The most reliable/easiest way to EQ headphones properly to achieve the most ideal sound (for non-professionals)

[BiggerHead]

 
 but overall reference for neutrality won’t necessarily get better by hearing more pieces of gear. Having a reference for how music and sound is reproduced on a calibrated system and room space.
 

 
Surely you can also get in some sense the most important reference for neutrality by having experience hearing the real thing?  not how it's reproduced  anywhere, maybe most relevant for symphonic and orchestral music.
 
Of course this gives a reference for neutrality of the whole process including recording, not necessarily of the playback equipment by itself.  

 

[gregorio]

Quote:

Have you ever actually been in an acoustically ideal room ...

 
I know you weren't aiming your question at me but I'll answer anyway It depends on what you mean by "ideal"? I've been in a couple of extremely expensive anechoic chambers, which are pretty much ideal for freq response/room modes but very far from ideal as far as mastering is concerned.
 

  ... such as a professional mastering grade studio ...

 
Yes, quite a few, also quite a few project studios, well designed listening rooms, a couple of expensive audiophile rooms and in addition, I also have my own mastering grade studio but regardless, the two quotes of yours above are in fact NOT synonymous. By definition a mastering room cannot also be an acoustically ideal room! For starters, one sits directly in front of large reflective surface, which pretty much negates any possibility of an "acoustically ideal room", even assuming that a mastering studio would be "ideal" without a console (or other audio equipment), which would not be a correct assumption anyway. Some of the mix rooms I've worked in have price tags in the $10m+ range, my own is closer to $250k and sounds pretty good. None of them are ideal though, even the $10m ones have a few peaks and troughs here and there, peaks and troughs which change as you move position. The $10m ones are generally closer to ideal than mine, although as biggerhead mentioned, one does acclimatise. With enough experience, one can eventually align one's hearing to compensate and reduce translation errors, between say my studio and a world class one. It's only a reduction in translation issues though, not an eradication. BTW, many of the studio images you linked to demonstrate quite severe potential acoustic problems, all that reflection causing equipment, at least some of which probably has cooling fans which of course also affect the noise floor. In my case, most of that equipment is placed in another, acoustically isolated room, leaving only what is necessary in the studio to control that equipment:
 

 
I'm not quite sure what you mean by "minor to somewhat moderate colouration". Swings of 6dB (or more) at certain frequencies are common in studios, even mastering grade ones, and in comparison to the freq response of say a moderate quality consumer DAC, a 6dB swing would be a very large colouration. I'm not saying that EQ'ing cans is absolutely the wrong thing to do, in some cases I think it might be of benefit, even ignoring the fact that some people might prefer the sound of "wrong". What I'm saying is that tweaking has it's limits, beyond which it's counter-productive and very often audiophiles unwittingly exceed those limits. One way they commonly (and unwittingly) exceed those limits is by making incorrect assumptions such as: professional mastering grade studios are ideal acoustic environments or that mastering is directly related to taking advantage of an ideal acoustic environment. Such incorrect assumptions could easily lead to the logical conclusion that EQ'ing their room/headphones to their idea of "ideal" will get them closer to the intentions of the artists/engineers, whereas in reality, it could just as easily (if not more easily) be getting them further away!
 

Originally Posted by Malfunkt /img/forum/go_quote.gif
 
Would be great to hear from some recording industry heavy weights and I'm not talking the 'artists', but the mastering and recording engineers behind the magic to help set the record straight. Would be great to have a video having one of them explain audio calibration and in turn how it could apply to headphones and what one might look for in a reference.

 
I don't think in practice that would help much. Professional calibration comes after professional design, construction and acoustic treatment, then some measuring/testing, then usually a little more treatment and then, final level calibration and maybe a little tweaking with EQ here and there. Those couple of final steps are relatively meaningless without the other steps. My personal opinion and that of other industry professionals (including the heavyweights) is that virtually none of this directly applies to headphones and the general opinion/advice within the industry is not to mix or master on headphones. While headphones are sometimes employed briefly, just to check, the vast majority of the professional/commercial mastering of audio is done with monitors rather than with headphones. That's why you can't find a video of one of them explaining how audio calibration could apply to headphones.
 
G

 

[Lunatique]

  Quote:
 
I know you weren't aiming your question at me but I'll answer anyway It depends on what you mean by "ideal"? I've been in a couple of extremely expensive anechoic chambers, which are pretty much ideal for freq response/room modes but very far from ideal as far as mastering is concerned.
 
 
Yes, quite a few, also quite a few project studios, well designed listening rooms, a couple of expensive audiophile rooms and in addition, I also have my own mastering grade studio but regardless, the two quotes of yours above are in fact NOT synonymous. By definition a mastering room cannot also be an acoustically ideal room! For starters, one sits directly in front of large reflective surface, which pretty much negates any possibility of an "acoustically ideal room", even assuming that a mastering studio would be "ideal" without a console (or other audio equipment), which would not be a correct assumption anyway. Some of the mix rooms I've worked in have price tags in the $10m+ range, my own is closer to $250k and sounds pretty good. None of them are ideal though, even the $10m ones have a few peaks and troughs here and there, peaks and troughs which change as you move position. The $10m ones are generally closer to ideal than mine, although as biggerhead mentioned, one does acclimatise. With enough experience, one can eventually align one's hearing to compensate and reduce translation errors, between say my studio and a world class one. It's only a reduction in translation issues though, not an eradication. BTW, many of the studio images you linked to demonstrate quite severe potential acoustic problems, all that reflection causing equipment, at least some of which probably has cooling fans which of course also affect the noise floor. In my case, most of that equipment is placed in another, acoustically isolated room, leaving only what is necessary in the studio to control that equipment:
 

