[Koukol]

A room tends to swallow the highest frequencies and bloom in the lowest. Headphones don't do that.

Also something that hasn't been brought up is volume EQing (not sure of the actual term) with both HP's and room speakers.
Every time we turn the volume up or down we change the perceived EQ curve...no?
Bass and treble need to be boosted at lower volumes to balance out the sound.

 

[Zapp_Fan]

Also something that hasn't been brought up is volume EQing (not sure of the actual term) with both HP's and room speakers.
Every time we turn the volume up or down we change the perceived EQ curve...no?
Bass and treble need to be boosted at lower volumes to balance out the sound.

This is true to an extent, some Bluetooth headphones/speakers actually incorporate loudness curves and do this automatically.

On the other hand, is it really necessary? If they sound "good" at low volumes they will sound "better" at high volumes. This is also true of the flat speakers in a studio. If the studio engineers assume you don't do any dynamic gain-based EQ, then the changing character at high and low volume is a perfectly suitable simulation of how the listener will hear it too. They probably don't expect you to do this fancy EQing at home.

So, again, there is a bit of a philosophical question involved in whether that's a correction or an enhancement.

This is really what's nice about speakers. Are they flat? If so you're already halfway there.

Headphones: Are they flat? Depends on what you mean by flat and the shape of your ears etc etc

 

[Koukol]

I'm not actually needing my HP's to be dead accurate which sounds like an impossibility anyways.
But I would like to make them closer if possible.

My 600's were just the best HP for the price at a certain moment in time for me.
I can hear the "veil' (which IMO is far worse on the 650's I returned)
And the bass is often too muddy.

So i'm often finding i reduce the mud then boost slightly the 5-8khz range and if need for kick boost the 60-80hz (maybe 100)

I'm now curious if the EQ correction will do something similar.
Since Tru Fi won't work with my typical set up I'll have to keep it in mind for the future.
It would be great if Tru Fi could let us convert with their EQ curve so when I needle drop I could do the correction.

 

[Koukol]

This is true to an extent, some Bluetooth headphones/speakers actually incorporate loudness curves and do this automatically.

On the other hand, is it really necessary?

...

Yes, I believe so and many others do hence all the volume buttons and its variations even on High end equipment.
The Volume and Bass boost are, in my mind, intended for low volumes where the low and the higher frequencies are the first to disappear.
When I EQ for HP's it's important to find the volume I'll be listening back with first before I EQ.
Even then when I listen back I have to find that volume or else the music will be slightly bright or dull.

 

[Zapp_Fan]

Yes, I believe so and many others do hence all the volume buttons and its variations even on High end equipment.
The Volume and Bass boost are, in my mind, intended for low volumes where the low and the higher frequencies are the first to disappear.
When I EQ for HP's it's important to find the volume I'll be listening back with first before I EQ.
Even then when I listen back I have to find that volume or else the music will be slightly bright or dull.

True, but this is for reasons of preference, wanting to hear more bass regardless of accuracy.

If your goal was to match "what they hear in the studio" then you might just leave it alone. I don't know that they typically compensate with EQ for monitoring level in the studio (they are aware of it, I just don't know that people generally EQ for loudness effect while monitoring). So that's another philosophical thing we bump into. Is it more "neutral" or less "neutral" to add a bass boost at low volume? Is compensating for the sensitivity of your ear a more or less accurate approach? And what *exactly* is the thing we want to produce accurately? Is it the signal in the recording, or is it a putative "what they heard in the studio" acoustic phenomenon?

I don't have the answer. But it does help to illustrate the sometimes maddening complexity of these issues.

 

[bigshot]

When I calibrate by ear using tones, I start at a lower volume and go through passes at progressively higher volumes. That way narrow spikes don't mess up my ears because I can deal with them at a lower volume before they turn into a knife cutting into my ear drum.

By the way, calibrated is calibrated at any volume. Loudness curve correction fixes a defect in human hearing. It doesn't affect calibration if you use pink noise or tones. If you are going to apply a loudness curve, you do that when you playback music to listen to it, it's not baked into the recording or system calibration itself.

 

[Steve999]

So here's what I did for my HD580s years ago. It was a long process incorporating all kinds of data points and personal preferences and, well, me. It was by parametric EQ so just assume a smooth curve between points. The HD600s are not exactly the HD580s, and since you are you, ymmv, etc.

20 HZ +3 db

90 HZ 0 dB

170 HZ -4 dB

400 HZ 0 dB

1.25 khz +4 dB

3.5 khz +3 db

9 khz +4 db

20 khz +4 db

The question of what to do with the low and mid-bass involves some judgment. I think headphones need a little extra boost there as compared to what you would get measured from a speaker, for reasons that people will talk about until the cows come home. There's not any right answer.

--Steve

I'm not actually needing my HP's to be dead accurate which sounds like an impossibility anyways.
But I would like to make them closer if possible.

My 600's were just the best HP for the price at a certain moment in time for me.
I can hear the "veil' (which IMO is far worse on the 650's I returned)
And the bass is often too muddy.

