never seen a chart for any of the JHAudio IEM's though, and I wonder why?
 
I have a feeling it's going to end up being a duel between the LCD2 and the 007MKII.

I think it´s due to the ED 8 with it´s tight fit will actually let you feel the bass some and it´s more compact design. It doesn´t need all that much bass to fill those small cups I assume and it´s closed not ported.

 

[Skylab]

My own measurements of the Ed8 and the LCD-2 did show the LCD-2 to have better bass extension than the Ed8, although the Ed8 was still quite good.  My measurements showed the Ed 8 to have better bass extension that the Headroom measurements, but mine are less sophisticated - I use an acoustically-coupled SPL meter and the Stereophile Test CD-3.
 
The T1 has outstanding bass extension - both in the Headroom measurements, and in my own.

 

[edstrelow]

 
Quote:

It was in a paper I read.  It's fairly common knowledge in the right circles.  Can't find a reference at the moment, but, as I recall, it was stapes muscle induced HD.  Above a threshold, (~90dB,) the muscles that anchor the stapes actually move sympathetically, creating these distortions.
 

.  Muscles moving sympathetically?  Under what conditions?  I think you are confusing speculation with proven facts


 
Quote:

Just to make the point clearer...  Here is a plot from the Stax mentioned above;

 
 
 
 
 
Here's a FR plot for the LCD-2;  The violet and red traces are FR, the yellow and grey are phase response.

You'll notice that first of all, the Stax response is anything but flat, but more significantly, the test seems to have been done at a much lower volume level with the Stax than with the LCD-2.  For any meaningful comparison to be done both plots should be done at 90dB as the LCD-2 plot was done.  I'm way more impressed with the graph from the LCD-2.
 
Most importantly, when I listen to both cans, one sounds better to me than the other.  That's more important than any graph in the world.

 
I think the measurement discussion that has been going on here is very misleading.  For a start you can't just couple a headphone to any old coupler and claim you are measuring what the listener would hear.   The frequency response of any phone is signifcantly affected by the coupler as well as the elctronics.  And while you may be able to make some comparative judgements with a specific coupler you cannot say much about  how the measurement relates to what a listener would hear and you can almost certainly not compare such plots taken using different couplers, amplifiers or other equipment.  So just whipping out different sets of measurements is just muddying the waters.
 
 
If you present a swept tone to the ear  which would measure flat by a microphone in open space, it will not measure flat  with a probe microphone at the ear drum.  You will pick up a substantial peak in the 2-4 kHz region caused by the resonance of the ear canal and even by the head itself in a  sound field.  So a headphone with a  flat response   should look like that when measured using a probe micprophone in the ear or with a  microphone at the base of an artificial anatomically-correct ear canal of a dummy head.
 
 
It was my understanding that Headroom had been using this measuring procedure in the last few years and applying a correction to the measured response to compensate for the resonance issues although I remember when they used other techniques.

 

[kwkarth]

Quote:

.  Muscles moving sympathetically?  Under what conditions?  I think you are confusing speculation with proven facts

The paper I read was a Master's Thesis done by Daniel Cheever in 1989 entitled; "A NEW METHODOLOGY FOR AUDIO FREQUENCY POWER AMPLIFIER TESTING BASED ON PSYCHOACOUSTIC DATA THAT BETTER CORRELATES WITH SOUND QUALITY"
 
I found it to be an interesting paper.  I think you'll be able to find it on the net if you look for it, but I'll enclose a snippet.
 
