spike33
1000+ Head-Fier
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- Jan 18, 2005
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Just shows that we both have good taste
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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. |
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 |
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. |
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. |
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). |
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.
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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).
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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.
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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
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. |
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. |
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). |
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. |
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. |
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. |
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. |