EQ headphones, why?

[Yamamotokaderate]

Here's an (almost) complete list of Amir's headphone test tracks on Spotify...

ASR Headphone Test Tracks

ASR Headphone Test Tracks · Playlist · 120 songs · 111 likes

open.spotify.com

I believe Amir's original list was was assembled on Tidal; i've matched artist and track name on Spotify, but the source of the recording may be different from that on Tidal (especially if the Tidal version was Hi-Res and/or MQA).

Perfect, I was looking for that in the reference library ! I dont think I've seen it there, am I wrong ? If not, wouldn't it deserve to be ? Do you know if anyone exported it to Qobuz ? Otherwise I'll do it.

 

[musica]

how to use it?

 

[GaryH]

I'd recommend finding your headphones on the below list and starting from the Harman target preset (which the science says the majority prefer), then adjusting to taste if you feel the need using the carefully designed EQ bands described in the bottom-right of the pdfs:

index/list_of_presets - oratory1990

r/oratory1990: Mostly covering topics like headphones, in-ear headphones, acoustics, electroacoustics, acoustic tuning, headphone design …

www.reddit.com

 

[kemmler3D]

OP ignore the above post except the last two paragraphs.

What's wrong with listening to tones to confirm EQ changes?

 

[GaryH]

What's wrong with listening to tones to confirm EQ changes?

See here, and my following posts in that thread.

 

[kemmler3D]

See here, and my following posts in that thread.

There are some good points there, although "tones aren't music" isn't a complete argument, the point about the perceptual difference between broadband and single tones is better and makes sense. I think the equal loudness contour point is neither here nor there... unless you're EQing at levels that vary a great deal from your normal listening volume, what's the problem?

That said, when I have spent time listening to headphones instead of just measuring them, I have gone back and forth between tones and music a lot. Tones are IMO invaluable for zeroing in on high-frequency peaks / dips that are just very unreliable to measure with microphones in the first place. I have voiced a few and auditioned a buttload of headphones for work, and have relied a lot on tones when I wasn't sure about the measurements, or needed to dial in my EQ choices a bit more.

Of course you always check with music, but I still find tones useful. To me tones are simply the fastest way to hear big problems with a response, or mechanical issues.

E: read some more of that thread and one of Oratory's objections is that people don't listen to enough tones to be familiar with them. I would perhaps hold myself as an exception that proves the rule then, because I've spent decent time listening to tones, probably 50-100 hours of sine-on-ear action. But it's probably fair to warn newbies away from tones if that's a real issue.

 

[holbob]

Do you think it's right or wrong to use the equalizer with headphones?

Only if the odds are against you.

 

[Berwhale]

Perfect, I was looking for that in the reference library ! I dont think I've seen it there, am I wrong ? If not, wouldn't it deserve to be ? Do you know if anyone exported it to Qobuz ? Otherwise I'll do it.

It's been replicated on Tidal and Deezer, but not Qubuz as far as i'm aware...

Amirs' test tracks (Spotify playlist + how AI "hears" them)

I wanted to share some interesting info about the data hidden behind songs that streaming services use for their analytics and AI purpose (later on that topic). To be more beneficial for ASR readers (or as a side effect) I decided to make a playlist of songs Amir mentioned in his reviews...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[Googolbyte]

No headphone is made perfect for you, so EQ is an absolute must IMO. Hell I'd go as far as saying that there would be strong interest in allowing public consumption of master mixes just so you can EQ the individual channels of sources to your preferences.

 

[Peterinvan]

I prefer no EQ, rather that it's tuned right out of the box. Just because one less variable to deal with. Also less amp headroom required. On top of that I can evaluate the headphone directly, I don't need to imagine what something sounds like with EQ.

I would maybe have a different opinion if there was a lack of headphones with my preferred tuning available.

I concur.

However, one use case for EQ is for those of us with damaged or fading hearing abilities. I wonder how an inverse EQ to my last audiogram test would sound?

