[nordkapp]

I have a pair to exchange for your sr009. Lol

 

[daddyo1973]

"The Aeon is going to knock its big brothers Ether C and Ether C Flow of to take the top spot on the Wall of Fame as outstanding over-ear, sealed headphone."[/I]

Man! Another whopper of a headline from InnerFidelity, more forum madness in 3 - 2 - 1 ,,,,,

 

[headr]

Something worth noting is that when a bunch of people say that their measurements correlate, you have to take into account that amateur measurements rigs are calibrated against Tyll's, or someone else's system.

I think another thing worth noting regarding these amateur rigs is that they are amateur. Sony is the world's largest vendor of headphones with 17% of the entire market. They have the resources to provide the capital expense and R&D costs to maintain the highest quality measurement infrastructure, on top of operating a factory full of artisans to hand build these things. By comparison, Tyll is a guy in a garage with a dummy head on a shoe string budget doing his best.

Which isn't necessary to slight Tyll in any way, but I think these discussions tend to very quickly lose their context and the frame of reference in which decisions can be made regarding headphones. Tyll's commitment to consistent probably means that if one headphone relatively measures higher in treble regions compared to another, you may be able to reasonably conclude that comparison will be valid. But to echo Dan Wiggin's excellent insightful contribution here, comparing measurements across rigs is prone to problems - and trying to shoe horn and project things like the Harman curve onto results from Tyll (or anyone else) is probably an exercise in futility.

As an objective frame of reference, measurements from a consistent source let you reasonably compare headphone sound signatures, but do not take things a step further and assume you can reasonably deduce what is "right" from "wrong" by such a frame of reference.

Tyll is simply a reviewer. Tyll himself has his own sonic preferences and things he looks for in headphones. You might not share those views. Other people might not share those views. It's all gravy.

One rule of thumb I would have for individuals contributing to this thread - try not to have strong opinions before you have even listened to a headphone. And unless you try different things, you can't possibly know definitively what you actually enjoy, which to remind everyone, is the ultimate point of this hobby (yes, even those who enjoy accuracy above all ).

 

[thatonenoob]

It's good to see that an old guy in a Hawaiian shirt can cause such a stir.

What a world we live in. (Context: late night w/ alcohol).

 

[daddyo1973]

Right!

So now when MrSpeakers comes out with the open back Aeons in 6 months (just speculation on my part, but come on, its inevitable!) will the Ether Flows get knocked off too?

 

[up late]

More midrange depression compared to the other two headphones sure, but it could also be argued that the other two headphones have much greater top end emphasis and boosting. The Utopia in particular also has an upper mid bump. I think the point I'm trying to make is, there isn't really an ideal here. The way you're comparing the MDR-Z1R to the other headphones, is as if you are implying the other headphones have the balance right, and that it is the MDR-Z1R that is imbalanced or improper, and I disagree with that implication or notion.

My personal subjective belief is that for too long, audiophiles and journalists have been presenting an inaccurate account of what "neutral" or "balanced" actually is. I believe manufacturers were making their headphones more articulate and detail orientated with headphones like the AKG K701, T1, HD800, Grados etc, to promote the idea that the revealing nature of such sound signatures were the pinnacle of accuracy, and justified the high price tags. Personally I think these headphones weren't actually neutral, accurate or necessarily ideally balanced, but instead, detail orientated and verging on the colder side, lacking tonal accuracy, and the emotive and atmospheric properties present in, for example, high end speaker set ups. In that respect, I actually feel like headphones such as the MDR-Z1R, do a better job of replicating the authenticity of live performances or recordings, and are ironically in many ways better balanced, despite having somewhat of a bass emphasis.

We need to get rid of the notion that headphones with treble or detail emphasis are automatically more accurate or balanced, as well as the belief that a perfectly flat response curve is also somehow indicative of an ideal sonic balance. It isn't.

Ironically, the estimated Harmon Kardon target response curve does also have a recessed midrange, along with a bump in bass, and a tremendous bump in the upper mids and highs. I believe they're working on a specific headphone variant.

Here's Tyll's headphone estimated version.

well you could also argue that the z1r has the flattest fr of the four but that would be implausible. i know that headphone measurements are subject to interpretation but that doesn’t give us a licence to only see what we want to see. and i’m not implying anything but what i’m saying is that the measurements you have posted indicate that the z1r has the most uneven fr of the four headphones. all four headphones deviate from the “ideal” fr, but the z1r departs from it the most as i see it.

the olive and welti target curve doesn’t have a recessed midrange. the midrange doesn’t dip below flat actually but it does continue to rise all the way through to the treble peak at 3khz. the bass is also accentuated. tyll’s version is incorrect according to dr olive but again, the midrange never dips below flat. and remember that the Harman headphone target response curve is still a work in progress.

you can prefer the z1r’s frequency response to the others, but you can’t logically argue from your “personal subjective belief” that “audiophiles and journalists have been presenting an inaccurate account of what "neutral" or "balanced" actually is”.

