Wow, I must check into newbie threads more often from now on!
I think you can see that my new sig is for recruiting more team members
Few headphones, even high-end ones, have a flat frequency response. Here's the graphs of some high-end phones from Sennheiser, Grado and AKG:
Senn HD600s--a perennial favourite in Head-Fi. The hole in the upper frequencies (right side) is there for a reason, as I will explain below, although it's arguably overdone--but look at the high-bass hump. It makes the music 'warm' if you're being charitable and 'coloured' if you're being critical, depending on your mood!
RS-1s--Grado's top of the line. The treble response looks like a stock exchange on a particularly erratic day, but people don't seem to mind--but many people *do* complain that Grados simply have too much treble. The bass rolls off early and fast.
K501s--Team AKG swear by their neutral, accurate presentation, and by the looks of it, the K501 is indeed a quite accurate phone, especially in the midrange. But the bass rolloff... well, I won't go into that here
It might initially be comforting to know that a flat frequency response is not necessarily be the best FR for headphones to have:
[size=xx-small]Headphones that have built-in equalization to sound "flat" do not necessarily measure flat. Figure 1 shows how the ears hear a flat frequency sweep projected from a loudspeaker positioned slightly left of center. The hills and valleys in the two curves are due to the head-related transfer functions (HRTFs) that shape sounds interacting with the listener's head and the pinna of the ears. The brain processes the amplitude and phase-shifts from the HRTFs to determine the nature and location of the sound. Diffused-field equalized headphones alter the frequency response of headphones to resemble a curve similar to those in figure 1, thereby restoring some of the HRTF contouring that is normally missing with headphones. Thus, diffused-field equalized headphones are supposed to sound natural and flat.[/size]
But when it turns out that a frequency response looking like *that* is theoretically the ideal and there's nothing in the world of headphones that looks anything like that, well, you get scared
This is when EQ comes to the rescue.
So you have an EQ? Need help configuring it to make your equipment sound at its best? Tell us about your equipment! Or send me a private message.
HEY! That's the Sony V-600 you have in the headphone inventory? I'm afraid you have to buy another set of headphones first before I can talk to you about EQ configuration! These headphones have the worst sonic reputation in Head-Fi and if I talk to you about EQ'ing them to make *them* sound at the best everyone will come out to beat me with a stick
Go get a Sony V6. Not the V-600!