There are also much more affordable, Harman tuned headphones like the $300 Audeze Maxwell (not to mention a bunch of super cheap IEMs).
A super quick Google & I couldn't find any GRAS measurements of Audeze Maxwell (I found the Resolve B&K though), but for sure there's some super cheap IEM's that nail Harman or with a tiny bit of EQ (Truthear Blue I found very impressive). He may find that various headphones sound slightly different even when he's measured them & EQ'd them to the same target, I'd expect them to be still slightly different. But yeah, my initial point was that I think we're already at the best sound you can get for a fixed target curve, I don't think there's much more to explore when it comes to fixed target curve.
Got them almost a week ago and still somehow the treble is missing most of the time
Yes, I noticed that the sound gets distorted when the fit is wrong, now I align them on my head when listening.
No, any EQ's are off, I tried turning them on and if you tweak the treble it sounds nicer
And now the situation is the opposite. Although I remember when I first got them, I didn't like their sound either. But after a while, I got used to it.
E3 has the more correct response, just give it time for your brain to reset.I can safely say this: almost every headphone I think “I don’t know where to go from here” when we’re done, but then ideas happen and…
Well that's good, I like your approach, but I remain a bit sceptical, but I'll always be curious re what you come up with & the various headphones measured here on ASR.
How close would it be to the E3 if the Noire is EQ'd, you think? Reason I ask is I'm thinking of buying a Fiio R9 that has a 10-band PEQ feature to match with my Noire first, before considering an upgrade to E3.
Especially if they're all based on the same earcup/pad design "chassis" (think the difference between HD600 & HD650 for example, there is no real physical design difference), but then you have things like unit to unit variation creating perceived differences, and also anything above 8000Hz which is not really measurable in a reliable fine-grained sense - you can measure the general energy up there but you can't use measurements to EQ it out to smooth treble above 8000Hz for instance, so that treble smoothness would be a defined characteristic of that headphone that can't be EQ'd out by the measurements. I think unit to unit variation is the biggest stumbling block for most headphones when using EQ, so that's why it good to buy a low unit to unit variation headphone, but some designs of headphone have large on head measured variation between different people (if you the measure the same unit on different people's real heads using in ear mics), so that's where earcup design comes into play because headphones like HD800 & K702 have been measured in some past studies as having low on head variation from person to person, so that's also a variable that will dictate how an EQ will sound, you'd want low on head variation between different people - and on this last point apparently the E3 has been designed to have lower on head variation than the Stealth for instance.
This is the cable I bought on Aliexpress for my Aeon 2 Noire. The seller is EachDIY and manufactures flexible cables, well finished and without rubbing noise
I’ve just received my pair of e3 headphones today and have been shooting them out against the Austrian Audio The Composer.
Looking like I’m going to plump for the e3 but I’m finding my newly purchased amp doesn’t power them too well
The Composer headphones are 22 ohms and are fine with the Grace m900 but I have to turn the Grace up to around 80 (out of 100) to get any decent volume with the e3. That’s in high power mode I think but there doesn’t seem to be much difference vs low power mode. If the e3 are 27 ohms, shouldn’t they be easier to drive than the 22 ohms AA The Composer?
Thanks!
According to Amirm measurements, the E3 actual sensitivity is 84,1 dB/mW
