[goldwerger]

I didn't mean to say that but I guess it's destiny.

That Freudian slip cracked me up.

On a more serious note @zach915m you responded very well and can't do more than that. ASR is like any religious cult. Any dialog that conflicts with its belief system and dogma is futile.

Fortunately, the van diagram between them and the passionate audiophile community that actually gets joy from listening to music is a small one.

As this thread and the entire fellowship here clearly shows.

With success come copycats, naysayers, and commentators in the cheap seats. Take all of these as proof of your success.

As evident by the many fans you have here and everywhere in this wonderful community.

Keep up the great work!

 

[zach915m]

Well looks like I've been moderated over there(asr), not sure what I said that wasn't alowed but my last post is "awaiting moderator approval." I guess it's time to move on

Just to clarify, I am not trying to post over there anymore since now I know it's being moderated, none of my posts are awaiting approval since I'm done posting on ASR. I just think it's funny my posts were paused so Amir could drop the hammer.

I did notice in one of his responses he posted this:

"We all need to get behind one standard that is used both in production and playback. Only then we have any hope of hearing what the artist approved (and heard)."

I'm sure @jude could respond to this better, as he's been at a fair amount of studio recordings, but I don't believe studio mixers, producers and musicians are sitting there tuning all their gear to Harman and response to Harman before we even get it, and then if they did, why would we want to EQ it beyond that? Wouldnt we just want a dead flat etymotic like curve @EtyDave ?

This is beyond my comprehension, but the idea of a compound Harman curve because the artist intended it that way seems pretty crazy.

 

[Lyssky]

This is beyond my comprehension, but the idea of a compound Harman curve because the artist intended it that way seems pretty crazy.

Lad's gone insane. Does he even know what music is???

 

[LXMc]

"We all need to get behind one standard that is used both in production and playback. Only then we have any hope of hearing what the artist approved (and heard)."

I just saw his post with that bit and I had to go through it again to be sure I had read it right. Absolutely insane outlook.

 

[Leto Dal]

A friend of mine is an audio engineer with his own recording studio in Berlin and few bigger artists he worked with like Radiohead for live recordings. Nope they dont tune to Harman curve, but to what sounds right to the ear of the mixer and the artist, of course they are working with raw reference graphs, and reference tracks but there is no excessive dogmatism in that regard.

 

[574613]

The problem with ASR is it’s all a numbers game and almost as if they are all accountants. If the numbers tally up, then hey presto everyone is happy! …

But audio is different, isn’t it?

How do you measure soundstage? How do you measure that out of the head experience? How do you measure timbre??? …. I’m no scientist so have no idea! … I mean you can find many headphones that measure similarly but sound completely different so I’m at a loss on that one.

With regards to ASR, although I enjoy the site, I just don’t get the righteousness that exists and how they fawn or scold a product that 99% of those commenting have never heard. I would never be so stupid to pass judgement on a product I have never heard.

I will say this: I have tried Amir’s EQ when I owned the Arya Stealth and found it not to my liking and therefore find it difficult to trust his ears or sound preference. I guess we are all different and we hear things differently??

Looking at the thread now he seems to be really spooked and is on the attack! … Never a good place to go as pride always leads to a fall but that is just the nature of the beast.

FWIW I love the Verite line but didn’t like the Eikon or Auteur so don’t view myself as a fanboy. I also love a good hot and spicy curry, but my other half detests them …

 

[joshua1122]

Measurements are good reference material, but they're only truly useful for people with physiology close enough to the measuring equipment used. Building a curve based on that might be useful to these people, but others that don't have the same ear shape will be left out. I personally have HRTF that doesn't mesh well with a whole lot of gear out of the box.

I appreciate that ZMF gives me the options to roll pads, meshes, etc. to make their headphones work for me. I think that's where ZMF really stands out. I find the Caldera somehow has the best tuning match for my ears out of the box, out of everything I've owned and demoed. Measurement/curve adherence on a ear model dramatically than mine be darned – you'll pry my Caldera's out of my cold dead hands!

 

[mattiastomas]

As someone who is relatively new to the headphones scene I am not very caught up in the whole measurements and all the jazz. The thinking that I need to learn to read a graph to decide whether or not a pair of headphones sound good or not is a bit ass backwards to me. I'm not saying that it doesn't help especially in tuning headphones, but whats the point of having all headphones match one curve which is the be all end all of curves?

Its like saying you can only eat the same meal every single day and everyone can only have that meal. And that meal has to be cooked in that exact same way.

Imagine if guitars could only be tuned to standard tuning and no others.

What a boring and sad world it would be.

If the purpose of headphones is to listen to music then for me that is where it will be judged. Put it on and listen to your favourite tracks. And then decide if you like how it sounds or not.

I attended my very first canjam this year. Listened to a fair number of TOTL headphones. They sounded good but none of them really wow-ed me. Don't get me wrong, they sounded very revealing and such but I felt like they were missing something.
Then I wondered into the Woo Audio room and there was a headphone I was not familiar with nor seen before and they sounded really good. Had character and soul to them. Spoke to the Woo guys and they directed me next door to the ZMF room as that was where the headphones were from.
Went to the ZMF room the next morning and ended up mainly comparing the AO and VO for the better part of an hour. Here were 2 headphones that sounded really good and had character and soul! I preferred them to any of the other TOTL headphones I had listened to at Canjam. Even those costing double the price.

