• WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!

Headphones and the Harman target curve

moosso

Member
Joined
Aug 5, 2021
Messages
47
Likes
65
Hi,

Can anyone share the Harman curve for headphones (or any other recommended TC) in TXT format so I can use it with REW?

Thanks in advance.

1. Download csv file from https://github.com/jaakkopasanen/AutoEq/tree/master/compensation
2. Use File - Import - Import frequence response to import the csv file
3. Use File - Export - Export measurement as text
Then you get the txt file that can be used as house curve, in addition you may need to adjust target level to match the curve range.
 

Jabinho

Member
Joined
Jul 11, 2021
Messages
46
Likes
19
Yes. And that's for two reasons:
a) it tries to mimic an in-room speaker response of a controlled listening room
b) it's based on science


You are probably used to a different type of sound. Our brains can be very irritated once we manipulate a used tonality. Give it some time to adapt. And try to not judge too fast. ;)

By the way: The harman curve is not an absolute, fixed curve. There is still some room for taste and subjectivity.
Where Are We At With The Harman Curve?
Yes I agree it is Pseudoscience
 

Music1969

Major Contributor
Joined
Feb 19, 2018
Messages
4,636
Likes
2,809
Does anyone have the raw Harman 2018 OE plot, in .txt that can be used in REW as a target ?

@amirm ?
 

fpitas

Master Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Jul 7, 2022
Messages
9,885
Likes
14,191
Location
Northern Virginia, USA
Yes I agree it is Pseudoscience
Not at all. They're a manufacturer, so they would like to sell headphones to the most people. If you don't like it, that's hardly unusual or notable. Adjust things to your taste.
 

ChrisCables

Active Member
Audio Company
Joined
Nov 11, 2022
Messages
112
Likes
106
Location
NL
First post here (hi!) and I have been reading this particular thread with interest so I'm going to attempt at least to make it a meaningful first post!

My intrigue in the Harman Curve/Response/Standard/whatever you want to call it, was piqued after reading about it over on head-fi a while back. As a headphone junkie I'm always motivated to explore new ideas and technologies etc.

However, there's something about the idea of predicting what will appeal to an individual or group and then applying it to headphone/driver design and tonality that just doesn't sit right with me and I find it difficult to agree or concur with everytime I read about it. I'm wondering why I'm reacting to it negatively and I think it has more to do with psychology than anything else; I see so many parallels between the Harman 'concept' and the 'conformity principle' that I am bound to be averse to it. I hate conforming to anything, that's just my personality and I think it stems from when my parents sent me to a strict fee-paying school where the cane was regularly administered and on a weekly basis in my case! However, I digress. In any case, whether it's as a net result of my wayward youth and unwillingness to 'conform' to other people's ideas, when a group of people bet one way I always bet the other way. That's just me.
I would strongly advocate reading about the psychology of 'conformity' before committing to anything that proposes a 'universal standard'.
A brief definition: Conformity is the act of changing your behaviors in order to fit in or go along with the people around you.

I also react aversly to the 'expert' responses whenever I read anything negative said about the Harman curve idea. It usually goes something like: 'Well, what I say is right and correct because this research was peer-reviewed by other experts as well as being based on science and research' bla bla blaa.
For a non-conformist such as myself this is pretty much a red rag to bull scenario and makes me more inclined to reject it further as an affront to my individuality and personal preferences. Again, psychology more than rational thinking on my part perhaps.

I sort of agree in principle with the idea behind trying to apply a universal tonality preference standard as it makes the prospect of having a 'commercially viable' product for any given headphone manufacturer more likely by administering an established 'end user requirement' which conforms to a standard. As a former product development project manager I see the clear value in this as a legitimate project driver in the product development phase setting a path for a milestone/target worth pursuing.

