[1] Also HTRF is the same for over-ear headphones and speakers, because it's the same ear (not IEM's). [2] As for bouncing on walls and body... that is not considered while mastering, don't they use they use near-field monitors?
1. The ear and HRTF is the same but the sound reaching the ears is different. Much of what's reaching the ears when listening to speakers is reflections ("bouncing on walls" and other surfaces) and those reflections have relatively little high freqs, unless the walls, ceilings and floor of your listening environment are made of glass or ceramic tiles. In addition, there's the direction of the sound with the speakers in front of you and the absorption and reflection from your skull and pinnae.
2. That's not correct. Firstly, mid-field monitors are almost always used while mastering, although some mastering engineers may also have near-fields for reference/checking. Secondly, even when using near-fields, you still get reflections, plus the effects of the body and the skull and pinnae.
[1] Makes no sense to me. Anyway, what do I know?
[2] I just tested the Harman target curves and, to me, they sound bad.
1. That's because you don't know or don't understand the science/reliable evidence.
2. There's three possible reasons for that:
A. You haven't applied the target curves correctly.
B. You fall outside the probability distribution for whom the Harman target applies. EG. You are not among the 64%.
C. You have little/no access to a reliable reference and value a type of sound signature that's actually relatively poor. Therefore "good" is incorrectly assumed (and subjectively perceived) as "bad" and vice versa. This is particularly common in the audiophile world, because of all the misleading marketing audiophiles are subjected to, which affects their sound quality/value judgements and perception.
[1] My theory is that people's brains get used to certain equipment response curve and then, when presented with something better, they feel that they need to bring it down to their brain comfort level, where they are familiar with. [2] I guess for me, that "average" of opinions doesn't cut it. [3] It would be interesting to know what was their home equipment and music sources.
1. Sure and there's science/reliable evidence to support that theory. In fact, it's quite common that audiophiles exposed to a much more accurate system (say a commercial studio for example) will criticise it, relative to their own, poorer system.
2. Maybe, as per "B" above. Or maybe you are subject to "C" above, and that "average of opinions" would "cut it" if you re-educated/acclimatised to a better reference.
3. It varied and in some cases would not be relevant anyway, because some of the subjects were sound/music engineers accustomed to very high quality listening environments.
Why not? I exposed above my considerations: Flat on headphones sounds closer to my speakers than Harman target" corrected.
That's very possibly because the Harman target is designed to get closer to the freq response of the sound hitting your ear drums from an accurate system/listening environment, it's NOT designed to get closer to YOUR speakers!
[1] I don't see the point. So some random people "voted" that this "sounds better" and no we are taking it as gospel? [2] People that for all purposes might have been used to listen to Spotify free, with iPods or Beats?
1. Firstly, no one is taking it "as gospel". We're taking it as (by far) the most reliable evidence that applies to the majority of people (but not necessarily all). Secondly, you don't seem to realise you are contradicting yourself. Presumably because you don't understand what "random" means in the context of a scientific study or group of studies. Studies are commonly deliberately "randomised", so that different demographics are represented. EG. Members of the general public, professionally trained listeners such as engineers and musicians, younger and older people, males and females, etc. ...
2. This is the contradiction: You stated "random people" but then stated that the test subjects "might have been used to Spotify free, with iPods or beats", which isn't random people, it's a specific sub-group! As the test subjects were randomised (over various studies), some of them probably were "used to listen to Spotify free, with iPods or Beats" but certainly not all or even the majority. Others were used to listening to high quality systems and even professionally tuned systems/environments.
Curious how they come up with 64% of people preferring harman curve. It can be very dependant on the music genre that person listens.
No it can't, because that 64% was arrived at across a range of different genres.
Matching different set of headphones is very limited and in my view is only possible with the ones that sounds similar to begin with
You seem to be missing the basic fact that the Harman target curve is for the HP output, not the input!
To have valuable findings you would need at least 100k or even million of user inputs.
That's nonsense. One can have "valuable findings" from a sample size of just 10 or so test subjects. However, one would not necessarily have high confidence that those "findings" applied widely. As sample size increases so does the confidence level but this relationship is NOT linear, there are diminishing returns beyond a certain point. This is a very well studied area in science because huge amounts of money and countless lives are dependant on it: Market research for products, advertising and politics, plus drug/medical research for example. In most cases "valuable findings" with a high level of confidence can be obtained with sample sizes in the few hundred to a few thousand range and even in the most extreme cases, where lives are at stake throughout the globe (phase 3 vaccine and drug studies/trials for example) then roughly 1,000 - 20,000 is sufficient. So where do you get your 100k - 1 million from? Again, just another example of you simply making up whatever supports your agenda, regardless of whether it contradicts the demonstrated/established science!
@SoNic67 looking at the demographics of the Harman curve, you would seem to fall into the 21% sub-group of older (or female) subjects, who demonstrated a perception of significantly lower requirement of bass and therefore inversely, more high bass, mids and treble. In other words, the Harman curve for your demographic is very roughly about 5dB lower than the general curve.
G