 

[Blake]

However, one use case for EQ is for those of us with damaged or fading hearing abilities. I wonder how an inverse EQ to my last audiogram test would sound?

My experience with this was not good. I have a big dip in my hearing around 3-4 KHz ("moderate" loss), and using inverse EQ vs. my audiogram sounds far too harsh/elevated in that range. I'm not 100% sure why, but the equal loudness contour might be a factor since hearing tests are done to determine audibility thresholds rather than perceived loudness at normal listening levels. Put another way, if a tone becomes audible to me at a level 50-60 dB louder than it would've for someone with normal hearing, that doesn't necessarily mean that the same tone played at a loud volume level sounds 50-60 dB quieter to me (and I certainly don't perceive it that way).

Of course, everyone's hearing (and hearing loss) is different, so by all means experiment to see what works for you. In my case I EQ to Harman with no consideration for my hearing loss at all. In fact, if I vary from that, I typically use a high shelf from about 2 KHz and up, and I lower it by 3-4 dB! But that's me and what I find comfortable/enjoyable.

Related: While I like some IEMs, I gravitate to regular headphones partly because they allow me to wear my hearing aids if I want.

 

[Yamamotokaderate]

It's been replicated on Tidal and Deezer, but not Qubuz as far as i'm aware...

Amirs' test tracks (Spotify playlist + how AI "hears" them)

I wanted to share some interesting info about the data hidden behind songs that streaming services use for their analytics and AI purpose (later on that topic). To be more beneficial for ASR readers (or as a side effect) I decided to make a playlist of songs Amir mentioned in his reviews...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Done ! posted in the thread you linked, I'll put it there again : https://open.qobuz.com/playlist/12872336

 

[markanini]

My experience with this was not good. I have a big dip in my hearing around 3-4 KHz ("moderate" loss), and using inverse EQ vs. my audiogram sounds far too harsh/elevated in that range. I'm not 100% sure why, but the equal loudness contour might be a factor since hearing tests are done to determine audibility thresholds rather than perceived loudness at normal listening levels. Put another way, if a tone becomes audible to me at a level 50-60 dB louder than it would've for someone with normal hearing, that doesn't necessarily mean that the same tone played at a loud volume level sounds 50-60 dB quieter to me (and I certainly don't perceive it that way).

Of course, everyone's hearing (and hearing loss) is different, so by all means experiment to see what works for you. In my case I EQ to Harman with no consideration for my hearing loss at all. In fact, if I vary from that, I typically use a high shelf from about 2 KHz and up, and I lower it by 3-4 dB! But that's me and what I find comfortable/enjoyable.

Related: While I like some IEMs, I gravitate to regular headphones partly because they allow me to wear my hearing aids if I want.

Might be the same evolutionary forces in effect that makes a Harman type curve work for som many despite varying individual HRTF.

 

[GaryH]

I think the equal loudness contour point is neither here nor there... unless you're EQing at levels that vary a great deal from your normal listening volume, what's the problem?

Here's the problem. The equal loudness contours are a smoothed average. You have no idea what the fine-grain detail of your specific equal loudness contour looks like, and so no way to differentiate dips in it from peaks in a headphone's frequency response when listening to sine sweeps.

E: read some more of that thread and one of Oratory's objections is that people don't listen to enough tones to be familiar with them. I would perhaps hold myself as an exception that proves the rule then, because I've spent decent time listening to tones, probably 50-100 hours of sine-on-ear action.

So has Oratory, but he still doesn't know exactly what they should actually sound like to his particular ears (and it's certainly not equal loudness across the sweep, it would be different for each person):

The reason why sine sweeps don't work is because throughout your whole life you probably never heard more than a few dozen, maybe a hundred sine sweeps. Even I myself probably haven't heard more than a few hundred, maybe a thousand. This isn't enough to be able to say "I know precisely how this should sound".
For perceptual evaluation you need to use sounds that you are intimately familiar with.
Something like the sound of a human voice, of music, something that you have heard throughout your whole life countless of times.
Human voice is often used not because it is spectrally unique or anything, it's simply used because we hear human voices virtually every day of our lives. Our brains are trained to recognize voices. We can detect minuscule spectral changes in a voice.
We know (by years/decades of "training") how a voice should sound. Musicians know how their instrument should sound.
Do you know how a sine-sweep should sound? I don't. And I've done quite some time in the measurement lab.