But there are simply so many caveats and holes in the idea of applying a universal standard or even 'baseline' as it has been referred to that it nullifies the idea from the start. There are so many variables and dynamics that can affect an individual's hearing perception on any given day that it would introduce fog/skew into the 'research' results depending on the time of the week/month/year/season/location/environment/mood/sex/gender/clothes worn/full or empty belly etc.
E.g. some days I find myself not wanting to listen to any music and that if I did hear music at any point by accident it would probably irritate me!
E.g. preference; everyone hears sound differently.
E.g. everyone has a different frequency range of hearing
E.g. qualitative perception. Ask someone if they perceive whether discovering and then administering the Harman response to their headphones has been a benefit or disbenefit. I would be SUPER-interested to learn the result of that particular question and propose that it could quite easily be linked to the conformity principle.

Like the contentious issue of whether cables make any difference to the signal path (let's not get started on that one here!) I think the debate is set to roll on and that as with cables, there will be 2 camps; the believers and the non-believers. I think the 3 main categories as defined by the Harman response being Harman curve lovers, More bass lovers, Less bass is better is way too constrictive. It should at least include a Forget about it, not interested thanks category.

My own preference is to listen to music and try to approximate or emulate the sound as much as possible to how it was originally recorded. A pointless and unrealistic objective perhaps and how could you ever verify that unless you bought the same equipment that they used in the studio/mastering process from the microphones and guitar jacks, through the process loops and mixing desk, to the engineers headphones in the mastering suite and even then....!

When I crank up the music I usually rely on different choices of the various tools at my disposal and have a vague idea of whether I'm going to enjoy the music first and be satisfied with the components used to listen to the music second. Another inherent danger of applying a tonality standard is that you start listening to the equipment first and the music second, which in my book is the wrong way to go about listening to music!

But 'each to their own' as they say. I never make any bold claims about my cables and only ever describe my own listening philosophy as trying to achieve neutrality and transparency, adding nothing and taking nothing away, which is how I think we should all be listening to the music!

the cans.png
 

Robbo99999

Master Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Jan 23, 2020
Messages
6,874
Likes
6,672
Location
UK
First post here (hi!) and I have been reading this particular thread with interest so I'm going to attempt at least to make it a meaningful first post!

My intrigue in the Harman Curve/Response/Standard/whatever you want to call it, was piqued after reading about it over on head-fi a while back. As a headphone junkie I'm always motivated to explore new ideas and technologies etc.

However, there's something about the idea of predicting what will appeal to an individual or group and then applying it to headphone/driver design and tonality that just doesn't sit right with me and I find it difficult to agree or concur with everytime I read about it. I'm wondering why I'm reacting to it negatively and I think it has more to do with psychology than anything else; I see so many parallels between the Harman 'concept' and the 'conformity principle' that I am bound to be averse to it. I hate conforming to anything, that's just my personality and I think it stems from when my parents sent me to a strict fee-paying school where the cane was regularly administered and on a weekly basis in my case! However, I digress. In any case, whether it's as a net result of my wayward youth and unwillingness to 'conform' to other people's ideas, when a group of people bet one way I always bet the other way. That's just me.
I would strongly advocate reading about the psychology of 'conformity' before committing to anything that proposes a 'universal standard'.
A brief definition: Conformity is the act of changing your behaviors in order to fit in or go along with the people around you.

I also react aversly to the 'expert' responses whenever I read anything negative said about the Harman curve idea. It usually goes something like: 'Well, what I say is right and correct because this research was peer-reviewed by other experts as well as being based on science and research' bla bla blaa.
For a non-conformist such as myself this is pretty much a red rag to bull scenario and makes me more inclined to reject it further as an affront to my individuality and personal preferences. Again, psychology more than rational thinking on my part perhaps.

I sort of agree in principle with the idea behind trying to apply a universal tonality preference standard as it makes the prospect of having a 'commercially viable' product for any given headphone manufacturer more likely by administering an established 'end user requirement' which conforms to a standard. As a former product development project manager I see the clear value in this as a legitimate project driver in the product development phase setting a path for a milestone/target worth pursuing.