 
[size=medium]Harmonic Consonance.[/size]
[size=medium]The cochlea is the potion of the inner ear devoted to hearing. It is a 35 mm long spiral fluid filled tunnel of reducing aperture embedded in bone with 12,000 outer hair cells spread every 10 microns in sets of 4, each tuned to a different frequency. Studies via instrumenting21 sets of outer hair cell neurons have verified the creation of harmonics within the cochlea, documented in the 1924 figure[28] Fig. 2-1. This work is the result of[/size]
[size=medium]20 As notes in previous sections, higher order harmonics are increasingly more detectable by the ear-brain system as audible distortion. 21 Studies where performed on cats[27]. No studies where found on the human ear system that directly measured the hair cell transducer harmonics due to the mechanical limitations of the hair-cochlea interface. The geometry and cell type are very similar, and, other indirect methods of measuring the aural harmoincs have been thoroughly developed.[/size]
[size=medium]35speech recognition studies. Shown are the ears self created harmonics relative intensity versus fundamental frequency. The data was derived by using the understood[/size]
[size=medium]Fig 2-1. Ear self-generated harmonics, frequency versus level. phenomenon of hearing beating when two notes are impressed on the ear. An auxiliary tone of a frequency near the fundamental test tones’ harmonic is used and its level raised until beating is just audible. This level is related to the ears natural aural harmonic creation. Inspecting this data, the second harmonic of a 1kHz fundamental tone22 is 50dB above the threshold of hearing. In 1967 Olson[28] from RCA/Victor R&D Labs continued testing the first 8 harmonics and over a broad range of sound pressure levels, reproduced here in Fig. 2-2. This has been redrawn for clarity in Fig 2-3. Notice that the ear creates significant levels of the second harmonic, nearly 10% of the fundamental for sound pressure levels (SPL’s) of 90dBA and above. Also the slope of the harmonic[/size]
[size=medium]22 The sound pressure level was not cited in this work. One assumes speech level, ~70dBA. 36[/size]
[size=medium]Fig. 2-2. Ear self-generated harmonics, level versus sound pressure level[/size]
[size=medium]Fig. 2-3. Ear self-generated harmonics, level versus sound pressure level 37[/size]
[size=medium]Fig.2-4. Subset of Fig. 2-3 with reduced SPL range for clarity reduction versus input reduction varies with the harmonic power, beginning at approximately 1:10 for the 3rd harmonic to 1:1 for the 9th harmonic. A different perspective is shown in Fig 2-4. A reduced SPL range is shown. Even for the moderate S.P.L. of 80dBA, the 2nd harmonic is at the equivalent of 65dBA or normal voice level, and the 3rd at 45dB. This is still ~40dB above the mid-band threshold of hearing, yet one does not hear the harmonics! Only a single pure tone is heard. The ear/brain appears to be able to completely suppress the sound of a range of harmonics if they conform to this specific pattern. This pattern is the aural harmonic envelope. It follows that this same mechanism will mask harmonics arising in the sound reproduction chain if they follow[/size]
[size=medium]this pattern. If the harmonics do not follow this pattern, the ear brain indeed detects these 38[/size]
[size=medium]as new tones. Therefore, for all but extreme frequencies and sound pressure levels, any electronics that generate this harmonically consonant envelope will be transparent. Previous work has shown that people had a strong preference for a signal with 0.3% artificially injected even-harmonics that had 0.03% odd-ordered harmonics [29]. Note that for the predominant 2nd and 3rd harmonic this better mimics the aural harmonics.[/size]
[size=medium]The above discussions are conscious of the well understood ear’s phenomenon of masking, where low level tones in close proximity to a higher level tone remain unheard. This masking effect was thought by some23 to be one of the rationales for weighting the higher order harmonics stronger in weighted T.H.D. measurements. Fig. 2-5[33] following shows the pitch change necessary to distinguish a second tone. Note[/size]
[size=medium]Fig. 2-5 Pitch change necessary to distinguish a second tone[/size]
[size=medium]23 References [30], [31], [32][/size]
[size=medium]39[/size]
[size=medium]Fig. 2-6. Tone masking research showing aural harmonics that harmonics are at 100% pitch change. Fig. 2-6 [34] actually shows that the aural harmonics have a stronger influence than masking, note the lack of symmetry about the fundamental (415Hz) and the shoulders of the 2nd harmonic. The aural harmonics play a more prominent role than the ears masking mechanism. There was no correlation between age and sex in these or other studies of aural harmonics. There are significant sex and age differences on most other aspects of hearing, namely frequency extension. These are due to the macro effects such as ear tunnel geometry or exposure damage. These effects are not investigated herein as they are presumably not involved with the ear-brains system of self-correcting for the aural harmonics.[/size]
[size=medium]40[/size]
[size=medium]2. The sound pressure level dependence of the aural harmonic envelope.[/size]
[size=medium]The dynamic range of individual hair cell neural output is about 103, while the range of audible sound pressure levels is about 105. The latest studies have shown that the hair cells’ length is modulated by the neural voltage and this is believed to explain the compression [36]. As was shown is the preceding section the aural harmonics do not fall off at the same slope either by harmonic number or linearly with decreasing sound pressure levels. For rising S.P.L.’s the ear creates a monotonically reduced steepness pattern. We cannot disregard this function of the ear. For example, if the ear is presented with an auxiliary sound distorted with a set of harmonics that are consonant with the aural harmonics at 100 dBA24 but the actual sound pressure level of the fundamental is say 10 or 100 times (10 or 20dB) less, it will be perceived as distorted. The Eq. 2-1 which[/size]
[size=medium]1.35*10(dBA) %Fn = 22[/size]
[size=medium]Eq. 2-1[/size]
[size=medium]Where: %Fn= Aural Harmonic Amplitude in % of Fundamental for the nth harmonic.[/size]
[size=medium]dBA = Decibels “A” weighted Sound Pressure Level resultant from the Fundamental.[/size]
[size=medium]n = The harmonic number. f = nFf where f is frequency, Ff= fundamental frequency[/size]
[size=medium]24 dBA is the commonly used absolute measure of loudness for humans. It is filtered by an approximate inverse of the ears sensitivity variations over frequnency. The A designates the standardized A weight filter.[/size]
[size=medium]41[/size]
[size=medium]n11[/size]
[size=medium]I derived myself25 from the Olson data is presented and takes the sound pressure level variation into account. It is a mathematical expression relating the percentage of the fundamental S.P.L. of the ears self distortion, per harmonic, relative to the sound field S.P.L. The power of the exponentiation may seem high but the fit is excellent, shown following in Fig. 2-7. The solid data points are the data taken directly from the Olson figure reproduced earlier as Fig. 2-2. [/size]
 