 
I'm not quite sure what you mean by "minor to somewhat moderate colouration". Swings of 6dB (or more) at certain frequencies are common in studios, even mastering grade ones, and in comparison to the freq response of say a moderate quality consumer DAC, a 6dB swing would be a very large colouration. I'm not saying that EQ'ing cans is absolutely the wrong thing to do, in some cases I think it might be of benefit, even ignoring the fact that some people might prefer the sound of "wrong". What I'm saying is that tweaking has it's limits, beyond which it's counter-productive and very often audiophiles unwittingly exceed those limits. One way they commonly (and unwittingly) exceed those limits is by making incorrect assumptions such as: professional mastering grade studios are ideal acoustic environments or that mastering is directly related to taking advantage of an ideal acoustic environment. Such incorrect assumptions could easily lead to the logical conclusion that EQ'ing their room/headphones to their idea of "ideal" will get them closer to the intentions of the artists/engineers, whereas in reality, it could just as easily (if not more easily) be getting them further away!
 
 
I don't think in practice that would help much. Professional calibration comes after professional design, construction and acoustic treatment, then some measuring/testing, then usually a little more treatment and then, final level calibration and maybe a little tweaking with EQ here and there. Those couple of final steps are relatively meaningless without the other steps. My personal opinion and that of other industry professionals (including the heavyweights) is that virtually none of this directly applies to headphones and the general opinion/advice within the industry is not to mix or master on headphones. While headphones are sometimes employed briefly, just to check, the vast majority of the professional/commercial mastering of audio is done with monitors rather than with headphones. That's why you can't find a video of one of them explaining how audio calibration could apply to headphones.
 
G

I don't think anyone would  call anechoic chambers ideal, since they're famous for making people feel really uncomfortable due to the extreme silence and complete lack of reflections.
 
The photos I linked to was just a very broad and general search result from google images with the term "professional mastering studio," and it was just to show BiggerHead what they tend to look like. If I were to specifically choose mastering facilities as golden standards, then I'd be more selective. 
 
The reflective surfaces such as the mixing desk/metering bridge do get considered by speaker manufacturers during the design process, which is why in user manuals, they often give instructions on how to adjust the EQ settings on the backs of the speakers to suit specific environments and speaker placements. There are different suggested settings for placing in corners, on the metering bridge, freestanding without obstruction, flush/next to front wall, etc. 
 
It's extremely difficult to get a really neutral/accurate sounding room, since that will require designing/constructing from the designs created by experts in acoustics, with non-standard shaped rooms (such as slanted side walls and ceiling), tuned bass resonance traps, etc. There's no doubt that some mastering facilities will have some coloration, but they are still far better than some average Joe's bedroom, living room, garage, etc. Also, room/speaker correction products have made a big difference in how neutral/accurate the playback sounds at the listening position, so as long as the room doesn't have really significant nulls, the correction can get extremely good results. My own standard has always included that final step of room/speaker correction, and that is the standard I judge my headphones by.
 
You're right about headphones and how many audio pros feel about them, but in the last several years opinions about headphones have been shifting, coinciding with the recent advancements in headphone technology and sound quality, as well as more sophisticated crossfeeds and HRTF plugins. Some audio pros are getting more comfortable with headphones, especially the higher-end Stax systems, amps aimed at audio pros like the SPL Phonitor and Grace design m902, higher-end headphones from Audez'e, Hifiman, Sennheiser, plugins like Redline Monitor, TB Isone, etc. Bob Katz's recent involvement with headphones at InnerFidelity is part of that noticeable shift. Here's one where he talks about EQing headphones and the Harman Target Response Curve: http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/big-sound-2015-bob-katz-eqing-headphones-harman-target-response#lgR1tm6s3SeYdDEO.97

 

[BiggerHead]

Probably nobody would say an anechoic chamber is an ideal/optimal listening environment, but that doesn't mean it isn't the definitive listening environment.  I think a definitive speaker in that definitive environment should produce measured sound exactly equal to the source signal, probably for any listening angle (so maybe the definitive speaker also isn't ideal). If this isn't the definition of the meaning source signal, then what is? We're saying a listening room is not.
 
So that comes back to headphones.  Ok, so anechoic chambers aren't ideal because they don't have echoes.  What does that make headphones then? But of course headphones present stereo entirely different from speakers and they don't need echoes.   They retain the original phasing and separation of the echoes originally recorded.
So why are we trying to reproduce frequency effects of reproduction room echoes in headphones?  Again, this notion was an assumption of the HTRC, not a conclusion.  Before you can ever accept conclusions of a rigorous argument, you have to accept the assumptions.  I don't.

 

[gregorio]

  I don't think anyone would  call anechoic chambers ideal, since they're famous for making people feel really uncomfortable due to the extreme silence and complete lack of reflections.
 
... so as long as the room doesn't have really significant nulls, the correction can get extremely good results. 

