Donald North
Member of the Trade: Donald North Audio and Riva Audio
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- Mar 8, 2009
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How did you measure these headphones? With what equipment? Was the headphone free air? Were you using a KEMAR artificial ear or head and torso simulator?
Have you measured the frequency response of a pair of loudspeakers in room? That's not a pretty sight either.
Originally Posted by BHTX /img/forum/go_quote.gif I just received a pair of HD600's the other day, and I'm extremely disappointed, to say the least. I've also realized that there's no such thing as a headphone that's anywhere near accurate. These HD600's are no exception. I bought them as a result of YEARS of browsing the net (mainly this forum). I just knew they'd be the headphone for me. However, their frequency response is so terrible I find them tough to listen to, sometimes unbearable. They're beyond EQ'ing (even with Electri-Q VST plugin, which I had to use for years to make my worn out HD497's the least bit tolerable) because the response is so peaky in so many areas. By the time you've removed the most troublesome areas, there's nothing left. Upon using a combination of pink noise and a software based sinewave generator, I've observed the following: a broadband peak centered around 3.8 KHz (quickly begins rising at 2.5 KHz), a peak centered around 5.2 KHz, a peak at 6 KHz, another at 7 KHz, rising response at 10 KHz, and a huge peak at 12 KHz, along with much of the remaining highs being too much, until it very quickly drops off very steeply to almost nothing at 15 KHz. On top of the usual upper-midrange and treble mess, there's also a broadband increase in response somewhere around 1-1.5 KHz, maybe 500 Hz, 100 Hz (which I find particularly bothersome, and it also seems to be very common among full-size headphones. I think this is the result of the headphone driver's Fs [free-air resonant frequency, or the resonant freq of the headphone as a whole if it's a closed headphone]).. it's somewhat difficult to tell because the entire midbass is boosted about 4-5 dB (which also seems to be the case with almost ALL headphones). Below this, the lower frequencies quickly become less and less until they steeply fall off below 30 Hz. All of these things I've mentioned are only the most problematic areas, the entire response is a complete mess. It's extremely difficult to even pinpoint them because there's too many of them too close together. |
How did you measure these headphones? With what equipment? Was the headphone free air? Were you using a KEMAR artificial ear or head and torso simulator?
Have you measured the frequency response of a pair of loudspeakers in room? That's not a pretty sight either.