Saved up and bought the AC blind during launch. Used the basis of my enjoyment with the AO and trusted that it would be more similar that not. I love the AC.

And based on all this I ordered a Caldera blind during ZMF November. Have no doubts that its a set I will thoroughly enjoy.

So Zach, thank you for making headphones with character and not ones that just matches some curve of most common preferences. And I do feel that the amount of people who will judge your headphones by listening will far outweigh those who judge just by looking at some graph. And as you say, no worries if you don't enjoy them! That's the beauty of having so many different headphone manufacturers. So you can find something you like.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Pharmaboy]

"We all need to get behind one standard that is used both in production and playback. Only then we have any hope of hearing what the artist approved (and heard)."

(snickering)

That's rich. I spent a lot of time on Gearslutz, was a member for a few years. The people there are mostly music studio pros. They have quite a few objectivists, but it's rather different since objectivism is an aspirational ideal in pro music (never attained, but often wished for). Generally, they know it's impossible.

I mention this because in this relatively straightfoward group of music pros, 90% of what they talk about is the fact there are nearly no general standards in recording, tracking, and playing back music--I mean, beyond the technology standards that come along with digital, to cite just one example (ie, 192 kHz/24 bit, etc). Every music pro has to answer a whole litany of subjective questions: how much bass is enough? Does the Strat sound like a Strat, or a Tele? Are the dynamics realistic? There are no standards that matter for most of this stuff. Music pros spend entire careers trying to guess what people expect subjectively in recorded music; or remember hearing in live music. Simply checking compliance boxes on voltage, impedance, other stats isn't enough.

So IMO this moronic comment from Amir is really funny.

 

[AnyDave]

Just to clarify, I am not trying to post over there anymore since now I know it's being moderated, none of my posts are awaiting approval since I'm done posting on ASR. I just think it's funny my posts were paused so Amir could drop the hammer.

I did notice in one of his responses he posted this:

"We all need to get behind one standard that is used both in production and playback. Only then we have any hope of hearing what the artist approved (and heard)."

I'm sure @jude could respond to this better, as he's been at a fair amount of studio recordings, but I don't believe studio mixers, producers and musicians are sitting there tuning all their gear to Harman and response to Harman before we even get it, and then if they did, why would we want to EQ it beyond that? Wouldnt we just want a dead flat etymotic like curve @EtyDave ?

This is beyond my comprehension, but the idea of a compound Harman curve because the artist intended it that way seems pretty crazy.

If you wanted accurate/dead flat, then you would want an etymotic-like target curve, but obviously that doesn't take subjective preference into account either. But, scientifically, it's a fairly defensible (and often recreated) curve.

Again, there's nothing wrong with preferring the Harmon curve. A lot of folks love it. But it's not the final arbiter of good or bad. It's a handy tool for reviewers as they can show deviations from the curve and savvy customers often learn what deviations they like. And, while frequency response is a massively important factor, it isn't the only factor, so it can't always be boiled down to just that.

And, the other elephant in the room, is the variability of the measurements themselves. With circumaural headphones, you can get significant variations due to positioning and that needs to be understood and quantified. When I test headphones, I always do multiple fittings per side and average them out. It also allows me to catch the outliers from a bad fitting. For years, there was no standard, nor was there access to lower cost test equipment, so few outside of manufacturers made these types of measurements. Now that there is a commonly understood target, that opens up the gates to measurements that users understand, which is a good thing. But only if presented correctly and if the measurements are carefully done.

I don't think the Harmon curve is billed as "the artist intended it that way", but I think it's presented as "this is what everybody likes, so if it's not this, it's a bad headphone", which is what I take issue with. Hell, I've spent years of my life developing IEMs to a VERY specific curve and, while I believe in the scientific validity of it, I would never suggest that it's what everybody prefers. That's clearly not the case.

 

[AnyDave]

Does the Strat sound like a Strat, or a Tele?

A Strat sounds like a Strat and a Tele sounds like Rock.

 

[JackarlTwo]

I'm glad there isn't just one standard everyone must follow. Can you imagine how boring everything would get if every musician sounded the same? Musicians and producers have their own individual preference to how their music should sound like. How are you supposed to create a standard that translate each musician's subjective preference into every type of audio equipment?

 

[Pharmaboy]

A Strat sounds like a Strat and a Tele sounds like Rock.

(Pharmaboy trips over unfamiliar orthodoxy)

 

[AnyDave]

(Pharmaboy trips over unfamiliar orthodoxy)

I *think* I just made that up, so unfamiliar makes sense.

Anyway, I grew up playing Strats and SuperStrats. I still have some and they are great. But I have more Teles. I know I have at least 6 of them, but I could be forgetting one.

 

[Pharmaboy]

I *think* I just made that up, so unfamiliar makes sense.

Anyway, I grew up playing Strats and SuperStrats. I still have some and they are great. But I have more Teles. I know I have at least 6 of them, but I could be forgetting one.

Teles can just do more, create more types of tones and effects than just about any other axe. I've heard several acknowledged Telecaster masters live (repeatdly); it's like hearing a symphony.

My fondness for the strat runs deep, though. Examples:

• Jimi Hendrix (saw him 3X, still haven't recovered)
• Jeff Beck (saw him once & heard countless recorded performances over the decades)
• Oz Noy (saw 3X recently--a killer Strat player)

Apparently no one informed Mr. Beck that the Strat had limited tonal capabilities compared to the Tele...