[channum]

The one thing I did find this interesting for was comparing what my amp was doing as far as boosting frequencies went. I tested my tf10s with and without amp (iBasso P1). The loudness curves were identical except for the 4Hz and up frequencies which were each boosted 3dB.

 

[antonyfirst]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ILikeMusic /img/forum/go_quote.gif No, you didn't get the point, and testing headphones with this method is even more flawed than trying to test hearing. Human hearing sensitivity varies greatly at high and low frequencies based on level. If you made sure that every listener used the same level settings (and adjusted them for the sensitivity of their headphones) then you might have a start, but even then you're probably just going to get more of the inverted Bell curve that we've been seeing so far. Plus, everyone's hearing is different and a plot for one person listening to a particular headphone may not be all that close to another. The only meaningful test for headphones would be on a fixture with microphones adjusted for a flat response in that particular environment.

Plots like these help people (especially newcomers) to understand what they hear, and what frequencies do what they hear. Hence the use of "more objective" in the thread title. I have never said that these graphs are true for everyone (there's a lot of ear to ear variability), but we can see how everyone is hearing the headphones he praises or describes.

About settings you are talking about, there are instructions in the first post which state how to make use of the volume settings. Things aren't going to change dramatically for a 1dB difference from person to person.

 

[KromaXamorK]

EM2 Pro and Earback 2 are two driver's Custom IEM.
3T SBass is a 3 drivers (double bass) custom IEM.
Test on laptop with iBasso D2 Boa at 12 O'Clock, under -90 db I can't hear any frequencies.

 

[ILikeMusic]

Quote:

Hence the use of "more objective" in the thread title.

Can't argue with you there, almost anything would be more objective than the typical HeadFi analysis.

But... notice the similarity of all the graphs...

 

[antonyfirst]

Quote:

Originally Posted by KromaXamorK /img/forum/go_quote.gif EM2 Pro and Earback 2 are two driver's Custom IEM. 3T SBass is a 3 drivers (double bass) custom IEM. Test on laptop with iBasso D2 Boa at 12 O'Clock, under -90 db I can't hear any frequencies.

They seem to do bass very well but it looks like they are severely rolled off in treble.
Thank you for having stated the gear you used for the graph.


I'd really like to see some Klipsch, Sleek, Livewires and Freq responses. Very curious about the few IEMs I have not tried.

 

[eruditass]

some people can't hear 16Khz very well, you need to compare it to that same person's graphs of different phones.

this is a great reference for yourself, but between people.. not so much. and of course, those with less background noise will have a different volume, which also alter how well we can hear. infact thats why everyone's bass response is bad, because music is designed to be played at >75db, and everyone here is most likely testing at like 65db unless theres lots of things going on around them, but they are probably testing alone quietly to try to get something accurate. i'd say for reference, listen to your favorite music at your normally loud level, and then choose 1khz that sounds about that loud.

i think a unified standard for testing FR is most important between people. while to one person, testing it like this is worthwhile. unless i am missing something (we pick a reference sound, and try to make all the other tones sound the same loudness?)

also, keep in mind that recordings typically have louder treble as they are designed to be played from loudspeakers, where high frequencies get absorbed in the air.

and personally, i find it hard to judge the loudness of 16khz in comparison with the rest - and i dont think there would be any correlation between us in that respect. one way to get rid of that is to do it as, well, a hearing test. that would significantly objectify it especially for ourselves. then we would have to apply the loudness U curve to it.

and yeah, just to throw it out there, not only does hearing vary differently between everyone at different frequencies, but how they are perceived when the volume goes up and down the same amount varies a lot as well. if you double the volume for someone at 1khz, it may only be 1.5x for someone else. while for the same two people, at 10khz, the 1.5x and 2x could be reversed.

to reiterate.. this is an ok method when comparing headphones yourself and then posting them here, but should never be used to compare between people.

 

[powertoold]

I don't think this is a good way to test frequency response. How "loud" we hear different frequencies is subjective and also not a good measure of frequency response. For example, you would need to crank up the 30hz tone very high in order to match the perceived volume of a 4khz tone. This is because the 30hz tone doesn't really produce any noise; rather, it produces a lot of vibration. It's like trying to tell a bass to produce the some "volume" as a violin. It simply can't do it.

Also, even if someone gets a frequency graph that is straight, that doesn't mean the sound is "balanced" for the reasons I just stated.

Even worse is the fact that all of us probably hear different volumes. At best, this test would be good with an SPL meter.

If you're interested, this is what the FreQ Show looks like (I basically went from the bottom of the graph until I could barely hear the tone):

The two graphs look fairly similar, but I consider the MM crossover to have a more balanced sound with bigger soundstage. I'm not sure what on the graph you can associate with those