So i'm often finding i reduce the mud then boost slightly the 5-8khz range and if need for kick boost the 60-80hz (maybe 100)

I'm now curious if the EQ correction will do something similar.
Since Tru Fi won't work with my typical set up I'll have to keep it in mind for the future.
It would be great if Tru Fi could let us convert with their EQ curve so when I needle drop I could do the correction.

I don't know how reliable these measurements are but it least it might be a data point for you:

http://graphs.headphone.com/index.php?graphID[0]=573&graphID[1]=&graphID[2]=&graphID[3]=&scale=30&graphType=0&buttonSelection=Update+Graph

For my HD580s, which are similar to your HD600s, on my Behringer DEQ2496 DSP I pretty much just bring up the low bass a little and the upper treble up a little and it helps anyway. It gets you closer. That's good enough for me.

If anyone has any comment on how reliable the Headroom measurements are I'd be interested. I've never been quite sure.

--Steve

 

[Koukol]

True, but this is for reasons of preference, wanting to hear more bass regardless of accuracy.

If your goal was to match "what they hear in the studio" then you might just leave it alone...

But the "correction" from Tru Fi is basically doing the same bass and treble boosting to give me more accurate results.
My first reaction was this is nothing more than an "enhance" or "loudness" switch.

I know there's the pleasing yet inaccurate factor that I'm not above applying.
But if you're suggesting we don't lose our ability to hear bass and treble with each notch we turn down of the volume...I say you're wrong.
The "loudness" button on my McIntosh system was put there for this very phenomenon.
Sure, some people abuse these buttons like bass-heads.

What I'm trying to achieve is getting my humble, inexpensive HP's as close as possible to what was intended and go from there.
I tried Tru-Fi, which claims to be accurate, and it applied very similar EQing I was doing on my own but with slightly better results.
If this program was to do the opposite I'd say screw accuracy I'm not going to trade my enjoyment over pride.

Right now with all the brick-walling it's Impossible for me to listen to these releases with my HP's without a volume reduction and then maybe a little EQing if the reduction wasn't enough.

 

[Glmoneydawg]

So here's what I did for my HD580s years ago. It was a long process incorporating all kinds of data points and personal preferences and, well, me. It was by parametric EQ so just assume a smooth curve between points. The HD600s are not exactly the HD580s, and since you are you, ymmv, etc.

20 HZ +3 db

90 HZ 0 dB

170 HZ -4 dB

400 HZ 0 dB

1.25 khz +4 dB

3.5 khz +3 db

9 khz +4 db

20 khz +4 db

The question of what to do with the low and mid-bass involves some judgment. I think headphones need a little extra boost there as compared to what you would get measured from a speaker, for reasons that people will talk about until the cows come home. There's not any right answer.

--Steve

Looks like your 0db is not calibrated correctly....other than a 170hz suckout your freq reaponse is pretty respectable.If your 0db is moved up 3 db you are pretty flat besides the 170 hz thing

 

[Steve999]

Thanks. I'll try it. I've got 50 presets, I've got nothing to lose.

Looks like your 0db is not calibrated correctly....other than a 170hz suckout your freq reaponse is pretty respectable.If your 0db is moved up 3 db you are pretty flat besides the 170 hz thing

 

[Koukol]

When I calibrate by ear using tones, I start at a lower volume and go through passes at progressively higher volumes. That way narrow spikes don't mess up my ears because I can deal with them at a lower volume before they turn into a knife cutting into my ear drum.

By the way, calibrated is calibrated at any volume. Loudness curve correction fixes a defect in human hearing. It doesn't affect calibration if you use pink noise or tones. If you are going to apply a loudness curve, you do that when you playback music to listen to it, it's not baked into the recording or system calibration itself.

Yes, any frequency tweak will effect the other frequencies which is why I always start with the low mid reduction if needed.

Is there a site or program offering these tones?

 

[Koukol]

So here's what I did for my HD580s years ago. It was a long process incorporating all kinds of data points and personal preferences and, well, me. It was by parametric EQ so just assume a smooth curve between points. The HD600s are not exactly the HD580s, and since you are you, ymmv, etc.

20 HZ +3 db

90 HZ 0 dB

170 HZ -4 dB

400 HZ 0 dB

1.25 khz +4 dB

3.5 khz +3 db

9 khz +4 db

20 khz +4 db

The question of what to do with the low and mid-bass involves some judgment. I think headphones need a little extra boost there as compared to what you would get measured from a speaker, for reasons that people will talk about until the cows come home. There's not any right answer.

--Steve

Thanks Steve.

 

[Koukol]

Looks like your 0db is not calibrated correctly....other than a 170hz suckout your freq reaponse is pretty respectable.If your 0db is moved up 3 db you are pretty flat besides the 170 hz thing

Where the heck are you guys learning this stuff?

 

[castleofargh]

Where the heck are you guys learning this stuff?

it's just good practice from the old days to try and attenuate things instead of boosting them. but so long as you have a global gain setting you can decrease, things like risk of clipping can be avoided so you can EQ pretty much however you like.

 

[Glmoneydawg]

Where the heck are you guys learning this stuff?

Lol...i'm not that smart....its just averaging.