 

[up late]

Guess which measurements you go with . Sonically the TH-900s and PS1000 are significantly more "U" shaped.

The LCD-XC 2016 and Ether Flow C and a more flat. But I definitely put the Z1Rs here as three of my top choices for closed headphones.

i'm not sure what you mean by the measurements remark.

i hear the th900 as having a more recessed midrange than the z1r. can't comment on the ps1000 because i haven't compared them.

 

[up late]

It's good to see that an old guy in a Hawaiian shirt can cause such a stir.

What a world we live in. (Context: late night w/ alcohol).

it's incredible

 

[Currawong]

G
I'll just refer back to my rough mega comparison which uses N00b's MDR-Z1R measurements (which are extremely similar to Jude's) to highlight some of the above.

I found the LCD-3 and Z1R to be more mid-forward, the Sony quite noticeably so. As for the audibility of the peaks, the 3 kHz peak would have been pretty much part of that whole mountain range including the 2kHz one so I can't say I would notice it specifically. I also found the mid-range to be a bit aggressive. Someone IIRC posted a waterfall plot earlier showing ringing at 3kHz, which seems to correlate with this. So at least what I see in that graph correlates with my experiences. It's interesting to note impressions of a pair of headphones then see the measurements afterwards and find out how they correlate to one's experience.

 

[Naim.F.C]

well you could also argue that the z1r has the flattest fr of the four but that would be implausible. i know that headphone measurements are subject to interpretation but that doesn’t give us a licence to only see what we want to see. and i’m not implying anything but what i’m saying is that the measurements you have posted indicate that the z1r has the most uneven fr of the four headphones. all four headphones deviate from the “ideal” fr, but the z1r departs from it the most as i see it.

the olive and welti target curve doesn’t have a recessed midrange. the midrange doesn’t dip below flat actually but it does continue to rise all the way through to the treble peak at 3khz. the bass is also accentuated. tyll’s version is incorrect according to dr olive but again, the midrange never dips below flat. and remember that the Harman headphone target response curve is still a work in progress.

you can prefer the z1r’s frequency response to the others, but you can’t logically argue from your “personal subjective belief” that “audiophiles and journalists have been presenting an inaccurate account of what "neutral" or "balanced" actually is”.

You state the midrange doesn't dip below flat, as if that makes any difference in the full context. Whether the midrange drops below flat on the Harmon chart doesn't change the fact that other parts of the frequency (bass, upper mids and highs) are markedly bumped up and boosted in comparison to the mids, which would ultimately have the same audible or sonic result as mids being recessed. You could simply drop the entire line in the chart, so that the bass frequencies were the flat reference point, and sure enough in comparison, the mids would be recessed. It's the full context that matters above all.

Also, I'm not arguing that the Z1R is the flattest of all of the headphones, on the contrary, the whole point of my post was that it doesn't matter which is the flattest, because being the flattest in frequency terms has little to do with sounding ideal, balanced or closest to reference. Which is "flattest' is an arbitrary point that has no real relevance to deciding what or which headphones sound best, hence the reason I posted the Harmon targets, which are anything but flat.

Also, to your last point, of course I can logically argue what constitutes as my own idea of "neutral" or "balanced", and the degree to which I agree or disagree wth other users or journalists about this, because such a notion is, as mentioned, entirely subjective.

The example I gave is how Tyll and many others, originally described the HD800's as "extremely well balanced", some argued it was "neutral", "highly accurate" etc, but yet some of these same people then went out of their way to heavily mod, EQ tweak or adapt their HD800's, to the point where the entire sonic signature was markedly different, which to me highlights that the HD800's were never actually as accurate or well balanced as some originally made them out to be, and in fact many of the (mostly early) subjective opinions or impressions were, in my opinion, somewhat inaccurate.

For the record, I don't actually think the Z1R's are completely neutral or subjectively flat sounding, though I do think they're a lot closer than some people make out.

 

[up late]

I think another thing worth noting regarding these amateur rigs is that they are amateur. Sony is the world's largest vendor of headphones with 17% of the entire market. They have the resources to provide the capital expense and R&D costs to maintain the highest quality measurement infrastructure, on top of operating a factory full of artisans to hand build these things. By comparison, Tyll is a guy in a garage with a dummy head on a shoe string budget doing his best.