But there are simply so many caveats and holes in the idea of applying a universal standard or even 'baseline' as it has been referred to that it nullifies the idea from the start. There are so many variables and dynamics that can affect an individual's hearing perception on any given day that it would introduce fog/skew into the 'research' results depending on the time of the week/month/year/season/location/environment/mood/sex/gender/clothes worn/full or empty belly etc.
E.g. some days I find myself not wanting to listen to any music and that if I did hear music at any point by accident it would probably irritate me!
E.g. preference; everyone hears sound differently.
E.g. everyone has a different frequency range of hearing
E.g. qualitative perception. Ask someone if they perceive whether discovering and then administering the Harman response to their headphones has been a benefit or disbenefit. I would be SUPER-interested to learn the result of that particular question and propose that it could quite easily be linked to the conformity principle.

Like the contentious issue of whether cables make any difference to the signal path (let's not get started on that one here!) I think the debate is set to roll on and that as with cables, there will be 2 camps; the believers and the non-believers. I think the 3 main categories as defined by the Harman response being Harman curve lovers, More bass lovers, Less bass is better is way too constrictive. It should at least include a Forget about it, not interested thanks category.

My own preference is to listen to music and try to approximate or emulate the sound as much as possible to how it was originally recorded. A pointless and unrealistic objective perhaps and how could you ever verify that unless you bought the same equipment that they used in the studio/mastering process from the microphones and guitar jacks, through the process loops and mixing desk, to the engineers headphones in the mastering suite and even then....!

When I crank up the music I usually rely on different choices of the various tools at my disposal and have a vague idea of whether I'm going to enjoy the music first and be satisfied with the components used to listen to the music second. Another inherent danger of applying a tonality standard is that you start listening to the equipment first and the music second, which in my book is the wrong way to go about listening to music!

But 'each to their own' as they say. I never make any bold claims about my cables and only ever describe my own listening philosophy as trying to achieve neutrality and transparency, adding nothing and taking nothing away, which is how I think we should all be listening to the music!

View attachment 242804
You certainly emphasised your "individuality" streak within you, in terms of psychologically not wanting to "conform" to the Harman Curve or anything else. It depends how you view it, do you want to be swayed by your personality quirks/characteristics or do you want to enjoy your best possible music quality through headphones - if it's the second one then you should try to put your "fear of conformity" to one side and just listen to your various headphones once EQ'd to the Harman Curve - probably using Oratory's EQ's. Then you'd see what you think listening to your reference tracks, and he includes customisation filters that you can use to tailor the sound then to your own preference: changing bass level first would be sensible, then you'd probably think about changing the mids/"shoutiness" zone from around 1-3kHz if necessary, and possibly the "airiness" using the High Shelf Filters he offers above 10kHz - so that's a lot of non-conformity & individuality there for you (if it turns out you don't like the EQ done straight to the Harman Curve)! Following is an example of some of his customisation filters that he offers, that I've outlined in red (this comes from his HD560s EQ for example):
customisation filters (HD560s).jpg

So you can definitely retain your individuality & lack of conformity even whilst starting off with a Harman Curve EQ! :p
 

Hephaestus

Active Member
Joined
Jun 2, 2019
Messages
233
Likes
495
Location
Rapture
First post here (hi!) and I have been reading this particular thread with interest so I'm going to attempt at least to make it a meaningful first post!

My intrigue in the Harman Curve/Response/Standard/whatever you want to call it, was piqued after reading about it over on head-fi a while back. As a headphone junkie I'm always motivated to explore new ideas and technologies etc.

However, there's something about the idea of predicting what will appeal to an individual or group and then applying it to headphone/driver design and tonality that just doesn't sit right with me and I find it difficult to agree or concur with everytime I read about it. I'm wondering why I'm reacting to it negatively and I think it has more to do with psychology than anything else; I see so many parallels between the Harman 'concept' and the 'conformity principle' that I am bound to be averse to it. I hate conforming to anything, that's just my personality and I think it stems from when my parents sent me to a strict fee-paying school where the cane was regularly administered and on a weekly basis in my case! However, I digress. In any case, whether it's as a net result of my wayward youth and unwillingness to 'conform' to other people's ideas, when a group of people bet one way I always bet the other way. That's just me.
I would strongly advocate reading about the psychology of 'conformity' before committing to anything that proposes a 'universal standard'.
A brief definition: Conformity is the act of changing your behaviors in order to fit in or go along with the people around you.

