[spike33]

Just shows that we both have good taste

 

[KenB]

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.

If you like this recommendation, my set of SA-5000's are currently for sale on Head-Fi. Brand spankin' new and eager for an appreciative owner.

I agree that the SA5K's are fast, detailed, and up-front with a nice layered soundstage. They are also very comfortable (light, adjustable, and just the right amount of snugness). Compared to both the CD3K's and RS-1's, they sound shallow to me or, said another way, they lack weight/body. There is a lot of texture and granularity to the music, but it lacks mass/substance. Instruments, esp. brass and elec guitar, sound shrilly, thin, and cold to my ears. Perhaps this is the "warmth" factor (mellow?) so often mentioned when comparing headphone properties. Regarding bass, it is definitely deep and extended, but I didn't feel it the same as with my CD3K's or even the RS-1's. I agree that the bass is accurately presented, tight, and controlled, but I like to feel the impact in my chest, provided there is no sacrifice to the rest of the sonic spectrum as a consequence. Perhaps these perceived weaknesses would have tempered/tamed somewhat over time, but I have elected not to wait it out.

So far, the CD3K's are delivering the goods, comparatively, but I'm not done experimenting with other brands/models yet...

KenB

 

[acs236]

KenB,

I agree very much with your description of the SA5000. However, I find the SA5000's almost addicting for those reasons. They do sound thin compared to the RS-1s and, to a lesser extent, the CD3000, but they have qualities that the these don't. At first I thought I'd always be bothered by the perceived relative thiness of the sound, but I've grown to enjoy it -- I think!

 

[Iron_Dreamer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by KenB I agree that the bass is accurately presented, tight, and controlled, but I like to feel the impact in my chest

Well then you need to be listening to speakers. To say that particular headphones have a weakness in that they don't produce chest-thumping bass, should be a criticism of ALL headphones.

 

[KenB]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iron_Dreamer Well then you need to be listening to speakers. To say that particular headphones have a weakness in that they don't produce chest-thumping bass, should be a criticism of ALL headphones.

Maybe "chest thumping" is a bit of an exaggeration. I do feel a physical sensation produced by the bass action on both the RS-1's and CD3K's that was less present with the SA5K's. It feels like or, maybe it just reminds me of, the chest-thump that you get with regular speakers. I'll have to pay attention more to the FELT localization from the bass (neck, shoulders?), but it's quite noticeable to me when present/absent.

KenB

 

[Iron_Dreamer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by KenB Maybe "chest thumping" is a bit of an exaggeration. I do feel a physical sensation produced by the bass action on both the RS-1's and CD3K's that was less present with the SA5K's. It feels like or, maybe it just reminds me of, the chest-thump that you get with regular speakers. I'll have to pay attention more to the FELT localization from the bass (neck, shoulders?), but it's quite noticeable to me when present/absent.

So in other words, mid-bass bloat? Both of those cans have more mid-upper bass and less low bass.

 

[halcyon]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dglawrence 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).

No.

HRTF is measured at entrance to ear canal.

So are headphones, when measured properly (look up ANY scientific peer-reviewed paper on the subject).

Look up the links (and related references) I gave. It's explained there in more detail.

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).

The modification you talk about _is_ HRTF. The measured graph of average HTRF in a diffuse field is what I gave above.

That image is a graph of how humans hear without headphones (on the average).

It is as natural as it gets (as an average, each individual has a variation to this average graph).

It is very difficult to measure and design a headphone without a coupling with a head (or an approximation, like a dummy).

For example, do you measure the driver to be flat from free-field? Which angle? What about power response (the sum of acoustic power from all directions within free-field)?

Then how about the psychoacoustic finding that states that free-field equalized phones will sound unnatural.

How will you go about measuring the headphones without a head/dummy to a diffuse field scenario?

This is quite researched field already, with proven HRTF measurement methods.

Quote:

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).

Indeed, completely flat at concha level (that is, flat as in the frequency response) is incorrect and unnatural.

Some like it yes, but it is NOT accurate sound reproduction.

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.

Except that both your cochlea and cortex have both adapted to this attenuation of higher frequencies.

Pumping up the higher frequencies to fully compensate for age-related hearing loss will just sound bright to you, even though you are in some way "correcting" for the age related hearing loss (or part of it, as loss of granulity in critical bands cannot be corrected).

Quote:

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.

This is where we are in almost complete agreement: it's difficult. However sealed chamber is only as far as the headphone is designed to be sealed.

Quote:

You need the sealed chamber, but you don't want an 'ear' in there.

Nope. Wrong.

Headphones need to be measured and designed with an approximation of an outer ear (and beginning of concha).

If you just do it with a head and measure flat, you will design a headphone that measures (on real people's head, against their own HRTFs) wrong and will sound wrong.

People may like it, but from the point of view of acoustic engineering, it is sub-optimal.

Please look up Henrik Møller's AES papers for more info on this, if you refuse to take my word for it. He's the most published researcher in the field who has perfected much of the current scientific measurement methods based on which the field works on.

best regards,
Halcyon

 

[JaZZ]

Quote:

Originally Posted by KenB ...Compared to both the CD3K's and RS-1's, they sound shallow to me or, said another way, they lack weight/body. There is a lot of texture and granularity to the music, but it lacks mass/substance. Instruments, esp. brass and elec guitar, sound shrilly, thin, and cold to my ears.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iron_Dreamer Well then you need to be listening to speakers. To say that particular headphones have a weakness in that they don't produce chest-thumping bass, should be a criticism of ALL headphones.