Which isn't necessary to slight Tyll in any way, but I think these discussions tend to very quickly lose their context and the frame of reference in which decisions can be made regarding headphones. Tyll's commitment to consistent probably means that if one headphone relatively measures higher in treble regions compared to another, you may be able to reasonably conclude that comparison will be valid. But to echo Dan Wiggin's excellent insightful contribution here, comparing measurements across rigs is prone to problems - and trying to shoe horn and project things like the Harman curve onto results from Tyll (or anyone else) is probably an exercise in futility.

As an objective frame of reference, measurements from a consistent source let you reasonably compare headphone sound signatures, but do not take things a step further and assume you can reasonably deduce what is "right" from "wrong" by such a frame of reference.

Tyll is simply a reviewer. Tyll himself has his own sonic preferences and things he looks for in headphones. You might not share those views. Other people might not share those views. It's all gravy.

One rule of thumb I would have for individuals contributing to this thread - try not to have strong opinions before you have even listened to a headphone. And unless you try different things, you can't possibly know definitively what you actually enjoy, which to remind everyone, is the ultimate point of this hobby (yes, even those who enjoy accuracy above all ).

tyll’s “dummy head” as described by jude: “(the Head Acoustics HMS II.3). It is one of the industry standard tools for measurement.”

i appreciate dan wiggin’s “real world” perspective, and comparing headphone measurements from different sources is never recommended. note that he also says “Measurements are a great way to confirm you are getting what you expect, and to document where you are. And they are relevant within the same local world (equipment, team, environment). They can be used to guide design of product by a team, a team that is familiar and experienced with what measurement X really means in terms of what they are designing.”

measurements don’t make value judgements – we do. those who understand the purpose of headphone measurements won’t be referring to them for that.

yes, tyll is a reviewer but not all reviewers bring his depth of experience, technical knowledge and both a subjective and objective perspective to their reviews. that's why I read them.

 

[ubs28]

I will go out on a limb here and predict the test very close to the original set Tyll tested, which is the result we should expect if the headphones are not sonically different.

Potentially, there could be a difference. The early production unit I had was just like Tyll, a major peak somewhere and recessed mids that annoyed me sometimes if the wrong recording was played. So I am not ruling out signficant product variation.

 

[greggf]

As Naim.F.C says, what is "neutral" or "balanced" is totally subjective.

And, once again, nobody is addressing Naim's point that the HD800 was heralded - arbitrarily - as "neutral" and "balanced" by Tyll for years, despite blood pouring from the ears of those who paid attention to his reviews, comments, and Wall of Fame and then went out and spent $1700 for them.

I believe the fundamental problem here is that some reviewers do NOT have depth of experience or particular technical knowledge, and their track records go back for many years now and show a sloppy, wobbly, and, for consumers, expensive and regrettable hash.

 

[ubs28]

Well, headphones like the AKG K240, HD 600, HD 650 and the HD 800 are used by studio's so you could say that they are balanced / neutral.

Not saying that the HD 800 doesn't have an annoying peak though.

 

[Naim.F.C]

Also, to follow on from some of the points I've made earlier, this is why I try to recommend people blind test as much as humanly possible. Set up a mic, run a wave or loop and use it to best volume match all the relevant headphones in your test, that you own or hope to buy, and then have a friend, partner, girlfriend or whatever help you compare them back to back, A/B/C blindfold comparing at the correct volume matched levels. Whilst listening, don't even touch the headphones, so as to not feel which you're handling or listening to even by shape or touch. Preconceptions often impact opinion and subjective perception, whether it's knowledge about the price of an item, the quality of the brand, other reviews and opinions, your knowledge of measurements and so on and so on. All these things can inadvertently affect one's perception, or make you listen out for things you otherwise might not.

Carry out such blind A/B tests, jot down your notes, ratings etc. Listen to as much music, genres, instruments etc as you can, and then form your opinions based on that before anything else.

I have a feeling that if we did some mega blind test of this volume matched nature, with a bunch of users, journalists etc testing a huge range of popular headphones of all pricing brackets, the results would be quite surprising, just as they tend to be in random videos online, tested on members of the public (albeit these people are usually less audio savvy).

Well, headphones like the AKG K240, HD 600, HD 650 and the HD 800 are used by studio's so you could say that they are balanced / neutral.

Not saying that the HD 800 doesn't have an annoying peak though.

Which is ironic, because all of the aforementioned headphones sound really different to one another, which sort of contradicts the notion.