 

[kemmler3D]

Here's the problem. The equal loudness contours are a smoothed average. You have no idea what the fine-grain detail of your specific equal loudness contour looks like, and so no way to differentiate dips in it from peaks in a headphone's frequency response when listening to sine sweeps.

So has Oratory, but he still doesn't know exactly what they should actually sound like to his particular ears (and it's certainly not equal loudness across the sweep, it would be different for each person):

So, I see what you're saying, but are individual contours really known to vary like that?

Anyway, I think I am using tones in a way that is probably not as objectionable as you think. I don't really know or claim to know what "a sweep" should sound like. I have a loose idea of what a sweep sounds like on a decent set of cans vs. a terrible set, but I don't know if I could easily differentiate very good vs. excellent ones that way.

In practice the workflow might be like this, if I am not using measurements:

Listen to some music to get a general impression
Run a sweep to find obvious problems
EQ a bit to remove obvious problems
Listen to some music again, take notes on potential problem areas (generally the same 15 or so reference tracks over and over)
Manually sweep tones in those areas (typically comparing less than 1 octave at a time) to further investigate problems
EQ a bit more in those areas
Listen to more music
Repeat as needed

I definitely don't sit there listening to 20-20 REW sweeps and computing FIR curves in my head. What I would do is not far off from what Oratory said was potentially acceptable, listening to tones in small ranges to iron out undesirable peaks and valleys. I think what I do is even a bit similar to what Amir does when he reviews a headphone, I just like using tones more than music or pink noise for some reason.


But philosophically speaking I still don't 100% grasp why a user shouldn't EQ subjectively flat using tones, supposing they can successfully compare 40 to 80 to 200 to 400 to 3000 hz and beyond (which I agree is pretty hard if not impossible). Wouldn't that just result in something like a personalized harman curve, which is also just a smoothed population-based average like fletcher-munson?

 

[GaryH]

So, I see what you're saying, but are individual contours really known to vary like that?

Yes.

Anyway, I think I am using tones in a way that is probably not as objectionable as you think. I don't really know or claim to know what "a sweep" should sound like. I have a loose idea of what a sweep sounds like on a decent set of cans vs. a terrible set, but I don't know if I could easily differentiate very good vs. excellent ones that way.

In practice the workflow might be like this, if I am not using measurements:

Listen to some music to get a general impression
Run a sweep to find obvious problems
EQ a bit to remove obvious problems
Listen to some music again, take notes on potential problem areas (generally the same 15 or so reference tracks over and over)
Manually sweep tones in those areas (typically comparing less than 1 octave at a time) to further investigate problems
EQ a bit more in those areas
Listen to more music
Repeat as needed

I definitely don't sit there listening to 20-20 REW sweeps and computing FIR curves in my head. What I would do is not far off from what Oratory said was potentially acceptable, listening to tones in small ranges to iron out undesirable peaks and valleys. I think what I do is even a bit similar to what Amir does when he reviews a headphone, I just like using tones more than music or pink noise for some reason.

It's still a flawed methodology that will lead to false positives (e.g. for identification of peaks in the headphone's response). If you really want to localize peaks Oratory describes a better method here:

using a broadband noise (pink noise or IEC noise) and a filter - set the filter to positive gain (+6 dB or so) and a rather narrow band (Q=4-6). Then enter different frequencies for the filter, and try to find out which one sounds worst, meaning at which frequency the shrieking sound produced by the filter sounds the worst - then apply negative gain at that frequency. It's of course not very precise, but better than listening to sine sweeps and getting false results.

