[Peti]

"High fidelity” -> being faithful, accuracy in details; “the degree to which an electronic device accurately reproduces sound”​

 
As you can see this definition in my signature, it is safe to say that this is my lodestar based on how I approach this hobby; it is the backbone of my concept of building a headphone rig for myself. I want to hear how the musicians sounded in the recording room/auditorium during recording. If it's not possible, I want to get as close to that sensation as I possibly can, considering my financial limits. This is, in short, why I am strongly against ANY kind of EQ-ing.


 
Of course, sometimes I like to "indulge" and get some BAAAASS-y fun, that's why I have purchased a JVC DX700 back in the day (successor of the DX1000), but in general I like to stick with my HD800 Classic with a nice DAC and amp and my carefully selected digital audio files. Yep, I'm the child of the digital age, even though I remember my older brothers' turntable and vinyls, I got involved in music well into the cd-era.
 
Recently, however, due to my never-ending search for better-sounding music, I was suggested to try vinyl as they, in general, sound warmer, less digital, and more analogue, compared to cds and other digital media. This coincided with my effort improving my rig to better serve the HD800 (by now the harsh treble that bothered me before is gone, and I can EVEN listen and ENJOY many of my poorly recorded/mixed/mastered Metal albums!)
 
I have older friends back in Europe with vast collections of vinyls and gears capable of doing digital rips of those analogue tunes so they appear more and more often in my music collection. They, most of the time, indeed sound much warmer and less digital, which I quite like. And it was a rude awakening to me as I have only heard these same albums in their digital versions before. Here I am spending my hard-earned $ on a nice rig to serve the HD800, hoping to get as close to the music as it'd have sounded live in the studio as possible, just to find out that many of my cd-rips of albums have applied EQ! Maybe it's my profound lacuna of mixing/mastering but I was unaware of it before. Case in point is a US Power Metal classic from 1986. To my best knowledge, the cd came out the same year, with a dedicated mastering to it.
 
It's an AAD album (Analogue tape recorder used during session recording and subsequent mixing and/or editing; digital tape recorder used during mastering (transcription). Here it is stating it on the cd back cover:
 

 
I happened to have now a ripped vinyl version of this same album, namely the (Elektra - P-13426, Japan). For the record:
 

 
Needless to say, the two versions will sound startlingly different, the cd having MASSIVE bass applied on it's entire length. I have taken a sample from each albums at the same position, so you can hear it with your own ears (2 wav samples, around 30mb, foobar ABX plugin recommended!):
 
download them from here: http://www.megafileupload.com/77pv/samples.7z
 
or here: https://uploadfiles.io/ce78f28
 
The vinyl just sounds way more natural when directly compared to the cd. Then I ask myself, what is the point of striving for high-fidelity (“the degree to which an electronic device accurately reproduces sound”), if the source itself is far from being faithful to the sound the engineers have heard in the recording studio? Why not just get a pair of bass-heavy 'phones (or use sonar works with the HD800) and call it a day? It might seem nit-picking to some of you, but when you are after high-fidelity, it is quite disheartening to see how far we actually really are of reproducing the sound of live music, let it be classical or Metal. I have just discovered that one of my favourite Judas Priest album's cd version had been treated the same way with bass applied even more profoundly on the cd master, and I'm sure there's more to come.
 
As I think we are around here to get closer to reproduce live music through headphones as accurately as possible, I thought it was worth bringing some attention to this matter. If I'm approaching this subject from the wrong direction, I'd like to hear other opinions.

 

[Ruben123]

CD sounds how it is made in the studio, vinyl is much more distorted. Also not eq'ing is quite silly as your headphone is eq'ed too right? Also the headphone doesn't sound identical to the studio monitors used. If you want the in the studio meant sound: get studio monitors.

 

[castleofargh]

a few key point IMO:
 
-few sound engineers, be it while recording or those doing the mastering, are that concerned with making it sound like it is live.  such guys exist of course, but I'd say they're a relative minority. you may want to try seeking the engineers instead of the artists if you really hope to get the "sound like it was played". in respect to fidelity, the album provided to us is the sound mastered, so the aim should be to get it like the mastering guy heard it in the final run of his job. it's unrealistic to expect real live sound from every albums. 
 
