After the issue I had with previous versions of these headphones, I ended up going down the rabbit hole a little bit
So I've got a new pair of HD560s, a pair of Phillips X2HR, and I also bought an XD05 plus, which makes a great difference to both in terms of SQ.
I've been reading a lot about EQ, and have been going back and forth between using settings I've found online (manually entering settings created by oratory1990, and using Wavelett Auto EQ app on Android). I'm going back and forth between using EQ'd, and non EQ'd. There are aspects of both that I enjoy. What are thoughts on using EQ with the HD560s - do users here like to use it with or without?
For both the X2HR and the HD560s, I prefer the EQ presets from the AutoEQ archive on Github (easy to find on Google) that are based on Oratory1990's measurements but use a different method to arrive at the preset than Oratory did in their original preset. With both headphones, I find that the AutoEQ Oratory-measurement-based preset sounds more truly neutral than the preset from Oratory1990 themselves.
Although of course YMMV since all of us have different HRTF's.
I've taken to ALWAYS using EQ with both headphones to tame the treble, to raise the lowest sub-bass, and in the case of the X2HR's to lower the mid-bass hump a little bit. I find that the Oratory-based AutoEQ website's presets work best for doing all that with both the X2HR and the HD560s.
How do I test for neutrality to see if it's natural-sounding? Simple:
I listen to recordings of SOUNDS FROM NATURE. Rain and thunderstorms,
especially rain hitting a window during a thunderstorm, work especially well, and you can easily find that on Youtube (yes, YT has low-fi audio, but we're testing for frequency-response not resolution).
Most of us know what sitting by a window during a storm sounds like in real life, so it's a great test to see if headphones sound natural. Of course, make sure to volume-equalize when switching between different EQ settings and a flat setting.
I've found that the uneven treble and SLIGHT flaws in the mids of both headphones make it so that
without EQ, the sound of rain, especially hitting a window, sounds too much like sleet rather than actual rain, and with a weird white-noise-like background to the rain. Using Oratory's presets or the AutoEQ Oratory-based settings (as I said I prefer the latter)
makes the rain sound how actual rain sounds in real life. And then I find that
music also sounds more natural with EQ.
This is in no way a criticism of either headphone's tuning, as they're still two of the best-tuned open-back headphones (ESPECIALLY the HD560s) in the entire world when it comes to approximating a neutral frequency-response (although the X2HR is more uneven and has boosted mid-bass) regardless of price. It's IMPOSSIBLE to tune a headphone COMPLETELY flat, so it's amazing that
these headphones under $200 have FR's flatter than most summit-fi headphones costing over $1000. But the fact of the matter is that
both headphones have unnatural treble-spikes (granted, nowhere near as bad as what you get with Beyers, most AKG's, or ugh, GRADOS).
Equalizer APO and similar tools are our friends. Listening to recordings of the
natural world will reveal that if you want a
truly natural sound with REAL detail rather than "detail" created by treble-spikes, it's
essential to use EQ with the X2HR or HD560s, although again, not nearly as necessary as for Beyers, AKG's, or Grados. Don't believe me? You think the tuning already sounds "natural?" Then do my test by using a good preset (anything based on Oratory's measurements) in Equalizer APO, putting on a recording of a thunderstorm by a glass window, and then switching between the EQ and "Flatten" using Peace GUI. With the EQ the rain will sound like ACTUAL rain hitting a window-pane, while without EQ, both mentioned headphones make the rain sound sharper and harder-hitting than in real life, which is not a natural tonality.
Here's the cold, harsh truth:
ALL headphones have colored sound that isn't truly neutral/natural. There's no such thing as truly neutral/flat headphones, such a thing is an engineering impossibility, an unattainable goal for companies like Sennheiser to strive for but which cannot be fully achieved. As a result, all headphones (regardless of price, company, etc.) require some kind of EQ or DSP if what you REALLY want is ACTUAL "neutral, reference, analytical, natural, uncolored" sound.
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