I'm with KenB on this. The SA5000's lightness and lack of substance can't be excused by the fact that headphones generally have less impact than speakers. Substance isn't necessarily impact. To my ears the SA5000 has a serious weakness in the low midrange -- it's clearly underrepresented and sounds downright blurred in some way: that's where the feeling of lacking substance comes from. Also the transition between bass and mids is compromized, it's not smooth, but the bass feels like attached to it. As I hear it, the transient response in this area is corrupted, also to be read out of gerG's graph.

Apart from the treble spikes the graph looks quite adequate to me. Roughly spoken, there are three ranges attached to each other on different levels, forming two steps: bass, mids and treble. Whereas the mid bass holds the average level, but sags towards the low mids. The upmost midrange and the treble in turn are elevated compared to the mids. As a whole the sonic balance isn't completely out of balance, but there's a distinct lack of coherence.

This headphone has its outstanding qualities -- detail, resolution, soundstage, and to my surprise now even unfatiguingness can count as such --, but unfortunately it's not perfect.

 

[Andrea]

Funnily, the "old" MDR-F1 fares better in frequency response. (bass excepted)

 

[Tyll Hertsens]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dglawrence 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).

Boy, I find some serious issue with this. Headphone measurements are not made at the concha, or at least shouldn't be. Headphones should be measured at the ear drum. Even if the driver is 3/4" away from the ear the nearfield would be everything within a half wavelength, that puts everything up to roughly 10kHz in the near field. Once you are in the near field you have to analyze the system as a whole and the idea that the soundwave is travelling up top the ear and simply bouncing off things is mostly irrelevant.

I'll qualify the above with the statement that because ears are significantly different one from the other simply slapping a mike in a hole in a piece of wood and covering it with a earpiece of a pair of headphones and them making comparisons with other headphones likewise measured probably does give a pretty good indication of the differences between cans. But I highly doubt you can ever come up with a measurement system where the natural output of the system is "flat" with flat cans.

 

[oneeyedhobbit]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sduibek Actually, it is. I think RS-1 sounds better than HD650 with classical. Let me explain. In a concert hall, (a properly designed one, that is....) all the sounds are reaching you at the same time, at equal volume, etc. It sounds nicely balanced. Plus, even if you are in the front row, you are still "in front" of the orchestra pit. The HD650s make me feel like i'm IN the orchestra pit, which is unacceptable. They split it up unrealistically, and the music loses the "cohesive whole" sound that it is supposed to have. I hear instruments all around me, which is not at all what classical music sounds like. Concert hall = in front of you. HD650 makes it sound like i'm listening to classical music piped through the PA at a dance club People say Grado has no soundstage... I say Grado displays soundstage as it's supposed to sound. It gets to you all at once, in a "in front of you" fashion. Sure you might lose some trippy spacial effects from techno, but that's about the only thing they represent unrealistically. Real music from real musicians always sounds how it should.

Having played in orchestras and bands for 7 years now, I'm entirely in disagreement with the above. Your whole plastic disk/music argument is rubbish, by the way. Please stop throwing this at anyone who chances to disagree with you.

Edit: Of course, my disagreement hardly makes me correct, its still a matter of individual perception. What does annoy me is your apparent insistence that you speak the infalliable truth.

 

[chillysalsa]

I agree with Tyll - measurements are ok for highlighting some relative differences from one headphone to the next - using the same measuring technique, but trying to debate over absolutes - what specifically is good or bad about a specific curve is not really worthwhile.

What does surprise me is that gerG's measurements are pretty close to Headroom's for HD650's, even though the measurement technique was different.

Anyway, as for the above, I personally would find that all the concerts I've attended at the symphony lead me to conclude that Grados offer a soundstage of being ON the stage, and Sennheisers put me in the audience somewhere close to mid-hall.

 

[mintyfresh]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyll Hertsens ...because ears are significantly different one from the other simply slapping a mike in a hole in a piece of wood and covering it with a earpiece of a pair of headphones and them making comparisons with other headphones likewise measured probably does give a pretty good indication of the differences between cans. But I highly doubt you can ever come up with a measurement system where the natural output of the system is "flat" with flat cans.

Not to mention the lesser-studied earwax effect.

 

[halcyon]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyll Hertsens Boy, I find some serious issue with this. Headphone measurements are not made at the concha, or at least shouldn't be. Headphones should be measured at the ear drum.

Tyll, I used to think the same.

But then some sense was beaten into me on the auditory research mailing list, by people who study these things for a living.

Measuring at ear drum level is a laudable goal, because it would enable one to also take into the characteristics of individual ear canal resonances (which are very prominent and clearly impact the human equal loudness contours between the 2-4kHz region).

However, the differences in ear canal shape and mainly length are so big that that is one of the reasons they are not often taken into consideration. Yes, even more so than the linear distortion from outer ear differences.

Another reason is that while ear drum movement can be measured in non-headphone situations using laser inferometry, it is very difficult to measure anything at ear drum level when using headphones (mics at that ear drum level is a very difficult proposition).

That's why the current research states it's to be done (for best available and most repeatable results) at entrance to ear canal (there are slightly different opinions as to the very exact position at entrance. Aslo the situation as to whether to block or not to block the ear canal depends on measurement/headphone type, i.e. the purpose of the measurement).

Quote:

But I highly doubt you can ever come up with a measurement system where the natural output of the system is "flat" with flat cans.

Amen.

regards,
halcyon

PS Sorry for the off-topic non-SA5000 content. I promise to shut up for now.

 

[Yada]

from having a Sony engineer and a Sennheiser engineer weigh in with their approaches to headphone design and testing