[DaBomb77766]

Quote:

So there balanced but not.

 
I think they were mostly tuned to be balanced and non-fatiguing.  So not utterly balanced to perfection, no.

 

[AngryBaconGod]

So there balanced but not. :mad:

I'm not sure how many people would claim that balanced = flat.

And if you read that link I've provided above, and do a bit of Googling, it certainly seems like universally flat IEMs isn't much of a possibility. It's a bit of an eye opener.

If you think of balanced as providing reasonably equal emphasis on bass, mids, and treble (and the areas in between) then I'd say GR07 does that quite well.

 

[Confispect]

Quote:

Quote:

So there balanced but not.

I'm not sure how many people would claim that balanced = flat.
 

And if you read that link I've provided above, and do a bit of Googling, it certainly seems like universally flat IEMs isn't much of a possibility. It's a bit of an eye opener.

If you think of balanced as providing reasonably equal emphasis on bass, mids, and treble (and the areas in between) then I'd say GR07 does that quite well.

^ Figures.
 

 

[AngryBaconGod]

^ Figures.
 

What point are you trying to make?

 

[AstralStorm]

 
Quote:

I'm sure with a lot more practice I could get something better. But in the meantime, it was a good enough start to both improve the sound and also be a proof of concept.

The next step was to take the Freq, Gain, and BW and plug them into an app called "Equalizer" on my Touch. It completely didn't work at all. It seems that BW and Q are not the same thing. That, or the mode/peak type stuff doesn't match whatever it is Equalizer does. So I could either do research or change my approach.

I moved to EQu and uploaded the 30 second 20Hz-20000Hz .WAV file I found to the Touch. EQu works by creating points and dragging them around. You get a spline which intersects all points specified. So you can very directly create the curve you want. I'm sure AstralStorm is shaking his head

at this approach, but it gets the job done.

<snip>

Working with the points in this app is very difficult, with big fat stubby fingers, but I eventually got a vaguely flat sounding sweep up to around 14kHz! It's not perfect, but it's a heck of a lot better than anything I've done before.

So that's how you hack your way through a portable solution (if you have/buy an iPod Touch!). I'm sure I can spend days refining, but for now, I'm happy. I think I'll give the CK10's a go next.

EDIT: And, oh yes, it sounds fantastic.

Actually, your approach is how I derive the first approximation of the eq, then I fine-tune and round off the points, then again I attempt to rebuild the eq with as few parts as possible.
Now, the hardware-devised EQ had some more work put into it to reduce the part count even further without sacrificing quality and perhaps even improving it. (Butterworth is better in phase than T sections)
 
In fact, I use this method with actual music to apply the eq on various underpowered devices such as the crummy cellphone and less crummy but still inadequate old iRivier T20 - these have graphic eq.
 
By the way, I've provided Q values *and* bandwidth in octaves. Filter slope shouldn't be too different - Electri-Q seems to approximate T sections in the default Peak. Biquads will have slightly different (slower) rise and less of a peak, but the fit should still be close enough..
 
The most important part sound-wise is the huge cut around 6,5kHz. If that is approximated well enough, these IEMs are quite bearable. Missing frequencies at 8-11k cause that "I want to play it louder" effect sounding like loss of detail - all the detail is actually there, so eq can bring it back into focus. (plus they again make the cymbals sound like cymbals and not noise)
 
I expect CK10 to also be pretty sibilant and have learned to not trust Joker's and ClieOS's reviews completely - they're far less sensitive to sibilance than myself. So my next bet are probably Klipsch X10 if Headroom graphs are to be trusted enough. That won't happen for some time though.
 

 

[AstralStorm]

Quote:

So there balanced but not.

They're balanced but sibilant. Balanced = don't overemphasize either lows, mids or highs. These unfortunately have a sibilant peak, but it's compensated with slight highest end cut.
My eq doesn't change the balance, just flattens their frequency response to my ears to be within about 1.5 dB 25 - 17.5 kHz. (further I can't say, it's too hard to quantify small changes, hearing is not sensitive enough)
 
But I really have to say to people who tell "flat != fun". Perfect flat to my ears is extra fun. Unless by flat they mean "equalized to be measurably flat". Then I concur, that sounds pretty horrible.
Kind of like people saying bass-depleted IEMs are analytic. No they're not, they just bare the midrange and highs. Similar wrong effect is also caused by broken soundstaging, e.g. far too wide and too near.
Of course VSonic GR07 is none of the above. But like almost every IEM it has a flaw and its flaw is sibilance.

 

[Yggdrassilious]

Auditioned these at JabenHZ. I brought with me an army of my own IEMs thinking I could walk away untouched, but alas when I took off my SE535 and put on the GR07@ only 2 hours of burn-in I uncontrollably smiled. 

 

[ClieOS]

Quote:

I expect CK10 to also be pretty sibilant and have learned to not trust Joker's and ClieOS's reviews completely - they're far less sensitive to sibilance than myself. So my next bet are probably Klipsch X10 if Headroom graphs are to be trusted enough. That won't happen for some time though.
 

Actually I always consider myself to be a sibilance hater, even more so than I hate muddy bass. But for GR07, I listen to it mostly on low volume and it doesn't sound sibilant to me. The same can be said for j-phonics K2 SP as well. These stage tuned IEM are mainly designed to sound best at low volume and can sound sibilant when the volume is higher than it is designed for. I don't consider that a flaw in design, just not optimum when outside of its spec.
 

 

[TheeeChosenOne]

I've burned them in about 120 hrs thus far (will continue to 200),  and the sibilance in my pair is gone/not noticeable enough/substantially improved versus when I first listened to them....and I have super sensitive hearing to such frequencies FWIW.
 
