[m00k0w]

I've wanted to, and have spent weeks EQ'ing my phones, but I can confirm this happens to me with any headphones vs. speakers.
 
I understand equalizing is supposed to remove peaks and troughs from the response of headphones, but the guides here summarize the procedure into this: Make every frequency or area have the same loudness. I downloaded sinegen, and have a CD with bands of pink noise as well as a pink noise sweep, and after making every frequency the same volume, apart from 20khz and approaching 20hz, I come to the curve you can see in my display picture. This is of course without sharp peaks because it is drawn from the foobar2000 equalizer which I need to use two bars of to lower one peak that happens to fall right in between. I should take a few hours one day to transfer it to a parametric, but the main question is about the ends.
 
The response starts falling to the two sides, smoothly, but this is correct to keep the volume the same across the whole spectrum. After a day of just listening to the outside world, or compared to a pair of flat speakers, many systems which I test with sinegen to be the same across the board, the mids on ANY headphones, including flat ones like HD650's or SR-60's are waaayy overpronounced in the mids. I mean, 15dB too high. There is no low end and no treble, or more like the guitar, singer, etc are just absolutely overpowered, as if to be listening through a pair of tinny plastic speakers which resonate at 500hz.
 
Are these my ears, responding to mids way more sensitively than the rest? I know I don't have problems with high end or bass, as I will pick out annoying rumbles of neighbors HVAC systems or the HF tone of a far TV or CRT, as well as when friends play high frequencies in tone generators or that mosquito cell ring tone, which don't seem to bother them, or aren't even noticed.
 
After pointing out and fixing these actual peaks across the mid response, I can't believe how much better it is to listen to music.. Going back to the simple smile which I couldn't believe for years was necessary for me to recognize the sound as if it were from speakers sounds incredible irritating and harsh where I dropped it accordingly.
 
Is the drop across the mids necessary for anyone else for anything to sound the same as non-headphone sound sources?

 

[anomalouscode]

our ears arent flat.
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fletcher%E2%80%93Munson_curves
 
you'll see that we hear mids clearer,... something to do with voice being mostly mids so we're more attuned to them.
 
so if you listen to something ruler flat, as in machine flat, the mids will be much louder while the highs and the bass will be much lower at a given volume.
 
so when someone says soandso is flat,.... flat what? machine flat or human ear flat?

 

[revolink24]

I've said it time and time again.
 
Neutral is not natural.
 
Are Etymotics neutral? Oh yes. Do they sound natural? Of course not.
 
I want my headphones to be natural, not neutral.

 

[xnor]

A simple way to understand why equalizing for equal loudness is nonsense:
 
Think about how the music is produced. The engineer listens to the mix with flat (no smiley curve) studio monitors. He equalizes the song / instruments in a way that it will sound ok on his monitors but also ok on not so flat consumer-grade devices.
 
The equalized song's frequency spectrum happens to look like pink noise. There might be a little boost at low and higher frequencies because the engineer knows that many devices will be rolled-off a bit on both ends of the spectrum.
 
In pink noise each octave carries an equal amount of power. If your system has a flat frequency response pink noise will be reproduced as pink noise and music will be reproduced as intended.
If you eq for equal loudness the pink noise will not sound like pink noise anymore, the static in the mids will be "lost" and what remains sounds very sterile... and just WRONG.
 
If you listen to pink noise keep in mind that we're very sensitive to the mids and high mids and if you don't know what pink noise really sounds like the static in the mids and high mids will most likely sound overpowered to you.
 
 
Summary: Don't eq for equal loudness unless you listen at extremely low volume levels and/or know EXACTLY what you're doing.

 

[Krav]

So far I equalized HD650, D5000, DT770, and HD380 using Cubase 5. The four curves are quite different yet resemble yours in the overall shape. Made huge difference.
 
To those who regard equalization as nonsense, I recommend reading Chapter 19 of this book: http://www.amazon.com/Sound-Reproduction-Acoustics-Psychoacoustics-Loudspeakers/dp/0240520092 .
 
The book author, who earned his Ph.D. in"Sound Science" before I guess most of Head-Fi members were even born, has heard it all and really knows what he is talking about IMHO.
 
Quote:

Is the drop across the mids necessary for anyone else for anything to sound the same as non-headphone sound sources?

 

[nycbone]

As I've reconfirmed today, it depends largely upon the headphones in question (and of course the ears/brain in question, but I can't test that myself

).
 
With my SR125, it's a smile.
With my newly-acquired AH-D2000, it's nearly flat with a very slight boost in the 31 to 125Hz range to make it perfect for my ears (but perhaps not yours). That was a bit of a surprise.
 
A comparison of the curves on the Headroom site explains why to some degree (I'm sure that other characteristics of/differences between these models also come into play).
 
IMO, EQ is virtually essential in order to obtain the SQ that one is looking for. My 26 year old (purchased new) Realistic EQ is the single most important piece of equipment in my signal chain.
 

 

[nycbone]

Update: For my $ (and most importantly, my ears), my new AH-D2000 do not require use of the equalizer. My SR125i, KSC75 and RE0 all need quite a bit of 'assistance.'

 

[beeman458]

Your EQ smile is pretty much normal.