sennsay
1000+ Head-Fier
Yes it's a measurement flaw. And no, it's not a measurement flaw.
You sure are having fun tinkering with equipment. I've done a lot that too with my stereo.
I'm pretty new to headphones but this is what I understand so far:
Putting a driver in a small enclosed space over your ear will create an acoustic coupling to your ear canal.
Everybody has different ear canal and outer ear so no measurement rig will measure exactly what you hear. The MiniDSP EARS are made of silicone with a straight tube ear canal. Your ears are not. A professional rig will resemble a human are much better. You will hear small suckout around 10k or so with most headphones and a peak somewhere else in the treble (for me around 6k). Then there is the Fletcher-Munson curve... An equal loudness sine sweep (through loudspeakers) will sound like this to us (yes I inverted the graph on purpose otherwise will represent our ear's sensitivity)
See a dip around 10k?
Anyway watch this video:
Notice the measurements he shows in the first 30 second all have a dip around 10k.
You need to "see through" the peaks and dips in the HF and know which target response you like.
I like flat below 1k and Harman above that. So that is what my graphs use.
It may in effect be better to show raw measurements so you can see if the response is close to your preferred target.
Here's a raw measurement of my 540RefII's final tuning with my target response curve:
Well, I've been 'tinkering' for 50 years Rebuilding, restoring, building kits, setting up Linn Sondeks (back in the day, I owned two of them and set up others) plus many other turntables up until only a couple of years ago, anything from some valve (tube) gear to vintage amps and the occasional CD player. I love it all.
It's pretty much back to basics now, no room for a workshop at this current place where I'm recovering from a health crisis, so simplicity it is for me here (with my partner). Headphones only now, whether it's with the Magni 3+/Frankie combo, the Schiit multibit DAC or with the small but excellent Corda 2Move portable amp (with or without it's built in DAC) which I can use very occasionally with the Sony WM-D3 Pro Walkman, which was fully refurbished a couple of years back. The No 1 HD540 Ref1s have been with me as a constant for 34 years now, even when packed in their box for short periods while I moved around. The only extra tinkering I've done more recently was pull a Yamaha K-220 cassette deck out of the local tip's electronics dumpster. It had no lid, a few small knobs missing and needed new belts. I cleaned it up, replaced the belts, lubed it and it runs perfectly! Stable (it has two motors) and excellent sound quality even for a modest deck .. in fact I've heard much worse from more expensive decks. I run it every now and then to keep the lube moving and the belts supple.
I hear you about the top end of your graphs, I get it Thank you.
I have discovered that the original steel cable knocked a couple of dB off the signal strength though, I have to turn the amp up a couple of notches to get the same or similar level when using the Mogami cable. Extra resistance? I haven't measured them, I just raise or lower the volume to compensate.
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