 
Any room with reflections will have significant nulls (and sums), that's why an anechoic chamber can be considered "ideal" acoustically; No reflections, therefore no interaction of those reflections with the direct signal from the speakers. I agree though, an anechoic chamber is far from ideal in practice. Even ignoring the comfort issue you mentioned, it's certainly impractical for consumers to create anechoic chambers and from a mixing/mastering perspective it wouldn't work either, the lack of reflections might give a perfect freq response but would cause other issues such as over compensation with the use of reverb, under-panning, etc. In practice, although absorption of reflections is a major acoustic treatment tool, diffusion is also important in good studio design; to avoid the pitfalls of an anechoic chamber while randomising the reflection interactions. Not "ideal" but as good as it gets because "ideal" as far as studio design is concerned is a contradiction and therefore not attainable.
 

  The reflective surfaces such as the mixing desk/metering bridge do get considered by speaker manufacturers during the design process, which is why in user manuals, they often give instructions on how to adjust the EQ settings on the backs of the speakers to suit specific environments and speaker placements. There are different suggested settings for placing in corners, on the metering bridge, freestanding without obstruction, flush/next to front wall, etc.

 
Agreed. However, you are implying these features provide a cure, when in reality they provide only a partial/compromised treatment.
 
Quote:

 
It's extremely difficult to get a really neutral/accurate sounding room, since that will require designing/constructing from the designs created by experts in acoustics, with non-standard shaped rooms (such as slanted side walls and ceiling), tuned bass resonance traps, etc. There's no doubt that some mastering facilities will have some coloration ...

 
Not really, I would say that "there's no doubt that ALL mastering facilities will have some colouration"! Each of the treatments mentioned will reduce the amount of colouration but even all of them in combination will not cure it. For example, my room was designed by an expert acoustician (I'm lucky in that one of my best friends is a recently retired expert acoustician/commercial studio designer and what should have cost many tens of thousands, actually cost me nothing), it was constructed with asymmetrical walls/ceiling, a suspended floor, has custom; tuned bass traps, broadband absorbers and diffusers. My room is very good, it's better than many pro studios, very significantly better than most project studios or well designed listening rooms and in a completely different league to "the average Joe's bedroom" but it's still far from "ideal"! I don't believe the average audiophile has any notion of how truly horrendous the acoustic response of the average room really is. They often talk about being able to identify differences which in effect means they can hear tenths, hundredths or even thousandths of a dB while at the same time appear completely oblivious to room acoustics which probably have one or more freq response swings of 30dB or so, several of around 20dB and numerous swings of around 10dB. All the acoustic designs/construction/treatments combined can very significantly reduce these averages and the very best studios reduce them to below 6dB but that's still, relatively speaking, very significant colouration compared to much of what is discussed in audiophile circles.
 
The aim of studio design is to create a working environment conducive to producing quality audio. The best studios achieve this aim exceptionally well but in practice this doesn't mean a perfectly flat response (even if that were possible, which it isn't) and indeed, it commonly means a deliberately non-perfectly flat response because as I've mentioned, many/most top studios employ a "house curve". This means that studio design is not therefore pure science, it is at least partly an art, as ultimately, it's based on subjective determinations!
 

Originally Posted by Lunatique /img/forum/go_quote.gif
 
My own standard has always included that final step of room/speaker correction, and that is the standard I judge my headphones by.

 
I don't, off the top of my head, know of any commercial studios which don't include that final step. Likewise, I don't know of any commercial studios which only employ that final step! The general rule of thumb for studio design is that one should not attempt to use EQ for more than about 10% of the required acoustic treatment.
 

  You're right about headphones and how many audio pros feel about them, but in the last several years opinions about headphones have been shifting, coinciding with the recent advancements in headphone technology and sound quality, as well as more sophisticated crossfeeds and HRTF plugins. ... Bob Katz's recent involvement with headphones at InnerFidelity is part of that noticeable shift. Here's one where he talks about EQing headphones and the Harman Target Response Curve: http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/big-sound-2015-bob-katz-eqing-headphones-harman-target-response#lgR1tm6s3SeYdDEO.97

 
I don't believe there has been a "noticeable shift". Although I need to put that statement in context. Yes, many more producers/engineers are mixing on headphones but that's because there are far more project studios today, studios which do not have the resources to achieve even a half decent acoustic room response and therefore even quite expensive headphones represent a very cheap practical solution to the problem of extreme freq fluctuations due to room acoustics. However, it's still a compromised solution for a number of reasons (even with the use of sophisticated crossfeeds and HRTF) and therefore not the preferred solution for commercial studios.
 
I did not interpret Bob Katz's statements as you appear to have:
 
1. BK did not stick to the Harmon Target Curve, he just used it as a starting point. From there, he used his intimate knowledge of the freq response of recordings he'd actually mastered, to subjectively adjust the HTC to match. In other words, according to BK, the HTC was not quite right. The difficulty for the average audiophile is that applying the HTC *may* get them closer (to the artists/engineers intentions) but then applying a subjective adjustment might do the exact opposite. The average audiophile does not have BK's reference knowledge of what the master should sound like and is therefore effectively adjusting/matching to their personal preference, which is just as likely to be further away than closer to the artists/engineers intentions.
 
