[ssportclay]

Quote:

Originally Posted by halcyon I'll try it one more time, really simple (because I'm feeling we are talking about the same thing, but just using different words). When measured at entrance to ear canal, ideal flat headphones would _on the average_ measure something like this: And NOT like this: That's according to the best available scientific literature on acoustic measurements on how human hearing works. This is the reason why I wanted to point out the use of the term "flat", which can be misleading. Clearly the lower graph is visually flat. However in terms of accurate/natural response it is distorted when we talk about measurements at human concha level. Regardless of what the scientific literature says our hearing/opinion doesn't always agree. That's why we are in disagreement as to which headphone is good, bad, best, crap, etc. And that's why they keep cramming out new headphones and we end up buying them regards, halcyon

My problem with all headphones is that they lack detail.Flatness is not a concern if the mud that is being expelled from them is completely flat.My favorite headphones now are the SA5000s because of their detail.I would like them better if they had more detail although I would like them flater.

 

[gerG]

Wow, you guys are turning up some great points. I wish I could join the discussion more, but my real job does not leave much time during the week. A couple of comments:

Flat is just my starting baseline for the eq adjustments. For the Sonys I basically took out the 200 hz sawtooth dip, got rid of the peak at 2.5 K, and lifted the bass flat (this took more eq than I normaly resort to, but hopefully they will loosen up and I can back it down). I will post the curve when I get a chance to type it in (no link to computer from DEQ).

I did measure my own hrtf. Not a sufficiently well controlled experiment, so I will not post it. Not so different than the one that Halcyon posted. The trick is which hrtf to use? It is different at 0, 30, or 90 degrees. Then you have to decide whether you want to correct back to a listening position or clear to the speaker as the reference point for "flat". Those corrections resulted in a higher treble boost than I cared for. I have been content smoothing things out up to 2khz, then leaving most things alone from there on up.

I do not care for the punchy sound imparted by the midbass bump in many headphones. I call it substitute bass. Car manufacturers are very good at employing this trick. I always take that out. I was also very pleased to find that most good headphones can easily handle being equalized flat to 20 hz. I rarely listen above 75 db, so I do not know how much margin I have used up.

The effect that I mentioned about the Sonys sounding like listening in the bathroom was the effect when I turn the eq off. There is a distinct echo effect that I can get used to, but take it out and put it back and it gets rather obvious.

Sonance, good point on the resonance absorbing energy. That first sawtooth is very interesting. I haven't been able to think of any one thing with that asymmetric signature.

Oh, a couple of extra complications, headphone drivers are not point source emitters, and they do not necessarily move in phase over their whole surface across the spectrum. At the spacing in question, ears are not point source receivers. This really complicates things.

Sorry to drone on without new data. I may take a shot at the hrtf outdoors this weekend (wall reflections really muck up the calculations).

Time to catch some tunes, then some zzzzs.


gerG

 

[Sovkiller]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yada The purpose of designing a flat system (with inherently flat equipment and/or with an equalizer to keep or make the system flat in an acoustical environment - as in a room or with headphones on) is so that any music we feed into the system will come back out of the system as it went into the system.

Agreed....but that doesn't mean that the result has to be flat, if the signal feed into was not....All I can tell you is that I have owned enough flat boring systems in the past to keep on going this way, I'm sick of analyzing the music, rather than enjoying it....Euphony is all about.....Long live R-10!!!!

Quote:

Our ear system - as you point out is going to be consistent in how it modifies sound - so what we are looking for is a system that DOESN'T MODIFY the signal created by the original musicians. In that way we will hear the music as it was intended by the musicians rather as modified by the system. Just a thought for you to consider.

That is true...but do you know how the original signal created by the musicians was? Sorry I do not....were you recording it, or was it another human being, with own preferences and defects in the hearing, same as all of us???? Again there is no practical way to determine how a signal was recorded, there are toooooo many factors involved, technical and human, so I try to hear the music the way I believe it is supposed to sound, and period, I don't really care how it was or not recorded, as I never know for sure...

Just another points to consider

 

[the terabyte]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gerG The effect that I mentioned about the Sonys sounding like listening in the bathroom was the effect when I turn the eq off. There is a distinct echo effect that I can get used to, but take it out and put it back and it gets rather obvious. gerG

I'm glad that I'm not the only one who hears this. To me, it's the same sound I heard with the CD3000, but not as noticeable (and forgetable after a few minutes of listening). If I make sure the earcups are pushed as far back (so that the front edge of the pads is touching my outter ear), the echo is almost completely gone. Sony must be aware of this echo-y effect, but maybe they think it adds to the "spaciousness" of the sound.

 

[JaZZ]

«Bathroom sound» was exactly what came to mind during my first listen to the SA5000. No wonder: the inside of the earcups has a lot of bare reflective surfaces, especially the one on the rear side resulting from the angled baffle.

Lining the latter with black velvet made a considerable difference to the good.

Needless to say that my respect for Sony as a headphone designer hasn't benefitted from this. I wouldn't wonder if the cavity effect reported from the Qualia have the same cause.

 

[spike33]

I am pretty much convinced that sa5000 is suppose to be using 120 ohm output. Look at gerg's graph, big dip at 100-300hz, this causes notes to 'appear' light and quick, when you're actually just losing a part of the freq. Using 120 ohm adapter, this hole is filled up, bass becomes much more impactful, notes are fuller, mids are more balanced (especially the upper mids), treble is tamed a bit. Anyone else tried this? comments?