-of course EQ is used a lot in fact, you can only mix so many mono tracks before something starts masking something else, simply by setting the levels for each track you get some kind of EQ.
now vinyls require a particular treatment simply because else the support can't handle the signal you can use on a CD. so it's logical that CD and vinyl would not sound the same. to prefer one is IMO more of a matter of taste. what I really can't stand is having different masters from CD and highres supports, because there is no technical reason to justify them being different, it only creates artificial exclusivity for the purpose of taking more $$$ from us. not exactly a customer service.  anyway it's common practice now, and as we don't stop buying they get no incentive to stop. in that respect I'm with you. all sounds should be available on all supports, that should be 101 of offering a good service.
 
-EQ and any post processing are just like they are in photography. they can be used in a creative way(sometimes to the point of ruining it all), or to get closer to the original. be it when mastering the album, or by yourself on a playback system. though with only 2 channels to EQ, the possibilities are limited for us. still you can try to get what you enjoy, or you can try to even out your headphone's signature. you decide how to use it.

 

[Pio2001]

Wouldn't the vinyl sample be recorded with a Grado Gold cartridge, by chance ? It sounds like it has too much treble. Record the same vinyl with a Stanton cartridge, and you have the opposite result : too much bass.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

Equalizers were originally envisioned to correct the frequency response distortions introduced by other components in the chain (most notably headphones, loudspeakers and listening rooms), otherwise they'd be called "Unequalizers" wouldn't they?

You mention Sonarworks. I guess their marketing department has failed you, if they haven't managed to hammer home their point that their processing (which is headphone-specific EQ in a nutshell) is supposed to make your system sound *more* faithful to the recording, not less.

 

[groovyd]

the big problem with using eq is they recover the magnitude component of frequency response but they make a mess of the phase component

 

[Joe Bloggs]

the big problem with using eq is they recover the magnitude component of frequency response but they make a mess of the phase component

Your playback equipment (loudspeakers and headphones) makes a mess of both. If you did a good job correcting the amplitude component with a minimum-phase EQ, it will also go some way towards *correcting* the phase response. A linear-phase EQ wouldn't care either way how you mess with the amplitudes, it never alters the phase response--there are plenty such EQs available if that's your cup of tea. The kicker is, that your ear can't really tell either way--research has long shown that human ears are quite insensitive to phase distortions:

The piece on phase distortion was a refreshing change from the semi-science floating around our business. All things being equal, and if one has the option, of course get the phase correct - at least at the one point in space where it can be done!! However, this presents problems for two-eared listeners in multiple seats in reflective rooms (solve this one and a Nobel prize awaits). It is indeed fortunate that humans are so unresponsive to this effect because, if we could hear phase shift, we would go absolutely nuts in everyday life. Every time a reflected version of a sound adds to the direct sound, the phase shifts are enormous, and it happens in abundance in all rooms, even carrying on a conversation across a table. Do the stand up/ sit down test while speaking. The voice changes very subtly, but our hearing system compensates immediately and, on a scale of 10, the voice quality remains a 10. Yet the transfer function between the voice and the ears has greatly changed in both amplitude and phase. I cannot help but think of all the opera recordings and film voice overs that are done with librettos and scripts on large angled (sound reflecting) surfaces between the mouth and the mic. The signal is corrupted at the source! Thank your favorite diety for human adaptability.

Keep up the good work.

Floyd

Floyd E. Toole, PhD
Vice President Acoustical Engineering
Harman International Industries, Inc.

http://sound.westhost.com/ptd.htm#ref
http://www.audioholics.com/room-acoustics/human-hearing-phase-distortion-audibility-part-2

 

[castleofargh]

  the big problem with using eq is they recover the magnitude component of frequency response but they make a mess of the phase component

1/ does it matter when the recording was made from several microphones in different locations anyway? phase depending on positioning, in the end it won't mean all that much. +mastering that obviously played on phase and other stuff(IMO phase is more of a problem for them when mixing tracks than for us on a playback system)  + the fact that outside of left vs right out of phase, we kind of suck at noticing phase anyway, or maybe it's more like we're just so used to having it change all the time IRL? IDK but I know that it takes a good deal of phase punishment for me to notice it as long as it's on both channels at once.
 
2/ for a headphone, sometimes it has a crappy phase curve over frequency, and EQing it in fact brings back some frequency closer to being in phase. not saying it's a rule or anything, only that it does happen on several phones with non flat phase curve(obviously ^_^).
 