2. Although BK concluded an obvious improvement in the headphone's FR, I doesn't represent a "noticeable shift" in his position, I believe that's maybe just wishful thinking on your part. As far as I'm aware, BK still masters in his mastering suite with monitors, he has not "shifted" to mastering with headphones.
 
A couple of points I'd like to re-iterate/re-phrase:
 
A. Mastering is about using the accuracy/revealing nature of the mastering environment to identify errors/issues which may have been missed in the recording/mixing studio. It's about making adjustments to the final mix, so that it sounds as good as possible on the target audiences' systems, not so that it sounds as good as possible on the mastering suite's system. It would obviously be counter-productive to adjust the mix to take full advantage of a mastering suite's system because no consumers have a mastering suite system and the mastering engineer would therefore be moving further from the actual goal of mastering (making the mix sound as good as possible on the target audience's systems).
 
B. As counter-intuitive as this may at first appear; with the exception of it's revealing nature, a mastering suite is designed to represent the FR response of the average consumer listening environment/system! One consumer listening environment might have, for example, a +12dB boost at say 180Hz, another is just as likely to have a -12dB cancellation at 180Hz, the average would be 0dB at 180Hz. This is just example and of course could be any almost any dB or Hz and is going to occur numerous times throughout the spectrum. The average though is going to be 0dB, even though no average individual consumer is actually going to comply with this average, just as no individual family actually has 2.4 children. This isn't quite the end of the story though, because despite various unpredictable peaks and troughs, most consumer systems/environments generally induce a bass boost. So, the average throughout the bass range is generally not 0dB but somewhat higher, this is the main reason why most studios have "house curves" rather than attempt to be flat.
 
The obvious conclusions of these points should be: 1. Attaining a flat response might provide certain worthwhile benefits at certain freqs but in other respects will actually take you further away from the intentions of the artists/engineers. 2. The actual goal/point of mastering already compensates (albeit to a compromised extent) for the traits of consumer systems/environments. Compensating a mix which has already been compensated is also obviously not going to get you closer to the intentions of the artists/engineers and lastly 3. Putting these two points (and the others I've made) together, it should be obvious that there is no "easy/reliable way to achieve the ideal sound", even assuming that the most ideal sound (with a particular system/environment) has not already been achieved by a combination of the system manufacturers and the mix/mastering engineers.
 
G

 

[Malfunkt]

Wow thanks for the long posts Gregorio. And what you describe actually makes sense.

Mastering engineers have their work cut out for them. Well some do depending on music style. With so many people listening to Beats headphones - perhaps these should also be reference? Lol I kid (sort of).

Music has been mastered for compromised listening environments. Probably less than 1% have a highend system with acoustically treated room. How many listeners have actually even place their speakers properly or even sit in the middle of a stereo field.

I think the headphone trend is actually just starting. Perhaps new technologies will allow a better reproduction of environmental audio. It's going to be a huge need for virtual reality gaming and media. Some manufacturers such as AKG are already experimenting with this (can't remember the headphone but it uses an impulse to measure the response from your ears inside the cup). Effectively, we should be able to map ones physical features (think of a higher end Kinect), which would be mapped to a virtual avatar. This way you'll be able to move in virtual environments and also simulate the effects of reflections within the environment but also off of your own body.

But that's Star Trek thinking right there. And probably many decades away.

 

[gregorio]

Wow thanks for the long posts Gregorio.

 
No problem. I see mixing and mastering mentioned here quite a lot, and rightly so, it's arguably the single biggest determining factor of sound quality and as this website is effectively all about sound quality, many of the arguments/discussions often come down to mixing and mastering, even when the participants might not realise it. With it being mentioned so much, I feel it's important to explain what it actually is and to dispel some of the myths/incorrect assumptions about it.
 

Mastering engineers have their work cut out for them. Well some do depending on music style.

 
I don't think style/genre really comes into it much. There is generally a little less required with the mastering of classical music but even that depends on a number of factors. There's very little in it between most of the other genres, they all have their quirks, considerations specific to the genre but I wouldn't say one was generally easier or required less work than another.
 

With so many people listening to Beats headphones - perhaps these should also be reference? Lol I kid (sort of).

 
That's not so silly as you think it sounds. My job (when mastering music), as I've mentioned, is to make the mix sound as good as possible on the target audiences' systems. If a significant portion of the target audience is going to be listening on Beats headphones, then I'm going to take into consideration the characteristics of Beats headphones. I'm not going to master on Beats headphones or even master specifically for them, as that would compromise the master for everyone else but it is likely to have some influence on some of the decisions I take.
 

This way you'll be able to move in virtual environments and also simulate the effects of reflections within the environment but also off of your own body.

But that's Star Trek thinking right there. And probably many decades away.

 
Yes, it is rather Star Trek thinking. Just dealing with the reflections "within the environment" is a far more complex task than most realise. Many would have far more respect/understanding of the complexities of human perception if they had to work with reverb units solidly for a few weeks! Reverb units have many parameters, some have very obvious affects and others appear very subtle or esoteric, at least to start with! Without going into a huge essay on the minutiae of reverb operation, suffice it to say that often times they are creating up to 3,000 reflections per second and processing each one individually. Even so, they're only partially effective because the brain is so efficient at (sub-consciously) building a perception out of all that audio data. In 5.1 (and higher) systems, current reverb unit capabilities are very limited, often requiring workarounds and/or compromises in what we want to achieve. In other words, we're still some way off achieving fully capable/functional reverb units even with a fixed perspective 5.1 system! Until we can get this first step sorted out, it's hard to see how we can even start to think about variable perspective surround sound and, throwing in reflections off one's own body is of course just an additional complication. So yes, probably many decades away before it can be done completely convincingly.
 
