Yep, that's perfect! You don't need to move my bands around, it doesn't matter which order they're listed in the EQ. How's it sound?
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New version of Sennheiser HD 560S (!)
- Thread starter jensgk
- Start date
StellarPhenoma
Member
Compared to stock settings it sounds more full in the low end - the top end is overall less spicy/shouty as well. Essentially, it sounds like the already absurdly good tuning and playback of the 560S was simply given a nice finish over an already well-polished design. Everything comes through crispy clear and extremely detailed.
Compared to whatever the heck AutoEQ slapped into my EQ, this is night and day better across the board. Glad I did not stick with that for longer than last night.
Thanks so much!
Edit: Tested the Oratory settings alone as compared to your adjustments for the new version of the 560S and your adjustments definitely clear up the veiling that happens with the old EQ on the new cans. Opens the sound up a lot. Audibly clearer, but I should note that the new cans with the Oratory preset alone are still fantastic sounding - even more of a relaxed signature. I actually think I might allow for the darker tone of it when listening to Lo-Fi music and whatnot.
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Cool, I'm glad it worked out for you, it does sound like your experience aligns with the New Version measuring differently to the Old Version, given that you enjoy my conversion EQ when combined with Oratory's.
StellarPhenoma
Member
So I do not have professional measuring equipment at home, sadly, so I cannot add a third dataset to this discussion. However, I can give you the experience I had on my end as an end-user:
When I was upgrading to the 560S from my MSR7b and MDR-1AM2's, I wanted something more tonally balanced, as whatever I got was going to be my first pair of open back headphones. Literally everyone in the audiophile community touted the 560S as a masterclass in bang-for-buck tonality and technical detail, but they also universally called them a bit spicy in the upper ranges. I went in expecting an MSR7 1st Gen experience in terms of sibilance, and my instant reaction upon actually using them was, "What is everyone talking about? These aren't sharp at all!". Turns out, I had purchased the newer version of the headphones and hadn't a clue that they were different from what was reviewed... And for the better.
It's not like the changes were overly drastic and changed the sound to a point of making them suddenly a dark headphone, or veiled or anything, just less over-sharp from what I can gather.
The changes Sennheiser made to the new version of the 560S actually make them more adherent to the Harman curve from what I can tell, as the spiciness is reduced and low bass increased to Harman-neutral levels. Combining your conversion with Oratory's OG measurements smooths out the treble spikes and fills out the low end for a much more "complete" presentation.
Take this all with a grain of salt as, granted, I am an idiot and an amateur here, so I might be out of my mind.
I mean, it makes sense, so it's good to have your subjective experience. Just one point though, I'm not sure that New Version HD560s is more Harman compliant than the Old Version HD560s, as seen in the measurements in an earlier post of mine:
New version of Sennheiser HD 560S (!)
solderdude, could you please suggest some EQ settings for the new version that should emulate your passive filter (if you already made one)? I bought my 560s in March 2023, and the Harman 2018 EQ profiles that were created for the first generation/version do more harm than good, including the...
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StellarPhenoma
Member
Yea, the bass response improvements are definitely what I am seeing/hearing on my end and why I was thinking more compliant. I missed the treble readings in your new measurements there that appear to make the top-end fall below the Harman line much more than I thought it was. These are still uniquely bright compared to other Sennheiser headphones, so I have been deceived by my own ears!I mean, it makes sense, so it's good to have your subjective experience. Just one point though, I'm not sure that New Version HD560s is more Harman compliant than the Old Version HD560s, as seen in the measurements in an earlier post of mine:
But the New Version is a less bright version and is likely better tonally balanced overall than the Old Version. It's true also that the New Version has a bit more bass and is slightly better extended in the bass, which has been proven to be a positive attribute in the Harman Research, so from that point of view it's certainly more Harman compliant.New version of Sennheiser HD 560S (!)
solderdude, could you please suggest some EQ settings for the new version that should emulate your passive filter (if you already made one)? I bought my 560s in March 2023, and the Harman 2018 EQ profiles that were created for the first generation/version do more harm than good, including the...
One note that I am thinking about, however, is that based on the discussion here: https://audiosciencereview.com/foru...e-is-more-compliant-to-harman-research.50522/, the new versions are more compliant in terms of the paper's interpretation of tuning preferences regarding the curve - as in the graph that seems less compliant by eye is actually the more compliant per the paper due to negative higher range frequency perception by the listener.