 

 


 

 

[kwkarth]

More references:
 
Olson, E.S., Mountain, D.C., and Hubbard, A.E. 1996 "Acoustic overstimulation enhances
low-frequency electrically-evoked otoacoustic emissions and reduces high-frequency emissions." Auditory
Neuroscience 3: 79-99.
 
 
Nakajima, H.H., Olson, E.S., Mountain, D.C. and Hubbard, A.E. 1994 "Electrically evoked otoacoustic emissions from
the apical turns of the gerbil cochlea." J.Acoust.Soc.Am. 96: 786 - 794.
 
or just pick them off the list;
http://www.entcolumbia.org/olsonpub.html
 
http://jp.physoc.org/content/509/1/277.full
 
http://www.pnas.org/content/95/25/14594.full
 
http://books.google.com/books?id=3N72rIoTHiEC&pg=PA512&lpg=PA512&dq=stapes+induced+harmonic+distortion&source=bl&ots=GU6g9JL6Bw&sig=ch0nIfGpqWhDtXMsyJVm3HvMh4c&hl=en&ei=zXYmTMvXHY_dnAeqr6niBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CEMQ6AEwBzgK#v=onepage&q&f=false
 

 

[kwkarth]

 
Quote:

I think the measurement discussion that has been going on here is very misleading.  For a start you can't just couple a headphone to any old coupler and claim you are measuring what the listener would hear.   The frequency response of any phone is signifcantly affected by the coupler as well as the elctronics.  And while you may be able to make some comparative judgements with a specific coupler you cannot say much about  how the measurement relates to what a listener would hear and you can almost certainly not compare such plots taken using different couplers, amplifiers or other equipment.  So just whipping out different sets of measurements is just muddying the waters.
 
If you present a swept tone to the ear  which would measure flat by a microphone in open space, it will not measure flat  with a probe microphone at the ear drum.  You will pick up a substantial peak in the 2-4 kHz region caused by the resonance of the ear canal and even by the head itself in a  sound field.  So a headphone with a  flat response   should look like that when measured using a probe micprophone in the ear or with a  microphone at the base of an artificial anatomically-correct ear canal of a dummy head.

Agreed
 

 

[bird_0f_fire]

CDP based earspeaker system:
 
ARC CD-5 (solid state)
or
ARC REFCD-8 (tubed)
to
WOO WES
or
BHSE
to
STAX 007MK2.5
 
Enjoy!

 

[jcx]

I would recommend Not reading Cheever's paper – you’ll just have considerable garbage stuck in your head that you’ll need to “unlearn” 
the major failure of  the distortion audibility discussion is to ignore Intermodulation Distortion - considering IMD math immediately blows any "consonant distortion" theory out of the water - unless like the caricature of 'scope watching" engineers  the audiophile Golden Ear crowd is now listening to single tone sine waves
IMD frequency components are sum and differences of the signal - for complex signals this gives non-harmonic and lower frequency, un-masked distortion products
 
anyone serious about the subject should go to a engineering university library and get Czerwinski “Multitone Testing of Sound System Components – Some Results and Conclusions, Part 1; History and Theory” JAES V49 #11 Nov 2001 p 1011-1047
 
finding true statements about feedback amplifiers in Cheever's thesis is also a real challenge – I can’t believe a accredited EE degree issuing institution would accept that as a thesis
 
