[obsidyen]

   
Not just taste. My sixty-five year old ears need a treble boost just to approach a neutral sound.  

 
This... People over 50 have more money than young people. And they need a treble boost to get a neutral sound. Headphone manufacturers are simply making headphones for people with more money.

 

[MorrisL]

   

A lot of factors contribute to that.

 

1. It's difficult to make a fullrange driver that has a very smooth response from 20hz to 20khz; many have peaks somewhere between 5khz to 10khz. You can check  the graphs of the "bright" headphones in Headphone.com or Innerfidelity, all of them have that peak in that region. Even teh HD600 and HD650 have a point in the same region where the response rises, just not as high as on the K70x. In speakers, large fullrange drivers tend to need a notch filter just to tame a peak in the treble.

 

2. Another contributing factor is how headphones are worn. The more direct they blow into the ear canal the higher the tendency they'll sound sharper. The HD800 is basically closer to neutral but it its driver mounts were the more conventional type I'd bet they'd be really sharp in the treble (I find them neutral actually, and my HD600 on worn pads can have treble spikes sharper than any HD800 I've tried, including one on visibly worn out pads). This is basically the problem with Grado's vintage, cost-reducing standard chassis/earpad design. You can try this with speakers if you have some - listen to them at their normal toe-in angle, then put them on your flanks at a direct path towards the side of your head. (notice how many cheap earphones are the same way.

 

3. There's also the problem of variable response of each human's hearing systems, even without hearing damage (I know a guy who has a severe midrange hearing loss, so instead of a hearing aid that makes everything louder he needs the $2,000 kind that EQs the sound). Look at how all nearly all headphones actually have that "V-shaped" response (as people call it), the difference really is how far to the left or right and how high the peaks will be. Regardless, even the headphones known for their mids usually have "recessed mids" (another term used in the forums) if you're looking at the graphs. Basically, there's a possibility that you're one of the people who are more sensitive to high frequencies than the average person. While I myself only need the treble to be smooth, the easiest way to make me serve up a knuckle sandwich (no guarantee it'll get served properly because I might be shaking and disoriented at some point) is to intentionally and slowly scratch a blackboard.

 

In any case, that's the thing - get a headphone with the smoothest response possible at least from 50hz to 10khz; don't rely on an amplifier's distortion characteristics or even primarily rely on EQ (except in cases where fit is very important, like IEMs).

Very informative post. I learned quite a bit from it.
 
It might very well be true that I am sensitive to high frequencies. But then again, the most common complaints about headphones seem to be the high frequency harshness. So, this sensitivity may be a very common thing. Read page after page about the HD800 and see how their brightness is the number one fault people find in them. Likewise, you won't find a discussion about the 990, the 701 and basically all mid-fi headphones (except for the HD650) without some people decrying them for the excessive brightness. And it really is a shame that fine headphones with such beautiful definition and soundstage like the 990 and 701 should be so uncomfortable for so many folks.

 

[Liu Junyuan]

  A fellow head-fier recently pointed out that "headphones from dark side of neutral are hard to come by" and it got me thinking... Less than a year into this hobby, and I've managed to hear many headphones ranging from $20 to $2000 in price, and the vast majority are indeed bright, often uncomfortably so. I recently bought an HD600 and even that isn't dark enough for some music, but its neutral and slightly rolled off in the treble signature is still pretty unique. Not too many other choices out there for such a signature. But you'd think that they would make many other headphones to this tune, since it's such a desirable signature for many.
 
I mean, really... Think about it. HD800, HD700, HE500, T1, DT880, DT990, DT770, DT660, K701, most Grado phones... You name it. All bright... All we have is the HD650 and LCD2. (I won't mention the little PX100 and a couple of other on-ear's) 
 
Now, what is really going on with all that? It almost feels like there's a conspiracy to make 'em all bright so they can sell us tube amps to alleviate the pain. Too many people raving about how a certain tube amp smooths the harsh highs on the you-name-it headphone. Well, we wouldn't need to smooth anything if they were designed smooth to begin with. 
 
Any thoughts on this?

The HE-500 is not bright at all; you must be thinking of the HE-560. Also, you might want to add Oppo PM1/PM2 to the list on the dark side of neutral, in addition to K7XX/K702 Annie. 

 

[money4me247]

ya the oppo pm1/2 have a warmer sound. all the audeze headphones are a bit darker than neutral. th900 is v-shaped. 
 
Sennheiser, Beyer, AKG, and Grado do generally do have brighter sound signatures (beyer often v-shaped imo, new akgs k7xx/k612/k712 are not as bright as the older akgs, sennheiser hd650/hd700 are not as bright as the rest of their headphones, new momentum is a bit v-shaped).
 