Again, amateur here, so I am learning a lot right now, so forgive me if I am wrong.
Another_Moon
Member
I finally received my HD 560S yesterday, so I'm now in the owners' club too. My ears have already gotten used to the Koss R80 with HeSuVi, which is not entirely correct, and the HD 560S now sound unusual, so I immediately started going through the equalizers, Robbo, it seems to me that Oratory + your “new to old” EQ sounds too bright, and Oratory's pdf has a change date of August 2023 and it seems to me that perhaps he has already taken into account the features of the new parties there, but I haven't seen what the old pdf looked like, so I'm not sure. It’s probably better with the regular Oratory, but somehow I still don’t quite like it, the 20-40 Hz raised by the equalizer is clearly too much, an extra load on the driver, it’s scary to do loudly (at the mid/high level). It also seems to me that there is a lack of “brilliance”, “air” - frequencies above 10 kHz. Also, HRTF is probably not very good, and also because of the lost “air”. I tried it with Realphones, and with some presets the sound is clearly better for me, but it’s still not clear which one specifically, plus there is an advanced mode, I need to try to build something there, select target, HRTF. Maybe someone will also try Realphones, there is a trial period of 40 days + now there is a 45% discount (not an advertisement, haha, I haven’t bought it yet).
Well, not everyone likes an Oratory EQ without changing it a bit. When speaking about the HD560s and the Old Version of the HD560s, then I normally run a tad more bass than most Oratory EQ's, with the Old Version HD560s I run either +1dB more bass and reduce the shouty region a tad or instead as alternative to all of that I just apply a linear tone control EQ to his EQ of about -1dB to -1.5dB total slope change from 20Hz-20kHz. So Oratory EQ's aren't correct for everyone, and it's a normal part of the Harman Research understanding that people should tweak the bass levels in particular to get their best preference.
Oratory's measurements & EQ's haven't changed much for the HD560s, following is Oratory's 4th release of his measurement & EQ dated 6th Jan 2022, so this one has no possible contamination from the New Version HD560s:
And following is Oratory's latest measurement & EQ, dated 27th August 2023:
His latest measurement shows less of a 4.5kHz hump which is a little bit synonymous with the New Version of the HD560s (and I can't confirm whether or not Oratory has measured the New Version at all yet because he didn't answer that specific question when I asked him a couple of times in a conversation re everything New Version HD560s), but the bass hasn't changed all that much in his EQ.
You could try using Oratory's EQ dated 6th January 2022 and then apply my New to Old Version EQ to that one, because Oratory does take down the 4.5kHz peak more in that version. They're not massive changes though between his pdf's.
Note: when I talk about my own EQ's (in first paragraph of this post) it's in relation to the Oratory version from 6th January 2022 (so the first EQ pic in this post).
EDIT#2: I don't run his -1dB High Shelf Filter, I deactivate that one (so Band 10 I don't use).
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Another_Moon
Member
Yes, I already tried the option with 9 and 10 bands disabled, it’s probably better. But I didn’t try to change the gain of the bands. And the difference in the Oratory 2022/2023 equalizer is of course insignificant.
Yeah, you're just gonna have to play with the EQ to find your best preference. I had some success tuning it by ear using the customisation filters (changing the dB value) that Oratory provides at the bottom of his pdf, circled in red in the following pic.
I think it makes sense to dial in the bass first (Band 2), then think about if Band 4 / 5 / & 10 need changing. Ah yes, I did also use Band 9 to help dial it in too, because that's quite a wide filter (low Q), so that's useful for tweaking "S" and "T" sounds in speech for example.
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StellarPhenoma
Member
One thing I will say regarding the 560S revision version and EQ is that EQing is not strictly necessary. I've actually gone back to using them non-EQed, as I began to notice a little less detail (Resolution? Whatever the term is for simply how clear and crisp everything is coming out of the driver...) after EQing them both with Oratory's preset, and with Robbo's additional corrections for the new version of the headphones. I believe the drivers of the 560S are already kind of topped out in terms of how they are made and the kind of sound they are producing. I only noticed issues with the driver response after a few days of actually listening to them enough to understand what I was hearing - sorry for being misleading in my initial assessment... I am unsure if I, an idiot, would recommend EQing the new 560S at all at this point.
Regardless, the new versions are eminently listenable on their own.