G

 

[Lunatique]

  I don't believe there has been a "noticeable shift". Although I need to put that statement in context. Yes, many more producers/engineers are mixing on headphones but that's because there are far more project studios today, studios which do not have the resources to achieve even a half decent acoustic room response and therefore even quite expensive headphones represent a very cheap practical solution to the problem of extreme freq fluctuations due to room acoustics. However, it's still a compromised solution for a number of reasons (even with the use of sophisticated crossfeeds and HRTF) and therefore not the preferred solution for commercial studios.
 
I did not interpret Bob Katz's statements as you appear to have:
 
1. BK did not stick to the Harmon Target Curve, he just used it as a starting point. From there, he used his intimate knowledge of the freq response of recordings he'd actually mastered, to subjectively adjust the HTC to match. In other words, according to BK, the HTC was not quite right. The difficulty for the average audiophile is that applying the HTC *may* get them closer (to the artists/engineers intentions) but then applying a subjective adjustment might do the exact opposite. The average audiophile does not have BK's reference knowledge of what the master should sound like and is therefore effectively adjusting/matching to their personal preference, which is just as likely to be further away than closer to the artists/engineers intentions.
 
2. Although BK concluded an obvious improvement in the headphone's FR, I doesn't represent a "noticeable shift" in his position, I believe that's maybe just wishful thinking on your part. As far as I'm aware, BK still masters in his mastering suite with monitors, he has not "shifted" to mastering with headphones.
 
A couple of points I'd like to re-iterate/re-phrase:
 
A. Mastering is about using the accuracy/revealing nature of the mastering environment to identify errors/issues which may have been missed in the recording/mixing studio. It's about making adjustments to the final mix, so that it sounds as good as possible on the target audiences' systems, not so that it sounds as good as possible on the mastering suite's system. It would obviously be counter-productive to adjust the mix to take full advantage of a mastering suite's system because no consumers have a mastering suite system and the mastering engineer would therefore be moving further from the actual goal of mastering (making the mix sound as good as possible on the target audience's systems).
 
B. As counter-intuitive as this may at first appear; with the exception of it's revealing nature, a mastering suite is designed to represent the FR response of the average consumer listening environment/system! One consumer listening environment might have, for example, a +12dB boost at say 180Hz, another is just as likely to have a -12dB cancellation at 180Hz, the average would be 0dB at 180Hz. This is just example and of course could be any almost any dB or Hz and is going to occur numerous times throughout the spectrum. The average though is going to be 0dB, even though no average individual consumer is actually going to comply with this average, just as no individual family actually has 2.4 children. This isn't quite the end of the story though, because despite various unpredictable peaks and troughs, most consumer systems/environments generally induce a bass boost. So, the average throughout the bass range is generally not 0dB but somewhat higher, this is the main reason why most studios have "house curves" rather than attempt to be flat.
 
The obvious conclusions of these points should be: 1. Attaining a flat response might provide certain worthwhile benefits at certain freqs but in other respects will actually take you further away from the intentions of the artists/engineers. 2. The actual goal/point of mastering already compensates (albeit to a compromised extent) for the traits of consumer systems/environments. Compensating a mix which has already been compensated is also obviously not going to get you closer to the intentions of the artists/engineers and lastly 3. Putting these two points (and the others I've made) together, it should be obvious that there is no "easy/reliable way to achieve the ideal sound", even assuming that the most ideal sound (with a particular system/environment) has not already been achieved by a combination of the system manufacturers and the mix/mastering engineers.
 
G

The "noticeable shift" I mentioned was more about how today's audios pros are not as scathingly critical of headphones as they were decades ago, due to the advancement of headphones in the last decade or so. Obviously those who have quality speaker monitors will prefer them whenever possible, just as I do, since speakers just sound more visceral, dimensional, and dynamic overall. I would never choose headphones over speakers unless I had no choice (such as if the wife taking a nap in the next room), but because we have pretty good headphones these days, when I do have to wear them, I don't feel too severely limited by it--especially with the custom EQ curves I've created to make them sound more neutral/accurate. 
 
In my EQ tips, I stressed that the Harmon Target Response Curve is only one of the steps, and the person must also use his ears and listen to the test tones (log sweep, sinewave tones at regular intervals, pink noise) as well as familiar musical material that can expose potential problems. 
 
Logically and logistically, it makes sense to do mastering while targeting a neutral sounding system, because the range of different possible system is too wide. While it's true that many consumers are using speakers and headphones that that have bass emphasis, but at the same time the opposite is true, with many people that don't even think twice about listening to music using the tinny sounding speakers of their laptops and smartphones, or the speakers of their large screen TV which can't reproduce very low bass. Then there are the public spaces that have PA speakers that are mid-range focused. So it's a tug of war in all these different directions, and I personal feel that the wise thing to do is to use neutral response as the target, so that whatever coloration happens will be limited to each consumer's choice of playback system, and not so much a built-in one that's baked into the music. Of course, there's creative license and the so-called "house sound" is more of an artistic statement. I think a good mastering engineer knows where that line between logistical needs and artistic statement is, and the art of it all is riding that fine line and getting a sound that plays back well in as wide a range of systems as possible while also satisfying the client. 
 
