Yeah, for sure, Harman Headphone Curve is for sure not a one size fits all, but it's a good place to start & to recommend unless that person knows categorically that a Harman Headphone Curve doesn't suit them.....but there's not too many folks that really know that it doesn't because you'd have to EQ whatever headphone you got accurately to the curve to start with, although the number of people that would have tried that is probably relatively large here in this ASR community right here.....but if you're recommending to newbies (new posters) here then most of the time I suppose you could assume they haven't done that before and haven't tested the Harman Headphone Curve on themselves yet, so Harman Heaphones would be a good starting recommendation in that case.
I strongly disagree.
If someone says, "What headphone should I buy?" and the goal is just to reply, "Buy the AKG K371." Then sure.
The better place to start is to find out what the listener likes/doesn't like about the quality and quantity of treble, mids, bass, and soundstage of the headphones they currently have. And of course their budget.
The Focal Utopia actually scores very highly on the Harman preference rating (a score of 86); for reference, the AKG K371 which is touted for its closeness to the curve scores an 89. The HEDD scores a 66, which is in the realm of "good" if we were to go by Harman categorized scores in its whitepaper.
Poor: 0 - 39
Fair: 42 - 54
Good: 65 - 76
Excellent: 90-100
Source: https://github.com/jaakkopasanen/AutoEq/blob/master/results/RANKING.md
I understand that the preference rating can, for some people, predict headphone preference. But what does that mean in terms of aesthetic experience if comparing a headphone with "excellent" vs. "very good."
In other words, the Harman Target Response research doesn't tell us how much differing from the response curve affects enjoyment. Particularly if we account for how people can, apparently, psychoacoustically adjust somewhat to the sound of a headphone.
If I give someone who is in the 2 out of 3 group Headphone A which scores a 92, and Headphone B which scores an 80, do we know that the listener will experience significant difference in sound experience in terms of pleasure if one uses B exclusively vs. A exclusively for a few days? Particularly if Headphone B has other desirable attributes, like a better soundstage and better resolution?
Quite interesting, isn't it? Through the publishing of their research and marketing of this concept, Harman has created a market for their headphones which have a high user preference rating, a rating that they created, even though we don't really know how that translates into the aesthetic experience of listening to music with headphones.