The treble spike is the only problem I have with them, and I have been toying with trying to smooth that out this weekend using what Oratory and Robbo have each developed for adjustment curves. I feel as if there is a happy medium to be achieved here, or at least a reserved adjustment to the treble bands necessary to smooth out the spicy treble without losing all of the sparkly detail. Boosting the bass response causes some driver distortion and loss of resolution/detailing because I think they are being pushed past their comfort-point.
If Oratory's August release is of the new 560S version, then the sound of his EQ is extremely relaxed to my ears, which I guess means I like bright headphones because Robbo's adjustments, to my ears, sounded better, and they boost that treble range back to the OG curves. Learning weird things about myself every day here, haha.
If I am able to find anything, at least to my own tastes, I will post about it here.
Regardless, the new versions are eminently listenable on their own.
The treble spike is the only problem I have with them, and I have been toying with trying to smooth that out this weekend using what Oratory and Robbo have each developed for adjustment curves. I feel as if there is a happy medium to be achieved here, or at least a reserved adjustment to the treble bands necessary to smooth out the spicy treble without losing all of the sparkly detail. Boosting the bass response causes some driver distortion and loss of resolution/detailing because I think they are being pushed past their comfort-point.
If Oratory's August release is of the new 560S version, then the sound of his EQ is extremely relaxed to my ears, which I guess means I like bright headphones because Robbo's adjustments, to my ears, sounded better, and they boost that treble range back to the OG curves. Learning weird things about myself every day here, haha.
If I am able to find anything, at least to my own tastes, I will post about it here.
Another_Moon
Member
Damn, I’m changing the gain equalizer, in front of a pdf from Oratory, I see that the numbers are slightly off, I look and there’s already today’s date. 
But again, nothing fundamentally seems to have changed. UPD: Although no, it has changed, just in the ~5.5K region.
But again, nothing fundamentally seems to have changed. UPD: Although no, it has changed, just in the ~5.5K region.Attachments
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Yep, for some reason Oratory had made an announcement on 3rd January that a load of his pdf's have been updated (including the HD560s), but when I checked yesterday when we were having our discussions it was still the 23rd August version, but it looks like he might have initially forgotten to update the HD560s pdf, but yes the updated version is there today when I checked. Yeah, cursory inspection indicates it hasn't changed a whole lot, but it does seem to be moving a little in the direction of influence of the New Version, I would hazard a guess that he's measured a few New Version units and has updated his pdf. Latest version of his EQ is here:Damn, I’m changing the gain equalizer, in front of a pdf from Oratory, I see that the numbers are slightly off, I look and there’s already today’s date.
The New Version is indeed more listenable at stock than the Old Version, which is why I bought a New Version to add to my Old Version units. I'd be surprised if your bass EQ is creating a lot of distortion because they don't measure high distortion in the bass, and for me they are the best open backed headphones I've tried for bass after EQ (apart from the HE4XX which is a planar headphone so inherently has that advantage). I do really like listening to it without EQ, but I do like it better with EQ - just see what you best preference is, and you can always change the bass levels in the EQ if you want.
You say "If Oratory's August release is of the new 560s version....", but it's not of the New Version, as it's either a mix of a number of units of the Old Version combined with one or more units of New Version, or maybe he hasn't even measured any New Version yet - so it's certainly not an EQ tailored for the New Version as best case it's "contaminated" with multiple units of Old Version.
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StellarPhenoma
Member
So I was saying that before we knew he updated the PDFs today, hahaha. But yea, I was getting some distortion in the bass that was muddying the waters - wasn't all too noticeable at first, but it kinda started irking me over the couple of days I tried it. I think it might simply just be manufacturing tolerances coming into play there, as is the case with pretty much all products these days. For whatever reason, I do and can say without a doubt I do get that distortion though in the bass range, if ever so slight, as it simply feels like a light fog over the details of sound I was hearing beforehand.Yep, for some reason Oratory had made an announcement on 3rd January that a load of his pdf's have been updated (including the HD560s), but when I checked yesterday when we were having our discussions it was still the 23rd August version, but it looks like he might have initially forgotten to update the HD560s pdf, but yes the updated version is there today when I checked. Yeah, cursory inspection indicates it hasn't changed a whole lot, but it does seem to be moving a little in the direction of influence of the New Version, I would hazard a guess that he's measured a few New Version units and has updated his pdf. Latest version of his EQ is here:
The New Version is indeed more listenable at stock than the Old Version, which is why I bought a New Version to add to my Old Version units. I'd be surprised if your bass EQ is creating a lot of distortion because they don't measure high distortion in the bass, and for me they are the best open backed headphones I've tried for bass after EQ (apart from the HE4XX which is a planar headphone so inherently has that advantage). I do really like listening to it without EQ, but I do like it better with EQ - just see what you best preference is, and you can always change the bass levels in the EQ if you want.