I also react aversly to the 'expert' responses whenever I read anything negative said about the Harman curve idea. It usually goes something like: 'Well, what I say is right and correct because this research was peer-reviewed by other experts as well as being based on science and research' bla bla blaa.
For a non-conformist such as myself this is pretty much a red rag to bull scenario and makes me more inclined to reject it further as an affront to my individuality and personal preferences. Again, psychology more than rational thinking on my part perhaps.

I sort of agree in principle with the idea behind trying to apply a universal tonality preference standard as it makes the prospect of having a 'commercially viable' product for any given headphone manufacturer more likely by administering an established 'end user requirement' which conforms to a standard. As a former product development project manager I see the clear value in this as a legitimate project driver in the product development phase setting a path for a milestone/target worth pursuing.

But there are simply so many caveats and holes in the idea of applying a universal standard or even 'baseline' as it has been referred to that it nullifies the idea from the start. There are so many variables and dynamics that can affect an individual's hearing perception on any given day that it would introduce fog/skew into the 'research' results depending on the time of the week/month/year/season/location/environment/mood/sex/gender/clothes worn/full or empty belly etc.
E.g. some days I find myself not wanting to listen to any music and that if I did hear music at any point by accident it would probably irritate me!
E.g. preference; everyone hears sound differently.
E.g. everyone has a different frequency range of hearing
E.g. qualitative perception. Ask someone if they perceive whether discovering and then administering the Harman response to their headphones has been a benefit or disbenefit. I would be SUPER-interested to learn the result of that particular question and propose that it could quite easily be linked to the conformity principle.

Like the contentious issue of whether cables make any difference to the signal path (let's not get started on that one here!) I think the debate is set to roll on and that as with cables, there will be 2 camps; the believers and the non-believers. I think the 3 main categories as defined by the Harman response being Harman curve lovers, More bass lovers, Less bass is better is way too constrictive. It should at least include a Forget about it, not interested thanks category.

My own preference is to listen to music and try to approximate or emulate the sound as much as possible to how it was originally recorded. A pointless and unrealistic objective perhaps and how could you ever verify that unless you bought the same equipment that they used in the studio/mastering process from the microphones and guitar jacks, through the process loops and mixing desk, to the engineers headphones in the mastering suite and even then....!

When I crank up the music I usually rely on different choices of the various tools at my disposal and have a vague idea of whether I'm going to enjoy the music first and be satisfied with the components used to listen to the music second. Another inherent danger of applying a tonality standard is that you start listening to the equipment first and the music second, which in my book is the wrong way to go about listening to music!

But 'each to their own' as they say. I never make any bold claims about my cables and only ever describe my own listening philosophy as trying to achieve neutrality and transparency, adding nothing and taking nothing away, which is how I think we should all be listening to the music!

View attachment 242804
I can see that you have actually not read the Harman research papers. Nuisance variables were controlled in the study.
 

ChrisCables

Active Member
Audio Company
Joined
Nov 11, 2022
Messages
112
Likes
106
Location
NL
You certainly emphasised your "individuality" streak within you, in terms of psychologically not wanting to "conform" to the Harman Curve or anything else. It depends how you view it, do you want to be swayed by your personality quirks/characteristics or do you want to enjoy your best possible music quality through headphones - if it's the second one then you should try to put your "fear of conformity" to one side and just listen to your various headphones once EQ'd to the Harman Curve - probably using Oratory's EQ's. Then you'd see what you think listening to your reference tracks, and he includes customisation filters that you can use to tailor the sound then to your own preference: changing bass level first would be sensible, then you'd probably think about changing the mids/"shoutiness" zone from around 1-3kHz if necessary, and possibly the "airiness" using the High Shelf Filters he offers above 10kHz - so that's a lot of non-conformity & individuality there for you (if it turns out you don't like the EQ done straight to the Harman Curve)! Following is an example of some of his customisation filters that he offers, that I've outlined in red (this comes from his HD560s EQ for example):
View attachment 242870
So you can definitely retain your individuality & lack of conformity even whilst starting off with a Harman Curve EQ! :p
Thanks. You're right. I should probably explore it a bit more and give it half a chance at least.
Also, did you mean Sennheiser HD650 or HD580? Iodn't think there ever was an 'HD560'. I have a few pairs of HD565's but no 560's.
 

