[Trunks159]

I've ordered the ws99s! I'll return whichever one is worse. I'll probably end up keeping the ws99s though.

 

[Transformatron]

Quote:

I've ordered the ws99s! I'll return whichever one is worse. I'll probably end up keeping the ws99s though.

Cool! Let us know!

 

[Me x3]

I found my Fidelio L1 much more enjoyable since I applied this EQ.

 

[Yekrut]

Interesting EQ settings, you don't find that it makes the headphone sound too dark?

 

[Me x3]

No, but it's true that with that EQ applied they sound warmer. Voices don't go over the rest of the music anymore, neither some electric guitars which used to. And (IMO) they sound more natural, less congested and after all I can hear more details, and not less.
I found this headphones to be great for modern music. In the last few days I was listening to Keane discography (320Kbps) and they sound really pleasant with this EQ applied.
There are two things I have to say, I use them with an Ipod Shuffle 4G, wich is a little (just a little) bit brighter than other Ipods (Ipod Nano 5G for example)
Other important thing is that I'm 22 years old, and as you might know, our ears loose some sensibility to high frequencies with the years.

You can see here some measurements of L1's
http://www.innerfidelity.com/images/PhilipsFidelioL1.pdf

There you can see the great hill between 1500Hz and 4000Hz (Frequency response graph in grey)

Despite all of this, the best to do (IMO) is to try little EQ variations if you think they need them, until finding the sound that suit your ears the most.

Greetings!

 

[plakat]

The gray lines are the uncompensated raw data, the colored lines represent actual performance better.
 
Nevertheless I've found them too dark for my taste and would have preferred more lively midrange/treble... one reason I sold them. But thats really a matter of taste I guess -- as is the use of an EQ.

 

[Me x3]

From what I understand, the graphs on the bottom are exactly what the test head hear. And they consider the Head Related Transfer Function (Independent of Direction) (HRTF)

Tyll said:
"Your chest and head volume provide some acoustic gain at mid-frequencies.
Between 2000Hz and 5000Hz the concha (the little cup in your outer ear around the entrance to your ear canal) acts as a focusing dish to get sound into your ear canals, and as a result provides some significant gain to the signal at these frequencies.
The length of the ear canal provides opportunity for modal artifacts; typically peaks at 3kHz, 9kHz, and 15kHz roughly, depending on the exact size and shape of the ear."

Here is a graph of this HRTF.

 
Then he said:
"Once a spatially averaged data set is created for the raw frequency response, the HRTF curve is subtracted."

And that is the graph at the top.

I find more useful the graphs at the bottom because the effects of the HRTF are present when we listen. Probably our ears have a different HRTF that the one that Tyll uses, but anyway this is better aproximation than not having the HRTF in consideration.

Greetings!

 

[plakat]

No, as the corrected graph is intended to show just how the headphone by itself reproduces sound. If you want to go by what your ear makes of that -- ignore FR graphs completely and just go by ear. Your ear geometry is not the same as the one in the measurement head anyway...
 
Next thing is: what quality is your EQ using (i.e. value of Q in the filter it represents)? Its much to coarse to ignore that... you'll introduce additional wobbles.
 
Anyway -- I'm against using an EQ in general. In situations where one is indicated either a decent analog 31-band implementation like the ones provided by Klark or BSS or a fully parametric digital one should be used. Home HIFI is not one of those places IMO.
 
Of course you'rre free to do what makes you happy. And your taste may be different enough from mine to justify things I wouldn't do

 

[Me x3]

Quote:

No, as the corrected graph is intended to show just how the headphone by itself reproduces sound. If you want to go by what your ear makes of that -- ignore FR graphs completely and just go by ear. Your ear geometry is not the same as the one in the measurement head anyway...
 
Next thing is: what quality is your EQ using (i.e. value of Q in the filter it represents)? Its much to coarse to ignore that... you'll introduce additional wobbles.
 
Anyway -- I'm against using an EQ in general. In situations where one is indicated either a decent analog 31-band implementation like the ones provided by Klark or BSS or a fully parametric digital one should be used. Home HIFI is not one of those places IMO.
 
Of course you'rre free to do what makes you happy. And your taste may be different enough from mine to justify things I wouldn't do

 
'the corrected graph is intended to show just how the headphone by itself reproduces sound.'
 
¿Is the headphone by itself what we are going to listen when we put on them? ¿Or the headphone by itself + some effect of high frequency sounds amplification?
 
I don't like to disagree with people from Austria because I love Austrian chcolate! But this time, I have no choice. = D
As far as we are all human beings our ears are quite similar in many senses. I mean, our ear canals don't amplify 30Hz frequencies or 150Hz frequencies (as far as I know) And they amplify high frequency sounds. Here is when some differences could appear in the sound perceived by two or more people. But I think we all agree that our ears tend to amplify high frequency sounds.
Then I think that graphs that consider some kind of this effect give more usefull information than those which not consider it. At least in terms of getting the idea of how the measured headphone sounds.

I have two headphones measured by Innerfidelity. And to me they sound pretty similar to the grey graphs.

I've posted a picture of an Apple device EQ because probably most of the people use their Fidelios with Apple products. And because I found them better sounding with this EQ applied.

There is no Hi-Fi intends in my comments. In fact probably most of the people will agree that Fidelio L1 is not a Hi-Fi headphone. (Nice headphones, but lacks the clarity, and detail present in other headphones.)

I have to say that normally I prefer not to equalize, and this is the only headphone that I use with an EQ applied.
 
Best luck!

 

[Ultrazino]

I think what matters most is the shape of your head and the angle of your ears.
 