3/ it really depends on the EQ. with equilibrium I got more options than I can understand. the sky is pretty much the limit, and by sky I mean my CPU :'( .
 
edit: tough to pass after Floyd Toole

 

[groovyd]

Your playback equipment (loudspeakers and headphones) makes a mess of both. If you did a good job correcting the amplitude component with a minimum-phase EQ, it will also go some way towards *correcting* the phase response. A linear-phase EQ wouldn't care either way how you mess with the amplitudes, it never alters the phase response--there are plenty such EQs available if that's your cup of tea. The kicker is, that your ear can't really tell either way--research has long shown that human ears are quite insensitive to phase distortions:
http://sound.westhost.com/ptd.htm#ref
http://www.audioholics.com/room-acoustics/human-hearing-phase-distortion-audibility-part-2

actually research doesn't show that... it shows the opposite.  the ear is extremely sensitive to phase distortion.  linear phase eq is only linear at a constant gain across the spectrum. and you certainly do not want to judge the value of phase distortion using an anechoic chamber lol. 

 

[groovyd]

  1/ does it matter when the recording was made from several microphones in different locations anyway? phase depending on positioning, in the end it won't mean all that much. +mastering that obviously played on phase and other stuff(IMO phase is more of a problem for them when mixing tracks than for us on a playback system)  + the fact that outside of left vs right out of phase, we kind of suck at noticing phase anyway, or maybe it's more like we're just so used to having it change all the time IRL? IDK but I know that it takes a good deal of phase punishment for me to notice it as long as it's on both channels at once.
 
2/ for a headphone, sometimes it has a crappy phase curve over frequency, and EQing it in fact brings back some frequency closer to being in phase. not saying it's a rule or anything, only that it does happen on several phones with non flat phase curve(obviously ^_^).
 
3/ it really depends on the EQ. with equilibrium I got more options than I can understand. the sky is pretty much the limit, and by sky I mean my CPU :'( .
 
edit: tough to pass after Floyd Toole

 
actually phase is extremely important and the only indicator of spacial representation in the music.  without coherent phase you could never pinpoint instrument location.

 

[castleofargh]

 

  1/ does it matter when the recording was made from several microphones in different locations anyway? phase depending on positioning, in the end it won't mean all that much. +mastering that obviously played on phase and other stuff(IMO phase is more of a problem for them when mixing tracks than for us on a playback system)  + the fact that outside of left vs right out of phase, we kind of suck at noticing phase anyway, or maybe it's more like we're just so used to having it change all the time IRL? IDK but I know that it takes a good deal of phase punishment for me to notice it as long as it's on both channels at once.
 
2/ for a headphone, sometimes it has a crappy phase curve over frequency, and EQing it in fact brings back some frequency closer to being in phase. not saying it's a rule or anything, only that it does happen on several phones with non flat phase curve(obviously ^_^).
 
3/ it really depends on the EQ. with equilibrium I got more options than I can understand. the sky is pretty much the limit, and by sky I mean my CPU :'( .
 
edit: tough to pass after Floyd Toole

 
actually phase is extremely important and the only indicator of spacial representation in the music.  without coherent phase you could never pinpoint instrument location.

as I said, delays between left and right, of course that's a big part of finding where sounds come from. but the same phase shift in left and right ear, it's a very different story. did you try testing how much you notice it? do you feel like speaker manufacturers are idiots for deciding to use crossovers?

 

[RRod]

Your playback equipment (loudspeakers and headphones) makes a mess of both. If you did a good job correcting the amplitude component with a minimum-phase EQ, it will also go some way towards *correcting* the phase response. A linear-phase EQ wouldn't care either way how you mess with the amplitudes, it never alters the phase response--there are plenty such EQs available if that's your cup of tea. The kicker is, that your ear can't really tell either way--research has long shown that human ears are quite insensitive to phase distortions:
http://sound.westhost.com/ptd.htm#ref
http://www.audioholics.com/room-acoustics/human-hearing-phase-distortion-audibility-part-2

 
Just adding in the Blauert & Laws reference.

 

[Peti]

So is it only my ears that the vinyl sounded more natural compared to the cd? Also, is it only my ears that I haven't heard more distortion in the vinyl? I took samples from a Judas Priest album (Wings of Desiny) 1st Gull Records pressing vs. the RCA Cd from 1983. The differences are even more shocking.
 

 
Versus
 

 

 

 

[Ruben123]

Different masters perhaps. Have a look at the loudness war which affects CDs though not vinyl, because of its nature
.

 

[Peti]

Different masters perhaps. Have a look at the loudness war which affects CDs though not vinyl, because of its nature
.

Different masters for sure! You can see on the back cover of the cd that it was digitally remastered. My point was that the vinyls tend to sound more natural and not EQ'd.