[jjcha]

Hmm. The recent posting of GS-1000 measurements was the first time I really started to think about these charts. And I realized, holy cow, I have no idea what I'm looking at!!!

Okay, I looked up some information on frequency ranges and put together this quick little chart to show where a few instruments/human voices are in terms of frequencies. (Source 1, Source 2). I also put that on HeadRoom's Shure E4c and UE super.fi 5 Pro chart because I know those IEM so darned well.

Now here's a few things I don't know/understand yet:

1. What's the difference between Frequency and Harmonics? I see one of my sources identifies both. (Oh, I'm just a lawyer, so help me with the complex scientific stuff and put it into language a 6-year old would understand

) I guess I'm wondering which is more relevant.

2. The chart seems to indicate that for pretty much all my music/instruments (which doesn't often go into the upper registers of the flute or soprano), the super.fi has a higher frequency response? Why does the Shure E4c seem so much brighter to me? And the treble on the super.fi on things like trumpets seem so recessed?

3. Are frequency responses above 2 or 3kHz pretty irrelevant for me? I notice even cymbals or other instruments I would have thought were up there don't go past that. What does hit higher than 2 or 3 kHz?

4. Or am I just starting all wrong and this isn't how one reads these charts?

Best,

-Jason

 

[Jeff Wong]

Jason - The charts for the headphones have more to do with how they deviate from a perfectly flat response; it must be noted that the notches and humps you see are built into the headphone design to compensate for the shape of the ear and the drivers being so close to the ear drum.

I suspect the elevated bass in the superfi is masking or reducing dynamics to the point that the treble seems less prominent.

 

[iamdone]

My guess is you would adjust your volume based on the bass, so if you would line up the 2 headphones at the 20hz to be equal, you can see how they compare as you move up the chart.

 

[granodemostasa]

The Piccolo goes to about 6K and Violin is near 3.5K.
The cymbal supposedly goes to 20K...but i'm not sure how they measure. that.

 

[iancraig10]

Overtones or harmonics are important to the sound that you hear.

To really make it simple, a trumpet playing the note 'C' would produce other notes above. (G, C, E, G, Bb, C, D, E etc) The higher up you go, the closer the harmonics get.

These added notes are the harmonics which help you determine that it's a bright sounding or a dull sounding trumpet. For different instruments, the harmonics are each stronger or weaker at different frequencies so you are able to perceive a flute and a violin sound more easily.

Actually, there are hundreds of mini-overtones which contribute to what you hear.

I'm guessing here - those high frequencies that headphones produce that are out of the range of the instruments will try to reproduce some of the harmonics, so making a nice, clear headphone with good tone.

This is part of what what mp3 cuts out. Many don't like the relatively dull (and compressed sound that results from mp3)

It's very complex but I know as an oboe and synth player, that sounds are a combination of a fundamental note plus a miriad of harmonics. In the old days, synths used to work an 'additive' principle - adding tones on top of each other in different shaped waves in order to create a complex set of overtones or harmonics - so giving you that new 'DX7' sound or whatever.

I can now see some arrows coming, so I'll duck!!

Ian

 

[anastassios]

330Hz is a frequency.
It's harmonics are 330*i Hz, i=2,3,4,... that is 660Hz, 990Hz,...
So harmonics are also frequencies.

When you play a single note in a musical instrument you are supposed to produce a specific frequency. But you also produce it's harmonics.
They reason the same note sounds different on every instrument is due to the differences in the harmonics produced.

 

[jjcha]

Wow... I guess harmonics can go far beyond 20kHz...

http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~boyk/spectra/spectra.htm

Best,

-Jason

 

[iancraig10]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jjcha Wow... I guess harmonics can go far beyond 20kHz... http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~boyk/spectra/spectra.htm Best, -Jason

That's why the dog howls when I play the oboe!! Not bad playing, it's just that he hears the overtones (some of them) so to him, I'm playing sets of nasty chords.

Loads of harmonics contribute to the tone of what we hear.

Ian

 

[Mercuttio]

Quote:

Originally Posted by iancraig10 That's why the dog howls when I play the oboe!! Not bad playing, it's just that he hears the overtones (some of them) so to him, I'm playing sets of nasty chords. Loads of harmonics contribute to the tone of what we hear. Ian

Damn it! The oboe is a force of evil, I KNEW it! I've let too many oboes slip by me without destruction...

FEAR NO LONGER, MY CANINE FRIENDS! I KNOW OUR TRUE ENEMY NOW!

 

[K2Grey]

I've got a question: are the harmonics of the same volume as the original note?

I remember someone commenting on possible hearing damages from high peaks on headphones, and I remember thinking that the harmonics might already be recessed in terms of volume much, so even with a boost it might not be louder than the midrange, but I don't know much on this issue.

 

[marvin]

Frequency vs harmonics is the wrong way to put it. Better ways would be first harmonic vs higher order harmonics, or fundamental frequency vs higher order harmonics. anastassios is correct in about what the harmonics are for a specific fundamental frequency.

If you cut of frequency response off at ~3 kHz (easily includes the human voice and almost all instruments), you'll lose the much of the higher order harmonics from higher frequency instruments. A lot of the air and sparkle of instruments and singing will be lost, and many instruments will sound "wrong" because you're used to hearing those higher order harmonic frequencies. So, higher order harmonics are pretty important to how you percieve sound. But, FR in the 3 kHz+ region is less important than the lower frequencies because few musical fundamental frequencies reside there.

"Brightness" in the Shures compared to the Super.fis is due to the stronger response in the 1-3 kHz range. Brightness and sibilance issues are usually found there, and not in the really high frequency range.

And while fundamental frequencies are louder than harmonics, the difference in FR response can cause the harmonics to be louder than the fundamentals when played back.

The easiest way to demo this is to play a 20 Hz signal on a sub and crank the volume. The vast majority of subs cannot play back a 20 Hz note, but you'll still hear noise out of most subs. Those will mostly be the second and third harmonics at 40 and 80 Hz.

But yeah, it's possible that the high freqency peaks in some headphones when paired with certain music can cause a high frequency harmonic to have higher energy than the fundamental frequency.

 

[Tyll Hertsens]

I've been waiting for a chance to tell this joke:

What do you do with a burning oboe?

Light a bassoon!


A given tone on a given instrument will break down in a spectrum analyser into a fundimental and an overtone series. The overtones will have both a distinct amplitude and phase relationship to the fundimental. Changing these relationship through the non-linearities of an audio reproduction system will effect the timbral characteristics.

From Mirriam Webster On-Line:

: the quality given to a sound by its overtones: as a : the resonance by which the ear recognizes and identifies a voiced speech sound b : the quality of tone distinctive of a particular singing voice or musical instrument

If you mess with these ratios, the trumpet will start sounding not quite like a trumpet really does. If you've ever sat and listened to a live trumpet you'll hear that it's not nearly as harsh as most reproduced versions of it sound.

One of the short cuts here to try to listen for these kind of problems is to listen to human vocal tracks. The thing us humans are most acustom to concentrating our listening on is the voice of another. You will find that if you listen to a voice reproduced you have an unusual ability to hear what's wrong with the sound of it.

 

[Mercuttio]

My friend is an oboe major at Maryland.

His favorite always was:

How do you get four oboe players to play in tune?

Shoot three of them.