You say "If Oratory's August release is of the new 560s version....", but it's not of the New Version, as it's either a mix of a number of units of the Old Version combined with one or more units of New Version, or maybe he hasn't even measured any New Version yet - so it's certainly not an EQ tailored for the New Version as best case it's "contaminated" with multiple units of Old Version.
Question on that though, are you still thinking the new PDF's released today are "contaminated" with old versions?
But yea, I think I like the brighter sound without the EQ the 560S provide, which is certainly not something I expected of myself coming from the MSR7b's and wanting to tear my ears off at times when things got sibilant. These cans are brilliant no matter what though, even with the EQ issues I was having it is better than the vast majority of headphones I have listened to. Just an absolute steal of an entry-level audiophile experience.
Another_Moon
Member
I’m even just watching a video, and it’s as if a person is speaking through his nose, and on Solderdude’s website it is written that a rise of about 1 kHz can be felt as “nasal, tinny, forward”, in principle this is what I feel, so turning off the Band filter 5 (1,750 Hz +2.2 dB) does better, decreasing Band 4 (1,350 Hz) seems to also improve the situation, but it’s still unclear, the filter at exactly 1,000 Hz is also unclear. Oh, I thought it would be easier to get a sound from them that I would like.
Oratory's pdf's are based on all the units he's measured of the headphone - it's an average. Therefore, most or all of his measurements of the HD560s are based on the Old Version.
As an idea, if you like try the EQ I use for the New Version:
But I also add the following 3 filters to the above, which is a Linear Tone Control, so you would add the following 3 filters and change the gain equally amoungst each of the following filters to change the tonality until it's right for you:
- High Shelf at 63Hz, -0.42dB, Q0.5
- High Shelf at 632Hz, -0.42dB, Q0.5
- High Shelf at 6324Hz, -0.42dB, Q0.5
EDIT: Negative Preamp needs to be at least -4.1dB for this EQ. I actually use a -9dB Negative Preamp on this just to allow for intersample overs and also just so the volume pot position of my headphone amp is in a more middle position (for channel balance reasons associated with the headphone amp).
EDIT#2: just want to highlight some additional information, those 3 High Shelf Filters in the bullet points are Q0.5, which is important to highlight as a lot of the time people use only Q0.71 for shelf filters, but those 3 are purposefully Q0.5
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StellarPhenoma
Member
Not currently at my PC to try this right now - what kind of sound signature do you personally run on the 560S? Also, by linear tone control, what do you exactly mean? Is this simply a way of forcing the EQ to be brighter or darker across the board, or is it range specific?
That EQ that I run (graph in my previous post), it's a bit complicated to explain, but I'll explain the process of how I created the EQ. I have 3 units of Old Version and a miniDSP EARS headphone measuring rig. I measured all 3 units of Old Version on my miniDSP EARS - each unit measured almost identical, I then took an average of those 3 frequency responses. I then used REW to create a conversion curve from miniDSP EARS to GRAS (Amirs/Oratory's measuring rig) by comparing my miniDSP EARS average measurement of those 3 units to Oratory's published measurement of HD560s, which was based all on Old Version of HD560s at that time - so basically my main assumption here was that the average of my 3 units was the same (or similar) to the average of units that Oratory measured on his GRAS, which is a bit of a jump but it's a low unit to unit variation headphone based on my measurements (I've also measured 2 units of New Version & they were low unit to unit variation too). Ok, so now I've created a conversion curve from miniDSP EARS to GRAS that is only applicable to a HD560s model, because conversion curves would be different for different models of headphone, but it is a valid thing to do to create a conversion curve for a specific model of headphone. So now I've got this conversion curve from miniDSP EARS to GRAS, I then measured 2 units of New Version HD560s. (One of those units I sent back for bad channel balance, and I kept the good one.). I then applied the miniDSP EARS to GRAS conversion curve that I'd created to the measurement of the New Version HD560s to turn it into a "GRAS style" measurement and then EQ'd that to the Harman Curve - which is the graph you see in my previous post and I'll include it again as a thumbnail here:
So essentially that's as if Oratory had measured my New Version HD560s, but based on the assumption that my 3 units of Old Version measured closely on average to spread of units of Old Version that Oratory measured. Because I saw very little unit to unit variation within the 3 Old Version units I measured, and also the same within the 2 units of New Version I measured, then I'm quite confident that it would be a good comparison & good conversion curve, but it is an assumption, so that's where the potential inaccuracies can be found, so as they say "pinch of salt"! I then apply those 3 High Shelf Filters that are in the bullet points in my previous post, which is a Linear Tilt EQ, which I'll talk about in following paragraph.