 

[JaZZ]

I've tried it with the 120-ohm output of my Corda -- and yes, it works to some degree. It sounds smoother and has a more natural sonic balance, but also clearly less detail, and the bass is a bit bloated. So I think its greatest strength is lost, while the inhomogeneities are still audible. A groovalizer without its groove...

 

[spike33]

if anything, its even more groovin'

you're right that there's slightly less detail but still gobs of it. There's more bass but of the tight punchy variety, not bloated at all. It does take a bit getting used to, especially after getting used to the 'weird' sa5k.

 

[gerG]

I will do a test with a 120 ohm adapter. That usually brings up the whole bass range, with a preferential bias at the resonance. Unfortunately my only adapter is a mini for a PC, so it will involve extra plumbing

Sorry I disappeared on this. Other projects have been taking up my time, and I have pretty much concluded that the SA5000 are not for me. I went back to my speakers and the K1000 (not at the same time) to cheer myself up. I will still update the response before I let them go.


gerG

 

[ssportclay]

I think the 120 ohm jack ruins the SA5000.Its a bright headphone but it isn't that bright.Bright amplifier owners would be better off adding 2 or 3 extension cords to the headphone cord just to take the edge off.I have tried it and it does work and they are far cheaper than the after market cords for the HD650.People with darker amplifiers probable need not bother.

 

[devwild]

how about less, like a 75 ohm adapter for ety's or the switch on a xin amp, anyone tried that to see what it sounds like?

 

[dglawrence]

Quote:

Originally Posted by halcyon "Flat" is a misnomer. ... Because: 1) The point at which headphones are measured (concha, entrance to ear canal) is not "flat" in the human ear. If you don't wear headphones, but just wear microphones at concha level and record sounds from absolutely flat speakers (in a diffuse field or anechoic chamber), then the sound at your concha level is not flat anymore. The graph will NOT look like a straight line. This is due to what is overall called a head related transfer function, which takes into account the torso, head (including hair) and outer ear reflections and masking. This is "natural" at it's best. You can't get more natural than that frequency response curve at your concha level. The sound gets even more distorted as it enters the ear canal (and then ot middle ear and inner ear), but for the sake of simplification we'll leave it out of the discussion now. That response (and related HRTF) is also individual to every single living person. No two persons hears one sound exactly the same, although there is a high degree of agreement on what the sound sounds like (probably due to neural matching at higher cognitive levels of auditory processing). ...

This would be true if the headphone drivers were right at the entrance of the ears, but they are not (unless you're using earbuds - one of the many reasons why earbuds are broken by design).

Headphone drivers are actually quite a ways away from the entrance to the ear canal - typically .5" to .75" away and thus completely outside of the outer portion of the ears. This means that the 'correct' frequency response needs to be much closer to flat than you might first think (because it will be modified by the outer ear in the same way that natural sound is). Completely flat frequency response probably isn't quite right because the sound from the drivers is mostly on-axis, so more of the high frequencies make it into the ear than would be the case with sound in a natural environment (not wearing headphones - listening to live sound). This is probably why completely flat FR seems a little bright with headphones, although not necessarily incorrect. For someone in their late thirties like me, a little boost of the highs brings the sound back to what it sounded like when I was in my teens.

When I say "flat" FR, I mean what you would measure with the headphones on your head. Low frequencies from headphone drivers are too weak and need the added sound pressure from the sealed contact of the headphone pads with your skin, creating a closed chamber, in order to boost them up to the proper level. This makes accurately testing headphone FR especially challenging. You need the sealed chamber, but you don't want an 'ear' in there. You want to minimize reflections as much as possible, otherwise they interfere with the measurement. I've personally spent more than a hundred hours trying a variety of ways to do this. My current apparatus uses a block of special plastic foam with the measurement microphone poking through it. The block of foam is then secured to the headphones with a suitable clamp (usually a rubber band) that applies the right amount of pressure. This still has some problems with reflections that I don't think would be as prominent when you have the headphones on your head, however. I usually take two spectrums - one with this apparatus attached for a 'sealed' reading, and another with the measurement microphone by itself right in front of the driver 'unsealed'. The two measurements together give me a good indication of where the reflections are in the 'sealed' spectrum, so that I *don't* try to EQ for those.

The scheme that Headroom uses is to put the measuring microphone inside of a model head. They measure the FR effects of this apparatus and then later *subtract* this out from the tests they do of the headphones. It's an interesting approach, but you might as well just leave out the model head in the first place. My own 'sealed' measurement results are very close to the Headroom published measurements, which would seem to prove that having the 'head' isn't necessary.

 

[3lusiv3]

EVERY Sony product I have ever bought has failed. I wouldn't buy a Sony product unless you paid me.

 

[spike33]

Since you own 595, I'd give sa5000 a try. While I really liked 595, sa5k is on whole nother level. I find they have a similar sound...they both have relatively flat response with a slight peak in upper mids and no midbass hump. except sa5k is much more detailed, upfront, faster, tighter more impactful bass, basically a 595 on steroids.

 

[devwild]

Quote:

Originally Posted by spike33 Since you own 595, I'd give sa5000 a try. While I really liked 595, sa5k is on whole nother level. I find they have a similar sound...they both have relatively flat response with a slight peak in upper mids and no midbass hump. except sa5k is much more detailed, upfront, faster, tighter more impactful bass, basically a 595 on steroids.

Considering my relative lack of experience, I'm shocked to hear someone else actually say this. That was kind of my impression as well after hearing them for the first time at a local meet, which led to me eventually buying them. I feel strangely justified.