someguyontheinternet

Active Member
Joined
Apr 16, 2021
Messages
194
Likes
334
Location
Germany
I put this in a text expander app since I found myself typing this over and over again:
The Harman target is not intended to be a frequency response that will satisfy all individual preferences. It's a statistical preference curve. This means that on one hand it will not absolutely fit every individual and does not try to. On the other hand however the likelihood of any given individual having a preference exactly or very close to the Harman target is high. This makes the Harman target a good baseline. Firstly it will satisfy more people than it will not satisfy. Secondly even for those who are not satisfied the target will be a logical starting point when trying to figure out their exact individual preference target. This is also the reason why it makes sense for manufacturers to use it or slight variations. Most users will be satisfied and those who are not can adjust to their individual preferences with relative ease.
 

Robbo99999

Master Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Jan 23, 2020
Messages
6,874
Likes
6,672
Location
UK
Thanks. You're right. I should probably explore it a bit more and give it half a chance at least.
Also, did you mean Sennheiser HD650 or HD580? Iodn't think there ever was an 'HD560'. I have a few pairs of HD565's but no 560's.
Cool, yeah, experiment with it whilst having an open mind free from worries of conformity or non-conformity, lol!

I did mean HD560s, there's an HD560s, probably my favourite headphone overall from the ones I own & have tried. It's this one:
and reviewed by Amir here:

But yeah, welcome to ASR, try the Oratory EQ's, you can find them in reddit, I'm sure you know where to find them, and see how you go.
 

ChrisCables

Active Member
Audio Company
Joined
Nov 11, 2022
Messages
112
Likes
106
Location
NL
Cool, yeah, experiment with it whilst having an open mind free from worries of conformity or non-conformity, lol!

I did mean HD560s, there's an HD560s, probably my favourite headphone overall from the ones I own & have tried. It's this one:
and reviewed by Amir here:

But yeah, welcome to ASR, try the Oratory EQ's, you can find them in reddit, I'm sure you know where to find them, and see how you go.
Ah, ok, I was assuming it was a Senn from their 'Made in Ireland' period, which I'm a big fan of.
I recently bought and refurbed a pair of HD555, just so could I could complete the nomenclature from HD525 to HD565 (I know, drrrp)
I did the well-documented mod of removing the piece of adhesive rubber from inside the baffles and it transformed the sound from something mediocre to something quite impressive!
Assuming the HD560 comes later/higher in the more recent range?

Not a huge fan of the later mid-range models tbh and you can clearly see where costs have been trimmed and cheaper materials and components are used.
The older 5*5 series were far superior, and comfortable!
Here's a fun fact- did you know the driver capsules from the 5*5 range and the totl 6** range drivers were all interchangeable?
I've had a lot of fun swapping drivers around in different chassis. HD650 drivers in a closed-back HD265 chassis for sh!ts n giggles for example. The business end of the FR literally made my brain wobble!
o_O

IMG_20220924_151319_1.jpg
IMG_20220924_150337_1.jpg
 

Robbo99999

Master Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Jan 23, 2020
Messages
6,874
Likes
6,672
Location
UK
Ah, ok, I was assuming it was a Senn from their 'Made in Ireland' period, which I'm a big fan of.
I recently bought and refurbed a pair of HD555, just so could I could complete the nomenclature from HD525 to HD565 (I know, drrrp)
I did the well-documented mod of removing the piece of adhesive rubber from inside the baffles and it transformed the sound from something mediocre to something quite impressive!
Assuming the HD560 comes later/higher in the more recent range?