BTW, what kind of room/speaker correction are you using in your studio? How do you like it? What other competing products have you tried and what did you think of them?

 

[gregorio]

I have already presented responses to all the points made in your most recent post. We're therefore starting to go around in circles and unless anything new comes up this will be my last response:
 
Quote:

  The "noticeable shift" I mentioned was more about how today's audios pros are not as scathingly critical of headphones as they were decades ago, due to the advancement of headphones in the last decade or so.

 
No, I've already mentioned that more of today's audio pros work in project studios, which often makes the use of headphones the only affordable, though compromised, solution. Obviously those audio pros are not going to undermine the quality of their work by being "scathingly critical" of the way they work, with headphones. The "noticeable shift" is therefore not "due to the advancement of headphones in the last decade or so". The advancements have merely narrowed the gap somewhat, not eliminated it.
 

  In my EQ tips, I stressed that the Harmon Target Response Curve is only one of the steps, and the person must also use his ears and listen to the test tones (log sweep, sinewave tones at regular intervals, pink noise) as well as familiar musical material that can expose potential problems.

 
You seem to have misunderstood point #1 in my previous post. Let me put it slightly differently: How familiar one is with musical material is completely irrelevant in all cases except one; where that familiarity means you have an accurate reference against which to make comparative adjustments. This is where it gets tricky/impossible for the audiophile because without access to the mastering facility which created the master or at least a very similar mastering grade environment, there can be no accurate reference. The only reference is the personal taste of the audiophile, not that of those who created the content.
 

 
Logically and logistically, it makes sense to do mastering while targeting a neutral sounding system, because the range of different possible system is too wide. While it's true that many consumers are using speakers and headphones that that have bass emphasis, but at the same time the opposite is true, with many people that don't even think twice about listening to music using the tinny sounding speakers of their laptops and smartphones, or the speakers of their large screen TV which can't reproduce very low bass. Then there are the public spaces that have PA speakers that are mid-range focused.

 
If a smartphone, laptop or TV can't reproduce low freqs, which I agree they can't, then it doesn't really matter what I do with the low freqs because those consumers won't be able to hear it anyway! I can therefore aim my adjustments in the low freqs to those consumers who do have the equipment to hear those lower freqs and that generally means some bass boost. BTW, I also agree that PA speakers are very mid-range focused, to help the intelligibility of speech (public announcements). However, when dedicated to music playback, they are most commonly coupled with subs. Not a perfect solution by any means but irrespective, the subs are usually balanced with the speakers in such a way as to cause the same basic scenario, of boosted bass.
 
In reality, I usually don't just ignore the fact that a particular target group may include significant numbers of consumers who will be listening with devices which can't reproduce bass freqs. There are a number of tricks/techniques which can help to partially mitigate this scenario, rather than just leaving a big harmonic and/or rhythmic hole where the bass should be for those consumers. Generally though, these tricks/techniques are applied in such a way as to have minimal affect on the low freqs themselves.
 
I agree with your logic. Based on your information/assumptions, what you are saying does make logical sense. My point is that your information/assumptions are incorrect or at least partially incorrect and therefore what you are saying is NOT entirely logical!
 

Originally Posted by Lunatique /img/forum/go_quote.gif
 
So it's a tug of war in all these different directions, and I personal feel that the wise thing to do is to use neutral response as the target, so that whatever coloration happens will be limited to each consumer's choice of playback system, and not so much a built-in one that's baked into the music.

 
This raises two points:
 
1. Yes, there are commonly compromises which have to be made to account for "all these different directions" (different consumer listening scenarios) but: A. There are still some generalities which can be applicable to the vast majority of a target audience, without being too detrimental to those outside that target demographic and B. It's not common that we have to make a single master to cover absolutely everyone and absolutely all possible listening environments. It's quite common, even required standard practice in some cases, to create more than one master, precisely for those situations where one single master would have to be too severely compromised for some other significant target demographic/s.
 
2. If, as mentioned, the goal is to get closer to the intentions of the artists/engineers, then your personal feelings of the "wise thing to do", of how music should be mastered, are completely irrelevant. The only thing which is relevant, is how the artists/engineers did in fact mix/master the work, not how you think they should have, which by definition is your intention rather than that of the artists/engineers! It's your music system and of course you are free to adjust it to your personal tastes, to compensate for how you feel music should be mastered but you can't have it both ways. With no accurate reference, there's a very slim chance that your personal intentions just happen to coincide with the artists'/engineers' exact intentions, especially as your assumptions on mastering are not entirely accurate.
 
G

 

[gregorio]

  BTW, what kind of room/speaker correction are you using in your studio? How do you like it? What other competing products have you tried and what did you think of them?

