Newman
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The dashed orange target line was not bad, ie was somewhat representative. If that is the one you are criticizing, you are being too harsh.
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The Etymotic Target (R.I.P. Harman)
- Thread starter Sharur
- Start date
I don't know why this is so hard.
A speaker that measures flat anechoically and has good directivity, gets people's vote in controlled testing in real rooms.
A headphone that measures as I show in the graph with that measurement gear, gets people's vote in controlled testing.
Both targets allow some variation in tonality to taste because the production side is not standardized.
For my job as a reviewer, I need to have guidelines that lead to people having satisfying purchases based on my testing and recommendation. It makes no sense to chase some other target that is not preferred by consumers. By the same token, it makes no sense for a company to make headphones/IEMs that don't garner broadest set of consumers.
Etymotic has no research to back their targets and their IEMs do not do as well in controlled testing due to lack of bass.
A speaker that measures flat anechoically and has good directivity, gets people's vote in controlled testing in real rooms.
A headphone that measures as I show in the graph with that measurement gear, gets people's vote in controlled testing.
Both targets allow some variation in tonality to taste because the production side is not standardized.
For my job as a reviewer, I need to have guidelines that lead to people having satisfying purchases based on my testing and recommendation. It makes no sense to chase some other target that is not preferred by consumers. By the same token, it makes no sense for a company to make headphones/IEMs that don't garner broadest set of consumers.
Etymotic has no research to back their targets and their IEMs do not do as well in controlled testing due to lack of bass.
That's not a proper analogy. A headphone produces unnatural level of bass due to lack of tactile feedback that real life produces (and so do speakers). Research, and my own testing across 60+ headphones, shows that if we boost that bass response, it provides a more desirable response that we as listeners consider more correct.
By the way, research shows that higher contrast displays tend to come across as more colorful. So even in imaging, it is not all that it seems.
What kind of question is that?
Is the orange line in Olive's photo just eqing the speaker to flat or eqing even more making a bass shelf? I think this is an important question here, making this clear will help further discussion on whether that oragne preferred in room response just flat speaker in room or have boosted bass.
There are multiple factors here and Sean is only hitting on one. Whatever music you listen to was not produced in anechoic chamber but in a real room. So certain amount of bass reinforcement is "assumed" in the content. Take that out (with negative gain in the bass) and the sound will sound thin.
Additionally, speakers become more directional as frequencies increase due to beaming. For this reason, measurements in-room of a speaker will have a natural slope down. Get rid of that and once again the sound will be thin.
How this slope looks is not a precise science. You do need to adjust it to taste but not going all out to flat. Or some other mistaken notion of what flat is in in a headphone.
Have anyone done research comparing speakers with flat anechoic response against speakers with such response that yields preferred in room response in the room with large groups of people? I did try a few years ago. But didn't find it.
When you participate in these listening tests, you vote for what you think is "right." You listen to multiple headphones or speakers, some will seem anemic, others having too much. Then one sounds right and you vote for that. This by definition is human's notion of what is accurate.
Remember, ultimately accuracy cannot be achieved in audio because you have no idea what frequency response was used in the room that the music is created in. In other words, there is no true reference of any kind. All we can go by is the internal compass we have of when something is too little, or too much. So don't keep thinking of this problem as you would in other domains where such references exist.
No matter what the source is the response at the eardrum should be exactly the same.
What target gives the same response at the eardrum as the response with preferred speakers?
Very realistic issue is that there are many people don't prefer elevated bass in Harman targets. It's a reality. Me and many of my friends included.
So either way there's no such thing as one target that pleases everyone.
But there's a response that's exactly what preferred speakers produce.
It's the exactly the same for speakers and headphones.
Only arguments then would be the HATS is not ideal, doesn't resembles human well enough, or doesn't represent each individual human. That's a different issue. But this issue is not in the bass. Bass is just preference.
The study I know used 8 trained listeners.
The Subjective and Objective Evaluation of
Room Correction Products
Sean E. Olive1, John Jackson2, Allan Devantier3, David Hunt4 and Sean M. Hess5
Harman International, Northridge, CA, 91329, USA
This doesn't do it. Sorry.
Doesn't do what? This study clearly shows why measurements in room will not be flat even though the speaker measures this way anechoically. This has been the core topic of discussion here. So what do you mean it doesn't do it? What were you looking for?
It isn't to me. When I see people make this complaint and I probe them, they really have no idea how their headphone is measuring or the EQ they are using. The mix measurements with fixtures other than what research used with EQ developed by who knows what. Follow the strict protocol of the research and then show me precisely what response you land on. If it is flat in bass, then you are an outlier and is not what we should chase.
Also, perception of bass relates to amount of high frequencies you have. If your headphone is deficient in highs, then the bass can stand out more. So you have to fix it all, not just play with the bass and say it is too much.
With the bass boost in sub-bass headphones can produce incredible response that almost no speaker system can generate. Leaving this on the table makes no sense to me.
With the bass boost in sub-bass headphones can produce incredible response that almost no speaker system can generate. Leaving this on the table makes no sense to me.
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