Not a huge fan of the later mid-range models tbh and you can clearly see where costs have been trimmed and cheaper materials and components are used.
The older 5*5 series were far superior, and comfortable!
Here's a fun fact- did you know the driver capsules from the 5*5 range and the totl 6** range drivers were all interchangeable?
I've had a lot of fun swapping drivers around in different chassis. HD650 drivers in a closed-back HD265 chassis for sh!ts n giggles for example. The business end of the FR literally made my brain wobble!
o_O

View attachment 242980
View attachment 242981
HD560s, (don't forget the "s" on the end), it's quite a new headphone that was launched in Sept 2020.

You definitely seem to have put a lot of time and thought into your physical mods of your headphones. That's one way of trying to change the sound, but it's actually far easier to use EQ to change the sound, and there's less potential for worsening the headphone in other areas - eg distortion. If I recall correctly there was a bass mod for the K702 which involved something along the lines of removing tape from a taped over bass port, and it was shown that it increased distortion vs the same change but using EQ, it was our member @solderdude that showed it (maybe on his website too). The other benefit of using measurements as a basis for EQ is that you know where you're starting from, and then with EQ it's very precise so you know where you've ended up.
This makes it easier to work out a rough Target Curve that you find appealing which you can apply to all your headphones as a starting point - if it differs significantly from the Harman Curve otherwise you'd just start off with the Harman Curve and then use Oratory's customisation filters each time. The one hurdle to working out your favourite Target Curve and then EQ'ing your other headphones to it is that you kind of have to use a graphically based EQ program to model the effects of the various filters vs the Target Curve - using REW is the best port of call, and there's a fair learning curve to being able to use that effectively for this purpose.....it's certainly not entry level basic and it takes time to learn it.
No, but that stuff in the spoiler is really getting into the detail of how far you can go with using measurements & EQ, but instead it's far simpler to do what I suggested in the previous post, which is to use the Oratory EQ's and then if you prefer you can customise the sound using his customisation filters that I pictured in my first reply to you. General point is though that measurements & subsequent EQ gives you a lot more precision along with less unwanted side effects in comparison to physical mods.
 
Last edited:

solderdude

Grand Contributor
Joined
Jul 21, 2018
Messages
15,891
Likes
35,912
Location
The Neitherlands
Thanks. You're right. I should probably explore it a bit more and give it half a chance at least.
Also, did you mean Sennheiser HD650 or HD580? I don't think there ever was an 'HD560'. I have a few pairs of HD565's but no 560's.


There was the HD560 Ovation and Ovation II (see above)

I also have tested a HD520 (which is for sale) if you want to 'complete' a HD 5*0 collection. (am in NL too)
The HD560 Ovation-II was sold a while ago.
 
Last edited:

solderdude

Grand Contributor
Joined
Jul 21, 2018
Messages
15,891
Likes
35,912
Location
The Neitherlands
Harman curve is just a voting result of bunch of amateurs. Its most notable flaw i.e. Lo-Fi -feature is its serious listening hangover causing +5 dB emphasis on bass. Laymans have known affinity on bass...

Perhaps give that research a bit more credit.
That said yes, there is some 'averaged' preference voting in the target. One would have to understand that the research started to educate designers and increase sales of headphones when they were built to have a specific sound that most consumers prefer.
It is not entirely based on amateurs alone b.t.w. and as it suits the majority of people (about 60%) there will always be a percentage that does not like it.
Most people simply prefer some boosted bass and sloping treble. Works well with most pop recordings anyway.

Yes, the curve did change over the years as insight grows and more 'averaging' and 'testing' has been done.
 

Robbo99999

Master Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Jan 23, 2020
Messages
6,874
Likes
6,672
Location
UK

There was the HD560 Ovation and Ovation II (see above)

I also have tested a HD520 (which is for sale) if you want to 'complete' a HD 5*0 collection. (am in NL too)
The HD560 Ovation-II was sold a while ago.
(@ChrisCables , which is obviously not the same headphone as the HD560s that we've been talking about.)
 
Top Bottom