AKG K702 with Sonarworks - way too much bass

[bvdd]

Hi all,

I just got the K702's and they sound great out of the box - only light on bass as many reviews say.

When I select their profile in Sonarworks Ref 4, there is so much low end, I question whether the profile is wrong.

The Ref 4 correction looks like it's flattening the curve correctly - at least on the graph.

And Ref 4 does a good job with my ATH-M20X cans - with no obvious extra bass.

I'm willing to be wrong but this much bass with the 702's really seems unnatural.

Anyone else using Sonarworks with K702's and hearing the same thing?

Thanks.

 

[staticV3]

Hi @bvdd! Welcome aboard.

The AKG K702 has very high unit-to-unit variation, so it's most likely that your K702 unit just has more bass than the one used to create Sonarworks' preset.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1578484808120176640

It's just not a good headphone if you're looking to depend on 3rd party measurements for EQ purposes.

 

[bvdd]

Thanks, static,

Just so I understand, you're saying that the true curve of my 702's may be different than that of the specific cans that Sonarworks used to calibrate with.
And if the true bass drop-off my cans is not as low as the calibration file, then Ref 4 will add more bass than is needed.

So if I'm going to depend on these 702's with Ref 4, I need to adjust (EQ) for that.

Is that right?

Thanks for your time.

(Here's a pic of the Ref 4 curve)

 

[staticV3]

Is that right?

Yes.

 

[bvdd]

Got it - thanks

 

[ReDFoX]

If I remember correctly, you can set up maximum amount of overall boost

 

[bvdd]

Yes, I will be doing some tests using that.

Hoping to find a way to know how close I am to flat. Not sure if there's plugin that would do that.

Thanks.

 

[TheZebraKilledDarwin]

Thanks, static,

Just so I understand, you're saying that the true curve of my 702's may be different than that of the specific cans that Sonarworks used to calibrate with.
And if the true bass drop-off my cans is not as low as the calibration file, then Ref 4 will add more bass than is needed.

So if I'm going to depend on these 702's with Ref 4, I need to adjust (EQ) for that.

Is that right?

Thanks for your time.

(Here's a pic of the Ref 4 curve)
View attachment 350823

The reason is, that this version of Sonarworks Reference wrongly just boosts dips and sadly the headphone profiles do not allow to forbid boosts for the correction (this option seems to be only available for self-measured speakers).
Boosting the bass where speakers drop off naturally is wrong anyway.

And Ref 4 does a good job with my ATH-M20X cans - with no obvious extra bass.

That's because the M20X cans probably are mudslingers and therefore the correction reduces the bass and lower mids, while hte K702 are clean and bright sounding and therefore the "correction" adds mud.

Voicemeeter Banana has 6 parametric bands and additionally a fixed three band EQ and runs systemwide under Win.

But why do you want to correct the 702 anyway?
IMO the brightness, especially in conjunction with the clean low mids and the good midrange, the 2.5k rise reminds me a lot about the NS-10s - and therefore uncovering nasty details.
The neutral bass (but still going down to 20) is very helpful not masking the midrange. Why do you even want to change that?
Does the headphone reveal not enough details?

 

[ewkmn]

when I use the Sonarworks I get more bass too, but the target I like most is KEMAR DF (KB50xx) 10dB Tilt Target using squig.link AUTOEQ. this eq makes the k702 sound much better than the Sonarworks and 100x better than the harman target.