EQ newbie: how much sub-bass is too much for HD650s?

[Junta]

Hi folks, my apologies I am in a wrong forum or something. I recently joined after purchasing a Topping D50iii/A50iii/P50 stack.

I use my HD650s for mixing (all hobby stuff) and listening lossless Apple Music/lossy Spotify.

I was giving the back catalogue of 'Def Leppard' a try on Apple's 3-month free lossless streaming, and I landed on the following settings:

Metal and rock are my priorities; I could go for one of Apple's presets for other jenres.

Am I already into not-so-desirable harmonic distortion with 32Hz and 64Hz here? MY EARS TELL ME: "...no, you are OK..."

But I wanted to check in with the authorities ! What seems to be the verdict as to how much EQing the HD650 can take in the bass region before farting out?

Cheers!

 

[WOLFAGRAM]

Hi there and welcome.

For a general idea you can check it out here: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/sennheiser-hd650-review-headphone.18774/

However, we all hear frequencies a bit different (even pros). Of course, the other stuff in audio chain that you use can also affect sound a lot. Try to find reviews for that other stuff that you use and think about how to compensate.

So, start with the suggestion from the "Sennheiser HD650 Listening Tests and Equalization" section of the review, than play around till you find what it sounds natural for you.

Also, try to compare your sound it to some other monitoring gear if you have access to it. Ideally, you could also ask a sound professional, or at least a more experienced hobby producer/musician to try your setting, but that might not be available to you.

Cheers and good luck!

 

[Dazerdoreal]

To answer your question first - yes, it seems you can add a bit more, as long as you are not listening to unhealthy listening volumes. The review @WOLFAGRAM posted shows below 2% at 94 dbspl (not good but still hard to recognize) but 5% at 104 dbspl (pretty bad). If you comparatively push the subbass 5db, it means that you will perceive the distortion on 5db lower levels accordingly.

EQ expert Oratory1990 created the following preset for 10-band graphic EQ (the kind of EQ you use right now). He chose 7,9db at 31,5khz.

Dropbox

www.dropbox.com

His EQ presets follow a certain scientific standard of something a lot of people perceive as good-sounding and neutral, the Harman 2018 target (this is the curve you will see in the pdf). I think if he worried about distortion he would not have tried to hit the target.

That does not mean that everyone will like his EQ. Also, unit variation exists, especially on the 650 which exists for about 20 years already. Also, the perception of subbass depends on if you wear glasses, have long hairs etc.

If you want to play around with all this by yourself, you can check out this tool. The 10-band graphic EQ is limited to a Q (correction width) of 1.41.

Crinacle's Headphone Graph Tool | Hangout.Audio

Compare industry-standard GRAS 43AG-7 headphone graphs, measured by Crinacle.

graph.hangout.audio

If we refer to EQ on this forum, we usually mean parametric EQ. This allows for more precise corrections, as you can chose by yourself which exact frequency should be changed and to which degree (Q-value). In order to apply it, you need a specific software for this depending on your operating system.:

Dropbox

www.dropbox.com

 

[Dazerdoreal]

So, start with the suggestion from the "Sennheiser HD650 Listening Tests and Equalization" section of the review, than play around till you find what it sounds natural for you.

I would usually agree but Amirs EQ recommandation is for parametric EQ while @Junta uses graphic EQ, so these numbers won't help him here.

 

[WOLFAGRAM]

I would usually agree but Amirs EQ recommandation is for parametric EQ while @Junta uses graphic EQ, so these numbers won't help him here.

Thanks to @Dazerdoreal

I forgot to mention: please try to find a way to apply parametric EQ to your headphones.

 

[Junta]

Thanks so much everyone, super helpful! Cheers!

 

[Emlin]

Hi folks, my apologies I am in a wrong forum or something. I recently joined after purchasing a Topping D50iii/A50iii/P50 stack.

I use my HD650s for mixing (all hobby stuff) and listening lossless Apple Music/lossy Spotify.

I was giving the back catalogue of 'Def Leppard' a try on Apple's 3-month free lossless streaming, and I landed on the following settings:

View attachment 395303


Metal and rock are my priorities; I could go for one of Apple's presets for other jenres.

Am I already into not-so-desirable harmonic distortion with 32Hz and 64Hz here? MY EARS TELL ME: "...no, you are OK..."

But I wanted to check in with the authorities ! What seems to be the verdict as to how much EQing the HD650 can take in the bass region before farting out?

Cheers!

If you can't hear any distortion then it doesn't matter whether it's there or not.

You can't, so all is fine!

 

[anaveragebear]

When it stops sounding good and starts sounding bad.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

Hi folks, my apologies I am in a wrong forum or something. I recently joined after purchasing a Topping D50iii/A50iii/P50 stack.

I use my HD650s for mixing (all hobby stuff) and listening lossless Apple Music/lossy Spotify.

I was giving the back catalogue of 'Def Leppard' a try on Apple's 3-month free lossless streaming, and I landed on the following settings:

View attachment 395303


Metal and rock are my priorities; I could go for one of Apple's presets for other jenres.

Am I already into not-so-desirable harmonic distortion with 32Hz and 64Hz here? MY EARS TELL ME: "...no, you are OK..."

But I wanted to check in with the authorities ! What seems to be the verdict as to how much EQing the HD650 can take in the bass region before farting out?

Cheers!

It depends on whether playback chain pegs levels right up to 0dBFS before DSP as recordings themselves do. If so (and it's a reasonable assumption usually), you need to keep all DSP below the 0dB mark. This can be done conveniently by pulling the Preamp slider down as far as the highest numbered slider is up.

Once you take care of that, any distortion (or lack thereof) will be dictated simply by the max SPL the earphones can put out at a given frequency (and the associated distortion at that SPL). These are usually too high SPL and too low distortion to worry about at sane listening levels for quality headphones and particularly IEMs.

Most other recs here (the ones recommending a particular boost level, anyway) so far were about the optimal boost for a natural / neutral presentation through your model, not really anything to do with the amount of distortion and how to reduce it.

 

[Junta]

Thanks to @Dazerdoreal

I forgot to mention: please try to find a way to apply parametric EQ to your headphones.

Thanks WOLFAGRAM - is there a Parametric EQ app for IOS that you would recommend? I have a few plugins I use with Ableton 12 on my Mac - I will see if there is a Mac OS music player that can take advantage of those.

 

[WOLFAGRAM]

Thanks WOLFAGRAM - is there a Parametric EQ app for IOS that you would recommend? I have a few plugins I use with Ableton 12 on my Mac - I will see if there is a Mac OS music player that can take advantage of those.

I use Neutron player on my iPod Touch 7 and it works good for me. EQs especially are great in the app and you get some other advanced functions.

But you have to pay once 10€ or 10$ depending where you live.