[Heyyoudvd]

This is something I’ve wondered about for a while. I see people talk about tuning in general terms regarding how a headphone sounds, but what exactly does it mean?

Is tuning essentially just calibration? Is it just how the driver is calibrated and how that affects the frequency response?

And what does it mean for a headphone to be well-tuned? Does it just mean the FR curve is flat?


The reason I’m curious about this is because I have a pair of Koss KPH30i which are dirt cheap, and yet I enjoy the sound of them far more than a lot of my other headphones. Of the 11 pairs of entry level and mid-fi headphones I have, the Koss are among my top 5 favorites. There are headphones that cost 10-15 times the price and clearly are more technically proficient in terms of things like detail retrieval, and yet I still prefer the KPH30i over them. I assume that’s because they’re more “well tuned”. But I’m not quite sure what well tuned means.

And if tuning just refers to calibration, does that mean that any piece of junk headphone can be recalibrated to sound far better, much like how this $20 Koss sounds better than some of my $200+ headphones?

 

[buke9]

Look if you like your headphones why worry about others think then ? What is the point of your post as you have what you want ? So if you don’t think the Koss KPH30i are greasiest headphones ever then everyone is just stupid or what? Doesn’t matter about tuning if it is not KPH30i then it isn’t good it seems.

 

[Raziel~]

Look if you like your headphones why worry about others think then ? What is the point of your post as you have what you want ? So if you don’t think the Koss KPH30i are greasiest headphones ever then everyone is just stupid or what? Doesn’t matter about tuning if it is not KPH30i then it isn’t good it seems.

Not sure to understand what you are telling us. Is that because we are used and pleased by eating fast food that we don't have to educate ourselves and try to discover gastronomic food?
Of course if he's totally pleased with his gear there's no real reason to look any further, but why not?

I see people talk about tuning in general terms regarding how a headphone sounds, but what exactly does it mean?
Is tuning essentially just calibration? Is it just how the driver is calibrated and how that affects the frequency response?
And what does it mean for a headphone to be well-tuned? Does it just mean the FR curve is flat?

From what I understand it's about that. A well tuned "reference" headphone is its ability to reproduce as much as possible all the FR spectrum in rather flat/neutral manner.
But, due to physical and various reasons, a neutral FR curve don't mean a perfectly flat FR line (in our ears) since it's not the way we are hearing things, and a well tuned FR curve will be more neutral/pleasing than a flat line.
Something that isn't very clear to me is, since some will prefer a rather flat FR other Harman target curve or other ones, what is the consensus about a "neutral" FR curve?

 

[GREQ]

Something that isn't very clear to me is, since some will prefer a rather flat FR other Harman target curve or other ones, what is the consensus about a "neutral" FR curve?

I don't think there is one yet.
The purist scientists will tell you that measuring techniques still have a long way to go.

Then, subjective/perceived neutrality is of course different for each person due to anatomical differences.
... and that's ignoring the endless variables that also effect sound and how we perceive sound; like temperature, humidity, altitude, time of day, environment.....

Going that route it's easy to conclude that a consensus will never exist.
In the end, we're all feeding our sense of hearing, so the focus should be on accepting and celebrating the differences we all enjoy, just like in gastronomy and art where we feed our other senses.

 

[Redcarmoose]

80% of successful replay can be FR. Still that final 20% is everything outside of frequency response. Thus Dynamics, Soundstage, Pace, PRaT, Imaging....etc.

The process of technical prowess is also FR. They are not separate. People say “intangible” as in reference to stuff that is difficult to put into graph form. And example is transients. Transients are related to imaging thus great transients and you get imaging. Waterfall graphs will give a clue to transients.

But tuning can be subjective to a point. Obviously you can have a multitude of tuning. But typically there is a style of graph that shows a well tuned headphone. Still graphs are only part of the equation.

Technical specifications are how the Headphones or IEM handles the rest in part. But technical stuff is tuning. As a headphone can be technical but have an off FR to a point.

So it is better to say Intangible or less tangible in that regard. Basically tuning is depending on balance. Were does the bass sit? Where does the treble sit? Where does the midrange sit in relation to the whole. A V shows a curve of diminished mids, but by how much. That’s tuning. Flat is only who you talk to, there can be many variations of flat.

 

[moriez]

Look if you like your headphones why worry about others think then ? What is the point of your post as you have what you want ? So if you don’t think the Koss KPH30i are greasiest headphones ever then everyone is just stupid or what? Doesn’t matter about tuning if it is not KPH30i then it isn’t good it seems.

teh fk?

Unsure if this is any help but to me tuning simply refers to overall signature of a headphone or even the typical house sound of brand or series, say Sennheiser vs Grado.

 

[hewlett168]

Tuning would relate to the sound signature as intended by the headphone producer. Technicalities would relate to the potential the headphone has, regardless of tuning, to excel in categories as detail, layering and timbre.

The Audeze LCD-X would be a great example: the tuning, thus the sound signature, of the headphone is almost universally regarded as quite weird, but the headphone has technicalities to produce great detail and neutrality if EQ is applied.

Thus to determine what a headphone is capable of doing, I find that tuning is not that relevant. Those enthusiast that want to avoid using EQ of course do not, but if a headhone has the technicalities and responds well to EQ, one can tune the headphone to the sound signature one prefers and enjoy the capability the driver has to offer to reproduce that signature as closely as possible as one would like.

Regarding your last question, there is a study that actually tried to EQ midrange cans to sound like a variety of other brands and models:

https://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=16874

The somewhat short conclusion, as I interpret it, is that it is certainly possible to do exactly that. This really proves that if one is able with EQ to produce the sound signature one prefers, relatively cheap headphones can come a long way. Of course there are some physical limitations: I do no see how one could reproduce the sound stage of a HD800, as that is the result of the design of the headphone cup, and it also seems difficult to reproduce of the speed of an electrostatic headphone.

As always, it seems there is a middle ground. Yes, you can tune a headphone to do some great things, but there will always be some physical limitation reserving a spot for some high-end headphones.