 
Whoops, I forgot to answer this question. I've already detailed the basic tools used for the correction of my room; design, construction, various acoustic treatments and a little EQ. I have not used any software correction solutions (such as Dirac Live, Audyssey, etc.). I couldn't implement them in my studio setup, even should I wish/need to. For a home environment, I was quite impressed with what Dirac Live was capable of. Not in anyway a desirable alternative to proper acoustic treatment but generally a worthwhile solution where proper acoustic treatment is impractical (say where a wife does not want her sitting room filled with diffusers, broadband absorbers, helmholtz resonators, etc!).
 
There are a few similar products starting to appear on the market for pro audio use. However, they appear aimed more at the home/project studio market than to my segment. I'm not against them in principle and do try to keep up with developments but currently I'm loath to make any changes to an environment I know and trust, unless I'm pretty certain it will definitely improve my situation (rather than just give the illusion of an improvement). It would take considerable time and effort to install, test and satisfy myself of a real improvement, studio time which I don't currently have, baring in mind my studio is currently carefully calibrated to translate well.
 
G

 

[Koukol]

Wow...what a great thread!
I'm have to pour over this thread later to absorb everything.
 
I hope I can ask something related regarding EQing.
 
For while now I've been having a problem with shrillness around the 2K range with every HP I've used (many including the HD650's)
Some recording do sound great though.
I think I have ear damage or might be suffering from neurological problems (I just had an MRI) or maybe I own too many brick walled CDs
 
In JRiver and Audacity I've tried to eliminate the offending frequency without success.
I can't reduce it without destroying the upper range creating a huge veil.
 
Is there an EQ VST that will allow me to De-Harsh yet not veil the upper range?
If yes...what frequency should I reduce and boost?

 

[Lunatique]

   
No, I've already mentioned that more of today's audio pros work in project studios, which often makes the use of headphones the only affordable, though compromised, solution. Obviously those audio pros are not going to undermine the quality of their work by being "scathingly critical" of the way they work, with headphones. The "noticeable shift" is therefore not "due to the advancement of headphones in the last decade or so". The advancements have merely narrowed the gap somewhat, not eliminated it.
 
 
You seem to have misunderstood point #1 in my previous post. Let me put it slightly differently: How familiar one is with musical material is completely irrelevant in all cases except one; where that familiarity means you have an accurate reference against which to make comparative adjustments. This is where it gets tricky/impossible for the audiophile because without access to the mastering facility which created the master or at least a very similar mastering grade environment, there can be no accurate reference. The only reference is the personal taste of the audiophile, not that of those who created the content.
 
 
If a smartphone, laptop or TV can't reproduce low freqs, which I agree they can't, then it doesn't really matter what I do with the low freqs because those consumers won't be able to hear it anyway! I can therefore aim my adjustments in the low freqs to those consumers who do have the equipment to hear those lower freqs and that generally means some bass boost. BTW, I also agree that PA speakers are very mid-range focused, to help the intelligibility of speech (public announcements). However, when dedicated to music playback, they are most commonly coupled with subs. Not a perfect solution by any means but irrespective, the subs are usually balanced with the speakers in such a way as to cause the same basic scenario, of boosted bass.
 
In reality, I usually don't just ignore the fact that a particular target group may include significant numbers of consumers who will be listening with devices which can't reproduce bass freqs. There are a number of tricks/techniques which can help to partially mitigate this scenario, rather than just leaving a big harmonic and/or rhythmic hole where the bass should be for those consumers. Generally though, these tricks/techniques are applied in such a way as to have minimal affect on the low freqs themselves.
 
I agree with your logic. Based on your information/assumptions, what you are saying does make logical sense. My point is that your information/assumptions are incorrect or at least partially incorrect and therefore what you are saying is NOT entirely logical!
 
 
This raises two points:
 
1. Yes, there are commonly compromises which have to be made to account for "all these different directions" (different consumer listening scenarios) but: A. There are still some generalities which can be applicable to the vast majority of a target audience, without being too detrimental to those outside that target demographic and B. It's not common that we have to make a single master to cover absolutely everyone and absolutely all possible listening environments. It's quite common, even required standard practice in some cases, to create more than one master, precisely for those situations where one single master would have to be too severely compromised for some other significant target demographic/s.
 
2. If, as mentioned, the goal is to get closer to the intentions of the artists/engineers, then your personal feelings of the "wise thing to do", of how music should be mastered, are completely irrelevant. The only thing which is relevant, is how the artists/engineers did in fact mix/master the work, not how you think they should have, which by definition is your intention rather than that of the artists/engineers! It's your music system and of course you are free to adjust it to your personal tastes, to compensate for how you feel music should be mastered but you can't have it both ways. With no accurate reference, there's a very slim chance that your personal intentions just happen to coincide with the artists'/engineers' exact intentions, especially as your assumptions on mastering are not entirely accurate.
 
G

We do agree on many points, but just with some different emphases. 
 
One thing you didn't address is the use of test tones to test of a system's accuracy in frequency response, and it is the most critical part of my method--even more so than using musical material. By using logarithmic sweep, pink noise, sinewave tones spaced at regular chromatic intervals from 20 Hz to 20 KHz, you can EQ your system to be a lot more accurate than without EQ. Of course, the less EQing you do the less possible distortion you'll suffer, so it's always best to first tackle the problem by choosing the ideal room shape, furniture placement, speaker/listening position placement, and using acoustic treatment, and only use room/speaker correction as the final step.
 