 
Dr Geddes came up with the GedLee distortion audibility metric as described on his site - from there and his posts at diyAudio his major conclusions are that nonlinear distortion is relatively unimportant in "reasonable" loudspeakers - so it is little stretch to say (very much lower) nonlinear distortions of higher end headphones isn't of 1st order audible impact
and his measurements/listening tests suggest that for amplifiers the distortion should decrease quickly with signal level - given the cheapness of applying Class A bias in headphone amps the conclusion is that nonlinear distortion short of gross clipping shouldn't be a 1st order audible quality issue with headphone amps either
 
people really need to accept that frequency response is the 1st order determinant of a audio system's perceptual "quality" - after matching SPL  for valid subjective comparisons (assuming having adequate dynamic headroom, low noise)
 
and that the audiophile disdain for applying external  EQ and the resulting search for "synergistic" component combinations - ie. for buying "built in" EQ - is a really expensive (and ineffective) pretension

 

[kwkarth]

Quote:

I would recommend Not reading Cheever's paper – you’ll just have considerable garbage stuck in your head that you’ll need to “unlearn” 
the major failure of  the distortion audibility discussion is to ignore Intermodulation Distortion - considering IMD math immediately blows any "consonant distortion" theory out of the water - unless like the caricature of 'scope watching" engineers  the audiophile Golden Ear crowd is now listening to single tone sine waves
IMD frequency components are sum and differences of the signal - for complex signals this gives non-harmonic and lower frequency, un-masked distortion products
 
anyone serious about the subject should go to a engineering university library and get Czerwinski “Multitone Testing of Sound System Components – Some Results and Conclusions, Part 1; History and Theory” JAES V49 #11 Nov 2001 p 1011-1047
 
finding true statements about feedback amplifiers in Cheever's thesis is also a real challenge – I can’t believe a accredited EE degree issuing institution would accept that as a thesis
 
 
Dr Geddes came up with the GedLee distortion audibility metric as described on his site - from there and his posts at diyAudio his major conclusions are that nonlinear distortion is relatively unimportant in "reasonable" loudspeakers - so it is little stretch to say (very much lower) nonlinear distortions of higher end headphones isn't of 1st order audible impact
and his measurements/listening tests suggest that for amplifiers the distortion should decrease quickly with signal level - given the cheapness of applying Class A bias in headphone amps the conclusion is that nonlinear distortion short of gross clipping shouldn't be a 1st order audible quality issue with headphone amps either
 
people really need to accept that frequency response is the 1st order determinant of a audio system's perceptual "quality" - after matching SPL  for valid subjective comparisons (assuming having adequate dynamic headroom, low noise)
 
and that the audiophile disdain for applying external  EQ and the resulting search for "synergistic" component combinations - ie. for buying "built in" EQ - is a really expensive (and ineffective) pretension

You certainly didn't draw your conclusions from Cheever's paper.  Which amps reflect your subjective conclusions?

 

[PianistOne111]

Lunatique,
Are you considering the Head-Direct HE-5(LE)? If not, why not?

 

[Lunatique]

Quote:

Lunatique,
Are you considering the Head-Direct HE-5(LE)? If not, why not?

I'm not considering the HE-5 or HE-6 because I have yet to see anyone express the same kind of love for them the way they do about the LCD2 or the Omega 2's. 

 

[Solude]

I'm looking forward to the comparison in house but it'll probably not come for at least a few months 

 

[Lunatique]

Quote:

I'm looking forward to the comparison in house but it'll probably not come for at least a few months 

My LCD2 should arrive in about a month or so, and then my trip to Japan and Taiwan will likely be around October, so that means the soonest I will be able to get both the LCD2 and the 007MKII together for a comprehensive comparison will be sometime in October. But when/if I take my LCD2 to Japan and Taiwan to compare to the 007MKII and find that the LCD2 really holds its own against the 007MKII, then that means I'm not going to buy the 007MKII, and the LCD2 will come home alone and be the ruling king of all my headphones. But if the 007MKII really is still my favorite, then I'll buy it and then go home to sell off the LCD2. But the 007MKII must be significantly better than the LCD2 to justify the additional cost. Even if both are amazing in different ways, I don't know if I can justify keeping both since their combined cost could buy a good used car--just doesn't seem right to me, even if I could afford it. After the winner rises to the top, I'll likely sell off all of my other headphones except for the M50. I'd need to keep the W3 until I find a better IEM though, or else I'd be without any IEM's. But I never liked the W3 and I can't wait to replace it without something much more to my liking.

 

[Solude]

I'm in the same boat except I already own the O2/KGSS.  My O2 is going in for a replacement cable and ear pads though so it will be across the pond for at least a month.  Its actually probably a good thing because while its being refreshed and the LCD-2 hasn't shipped I can reset my hearing with my Shure SE420, my bus cans, on the Concerto.