ASR Headphone Testing and BK 5128 Hats Measurement System

[bobbooo]

What is a known bad headphone that is cheap?

The cheap JBL's are pretty bad. The JBL Quantum 100 is probably the cheapest that's been measured so far, available direct here for $39.95: https://www.jbl.com/headphones/QUANTUM100.html

Here are Rtings' measurements of it:

 

[amirm]

I was typing that from the phone. Now that I am on the computer, I am trying to see if there is a headphone we want to test where measurements clearly point to problems. That way, we can confirm that we are also measuring the same (or better). Is there a poster child for that which doesn't cost a lot?

 

[bobbooo]

I was typing that from the phone. Now that I am on the computer, I am trying to see if there is a headphone we want to test where measurements clearly point to problems. That way, we can confirm that we are also measuring the same (or better). Is there a poster child for that which doesn't cost a lot?

I would say the above frequency response of the JBL Quantum 100 clearly points to problems. It ranks 7th from bottom of what looks like over 100 in terms of frequency response for over-ear headphones measured by Rtings, with none of the 6 below it any cheaper.

 

[amirm]

I would say the above frequency response of the JBL Quantum 100 clearly points to problems. It ranks 7th from bottom of what looks like over 100 in terms of frequency response for over-ear headphones measured by Rtings, with none of the 6 below it any cheaper.

Thanks. Alas it is not in stock on Amazon until August 27th which is too late. Any other options?

 

[bobbooo]

Thanks. Alas it is not in stock on Amazon until August 27th which is too late. Any other options?

Does it have to be Amazon? The Quantum 100 is available direct from the JBL site here: https://www.jbl.com/gaming/QUANTUM100.html

 

[Jimbob54]

I just bought a set of pads from Brainwiz for the Sony: https://www.amazon.com/Brainwavz-Perforated-Earpads-Sony-7506/dp/B07FSPF3YV/ref=sr_1_7?dchild=1&keywords=HE400i+a-pad&qid=1596745493&sr=8-7&th=1

First two reviews on Amazon say the sound changed a lot so we can test those claims!

I usually change for comfort reasons (big lugs) but they definitely change the sound. Might just be depth or angle but I suppose mini rooms inside the cup.

 

[amirm]

Does it have to be Amazon? The Quantum 100 is available direct from the JBL site here: https://www.jbl.com/gaming/QUANTUM100.html

Yes, to get it quickly and reliably.

 

[MZKM]

Yes, to get it quickly and reliably.

The site says order now to receive by next Wednesday. Just saying.

Also, do these measurement rigs have the Harman target curve or others included? If not, that means one has to create their own just to know what true flat measurements look like for that specific rig.

 

[amirm]

That is something we need to create. They do come with some calibration but I suspect they are free-field or diffused.

 

[Jimbob54]

gotta be something from Beats.

Not cheap though

 

[thewas]

Not cheap though

And not necessarily all bad (same as also for some BOSE headphones)

From https://www.rtings.com/headphones/reviews/beats/solo-pro-wireless

 

[Mad_Economist]

That is something we need to create. They do come with some calibration but I suspect they are free-field or diffused.

You might want to talk to Sean Olive - he's got a 5128, and I believe I recall Sam Vafaei telling me that he'd offered to provide compensation data to RTings when they considered a 5128. As a side note, if you haven't talked to Sam about the 5128 yet, it might be wise to - he's raised some reasonable concerns regarding its behavior with sealing in-ear designs.

For a widely-measured and poorly-performing headphone design, an earbud or other non-sealing in-ear design (Earpods, etc) would be a reasonable option that shouldn't be hard to source. Earbuds are essentially inevitably horrifically nonlinear devices, due to being a small driver in a big, harsh world, without the safety of the sealed canal volume to keep them comfortable.

Great to see you looking into headphone testing, by the way! I recall talking to you about it quite a while back, but I lost track of where we were in the anarchy that was my last year.

Edit:

If I get the unit you are considering purchase of, and used it to make a great headphone from measuring on that rig, much of the greatness is gone if my pinna is different and/or my ear canal has different peaks due to different shapes.

Please bear in mind here, subjective timbre/frequency response of headphones is equal to eardrum response minus the appropriate listener HRTF - in a world where headphone eardrum response was absolutely constant against user HRTF variation, this would indeed introduce substantial variation in subjective timbre; but do we live in that world?

 

[MZKM]

That is something we need to create. They do come with some calibration but I suspect they are free-field or diffused.

