Sean Olive provided a free download here https://aes2.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=22696 TL;DR SoundGuys and Harman 2019 equivalent targets were more prefered than three other targets. It's noteworth that these two most prefered target are the most different from each other, of than unmodified DF.
-
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!
A comparison of in-ear headphone target curves for the Brüel & Kjær Head & Torso Simulator Type 5128
- Thread starter markanini
- Start date
Not exactly new information that different listeners do have some variation in preference, but interesting to see it once again:
It's also interesting to note how strongly correlated age is to whether a listener falls in class 1 or class 2:
Beyond the preference stuff, I found figure 3 enormously interesting. It's clear the type 4.3 simulator does provide measurements that are more accurate to the acoustic impedance of the human ear (expected, but good to see).
Finally, I have to agree with markanini that it's interesting how the two targets that are arguably most different from each other score highest, and not from different groups either! The same group of listeners are rating these two targets roughly equally high. To me that would suggest at least 1 of 3 things:
1. Average listener preference is not very sensitive to variations in frequency response within reasonable limits as long as the bass and treble levels remain similar from one target to the next in relative levels (e.g the noted 8dB bass-treble delta that is mentioned in the paper).
2. None of these targets are ideal, and there exists a better "general" target that would be more highly preferred by the average listener.
3. IEMs bypass so many of our natural hearing functions (the majority of the HRTF) that each individual would most prefer a tailored target curve just for them, and as such the average score for a given target that is within reasonable bounds will tend to be similar for a sufficiently large set of listeners, i.e. listener 1 ranks curve 1 and 2 as 80/100 and 90/100 points respectively, while listener 2 ranks them as 90/100 and 80/100 respectively.
Which of these (if any) are true remains to be seen.
It's also interesting to note how strongly correlated age is to whether a listener falls in class 1 or class 2:
Beyond the preference stuff, I found figure 3 enormously interesting. It's clear the type 4.3 simulator does provide measurements that are more accurate to the acoustic impedance of the human ear (expected, but good to see).
Finally, I have to agree with markanini that it's interesting how the two targets that are arguably most different from each other score highest, and not from different groups either! The same group of listeners are rating these two targets roughly equally high. To me that would suggest at least 1 of 3 things:
1. Average listener preference is not very sensitive to variations in frequency response within reasonable limits as long as the bass and treble levels remain similar from one target to the next in relative levels (e.g the noted 8dB bass-treble delta that is mentioned in the paper).
2. None of these targets are ideal, and there exists a better "general" target that would be more highly preferred by the average listener.
3. IEMs bypass so many of our natural hearing functions (the majority of the HRTF) that each individual would most prefer a tailored target curve just for them, and as such the average score for a given target that is within reasonable bounds will tend to be similar for a sufficiently large set of listeners, i.e. listener 1 ranks curve 1 and 2 as 80/100 and 90/100 points respectively, while listener 2 ranks them as 90/100 and 80/100 respectively.
Which of these (if any) are true remains to be seen.
- Thread Starter
- #4
I think a reasonable speculation is that scrutiny to target deviations needs to be tempered by the range of valid IEM tuning preferences shown in the paper.
