[emdeevee]

When I think of Harman relative to my own experience it's mostly the Softears and Moondrop stuff that comes to mind. I'm someone who generally prefers more artisan/boutique tunings. Using a harman curve as a bassline or reference point is fine but the idea of their being some sort of universal reference or target curve does not appeal to me at all.



McDonalds fries are yummy and addictive (and also apparely covered in sugar in with the salt).

Then someone should create the McDonald's Fries version of a Harman curve!

 

[Bret Halford]

I don't know about the Harman curve, but I'm sure starting to feel hungry!

 

[Rockwell75]

I don't know about the Harman curve, but I'm sure starting to feel hungry!

 

[Bret Halford]

Ah that fixed it lol.

 

[552609]

Ah that fixed it lol.

The hunger is gone...

 

[blotmouse]

The hunger is gone...

Beat me to it, lmao.

 

[552609]

Beat me to it, lmao.

But...the thirst is real?

 

[552609]

I'm interested to know which IEMs you think of when you refer to Harman because I don't know if I've ever come across an IEM that follows it to the T. There are several IEMs that are 'Harman-ish' but none of them trace the curve perfectly. GAEA that you've listed in your signature is Harman-ish. So is EE Odin, Elysian Annihilator/Diva/X, Moondrop S8/KXXS/Kato, Softears RSV/Volume/RS10, Tanchjim Hana 2021/Oxygen/Prism, all of the Samsung Buds versions, Sony WF-1000XM4 (especially presets like Exicted/Bright/Treble), Custom Art FIBAE 7U, etc. If any of these IEMs are Harman/Harman-ish, then even Oriolus Trailli and 64 Audio U12t are Harman-ish.

All these IEMs take inspiration from the Harman curve because they all follow it in the ballpark with their own tweaks, flavour and colour added in, some more than others, but none of them follow the curve to the T. IMO, if we choose to call even one of them Harman, then we can't deny the others coming close or taking inspiration from the curve either.

That's some really good company to be in, especially the odin and Annihilator/Diva.

 

[wolfstar76]

Ah that fixed it lol.

The hunger is gone...

Till you see how doughnuts are made

 

[chickenmoon]

YMMV I guess. Harman tuning to me is bland, soulless, utilitarian and not appealing at all. I can see it appealing to people who aren't really hobbyists and just want to get the job done with their earphones/headphones. It's maximally tolerable across the population but not at all appealing on its own imho. Hence oatmeal. I also have a sweet tooth so I don't really relate sugar to Harman for that reason.

Well, the analogy was that, like sugar, harman is immediately perceived as most pleasant to most people and I also feel that harmanish signatures are now, for this reason, almost as widespread in the iem industry in general than added sugar is in the food industry.

I used to like harman tuning when it started with the early Moondrops, less so these days but still I don't think it's the worst, not as bad as pinna dominated signatures or flat plus narrow treble spikes.

 

[maegnificant]

Well, the analogy was that, like sugar, harman is immediately perceived as most pleasant to most people and I also feel that harmanish signatures are now, for this reason, almost as widespread in the iem industry in general than added sugar is in the food industry.

I used to like harman tuning when it started with the early Moondrops, less so these days but still I don't think it's the worst, not as bad as pinna dominated signatures or flat plus narrow treble spikes.

I think the problem with harman is, that it's a signature that sounds good on the first few minutes of listening, because that's how they tested it. But when you listen for extended periods, it's gets fatiguing real fast, to me at least.

 

[stacey]

To me harman is more akin to oatmeal, or something generic enough to broadly appeal to a wide array of people without taking any real chances in terms of "flavor" or character.

I think vanilla ice cream would be a better synonym. Something that appeals to a wide audience without taking much in terms of chances or flavor.

Which is ironic considering vanilla is one of the most expensive spices in the world.

 

[wolfstar76]

Since all those curves are created with the mean from a normal distribution for each frequency, it is very likely that those curves won't appeal to outliers: hard-core audiophiles.

 

[Animagus]

When I think of Harman relative to my own experience it's mostly the Softears and Moondrop stuff that comes to mind. I'm someone who generally prefers more artisan/boutique tunings. Using a harman curve as a bassline or reference point is fine but the idea of their being some sort of universal reference or target curve does not appeal to me at all.

If I may point out, you're being very selective here, tagging and tying a particular IEM or a few IEM's sound signature to the Harman curve and choosing to ignore ALL the other IEMs that follow/take inspiration/come close to it and probably do better than the Moondrop and Softears IEMs do, like the ones I listed in my previous post. But the fact also is that none of the Moondrop and Softears IEMs actually trace the Harman curve perfectly. Some of them even stray as far as Oriolus Trailli does, depending on the FR regions you compare. Man the Moondrop and Softears IEMs all don't even trace their own in-house 'VDSF (Virtual Diffuse Sound Field) target curve' perfectly, which most of them are tuned to, let alone all of them be tagged as tracing the Harman target to the T. Lol! VDSF takes inspiration from the Harman target but it looks different and is a target curve arrived from their own internal research, following concepts of how Harman did their research.

Being an audio engineer who is quite into research in general, I've actually read the research papers and know about the research in fair detail. I've actually been meaning to write a summarised version of the most important aspects of the research in very layman terms for a long time, but I don't know how many people would actually be interested in reading it.

Just as a disclaimer - I don't blindly use the Harman curve, especially never to judge the products when testing for reviews. I use my ears and me liking IEMs like FIBAE 5, ItsFit Fusion and even fairly wonky IEMs like the Shozy Elsa in addition to my regular 'Reference' favourites are a very clear indication of how versatile my liking and preferences are and can be. I have my own preferences and tweaks over the Harman target that I personally like and prefer, which is why I created two of my own targets, Animagus 'Neutral' and 'Preference' targets, derived from extensive EQ-ing, tweaking and testing, but more on that some other time. Haha! It's mainly for EQ-ing for my own personal use than anything else.

Btw, Harman research is highly respected and considered very important in the world of audio science and the research isn't just limited to the target curves. The research Dr. Sean Olive and team did is very vast and extensive, with hardcore scientific data backing each and every step, and they've published several papers on different topics, not just the target curves. The problem is that most of the papers aren't easily accessible to the public as they're restricted by the Audio Engineering Society's paywall.

Harman also never asked anyone to follow the curve and in fact they very well could've kept the whole research internal and private for their own products (Samsung, Harman, AKG, JBL, etc.). But they made it public for the advancement of the field, with them probably losing a lot of money in doing so, and because of that we have a ton more, better tuned products today than we did 10 years back, especially in the lower end of the spectrum. I've been a maniacal collector of earphones since the mid-2000s and most of the IEMs, even the Shure, Sennheiser, JH Audio or Ultimate Ears IEMs, did not sound as good tonally as some of the sub $100-200 IEMs do today. Who knows if we would've gotten half of these well-tuned products from the brands I mentioned in my last post without the research. Who knows if they all could've arrived at these tunings by themselves without a reference or not. I guess we'll never know.

 

[HiFiHawaii808]

I think vanilla ice cream would be a better synonym. Something that appeals to a wide audience without taking much in terms of chances or flavor.

Which is ironic considering vanilla is one of the most expensive spices in the world.

@stacey Have you finalized your plans for NYC and/or SG? You already have a watercooler tag. Bring it with you. We want you in the group pic.