[phatbetty]

Hi all,

So I'm new to the world of "nice" or "audiophile" headphones and I picked up the Massdrop X Meze 99 Noirs.

I have an Audiotechnica Turntable, ArtDJPre-II, and a Pioneer AV receiver with Tannoy SRM10B speakers.

Listening to these phones, I would say they sound really nice, but a little boomy on the bass and maybe losing the vocals a tiny bit (the smaller pads cleaned up the bass a bit I think). (Maybe there are more technical terms for this, but it's the only way I know how to describe right now). So I ran them through my graphic equalizer, dropped the bass down some and raised the mid-upper and all of sudden I feel like it opened and brightened up the music so nicely. It actually opened them up to sound like a "headphone" version of my speakers.

So my question... should I return these headphones for something more open, like I was able to recreate with the EQ, or is it okay/appropriate to listen to them EQd?

If I were to exchange them, would something like the DT770 be what I'm looking for? Something else?

There are so many headphones and choices and pieces of equipment, I don't know if I should be trying to the find the "perfect" headphones or enjoy the hobby of tweaking and adjust what I have? If that makes sense?

Or am I already experiencing and realizing there are different headphones for different kinds of music and I'm going to have to ultimately own a couple sets? LOL!

OR do I need to buy a DAC instead of the receiver? Again SO many options.

Thanks for all your input/expertise!

 

[flailure]

You will hear all kinds of opinions on EQ, it has its benefits and limitations. But I would say that if you can adjust the sound to something you like using just EQ and can do so without noticeable clipping or distortion, you are good to go. I use a touch of EQ on most of my headphones to tame any excessive peaks or to neutralize some distortion, even my hd820 to tame the bass. I think the general rule is if you feel you need to adjust a particular frequency by more than 2 or 3 decibels to get a speaker or headphone to sound the way you want then it is time to modify or change the speaker or headphone.

And I agree with you on the bass on the Meze, they are nice headphones, but the bass does have a touch too much boom, cutting the upper bass/lower mids a bit is enough to clear the vocals a decent bit, but still too much bass for me (although I admittedly am not a basshead so ymmv). I believe you can reduce the bass on those by changing out pads, may be something to look into.

 

[phatbetty]

You will hear all kinds of opinions on EQ, it has its benefits and limitations. But I would say that if you can adjust the sound to something you like using just EQ and can do so without noticeable clipping or distortion, you are good to go. I use a touch of EQ on most of my headphones to tame any excessive peaks or to neutralize some distortion, even my hd820 to tame the bass. I think the general rule is if you feel you need to adjust a particular frequency by more than 2 or 3 decibels to get a speaker or headphone to sound the way you want then it is time to modify or change the speaker or headphone.

And I agree with you on the bass on the Meze, they are nice headphones, but the bass does have a touch too much boom, cutting the upper bass/lower mids a bit is enough to clear the vocals a decent bit, but still too much bass for me (although I admittedly am not a basshead so ymmv). I believe you can reduce the bass on those by changing out pads, may be something to look into.

Thanks for your thoughts.

I did swap down to the smaller earhole pads and it's better. But I am noticing on more rock/pop music the bass is better, but I notice it more boomy on folk/country/bluegrass. Again I think I'm already seeing different headphones for different music.

I think I'm going to stick with these. Since I'm new I'm trying to figure out the hobby rather than kneejerk reject because it's not exactly what I thought/wanted.

 

[bagwell359]

I grew to dislike hardware EQ. 41 years later I came to try a parametric digital EQ, and its remarkable in what it can do. I get mine thru TIDAL, then a LG v40 phone, UAPP has an EQ named "Toneboosters".

Then see if "Oratory_1990" has an entry for it, and set it the way they have it (for 6 settings), except the sub 100 Hz info. They use a mix of popular bass settings for users "why not accuracy instead of popularity"? and some made up listening room (might be right for one person, far from right for the rest),

You can also buy multiple cans and enjoy the right ones for the right music.

Or do what you wrote just now. Go slow. Find some meets to listen to other gear. Saves money, helps you focus on what you want.

