Howdy gents,
I'm evaluating whether to keep the HD800. I think I will, for the usual mind-blowing reason, but I could use some help evaluating the frequency graph (attached at the bottom) and EQ suggestions. I'm blind, so it'd be great if one of you could "read" the graph for me by stating it in dB. I understand the graphs are very smoothed out, but maybe it will provide some useful info to me. Similarly, EQ discussions are always carried out using images. It's a bit awkward buying $1000 headphones that I don't like listening to without EQ, but that's the story. Mids are too thin for violins and cellos to have body, tiz and sibilance are bad. WHat's not to dislike? The lightning transient response and imaging, of course.
Playing with EQ, I've learned two things. First, my disdain for EQ was premature, since I'm fairly stunned by the good results with the HD800, even using a simple 31-band GEQ in Foobar. Second, I've learned that I suck at predicting what bands correspond to which sonic characteristics--lack of experience.
What I've roughed out so far is the following:
* -6 dB @6kHz. Kill it, kill it, kill it until it's dead!
* Next, I took literally everything else down about 2 dB to give me some room to play with boosting.
* Brought up the low bass just for fun.
* Brought 2.5 kHz up to 0 dB for a Grado-like spike--sheepishly, because I sold my SR-225i years ago to get away from this spike. I think I need to bring up surrounding bands, since the highs are now unnaturally spotlighted.
* Importantly, I progressively dropped bands from 800 Hz down to 200 Hz by very slight amounts each time to add fulness to the fundamentals.
...That's pretty much the story so far. Comments and suggestions, particularly in relation to how this seems when juxtaposed on the individual frequency response graph?
For context: According to my ears, the HD600s are "correct" and my gear shoots for neutral, though I have all Bur Brown DAC chips in everything by choice. Amp is TEAC HA-501, said to be neutral.
A couple of other questions:
* What's with the diamond-shaped raised area on the screens inside the ear cups? Are we decorating ear cups now?
* Early HD800 impressions didn't report the 6kHz spike, and there are at least some suggestions that the trend in drivers is toward more treble since 2013, either intentionally or just batch variation? Did early adopters just not hear the spike and bright treble because they couldn't see it on the graph, was it something that became more of a real problem in the drivers along the way, or do newer owners just hear it as more profound because they are already listening for it? I know I legitimately cringe at the spike. I just kind of worry about the possibility that I either have an extreme unit, perhaps even a fake (EBay), or that newer units just ain't what they used to be.