I have a slim head and my ears sit relatively high, so I don't even have to extend the headband much. The pressure of the ear pads is very low - extremely comfortable! I do not hear the elevation in the presence area (2-3 kHz). I can easily reproduce it, though, by applying pressure on the cups. I can then further bend the sound by changing the angle of the cups.
 
I have also claimed in the past that my DT-880 @600 ohms does not extend well in the low frequencies. Some have called me crazy for that, but it's definitely how I hear it. The velvet pads do 'seal' (it's an open design, though), but the bass rolls off sooner for me. On the other hand, the highs are also not as harsh - I could have gone for Pro for a tighter fit, but that one was not comfortable enough for me.
 
So what I'm trying to say is, you should be really careful when discussing frequency measurements in detail. When I wrote the review on page 1, I did try to figure out how the sound changes with different pressure on the cups, but at the time too much pressure just sounded wrong (maybe that's what you hear).

 

[Trunks159]

I think what matters most is the shape of your head and the angle of your ears.

I have a slim head and my ears sit relatively high, so I don't even have to extend the headband much. The pressure of the ear pads is very low - extremely comfortable! I do not hear the elevation in the presence area (2-3 kHz). I can easily reproduce it, though, by applying pressure on the cups. I can then further bend the sound by changing the angle of the cups.

I have also claimed in the past that my DT-880 @600 ohms does not extend well in the low frequencies. Some have called me crazy for that, but it's definitely how I hear it. The velvet pads do 'seal' (it's an open design, though), but the bass rolls off sooner for me. On the other hand, the highs are also not as harsh - I could have gone for Pro for a tighter fit, but that one was not comfortable enough for me.

So what I'm trying to say is, you should be really careful when discussing frequency measurements in detail. When I wrote the review on page 1, I did try to figure out how the sound changes with different pressure on the cups, but at the time too much pressure just sounded wrong (maybe that's what you hear).

R u crazy?!! These things clamp like crazy! Lol

 

[plakat]

Quote:

 
'the corrected graph is intended to show just how the headphone by itself reproduces sound.'
 
¿Is the headphone by itself what we are going to listen when we put on them? ¿Or the headphone by itself + some effect of high frequency sounds amplification?
 
I don't like to disagree with people from Austria because I love Austrian chcolate! But this time, I have no choice. = D
As far as we are all human beings our ears are quite similar in many senses. I mean, our ear canals don't amplify 30Hz frequencies or 150Hz frequencies (as far as I know) And they amplify high frequency sounds. Here is when some differences could appear in the sound perceived by two or more people. But I think we all agree that our ears tend to amplify high frequency sounds.
Then I think that graphs that consider some kind of this effect give more usefull information than those which not consider it. At least in terms of getting the idea of how the measured headphone sounds.

I have two headphones measured by Innerfidelity. And to me they sound pretty similar to the grey graphs.

I've posted a picture of an Apple device EQ because probably most of the people use their Fidelios with Apple products. And because I found them better sounding with this EQ applied.

There is no Hi-Fi intends in my comments. In fact probably most of the people will agree that Fidelio L1 is not a Hi-Fi headphone. (Nice headphones, but lacks the clarity, and detail present in other headphones.)

I have to say that normally I prefer not to equalize, and this is the only headphone that I use with an EQ applied.
 
Best luck!

 
What reason do you imply in innerfidelity.com offering raw data (gray) as well as corrected (color)? The reason I see is to avoid known measurement errors...
 
Furthermore my impression correlates better with the color graph -- my main reason to question the decision to tone down to upper mid region (where our hearing is most sensitive, again becoming less sensitive above ca. 4kHz).
 
Of course you're right that using an EQ on a headphone like the L1 does in fact not matter as the effects that might have on sound quality are beyond the capabilities of that headphone anyway.
 
Greetings from the land of chocolate & enjoy!

 

[lukEM22]

Quote:

Next up: comfort.
Instead of praising Philips, I rather wonder what other companies do wrong. How hard can it be to build a comfortable headphone? You take a headband and put cushions in the inside. How can it be that AKG, Grado, Ultrasone, Sennheiser, etc. fail in this department? If you like the Beyerdynamic sound, you are lucky - because they are known for high comfort, even though the velour pads are a little itchy.

 
I could not agree with this more.

 

[plakat]

Comfort is a very personal issue... While some models are generally regarded as comfortable (or not), most are comfortable to at least some, if not most people -- who are normally not as vocal about it as those that have problems...
 
Furthermore some design concepts are a bit detrimental to comfort -- for someone with sensitive ears it might be almost impossible to construct an on-ear headphone with an acceptable seal. Some can't stand it if the driver grill touches their ears even in the slightest way, to me that does not matter that much (any more at least: it used to a long time ago).
 
I would not say that some generally fail in this area, its in most cases a matter of good or bad match to ones physical properties and preferences: I love the fit of my AKG K702AE (the one with memory pads and no headband bumps), consider it even better than my T5p (which is closed and has leather earpads) and definitely better than the DT1350 -- which I still use due to its almost perfect sound for a mobile set that small. The L1 had too much clamping force for my taste, so no global praise here as well... The M-100 could use some deeper cushions but its quite OK -- others bash it as unwearable. The K550 is a joy to wear -- to me. Others complain about the minimal padding on the headband or can't get a proper seal. The X1 is too small for some while perfect to others...
 
You see the pattern there I guess: no model of manufacturer is perfect in that department, some things are dictated by design and its always a matter of preferences (and physical properties).

 

[Trunks159]

Exept the MDR xb500.