So, what do I mean by Linear Tilt EQ (or linear tone control)? Basically, if you imagine a seesaw that's balanced in the middle and it can tilt up or down or level depending on where the two people are at any given time, so a seesaw, imagine that. Well, a linear tilt EQ (linear tone control) is basically just applying an EQ function to the frequency response that is described as a straight line throughout the whole frequency response, and you can either decide to have it tilted upwards to create a brighter headphone (increasing treble & decreasing bass) or you can have it tilted downwards (decreasing treble & increasing bass). It's just a very broad and gentle way (in terms of not changing the defining fine-grained frequency response characteristics of the headphones) to tune the general tonality of the headphone. The idea being that you use specific fine-tuned parametric EQ to remove & fix the main anomalies of the headphone (eg see my graph in the thumbnail above), and then on top of that you apply the broad tone control (linear tilt EQ) to suit the tonality to your liking. That's one approach to do it, an approach I devised off my own back. You can also get similar results by using an Oratory EQ and tuning his user customisation filters, which is a more targeted approach.
So you asked me what tonality I run on my HD560s headphones. Well the answer to that is around +1dB more bass than an Oratory measurement (albeit this was based off his earlier measurements & EQ's but it's not changed a great deal), and I also run a slight decrease (1dB or less decrease IIRC) on the shouty region which is around 1300hz to 3000hz IIRC. His 7000Hz filter I increased by around 1dB or so. I also don't use his -1dB High Shelf that sits at 10000Hz, so I run it with a touch more treble above 10kHz. So that was all created based on me tuning his user customisation filters whilst listening to music. However, the other approach I use is to apply that linear tone control I was talking about, which I run at -1.25dB total slope over 20Hz-20000Hz, which is -0.42dB for each of the 3 High Shelf Filters of that Linear Tone Control EQ. Best most simplest answer is that I run it just a tad more V-shaped than Oratory's EQ.
Sorry for long post, some very difficult concepts to explain, I hope it's mostly understandable but I wouldn't feel bad if you don't know what I'm talking about, it's complicated!
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StellarPhenoma
Member
You made a lot of sense there actually and broke it down quite well - I was able to follow you throughout. So basically Oratory is balancing it to a Harmon target to the letter and you are simply adding a slight tilt to it to either add warmth or brightness to the overall sound without changing the overall definition of the sound.
I really like that approach, actually. Sounds like it'll work really well with the HD 560S since it is already so close to Harmon out of the gate - gonna try it in a little bit here and see if I like brightness or darkness in my overall mix.
Yes, you got the gist pretty right on of the purpose of the linear tone control there. My actual EQ that I showed you in the graph is fairly complicated in how it's derived, but you understood the function of the linear tone control. Yep, a linear tone control won't fix the frequency response errors within the headphone, that's done by the detailed parametric EQ that you see in the graph, but the linear tone control is just gently tilting all of that up or down over the whole frequency response to influence overall tonality, so I've found that as a good way of finetuning a detailed EQ that almost sounds right but just requires a gentle shift in tonality. It's really quite amazing how much difference that linear tone control works in influencing the end result, tiny dB changes to those 3 filters will have massive influences to the tonality, so you should probably only use 0.2dB (or less) increments on each of those 3 filters before listening again to see how the overall tonality is. Taking that example of the 0.2dB increments on each of the 3 High Shelf Filters, that translates 0.6dB of tilt over the whole frequency range, so you can see how that adds up & why you want to be using small increments. (For instance using 1dB increments for those 3 filters would be way too much, too coarse an adjustment as that would give you a 3dB overall tilt adjustment over the whole frequency range).
I wouldn't necessarily recommend you to use the linear tone control on your headphone without using a detailed parametric EQ first, because as we said - the linear tone control doesn't fix the detailed frequency response errors of the headphone, but you'd most likely use it in conjunction with a detailed parametric EQ.
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