 

[Sefelt103]

Much of how headphones sound is in their design, shape and materials used. You can equalise the sound but that comes with limitations and obviously cannot alter fixed parameters that the headphone has. EQ has come a long way and now there is digital EQ. I don't use equalisers but know attenuating is preferable to boosting frequencies. Heavy boosting can result in distortion which wrecks the signal. The more capable the headphone drivers are the more free you are to equalise and lower grade drivers will limit what the EQ can accomplish. To equalise one headphone to make it sound like another is going to be difficult if not impossible, trying to make a 'fun' V shaped headphone into a flat one probably won't work very well. So it's OK to EQ as long as you moderate your alterations/expectations

 

[bagwell359]

Much of how headphones sound is in their design, shape and materials used. You can equalise the sound but that comes with limitations and obviously cannot alter fixed parameters that the headphone has. EQ has come a long way and now there is digital EQ. I don't use equalisers but know attenuating is preferable to boosting frequencies. Heavy boosting can result in distortion which wrecks the signal. The more capable the headphone drivers are the more free you are to equalise and lower grade drivers will limit what the EQ can accomplish. To equalise one headphone to make it sound like another is going to be difficult if not impossible, trying to make a 'fun' V shaped headphone into a flat one probably won't work very well. So it's OK to EQ as long as you moderate your alterations/expectations

In the hardware only EQ days, what you say is what I said. I find with the new parametric digitals, it's possible to have a very narrow area that is affected, adjacent to other areas on both sides with corrections. In some case when you need a 9 db change, I don't go for all 9, but try 4-5-6 range. At 6 the issue is largely corrected, but you avoid some of the phase issues that can creep in if you go to 9, esp with -3.5 on one side and -2 on the other.

Experience helps.

The HE6se really only has one adjustment that matters: +6.8 db at 1800 Hz across a broad area (from 1k to 3k). I've stubbed out the other 5 settings and done the AB, and its pretty tough to hear those 5 (subtle settings). That is basically a modified V shape with a broad rise in the mids. With that one setting it beats my other cans: HEX v2, HE-500, HD-600 all carefully EQ'd. So maybe you can make a "V" shape into silk purse.

 

[SilverEars]

Much of how headphones sound is in their design, shape and materials used. You can equalise the sound but that comes with limitations and obviously cannot alter fixed parameters that the headphone has. EQ has come a long way and now there is digital EQ. I don't use equalisers but know attenuating is preferable to boosting frequencies. Heavy boosting can result in distortion which wrecks the signal. The more capable the headphone drivers are the more free you are to equalise and lower grade drivers will limit what the EQ can accomplish. To equalise one headphone to make it sound like another is going to be difficult if not impossible, trying to make a 'fun' V shaped headphone into a flat one probably won't work very well. So it's OK to EQ as long as you moderate your alterations/expectations

When major EQ is required, it is recommened to first EQ the whole range down 10dB or so, and then raise the different areas need raising. This is to avoid clipping by EQing downward or not going beyond bounds.

But, still not sure how this would prevent clipping if volume is raised. How is this different?

With this said, I can't say I'm big on EQ. It seems EQ didn't cause the right corrections perhaps due to driver variance? I don't believe we can be sure another headphone has identical response, so therefore EQ cannot be perfectly universal.

I tried Sonarworks EQ with HD800S and I couldn't listen to it. It has gotten worse.

Is it the issue of Sonarworks measurements being innacurate or due to driver variance?

I think EQ is for small touch-ups to adjust to your ear response more so than EQing based on measurements to change to a particular target curve like Oratory does with Harman.

Most importantly, measurements will reveal if EQ is not working. I've seen measurement responses that shows that driver wasn't EQ'd to what software shows and it is due to physical limitations of the driver. This is what sofware doesn't know, the physical limitations all drivers exhibit. It's not about low distortions of driver having EQ potential, but being about to EQ in areas of the spectrum the driver actually responds.

 

[corgifall]

EQ is hit or miss for headphones and iems IMO. Some will take a +4 db EQ with ease and some will start clipping like crazy at any increase. I personally don't like to EQ but that's cause I have a collection of different headphones and don't want to have to adjust an EQ for each one or switch profiles if I decide I wanna swap headphones mid session. I do EQ poweramp on my fiio m11 but I tend to find most headphones sound lean low end wise so I just do a middle ground bass EQ which seems to play well with all my headphones. Some could argue that doing an EQ affects sound quality but that's always hard to judge.

 

[flailure]

I think I'm going to stick with these. Since I'm new I'm trying to figure out the hobby rather than kneejerk reject because it's not exactly what I thought/wanted.