I'm going to assume that when you first put together your studio, you've checked its accuracy with the various test tones I mentioned, since you mentioned you do have calibration for your system. I can't imagine you, or any other audio professional, playing back a log sweep and hearing obvious spikes and dips in the frequency response and then just shrug and not do anything about it. Or if you play back a chromatic sequence of sinewave test tones and hearing that a particular tone (let's arbitrarily say 200 Hz) is significantly louder than the neighboring frequencies, you just mentally note it but don't try to fix it somehow at the system level and instead choose to address it individually in every single piece of music the facility will ever work on.
 
So if we can agree that audio professionals do have an objective baseline standard for accuracy that we try to aim for, then even if no one reaches 100% accuracy, at least when we are all aiming for it and adjusting our systems to the same objective standard using test tones, we'll be within closer vicinity of each other's system than if we don't do those adjustments. And that is the logic behind why I say if headphone enthusiasts want to get closer to that objective standard of accuracy, EQing is the best way to get there (provided the headphone being used isn't horrendous to begin with). Then from there, the person can choose to add more to the signal chain such as a crossfeed or HRTF plugin like TB Isone, to get the headphone to sound closer to speakers. Again, none of this promises 100% identical playback as heard in the original mastering facility or the original intention of the mastering engineer, but at least it is mitigating severe colorations that's outside the range of what the mastering engineer would consider ideal. If given a choice, I can't think of any reason why any mastering engineer would prefer someone to listen to his mastering on a pair of severely colored headphones, instead of that same headphone having been calibrated to sound more neutral and also using quality crossfeed/HRTF to sound more like speakers. 
 

  Wow...what a great thread!
I'm have to pour over this thread later to absorb everything.
 
I hope I can ask something related regarding EQing.
 
For while now I've been having a problem with shrillness around the 2K range with every HP I've used (many including the HD650's)
Some recording do sound great though.
I think I have ear damage or might be suffering from neurological problems (I just had an MRI) or maybe I own too many brick walled CDs
 
In JRiver and Audacity I've tried to eliminate the offending frequency without success.
I can't reduce it without destroying the upper range creating a huge veil.
 
Is there an EQ VST that will allow me to De-Harsh yet not veil the upper range?
If yes...what frequency should I reduce and boost?

 
2 KHz isn't supposed to sound shrill, since it's a bit below the sibilance range. This is what I would do if I were in your shoes:
 
Take a parametric EQ and create a single narrow band (usually labeled Q or Octave, set to narrowest possible setting), and then set it to about -6 to -12 dB and then sweep it across the entire frequency range back and forth slowly. When you hear that shrillness disappear--that's the offending frequency. A narrow bandwidth should not affect other frequencies so there's no reason why you'd create a veil elsewhere. Once you're sure you've found the offending frequency, adjust the gain until that frequency sounds balanced with the other frequencies. You might also have to adjust the bandwidth too, since we're starting with the narrowest setting. When it sounds balanced with other frequencies (especially neighboring frequencies), you shouldn't hear shrillness. If you are still hearing shrillness, you might want to get your ears checked, since like you suspect, there might be problems with your hearing. 

 

[Koukol]

Thanks, Lunatique
 
Yes, that's the technique I already use.
Perhaps I focusing on the wrong frequency or as you said something is wrong with my hearing.
I usually have problems with keyboards, female vocals and bighting electric guitars.

 

[Lunatique]

  Thanks, Lunatique
 
Yes, that's the technique I already use.
Perhaps I focusing on the wrong frequency or as you said something is wrong with my hearing.
I usually have problems with keyboards, female vocals and bighting electric guitars.

The part that's strange, is when you said that bringing down 2 KHz would create a veil in the high frequency range. I suspect it's because you're not using a narrow enough bandwidth. Unless you meant 20 KHz, which I doubt, since most people can't even hear 20 KHz (once past teenage years). 
 
Are you using pink noise to test with? What about log sweep? Sinewave test tones in chromatic intervals? I posted all of them in the original post so you can download them and use them. 

 

[Koukol]

 

  Thanks, Lunatique
 
Yes, that's the technique I already use.
Perhaps I focusing on the wrong frequency or as you said something is wrong with my hearing.
I usually have problems with keyboards, female vocals and bighting electric guitars.

The part that's strange, is when you said that bringing down 2 KHz would create a veil in the high frequency range. I suspect it's because you're not using a narrow enough bandwidth. Unless you meant 20 KHz, which I doubt, since most people can't even hear 20 KHz (once past teenage years). 
 
Are you using pink noise to test with? What about log sweep? Sinewave test tones in chromatic intervals? I posted all of them in the original post so you can download them and use them. 

Yes, it's can be anywhere from 1 to 4 K (not 20)
The problem is I can't find the right balance with the bandwidth.
It's as though I have to accept the harshness or the veil.
 
However, I noticed something new today which may explain my hair pulling.
 
I used your recommendation of using ReaQ and had some wonderful results.
But once I clicked apply (in Audacity) and listened to the results they were nothing like I had set.
The volume even dropped by one or two decibels.
This could explain why my end results are horrible on my DAP.
 
So now I'm wondering if my Audacity settings are wrong or if the program doesn't work properly with 3rd party VST's.
 
And yes, I have to take a moment to understand how to use the tools you posted...cheers