Quote:
Originally Posted by Alexhifi
Isn't it strange to look for a flat frequency response when we are talking about ears that cannot hear them flat?
-Alex
|
Well, speakers in this sense are not "flat" either. The problem with measuring headphones is that you can't measure the headphone's FR outside the headphone-ear-head system whereas with speakers you can. That's one of the main problems with headphones and absolute neutrality. Due to the close proximity or headphones and ear/head, there are much more intereferences to to consider, which is why headphones are already equalized to a certain degree to take this into account. If you measure a speaker signal at your inner ear, it's not gonna be a flat curve either although it will be interepreted as "flat" by the brain. Moreover, it also matters how far away you're sitting from the speakers because certain frequencies are more stronlgy attenuated by air than others. The extreme example is when you can only hear the faint low frequency growling from a rock concert a few hundred meteres away.
The Fletcher-Munson curve you cited also applies to speaker listening. The peak at 2-3 Khz for instance is caused by resonance with our ear tube (correlation between the wavelength and length of the tube), which makes that area particularly "louder". Now imagine that this kind of intereferences (although slightly different perhaps) takes place all the time with headphones due to the distance between ear and drivers. So basically, measuring headphones the same way you measure speakers (that is decoupled from the ear/head system) for being flat does not have any relevance. Nevertheless, most headphones are more or less flat anyway, otherwise it'd sound really bad.
Also, different people have different perceptions of treble exactly due to our different ear forms that correlate to different head-related-transfer-functions (HRTF) whereas the bass or midrange is perceived in more or less the same manner by most people (see graph of HRTF measurements from 3 different people exposed to the same sound source). However, with headphones the seal between headphone and ear might play a role in regards to the bass.
One you can do is to play pink noise via a reference speaker system that is neutral (whether this assumption is valid is to be argued) and then measure the FR graph at your inner ear (the exact method is also to be argued such blocked ear canal or not, etc.). Then take a pair of headphones and measure pink noise as well. Afterwards, equalize the headphones' FR to match the speakers'. The problem is that this EQ preset would only be "neutral" to your ears only due to the problems mentioned above.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jazper
... I'd argue the complete opposite - that people (headfiers included) are not looking for tonal accuracy but euphonic sound. Look at all the people, especially at the high end, who use tube amps for instance. Tubes are KNOWN to distort, abeit nice/pleasing/warm distortion. They're also slow in comparison to solid state.
I personally have two amps at the moment; the dtpakiller and the M³, the former is most probably more tonally accurate, but it's cold and uninviting (or technical) even fatiguing to listen to for extended periods (to me! with MS-1s), even with "warm" opamps. The latter is definately warmer and more euphonic(probably because of the beefy mosfet stage), but it's much more "fun" to listen to for longer periods, the detail is still there, but the sound is nicer/sweeter to my ears. A lot of the reviews that contrast the M³ with the PPA say the same thing (in a more long winded way). This sweetness, for lack of audiophile terms off the top of my head, may be distortion, it may be something else, may be character!..
Whatever it is, I like it!
So I suppose different people are looking for different things - as always.
If I'm looking to try and critically analyse music I'll listen on whatever I enjoy the most. But that's just me.
|
Admittingly, I don't know what other people are looking for in high fidelity but personally, I'm looking for headphones and amps that are able to make use of the potential given by the music, that is to be aggressive or soft, slow or fast, romantic or sterile - according to the situation. In my opinion, a well designed tube amp does that just as well as solid state amps and as for distortion, measurements don't always equal actual perception. There are tube amps with very high distortion patterns, which sound a lot more realistic and detailed than SS amps that measure better on THD.
Further, cold and analytical doesn't mean tonally accurate. For instance, I recently heard a balanced Dynamight extensively for several hours with various headphones from various multi thousand sources. The amp was fast, detailed, soundstageous and cold. Many consider the Gilmore Design to be "neutral". But does the coldness or "analytical" sound signature make the amp more accurate? I don't think so. Despite its technical greatness, a lot of things didn't sound realistic to my ears. Sometimes, warmth is what makes the music sound more realistic but I wouldn't want warmth when when it's not needed. One can philosophize about "What's really on the recording?" but we don't even have to go that far. For example, if you say that your other amp sounded fatiguing, how can that be tonally accurate? Music and sounds in real life are not faitguing either.
Well, I'm not an expert on this matter and I think
experience to tell whether something is accurate or not is what counts in the audio world. Which kind of factors this experience might consist of, I don't know. However, I believe that every audiophile's ultimate goal is to make a system sound good and so far the best solution presented to me is "comparison by contrast" as marketeted by Audio Note's Road to Audio Hell
article because you don't want everything to sound the same. Tube goodness can only be good when it's used in the appropriate way. I wouldn't want a thick layer of tube warmth when listening to music that sounds best when being "cold" and I think the best tube amps can do that just as well as SS amps can provide the necessary emotion for other kinds of music.
