I just bought these, and have found that I need to EQ them much more aggressively than Amir's filters. Sorry if I am repeating anything that's already known (I haven't yet caught up on the entire thread), but I find the treble to be so harsh that I can't tolerate more than a few minutes of listening even with Amir's filters. I'm historically very painfully sensitive to spiky treble for some reason.
To date, the Sennheiser HD650 are the only headphones I've found I can tolerate without significant EQ work. That said, these HD800S's do sound amazing once EQ'ed the way I have so far, but time will tell if I fatigue of them more or less than the HD650s even with EQ. I must say though I'm a bit disappointed that a headphone of such expensive price point needs so desperately needs EQ work to sound natural and avoid listening fatigue, vs e.g. $200 Massdrop Sennheiser HD6XX's which don't have any such problems (though both HD6XX/HD650 and HD800S benefit greatly from a generous bass boost, at least the HD6XX/HD650 don't have painful treble prior to EQ).
I've not actually precisely EQ'ed headphones before, so this is a first experiment for me. After I really tune in the HD800S's, I'll try the same with my old HD650s (to at least boost the bass similarly) and see how they compare, which will be interesting.
Below I've pasted my filters, if anyone wants to try them out. At this point they sound quite speaker-like, but still sound maybe a bit more harsh than e.g. my Genelec 8351B speakers. I've already applied a fair bit of treble roll-off, but I'll keep experimenting until I find something that sounds as natural as possible (to my ears). It's also possible that my ears are particularly unusual when it comes to treble; almost all headphones sound painfully bright to me except e.g. Sennheiser HD650 (and Massdrop HD6XX, which sounds the same), and all but the very best speakers whose tweeters have
extremely smooth treble will quickly fatigue and hurt my ears as well.
And I'm using this software on my PC to apply them:
https://sourceforge.net/p/equalizerapo/
Code:
Preamp: -6 dB
Filter Settings file
Room EQ V5.19
Dated: May 12, 2021 2:03:04 PM
Notes:
Equaliser: Generic
No measurement
Filter 1: ON LS Fc 40.0 Hz Gain 8.0 dB
Filter 2: ON LS Fc 75.0 Hz Gain 3.0 dB
Filter 3: ON HS Fc 500 Hz Gain -1.0 dB
Filter 4: ON HS Fc 1000 Hz Gain -1.0 dB
Filter 5: ON HS Fc 2000 Hz Gain -1.0 dB
Filter 6: ON HS Fc 4000 Hz Gain -1.0 dB
Filter 7: ON HS Fc 8000 Hz Gain -1.0 dB
Filter 8: ON HS Fc 16000 Hz Gain -1.0 dB
Filter 9: ON PK Fc 1500 Hz Gain 3.0 dB Q 1.000
Filter 10: ON PK Fc 2705 Hz Gain 2.0 dB Q 1.000
Filter 11: ON PK Fc 5400 Hz Gain -6.0 dB Q 8.000
Filter 12: ON PK Fc 7000 Hz Gain -3.0 dB Q 6.000
Filter 13: ON PK Fc 14000 Hz Gain -6.0 dB Q 3.000
Filter 14: OFF None
Filter 15: OFF None
Filter 16: OFF None
Filter 17: OFF None
Filter 18: OFF None
Filter 19: OFF None
Filter 20: OFF None