[Claritas]

EQ has been covered extensively in the Sound Science forum. The answer, as usual, is "it depends."

 

[vid]

I've spent a lot of time modding, listening, and measuring, and I can only come to the conclusion that you achieve the same sound quality with mods as you do with EQ, and with EQ as you do with mods, as long as we're not talking about soundstage width. If you have flabby bass and you mod the phones to have tighter bass, you could've gotten the exact same result with EQ as long as you knew what you were doing. If you mod the headphones to have more resolution, you could've gotten the exact same increase in resolution with EQ. If you swap your pads for more comfortable ones, you can use EQ to neutralize the difference in frequency response and get comfort for free. It's hard to believe.

 

[GREQ]

  It's no less trolling than proposing that 30-year-old headphones sound good in 2014. You know it to be true, but for someone who's not familiar with 30-year-old headphones, or who's heard only the many poor ones, your proposition would be absurd.

Since you love EQ so much, you should try out the 35 year old DR-Z7.. you might just eat your own words. 

 

[vid]

That 30-year-old headphones don't sound good aren't my words as such - I've got a few counterexamples in my cupboard, including the HD 530.  About half a year ago I did a combination of physical mods and EQ on my 32-year-old HOKs - they ended up sounding so good that I stopped my daily modding and gave up buying headphones. Literally the endgame for now, which is kinda silly.

 

[GREQ]

  That 30-year-old headphones don't sound good aren't my words as such - I've got a few counterexamples in my cupboard, including the HD 530.  About half a year ago I did a combination of physical mods and EQ on my 32-year-old HOKs - they ended up sounding so good that I stopped my daily modding and gave up buying headphones. Literally the endgame for now, which is kinda silly.

Yeah, I saw the mod you did - you put them in an HD-600 if I remember correctly?
Looked ugly as sin, but those measurements looked yummy.

 

[o0CosmoMemory0o]

I have just carefully torn open a pair of flattened all-velour HD540II earpads (no pleather whatsoever) by cutting and slowly tearing along the centre seam. The yellow foam was removed and was looking flat and worn. I've put the HD560 foam inside the 540II skin to see how it looks. Would just have to sew the seam in the middle around the circumference and it would look brand new. It would be very expensive to buy a new set of £30 HD560 pads though every time I want a new pair of foams to transplant.

 

[VISAVIS-GER]

My stitching skills wouldnt be good enough, so I would have to engage a professional. Its worth it I think.

 

[vid]

  Yeah, I saw the mod you did - you put them in an HD-600 if I remember correctly?
Looked ugly as sin, but those measurements looked yummy.

 
The HD 600 frame, yeah. They had more resolution than the Stax SR-5 electrostats - thanks to EQ. Why more people aren't putting effort into learning proper EQ is beyond me, but there you go.

 

[GREQ]

 
The HD 600 frame, yeah. They had more resolution than the Stax SR-5 electrostats - thanks to EQ. Why more people aren't putting effort into learning proper EQ is beyond me, but there you go.

Because throwing $3000 at a 'perfect' flagship system is quicker and easier (if you have big coffers)

 

[Claritas]

  Because throwing $3000 at a 'perfect' flagship system is quicker and easier (if you have big coffers)

 
As the scare quotes indicate, they will also benefit from some EQing.

 

[GREQ]

 

  Because throwing $3000 at a 'perfect' flagship system is quicker and easier (if you have big coffers)

 
As the scare quotes indicate, they will also benefit from some EQing.

 exactly

 

[evolucian911]

I feel like crying. Now looking for an upgrade for my rx700... I'm young and new to the audiophile realm... I have a pair of dx3's but been looking to try out a brand other than jvc and get the best for price. but I Can't Seem To Find Any HD540's anywhere :/

 

[o0CosmoMemory0o]

You could maybe EQ a HD600 to sound as good as a HD540II?? I don't know. I'd rather use something that I don't have to EQ as some devices you can connect headphones to do not have EQ capabilities. Most standard EQ facilities are not very elaborate anyway and are not intricate enough to provide the kind of adjustments that would be needed for precise response correction. I personally believe in using a "flat" transducer with no emphasis of any frequency region because when driven by linear amplification, the playback is pure and effortless no matter what volume you decide to listen at. Nothing to stop one EQ'ing a flat transducer when they want to have a little play around for a while because the EQ is easily deactivated when no longer wanted.
 
Anyway, I shall continue my search for something better than the HD540II. By "better", I just mean "the same, but with more speaker-like spatial qualities". Anyone use that well-regarded AKG K1000?

 

[Mjolnir125]

  You could maybe EQ a HD600 to sound as good as a HD540II?? I don't know. I'd rather use something that I don't have to EQ as some devices you can connect headphones to do not have EQ capabilities. Most standard EQ facilities are not very elaborate anyway and are not intricate enough to provide the kind of adjustments that would be needed for precise response correction. I personally believe in using a "flat" transducer with no emphasis of any frequency region because when driven by linear amplification, the playback is pure and effortless no matter what volume you decide to listen at. Nothing to stop one EQ'ing a flat transducer when they want to have a little play around for a while because the EQ is easily deactivated when no longer wanted.
 
Anyway, I shall continue my search for something better than the HD540II. By "better", I just mean "the same, but with more speaker-like spatial qualities". Anyone use that well-regarded AKG K1000?

There is a limit to what you can accomplish through EQ, and then you are reliant on using a particular audio system and are tied to that EQ. I prefer not to use EQ at all because you then get used to something other than the "natural" sound of the headphones, so when you listen to them on a different source they will sound odd.
 
The AKG K701/K702/Q701 has a very wide soundstage and similar flat bass with treble emphasis to the HD540 II, but the treble emphasis is a little different (they seem to have a bit more upper treble so cymbals sound a little more "sparkly," but not a ton).

 

[vid]

  There is a limit to what you can accomplish through EQ, and then you are reliant on using a particular audio system and are tied to that EQ. I prefer not to use EQ at all because you then get used to something other than the "natural" sound of the headphones, so when you listen to them on a different source they will sound odd.

 
I don't see the basis for this idea of a natural sound - and if a source alters the response then you're screwed any which way. The way you hear a given pair of headphones will never be what the engineers had in mind even if you had the exact same source as them, and if you do hear something that sounds natural, you can be sure the drivers aren't what's producing it but rather the acoustic filtering produced by your pinna and ear canal, which are unique to you and which you can't get rid of. The notion that you can have direct access to 'the sound of the headphones' is fantasy to begin with, in my reasoning.
 
The second point about there being a limit to what you can accomplish through EQ is true in the sense that there are certain limits, but do they matter? I've literally EQ'd headphones to have 99% perfect impulse responses, something you can never achieve by modding nor by throwing money at headphone.com. So if you mind that you can't get the last 1% with EQ then you've at least gotten twice as much as you otherwise would've.
 
Some people just have a preference to not EQ, and that's fine. Sometimes it might prevent them from getting higher-quality audio, but...