[nanaholic]

Pardon my ignorance- Shouldn't a flawless measuring headphone be the most agreeable, enjoyable and less polarizing to most people.

No. Agreeable is totally subjective as it depends on the taste of the person. A "flawless" headphone - objectively speaking - can only be one that measures perfectly flat and has zero distortion. And of course, such a headphone doesn't actually exists due to laws of physics in the first place.

Also even with how Harman came up with the Harman Curve, they found their group of testers fell into two FR curves with which they found most "agreeable" (one which has a higher bass boost than the other), and they averaged that out to come to their curve. So that's something to think about too.

 

[BunnyNamedCraig]

To further add to your point, pretty sure Dr Dre and some others in his team use Beats By Dre headphones in the studio from time to time too, which might explain why the mastering on albums like Compton is so poor.

Even though I didn't really enjoy the album I thought Compton was actually mastered real well... granted it's been a while so maybe I am wrong. But anyway! I wonder if People who review headphones and get one over 2K means that it should be close to dead neutral? So when the Z1R comes around the graphs are different and therefore it's natural sound is now a "problem".

 

[Sonic Defender]

...


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

I agree here. Earlier I had made the point that if true neutrality was pursued as the only production outcome for headphones, they would have to all sound the same. You can't have any differences in tuning, neutral means neutral, no change from the signal fed therefore no difference. Thankfully that is not the state of the hobby today.

 

[castleofargh]

am I the only one getting fed up with the garbage nonsense pilling up in this topic in the last week?
what I read are people who expect too much from a frequency response graph or somebody's review, but then blame the graphs and/or the review for their own mistaken assumptions.
several people warned that 2 rigs shouldn't be compared, then plenty of people do just that thinking they're making a good point...
many warned that a reviewer is just one guy with his opinion, then plenty of people go wild because they think what the reviewer said isn't 100% fact. well no crap Sherlock.

are you guys so insecure about your own taste that you need constant validation from online reviews? what about food? do you trow a tantrum if somebody doesn't like what you enjoy? I don't get it. I don't get why someone couldn't dislike a headphone without being wrong, I don't get why 2 measurement rigs showing variations is such a big deal when it's absolutely normal. I don't get any of it.

meanwhile, we all pretend like we want reviewers to stop sucking up to manufacturers. but if people react like this anytime someone says what he thinks, is it really such a surprise that in the long run most reviewers turn into "everything is awesome" BS reviews?



and please pretty please, stop with the "flat this", "neutral that". there is no neutral headphone response universally defined. if you think there is, most likely you need to look up headphone+human interaction and stuff about HRTF. if I feel like a headphone is neutral, it's my subjective impression and it does not define neutral for anybody else. why? because I am not the center of the universe. just like my idea of just the right quantity of spicy only has that balanced meaning for me. and someone else will put twice the amount and think I'm a *****. we are different people, our impressions are our own.
as for a graph, the flat line only means the stuff measured is similar to the reference used to calibrate the graph. and that's it. do you guys even know what that reference is when you make assumptions about how neutral the headphone is? if I use a square wave shape as reference, then only a square wave like response could look flat on the graph. a flat line never ever meant that the headphone was great or would sound neutral to me. if you have such an assumption, bury it deep and forget. measuring a headphone is not like measuring a DAC!

 

[BunnyNamedCraig]

Hey @castleofargh, tell us how you really feel? Haha

In all seriousness I have been burned out on the topic (which is why I haven't been seen in 150 posts) but it seems to be THE topic of discussion still... Even though I don't agree with some parts of your post I still enjoyed reading it. I don't feel like stating what I don't agree with either, because that would just further this thing more which is boring to both you and me ha. Take care

 

[ubs28]

The HD 600 sounded very close to a set of Focal loudspeakers that I heard. So I have no reason to doubt a flat frequency line is the accurate frequency response.

If the harman target curve was correct, the HD 650 would have been more closer, but it was the HD 600.

Ofcourse this is my opinion with my set of ears ofcourse.