I don't think your generalization is really true. there are a lot of different headphones out there with sound signatures all over the spectrum. just the companies you listed do tend to have a brighter house sound.

 

[SSandDigital]

Ummm, I think it's the opposite.  The majority of headphones are dark.  I haven't heard headphones that don't sound congested with clear mids and treble that aren't muddied by flubby bass for under $150.  And I don't see very many headphones for more than $150, and the few I do are Beats which are about as muddy/dark as I've heard.  A lot of the headphones mentioned in this thread I have never seen in the wild.  They aren't the majority, they are the minority.  The majority are the dark to very dark side of neutral, Best/Buy, Radioshack, other electronic shops etc don't have many bright sounding or neutral headphones, at least not around me.
 
The only other headphones I see people around me wearing that I could give a nod to are Senn Momentum and AT M50x and both I find are dark/bass heavy.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

  Very informative post. I learned quite a bit from it.
 
It might very well be true that I am sensitive to high frequencies. But then again, the most common complaints about headphones seem to be the high frequency harshness. So, this sensitivity may be a very common thing. Read page after page about the HD800 and see how their brightness is the number one fault people find in them. Likewise, you won't find a discussion about the 990, the 701 and basically all mid-fi headphones (except for the HD650) without some people decrying them for the excessive brightness. And it really is a shame that fine headphones with such beautiful definition and soundstage like the 990 and 701 should be so uncomfortable for so many folks.

 
Harshness is less about loud treble in general and more about how much it has of certain frequencies relative to the others. For example a warm headphone with the treble rolling off but has a +6dB peak at 5khz will sound harsher than a "bright" headphone that has a +3 treble plateau relative to 1khz but otherwise remains smooth.

 

[HarleyZK]

Warmer cans and some dark cans for example - while outnumbered by neutral or bright can you can find plenty of darker and rather warm sounding cans.
 
JVC DX1000/DX700, Oppo PM-1/2, LCD2/3, HD650, Sony Z7, PS500e (with Flats), ZMF Vibro, Mad Dog 3.2, AKG K7xx, Fostex TH500RP, Shure 1540, HD8 DJ, Stax Lambda 207.

 

[obsidyen]

AKG K7XX dark, really? Q701 was painfully bright.

 

[LajostheHun]

  AKG K7XX dark, really? Q701 was painfully bright.

The Q701 lacks bass even with the bass mod, so it's tonality certainly bright, but I wouldn't call it painful, not in my case anyway. YMMV
Also the NAD HP-50 and the AT M50 would be on  the neutral side IMO. I own all three mentioned.

 

[HarleyZK]

  AKG K7XX dark, really? Q701 was painfully bright.

The massdrop K7xx is quite warm actually, very different to the K701/2 or Q701 which are brighter and Q701 have a lot less bass. They are not dark at all but warm.

 

[money4me247]

  AKG K7XX dark, really? Q701 was painfully bright.

I wouldn't say 'dark,' but the k7xx definitely does not sound painfully/artificially bright as the q701 (imo for my personal tastes). the k7xx has a bit more of a bass boost which gives it a much more natural sound (to my ears).
 
edit: still overall, its overall balance is more akin to the he-560 (which I consider to be my "neutral" though some may say a bit brighter than neutral, but he-560/akg 7xx are definitely not as bright as the HD800). The akg k7xx is not as dark as the lcd-x/lcd-3 (which I consider on the dark side of neutral)

 

[cdsa35000]

Technical dark sounding are easy to make is in low/mid-fi price range, thats why good bright sounding hifi are expensiver!

 

[obsidyen]

Technical dark sounding are easy to make is in low/mid-fi price range, thats why good bright sounding hifi are expensiver!

Not really... Philips Fidelio L2 is bright and sounds very good and is cheap... I think making dark headphones with the resolution and clarity of bright headphones is the hardest thing to do.

 

[Greeni]

At the expense of over generalization, my wide guess is it has something to do with the "cone break-up" behavior. As manufacturers seek to adopt cone materials which enhance resolution, linear frequency response with favorable cone break-up mode, those materials also are more susceptible to treble / high frequency reproduction. Think of moving from paper cones to aluminum cones, and you get the idea.

 

[Sefelt103]

I read somewhere that due to the average distance people sit from their speakers the high frequency tends to be diminished as it travels through the air to the listener. Recording studios may boost the high frequencies to compensate for this. If this is true then of course all headphone listening becomes too bright as the treble energy is not dimished travelling across the tiny distance inside a headphone. It is perhaps strange that darker headphones are not more common as headphone manufacturers are always producing unbalanced designs to give the customer what he wants rather than accurately reproduce what was recorded. Perhaps there is not as much of a market for dark headphones as there is for v-shaped ones or even mid boosted ones. I found my Sennheiser HD595s to be dark sounding.