Several of the headphone response curves show a scoop from around 1k to 3k relative to the Harman curve. In particular, the Neumann NDH-20 shows this. I'm interested in this headphone, so I asked Neumann about it. Their response is below...
The NDH 20 are tuned as a neutral mixing/ monitoring headphone. The scoop in the 1-3K range is to compensate for midband resonance found in closed back headphones. The human ear has different psychoacoustic responses depending on how audio is delivered and the environment it is delivered in.
A loudspeaker, an open backed headphone, a closed back headphone and an in ear headphone will (with the same hypothetical tuning) sound vastly different playing the same audio track from the same source. The NDH is designed to offer maximum passive acoustic isolation while delivering an uncolored audio playback.
The NDH 20 are tuned as a neutral mixing/ monitoring headphone. The scoop in the 1-3K range is to compensate for midband resonance found in closed back headphones. The human ear has different psychoacoustic responses depending on how audio is delivered and the environment it is delivered in.
A loudspeaker, an open backed headphone, a closed back headphone and an in ear headphone will (with the same hypothetical tuning) sound vastly different playing the same audio track from the same source. The NDH is designed to offer maximum passive acoustic isolation while delivering an uncolored audio playback.