 

[up late]

I agree here. Earlier I had made the point that if true neutrality was pursued as the only production outcome for headphones, they would have to all sound the same. You can't have any differences in tuning, neutral means neutral, no change from the signal fed therefore no difference. Thankfully that is not the state of the hobby today.

"neutrality", "accuracy", "faithful to the recording", "wire with gain" and "as the artist intended" are all worthy ideals in the world of "high fidelity" audio. but in the real world, audio designers and manufacturers take different paths and make compromises in their pursuit of them, which leads to different results.

 

[Whitigir]

@Sonic Defender - "neutrality", "accuracy", "faithful to the recording", "wire with gain" and "as the artist intended" are all worthy ideals in the world of "high fidelity" audio. but in the real world, audio designers and manufacturers take different paths and make compromises in their pursuit of them, which yields different results.

Exactly, and there are countless of different instruments...hell...even the same electric guitars can be tuned differently according to the artist taste.....

 

[up late]

i think that the musical instrument analogy is taking it a bit far tbh

 

[canali]

sonarworks offering new tru fi beta test download, for those interested...
https://www.sonarworks.com/truefi#learn-more

 

[Sonic Defender]

am I the only one getting fed up with the garbage nonsense pilling up in this topic in the last week? ...

Sorry mate, but you yourself just became guilty of what you are extolling others not to do. Not so easy to resist sometimes wouldn't you agree? That is how we all got sucked into repeating ourselves ad nauseum, we are all human after all. And for the record, yes I get sick of it all including my contribution to the noise so your frustration and that of others is of course come by honestly.

 

[up late]

sorry, but I loved it

 

[Sonic Defender]

sorry, but I loved it

It was a good read for sure, just had to point out the irony.

 

[Whitigir]

Sorry mate, but you yourself just became guilty of what you are extolling others not to do. Not so easy to resist sometimes wouldn't you agree? That is how we all got sucked into repeating ourselves ad nauseum, we are all human after all. And for the record, yes I get sick of it all including my contribution to the noise so your frustration and that of others is of course come by honestly.

Especially older people or the older we get....we are like a broken record or a damaged CD...

 

[rnros]

(Sorry, could not resist. For complete analog recordings, make the appropriate substitutions.)

OK, OK, I do get it now... Originally I thought the process to be overly simple, I listened to music and I listened to recorded/reproduced music and I enjoyed both experiences.
The closer the reproduced music came to the actual/real music the more I enjoyed it. The equations are simple:

EQ#1: Musical Instruments + Room w/Good Acoustics >> Human Ear = Music = Happy
EQ#2: Musical Instruments + Room w/Good Acoustics >> Mic/Transducer >> ADC >> DAC >> Amplifier >> Headphone/Transducer >> Human Ear = Musical Aural Impression = Happy

When I left the village and moved to Audiophile City, the error of my ways become embarrassingly apparent. I learned quickly. Now, I know what they know and I am one of them.

So, for those that remain clueless, we now have modern acoustic analysis to guide our appreciation of recorded/reproduced music. Just a slightly longer equation (disregard all unknown variables):

EQ#3: Signal Generator + 511 consecutive frequency steps >> Amplifier >> Headphone/Transducer >> DummyHead Mic/Transducer >> Amplifier >> Oscilloscope = FR Chart + Aural Opinion Poll = Adjusted Target FR Chart = Appropriate Aural Judgement

Combining equation #3 with equation #2 above, gives us equation #4:

EQ#4: Musical Instruments + Room w/Good Acoustics >> Mic/Transducer >> ADC >> DAC >> Amplifier >> Headphone/Transducer >> Human Ear + (EQ4) Appropriate Aural Judgement = Adjusted Aural Opinion = (Android Happiness?)

Yes, I do appreciate the entire evolving science and technology of acoustic analysis, but it was created to serve the human ear, not vice versa. And, we have not arrived... Yet.
If we had the complete science and tech in hand, we would not need recording engineers, only musicians and audio engineering computers, ultimately not even that, only signal generators capable of transcribing Beethoven.

Although it may seem contrary to my sarcasm, I fully expect we will arrive.I also think the information exchange and perspective development here are very helpful.
Also, thanks to DanWiggins for his post, very helpful to the discussion. Reality check.