Sibilance does go away with burn-in, as others have stated.
 
The earphones are great BTW and VERY HAPPY I bought them!  

 

[goodvibes]

 
Quote:

They're balanced but sibilant. Balanced = don't overemphasize either lows, mids or highs. These unfortunately have a sibilant peak, but it's compensated with slight highest end cut.
My eq doesn't change the balance, just flattens their frequency response to my ears to be within about 1.5 dB 25 - 17.5 kHz. (further I can't say, it's too hard to quantify small changes, hearing is not sensitive enough)
 
But I really have to say to people who tell "flat != fun". Perfect flat to my ears is extra fun. Unless by flat they mean "equalized to be measurably flat". Then I concur, that sounds pretty horrible.
Kind of like people saying bass-depleted IEMs are analytic. No they're not, they just bare the midrange and highs. Similar wrong effect is also caused by broken soundstaging, e.g. far too wide and too near.
Of course VSonic GR07 is none of the above. But like almost every IEM it has a flaw and its flaw is sibilance.

If it had a 12db peak at 7k it would be unbearable for almost everyone. Check your stuff. I'm also a flat is fun person but haven't found EQ to be the answer. Things have to start close to work for me. Haven't heard the GR07 but I've never seen a great fluctuations over a narrow bands to be part of a good solution. LIke I said, I haven't listened so take with a grain but too many people like these for me to think that something isn't up with your rig or perhaps your particular canals.
 

 

[AngryBaconGod]

 


If it had a 12db peak at 7k it would be unbearable for almost everyone. Check your stuff. I'm also a flat is fun person but haven't found EQ to be the answer. Things have to start close to work for me. Haven't heard the GR07 but I've never seen a great fluctuations over a narrow bands to be part of a good solution. LIke I said, I haven't listened so take with a grain but too many people like these for me to think that something isn't up with your rig or perhaps your particular canals.
 

FWIW, going by my ears, I made a 3.5dB cut (and no, I'm not sensitive to half decibels - that's just where it ended up) around 7.6k. I also had to bump up around 10k, and a smaller cut around 14k.

 

[AngryBaconGod]

I expect CK10 to also be pretty sibilant and have learned to not trust Joker's and ClieOS's reviews completely - they're far less sensitive to sibilance than myself. So my next bet are probably Klipsch X10 if Headroom graphs are to be trusted enough. That won't happen for some time though.
 

I wouldn't say it is. I've discovered that the CK10 is, indeed, to my ears a bit treble happy, despite my previous impressions, when using a sine wave sweep. I would say that there was perhaps a 3dB peak around 7.6k to my ears over neighbouring frequencies.

 

[AngryBaconGod]

I'm also a flat is fun person but haven't found EQ to be the answer. Things have to start close to work for me. Haven't heard the GR07 but I've never seen a great fluctuations over a narrow bands to be part of a good solution.

If you don't mind my asking, what are the negative effects for you with EQ'ing? What in particular doesn't work for you?

What negative thing happens if one EQ's great fluctuations over a narrow band, if the resulting FR is flat to one's ears? Is it rounding errors causing distortions that you hear?

I'm curious about your insights as I'm trying to determine the overall value of EQ'ing to get a perceived flat FR.

 

[AstralStorm]

Quote:

Actually I always consider myself to be a sibilance hater, even more so than I hate muddy bass. But for GR07, I listen to it mostly on low volume and it doesn't sound sibilant to me. The same can be said for j-phonics K2 SP as well. These stage tuned IEM are mainly designed to sound best at low volume and can sound sibilant when the volume is higher than it is designed for. I don't consider that a flaw in design, just not optimum when outside of its spec.
 

 
Well, I listen at the right volume level of ~40 phons - the level where 1kHz tone gets ever so slightly annoying and speech is perfectly legible but not loud. This is pretty quiet by the standards of some. The sibilance is a bit less noticeable at reduced volume to 30 phon, but there they aren't linear anyway and then are very quiet.
By the way, you might be sensitive to higher sibilance of ~7-9kHz which these don't have much. (to my ears, they're lacking a few dB here, about 3 or so.)
Hell, even linear parts HRTFs are so different that the IEM might work better for others - the rest have to live with the eq or another pair. We need more of the tunable highs systems, like in SA6, but not just amount, also the position of the dip... or perhaps measurably flat IEMs with some extra electronic "pick your sound" box?

 

[AstralStorm]

Quote:

Quote:

I'm also a flat is fun person but haven't found EQ to be the answer. Things have to start close to work for me. Haven't heard the GR07 but I've never seen a great fluctuations over a narrow bands to be part of a good solution.

If you don't mind my asking, what are the negative effects for you with EQ'ing? What in particular doesn't work for you?

What negative thing happens if one EQ's great fluctuations over a narrow band, if the resulting FR is flat to one's ears? Is it rounding errors causing distortions that you hear?

I'm curious about your insights as I'm trying to determine the overall value of EQ'ing to get a perceived flat FR.

I won't be quoting myself from another thread specifically geared to EQ:
http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/413900/how-to-equalize-your-headphones-a-tutorial/555#post_7519824
 
Suffice it to say that a good equalizer won't introduce any important artifacts. Electri-Q in Analog mode is not a good one. Digital mode is fine.
I don't consider half an octave wide tuning narrow. (measuring at "-6 dB" point aka sqrt(2) aka half-tuning, total is about 30% wider)
 
EDIT: There may be issues if you don't measure finely enough where you can introduce narrow dips. This will sound "grainy" or "phasey". This is known in sfx circles as comb filtering. This and phase behavior is why you should try to simplify the eq as much as possible.