But philosophically speaking I still don't 100% grasp why a user shouldn't EQ subjectively flat using tones, supposing they can successfully compare 40 to 80 to 200 to 400 to 3000 hz and beyond (which I agree is pretty hard if not impossible).

Because as I said you cannot differentiate between your ear's sensitivity at different frequencies i.e. its 'frequency response' (which is not flat) and that of the headphone. If your ears have a natural dip in their equal loudness contour (peak in sensitivity) at say 8 kHz (but the headphone response is flat there), run a sine sweep, hear a peak there, then EQ that down, the equalized frequency response will now have a dip at 8 kHz relative to the sound you hear in your everyday life. Your brain is accustomed to that 8 kHz peak so you do not want to remove it.

 

[kemmler3D]

using a broadband noise (pink noise or IEC noise) and a filter - set the filter to positive gain (+6 dB or so) and a rather narrow band (Q=4-6). Then enter different frequencies for the filter, and try to find out which one sounds worst, meaning at which frequency the shrieking sound produced by the filter sounds the worst - then apply negative gain at that frequency. It's of course not very precise, but better than listening to sine sweeps and getting false results.

I mean, I get it, but I don't get it. Why is sweeping a narrow filter back and forth better than sweeping a sine back and forth? Seems like a way to use tones without having to admit you're using tones. What is the benefit of having a bit of PN in the background while you do this?

Your brain is accustomed to that 8 kHz peak

And so... it shouldn't sound like a peak to you, I think?

I'm no audiologist, maybe I've got that totally wrong.

Anyway, this is pure anecdote, but I put together an EQ curve this way to voice a set of headphones. Then for a sanity check, I had a former mixing engineer, current math PHD come in and take a whack at the voicing curve. He used alt rock music for its famous broadband harmonic content, no tones. We came up with very nearly the same curve. We both did the same basic corrections with a few differences being matters of taste.

It could be that I am lucky without unexpected large deviations in my loudness contour, who knows.

Again, you do have to compare to broadband content and music, I'm not saying to treat your ears like a measurement jig and then go home. But I just find tones less unpleasant and faster than PN. Maybe I am a weirdo.

 

[GaryH]

I mean, I get it, but I don't get it. Why is sweeping a narrow filter back and forth better than sweeping a sine back and forth? Seems like a way to use tones without having to admit you're using tones. What is the benefit of having a bit of PN in the background while you do this?

Because there is scientific backing for smooth-spectrum wide-bandwidth signals resulting in more discriminating and reliable sound judgements in the form of Harman's blind listening tests (which minimize cognitive biases):

certain programs produced more discriminating and reliable ratings than other programs, the key factor being the bandwidth of the program’s spectral content, and the subject’s familiarity with it

The wider the spectral bandwidth of the sound, and the greater the listener's familiarity with it, the more discriminating and reliable their judgements of sound quality are. An (ideal) sine tone has a bandwidth of zero, and people's familiarity with what it should actually sound like is very low / nonexistent, which makes it one of the worst possible tests to accurately and reliably judge sound quality. Pink noise on the other hand was found to be the best test signal in Harman's blind tests.

And so... it shouldn't sound like a peak to you, I think?

When listening to wide-bandwidth and natural sounds you're used to, no, but when listening to zero-bandwidth sounds like sine tones that have no similar natural analogue we are familiar with, it will. Which is precisely why the latter is an inappropriate test signal.

He used alt rock music for its famous broadband harmonic content

This is highly variable, not all have smooth wide spectra.

 

[markanini]

Forget sweeping pure tones to tell you what to EQ, it doesn't work quite like your intuition would have you think. Stick to music.

 

[Doodski]

Forget sweeping pure tones to tell you what to EQ, it doesn't work quite like your intuition would have you think. Stick to music.

Exactly... tones are for tests and pink noise is for mic'ing and setting levels but it doesn't work very well from what I've experienced with a home audio Technics EQ with pink noise and calibrated microphone.