Good for you, took me years to get that wise, (actually I don't think I'm there yet, so that makes you more wise than I, now I don't know if I am qualified to give you advice since you are clearly more intelligent than I am).

As to EQ usage, I will still stand by my statement of 2-3 db adjustments, even when lowering bands. It's less apparent on headphones, but anyone who has ever used EQ on speakers, or especially car audio, can tell you that you can get clipping/distortion even by excessively lowering a particular frequency band too much in relation to other bands. I won't get into the science of it, but that is actually where the 2-3 db rule comes from, although modern transducers are built to much higher specs than when that rule came about and can usually handle more before they start to clip, and headphones having smaller (as in stiffer, less flex, but trade off to smaller sometimes means less range of motion so there is some variance from transducer to transducer) transducers are usually even more resistant. And then you have differences between digital eq and analog eq. In the field we sometimes would use both, digital we would use for subtractive (reducing certain frequencies) and analog to boost certain frequencies, and often with great success. Sometimes we would reduce digitally AND boost with an analog eq one specific frequency (old buildings, like churches, and kick drums do not mix) and before you knock it, try it sometimes, it was fairly effective at controlling and tightening kick drums in particular, although anything that sounded muddy could be adjusted.

Got off track, anyways, even though modern speakers can usually handle more than 2-3 db of adjustment, I still use that rule for a few reasons. One is that it ensures that I'm not near the clipping zone and that my transducer still has plenty of movement. Two, gives me an excuse to buy a new set of headphones, if I can adjust within that range and make a set of headphones sound great, then its a keeper, if I can't its the baseline I use to sell it off and buy a new one. Three would probably just be habit from years of observing that limitation.

Anyways, enjoy the music, from my perspective, all headphones sound good as long as they are playing music. They all will at some point lose the 'wow factor' and that is when we look for something new and different, and while new and different may wow the ears, it is not necessarily better in the long run.

Edit: I think it would be safe to double those numbers for most modern equipment though, say 4-6 db, but its not something that I have experience with, something you would have to try for yourself.

 

[phatbetty]

Good for you, took me years to get that wise, (actually I don't think I'm there yet, so that makes you more wise than I, now I don't know if I am qualified to give you advice since you are clearly more intelligent than I am).

As to EQ usage, I will still stand by my statement of 2-3 db adjustments, even when lowering bands. It's less apparent on headphones, but anyone who has ever used EQ on speakers, or especially car audio, can tell you that you can get clipping/distortion even by excessively lowering a particular frequency band too much in relation to other bands. I won't get into the science of it, but that is actually where the 2-3 db rule comes from, although modern transducers are built to much higher specs than when that rule came about and can usually handle more before they start to clip, and headphones having smaller (as in stiffer, less flex, but trade off to smaller sometimes means less range of motion so there is some variance from transducer to transducer) transducers are usually even more resistant. And then you have differences between digital eq and analog eq. In the field we sometimes would use both, digital we would use for subtractive (reducing certain frequencies) and analog to boost certain frequencies, and often with great success. Sometimes we would reduce digitally AND boost with an analog eq one specific frequency (old buildings, like churches, and kick drums do not mix) and before you knock it, try it sometimes, it was fairly effective at controlling and tightening kick drums in particular, although anything that sounded muddy could be adjusted.

Got off track, anyways, even though modern speakers can usually handle more than 2-3 db of adjustment, I still use that rule for a few reasons. One is that it ensures that I'm not near the clipping zone and that my transducer still has plenty of movement. Two, gives me an excuse to buy a new set of headphones, if I can adjust within that range and make a set of headphones sound great, then its a keeper, if I can't its the baseline I use to sell it off and buy a new one. Three would probably just be habit from years of observing that limitation.

Anyways, enjoy the music, from my perspective, all headphones sound good as long as they are playing music. They all will at some point lose the 'wow factor' and that is when we look for something new and different, and while new and different may wow the ears, it is not necessarily better in the long run.

Edit: I think it would be safe to double those numbers for most modern equipment though, say 4-6 db, but its not something that I have experience with, something you would have to try for yourself.

I’m the kind of person that researches and researches and researches. Then researches some more to find THE perfect fit for what I’m looking for.

What I’m realizing is that in this hobby that idea is impossible. . So I’m working through what I think I want vs what I actually will be happy with. And unfortunately (or fortunately) that is starting to feel like I will needing to buy more gear or different kinds. Lol.