It's one attempt at replicating Harman targets on Bruel & Kjaer 5128 rig. Not sure if it's useful in the end because the 5128 diffuse field with tilt exists.
Your app is amazing Jaakko! I love to use it to eq my headphones but I would like to see 2 more target curve to choose. SoundGuys Studio and Commercial headphones targets. Btw. Which targets are appropriate for professional headphones callibration? Which would you use to make headphones useful for mixing and music production? Thanks!
hello i wanna ask that does "Diffuse Field 5128 (-1 dB /oct)" means to give yot the b and k 5128 curve? thanks
The default targets are the best guesses for neutral. That's the best for mixing too. I've decided not to add reviewer targets as they have little evidence for why they would be good and AutoEq has extensive options for the user to tweak the sound to their individual liking.
It's a diffuse field response of the BK 5128 rig with a 1 dB per octave downward (dark/warm) tilt. There's no similar published research for 5128 as there is for GRAS rigs (Harman target) and this one is the best guess at the moment for the most neutral target for 5128.
Based on your expertise, do you think that this would work as an alternative for headphones not yet measured using the 5128?
Thank you for reply. Which targets are "default targets" for pro application then and from which ones to choose? Thank you.
Just my $.02. Sonarworks SoundID is as close to a studio standard for headphone correction that exists. The Sonarworks curve is similar to Harman, but with a bass shelf that starts approximately 1-1.5 octaves lower. So if you don’t use Sonarworks but want to try an approximation of their curve, I would EQ to Harman and shift the bass shelf down as shown. In this image, Harman is blue, Sonarworks is gray.
Wow! Great! Thanks. I always wonder which target Sonarworks use. Interesting. This Harman is 2018 On-Ear? And 60 db will be a "center" 0db on the +/- graph I guess? Btw. i noticed that most of those targets have quite shy treble and not so open sound as I expect. And some have unnatural boosted bass too. It sounds nice to average listening but for studio application? I guess not so much. But maybe I demand too much from just small drivers like those in headphones...
Interesting! I compared the Sonarworks target vs the 5128 Diffuse Field target with -0.8dB Tilt and the treble differs a lot. A lot of criticism I've seen about the Sonarworks target is that the accuracy of their treble correction is unreliable, simply because they don't make anything public about their measurements, other than "the default correction is an average based on several measurements of the same headphone model". 5128 measurements on the other hand have very solid explanations on to why they're reliable and even the best ones at the moment. Trusting the Sonarworks target is kind of a taking a shot in the dark. I'd much rather trust the Harman target, which has very well documented research explaining it, or even the tilted Diffuse Field target if you have a headphone that happens to be measured on a 5128 rig. Just my 2 cents
That’s the Harman 2018 Over-Ear. Which headphones are you using?
Sonarworks has always been protective of their intellectual property, which I believe has made them less popular among headphone hobbyists. Their target was arguably more well-researched than Harman though, and among pros in recording studios, Sonarworks is clearly the standard for headphone correction.
www.sonarworks.com
Thanks. Do you have .csv files of those targets? I just want to achieve the most "neutral" target for music production for headphones. I know that there's no such thing but I wanna get as close as it is possible with available measurements.
I have different headphones. From "budget" AKG K240MKII to Beyerdynamic 770 and Sennheiser HD650. That's why I want to find that "neutral production/mixing/critical listening target" and eq my headphones to it to achieve that "mix translation" you said and not trap in "tweaking eq to my taste" thing. Thanks!
Sure! Here you can find 5128 measurements: B&K 5128 graph database Then you can use https://apps.automeris.io/wpd/ to convert the frequency response graph to a CSV file, then all you'll have to do is upload the Frequency Response CSV to autoeq.app, select the Diffuse Field 5128 (-1 dB /oct) and be happy
You can learn how to convert a graph to CSV here: Equalizing Headphones the Easy WayIME the best results were from using Harman 2019 as a base. Followed that with a by-ear manual EQ, listening to a familiar songs and adjusting until the balance is the same as on speakers. A set of dual shelfs and a single peak filter is plenty, and probably no more than 2 dB max adjustments is needed, assuming you dont have some fitting issue.
I tried to eq my headphones to flat too. It sounds good BUT lack of "excitement" in 3k+ region is hearable. And sometimes some headphones sounds not so good eq'd flat in subbass and high treble regions. That's why most targets roll-off quite hard below 10-12k. I think that there's overall problem with measurements of freq response of headphones (most of them are accurate from about 100hz to 8-10khz but below and above that it's always more compromise in measurements than real thing) and most important - everybody's ears and hearing are different which are not included in any target response. But that's for "everyday listening" and your listening pleasure I would say. For professionals like music producers, engineers and mixers THERE SHOULD BE "ideal" target that headphones or even monitors give you as neutral flat response as they can which is independent from your hearing, preferences and so on.
Ears are very good at acommodating to different sound signatures... Some days ago I did a test to evaluate the treble quality of headphones using a -15 dB EQ to all frequencies under 2 kHz. After a couple of minutes I switched back to normal and it sounded terrible to my ears. I guess it is much more important that there are no big spikes or dips rather than the overall sound signature, since our ears can adapt very well. Flat sounds bad to me at first but after some minutes it sounds great.
I don't use edge so I'm not sure where you can see it out of the box, but you can use the Ublock origin addon in any browser (which I assuse most should be using anyway...) -> open logger -> click on the target(s) or load the headphones you want in graphtool UI and the direct URL to the text files should show up listed in the logger