I recall RTINGS saying they EQ’d a speaker to measure as flat as possible on-axis and used that to figure out what flat is for their HATS. I wonder how they dealt with bass accuracy though.

 

[Mad_Economist]

I recall RTINGS saying they EQ’d a speaker to measure as flat as possible on-axis and used that to figure out what flat is for their HATS. I wonder how they dealt with bass accuracy though.

Such an approach cannot work, because there is no such thing as "what flat is for a HATS" as such - rather, a head will have a different head related transfer function for different sound incidence. A flat-equalized speaker could be used to measure the free field HRTF of a head at various incidence angles (with suitable windowing, of course), but these are not suitable in and of themselves as target response for headphones.

 

[Blumlein 88]

snip
Please bear in mind here, subjective timbre/frequency response of headphones is equal to eardrum response minus the appropriate listener HRTF - in a world where headphone eardrum response was absolutely constant against user HRTF variation, this would indeed introduce substantial variation in subjective timbre; but do we live in that world?

If a consistent test rig results in headphones converging on a single target curve as being good you would begin to approach that world where HRTF causes substantial variations in subjective timbre for individual listeners.

 

[JohnYang1997]

Unless there's a new ground breaking standard that solves the issues. The only way to get satisfying result is through human ears. 3-5 very good ears is better than hundreds. Use human ears as equipment is the way out. Or developing a new standard. The whole hi-res thing is just bs to begin with. Wasted too much energy of the two most well known companies in the field.

 

[Mad_Economist]

If a consistent test rig results in headphones converging on a single target curve as being good you would begin to approach that world where HRTF causes substantial variations in subjective timbre for individual listeners.

Implicit here would seem to be the premise that the response of a headphone on a user's head is independent of the user's HRTF - I'm not sure where you're getting this premise; it's not all IEMs out there.

Unless there's a new ground breaking standard that solves the issues. The only way to get satisfying result is through human ears. 3-5 very good ears is better than hundreds. Use human ears as equipment is the way out. Or developing a new standard. The whole hi-res thing is just bs to begin with. Wasted too much energy of the two most well known companies in the field.

There is reasonable agreement between results from subjective listening tests and HATS measurements of headphones and earphones - indeed, demonstrating this to various different standards has been much of what Olive, Welti, and McMullin have spent the last 9 years on.

I would agree that "hi res" HATS and ear sims are a bit overhyped, given the relative significance of the >8khz band and the degree of error which we've improved on, but calling them BS seems harsh - the damped GRAS sims legitimately can improve measurement SNR, and the 5128's sims may well define a new IEC standard.

 

[AdamW]

One more vote for "not worth the money", for same reasons as many others: measurements will just be too imprecise and not sufficiently representative of how they actually sound on any given real person's head.

Objective measurement is clearly a great approach for DACs and amps. The stuff this site does with speaker measurements is clever and definitely useful. But I don't think anyone's going to get enough actual value and usefulness out of the resulting headphone measurements to justify spending $41k on a fake head. Barring cheap Standard Ear Surgery or some kind of revolutionary method for accurately adjusting or producing measurements for one's own actual ears, I don't think we can get much more value out of headphone measurements than we already have from existing sites. This site's money and time is better spent measuring things that can be more accurately and usefully measured.

 

[JohnYang1997]

Implicit here would seem to be the premise that the response of a headphone on a user's head is independent of the user's HRTF - I'm not sure where you're getting this premise; it's not all IEMs out there.




There is reasonable agreement between results from subjective listening tests and HATS measurements of headphones and earphones - indeed, demonstrating this to various different standards has been much of what Olive, Welti, and McMullin have spent the last 9 years on.

I would agree that "hi res" HATS and ear sims are a bit overhyped, given the relative significance of the >8khz band and the degree of error which we've improved on, but calling them BS seems harsh - the damped GRAS sims legitimately can improve measurement SNR, and the 5128's sims may well define a new IEC standard.

I didn't specifically mean Hires in HATS. I meant the whole Hires thing. GRAS and BK are half victims. They are responsible for it in some way also though.

 

[JohnYang1997]

Also a new HAT that comply with human acoustic impedance at any condition is much much better goal than extend frequency range. Did BK publish the data for the newly measured ear canal impedance? I think not. A document ages ago from BK showed impedance of human ears. It needs to have a large peak at 13.5khz. Imo any reduction of it to 'fix' some other issue is simply wrong. The issue with older coupler is that shallow inserting position is the least accurate.