Harman preference curve for headphones - am I the only one that doesn't like this curve?

[DeepFried]

Why should headphones be excused from accurate reproduction? In an ideal world all headphones would sound the same as there can only be one 'correct' frequency response. ...

Yes I understand the argument there, and I think thats why the reference curve is useful. My point is that i like that some headphones are deliberately more bassy, or V shaped, or tonally neutral, or bright, whatever. Sometimes you don't want accurate reproduction, sometimes you want something that suits a purpose.

If we only ever wanted an 'accurate' sound then there wouldn't be EQ presets, some genre or purposes suit a different frequency response. You could argue that we make the headphones neutral and colour the source or apply EQ to taste, but there are obviously problems with colouring the source (not everyone is going to agree what a good colour is) and EQ often isn't very practical. So having a different FR baked into the hardware of the headphone is a practical and simple solution.

I don't buy that people who don't like Harman should have to resort to fiddly software EQ to get the sound they want. Variety and options benefit the consumer. I could also mention that we don't all have the same hearing, some of us may have a harder time hearing certain frequencies or may be more sensitive to some, being able to find a headphone that serves various needs is a good thing.

 

[Robbo99999]

I think a reference curve is very useful, you can look at deviations from it and get some idea what to expect a headphone to sound like. I don't like the use of it as a "target" however, as the implication is that deviation from the curve is a fault, and that all manufacturers should be trying to perfect Harman compliance or face bad reviews.

I can't think of anything more boring for this hobby than all headphones sounding the same.

Where I would like to see headphones measured and improved across the board is distortion, I don't think there is any argument that distortion can be a feature, where as a unique frequency response is exactly that in my mind.

That's a good point re should all headphones really target the Harman Curve, and you'd think it would be boring if they all sounded the same, but in my experience with all my different headphones in sig, they're all EQ'd to the Harman Curve, but they all sound different, some more so than others......so it probably wouldn't be as boring as you might think it would be if all manufacturers suddenly started targeting the Harman Curve. Of course the headphones would sound more similar than they do currently, when there's a bit more of a Wild West of frequency responses out there currently & historically, but they wouldn't sound the same.

 

[markanini]

Is it rational to think that the existence of the Harman target would cause headphones to sound the same? It's a free market after all, and target compliance is hardly a selling point to the vast majority of consumers.
There doesnt seem to be any parallel to this in speakers AFAIK, correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Robbo99999]

Is it rational to think that the existence of the Harman target would cause headphones to sound the same? It's a free market after all, and target compliance is hardly a selling point to the vast majority of consumers.
There doesn't seem to be any parallel to this in speakers AFAIK, correct me if I'm wrong.

I think "serious" speakers target anechoically flat and certainly amongst the knowledgeable audiophile community, but it's true that some speakers are designed around cost restraints that may prevent adhering to that aspiration, or might have "showroom" V-shaped frequency responses to lure in buyers superficially on the showroom floor in the shop - headphones could be similarly purposefully designed. The difference is with headphones that due to anatomical variation related to HRTF and how headphones are unnatural inasmuch as the speakers are strapped directly to your ears rather than at an ideal equilateral triangle listening position means that headphones are a lot more open to interpretation in terms of what makes a good target.....with speakers it's a lot less complicated & less controversial. Harman Target just attempts to find a target that works for most people whilst trying to roughly replicate anechoically flat speakers in a room.

 

[DeepFried]

Is it rational to think that the existence of the Harman target would cause headphones to sound the same? It's a free market after all, and target compliance is hardly a selling point to the vast majority of consumers.
There doesnt seem to be any parallel to this in speakers AFAIK, correct me if I'm wrong.

You could be entirely right there, I suppose its just a concern I have which may turn out to be unfounded.

Amir and ASR have done an amazing job of getting manufacturers to take seriously the performance of their DACs and Amps with a (entirely reasonable) target of transparency. I suppose I'm saying I don't want to see the same happen with headphones and the Harman "target", but its just an extrapolation of ASRs impact on manufacturers in one area that may not transfer to another.

 

[_thelaughingman]

You could be entirely right there, I suppose its just a concern I have which may turn out to be unfounded.

Amir and ASR have done an amazing job of getting manufacturers to take seriously the performance of their DACs and Amps with a (entirely reasonable) target of transparency. I suppose I'm saying I don't want to see the same happen with headphones and the Harman "target", but its just an extrapolation of ASRs impact on manufacturers in one area that may not transfer to another.

My instinct says that you're bang on for the money here on this assessment. Most headphone manufacturers IMHO don't really care too much about transparent or accurate sounding headphones since they're for personal use and don't necessarily conform to the same standards as speakers. I may be wrong but subjectivity trumps objectivity in headphone design, at least it seems to be the norm in what i see from the headphone manufacturers.

 

[Robbo99999]

My instinct says that you're bang on for the money here on this assessment. Most headphone manufacturers IMHO don't really care too much about transparent or accurate sounding headphones since they're for personal use and don't necessarily conform to the same standards as speakers. I may be wrong but subjectivity trumps objectivity in headphone design, at least it seems to be the norm in what i see from the headphone manufacturers.

I think ultimately that well-designed headphones that have consistent frequency responses close to Harman will end up being solid favourites over time. Take the HD600 for instance, manufactured way back in the 1990's I believe, yet they are still being made today with a respected following - happens to track Harman Curve really well. Yes, a lot of headphones are sold on marketing and visual aesthetics as well as maybe silly things like quoted frequency response (silly stuff like specs saying 10Hz-48000Hz).....also a lot of headphones sold on the brand name alone......but my point is those are all short-lived headphone sales and are unlikely to become iconic headphones as years go by - it's not coincidence that the HD600 was so successful and continues to be so. So subjectivity does not trump objectivity, not in the long game........short term sales sure, you can get any fool to buy something, but I don't think they're likely to become long term icon headphones with ongoing manufacture & sale.

 

[nerdoldnerdith]

The research suggests that something close to Harman is what the majority of listeners prefer. The Harman curve was what Sean Olive calculated, and it happened to correlate the most with listener preference among the curves that were tested.

The Harman curve is not perfect. Case in point, it has been revised many times. Perhaps there is some ideal curve that doesn't vary with the headphone in question, and the research would suggest that it is closer to the Harman curve than any other curve, but we don't know that the Harman curve is the ideal curve.

We also don't know that the ideal curve is the same for every headphone. The research only tested two pairs of headphones, one with a neutral response close to Harman, and one with a really wonky response. There isn't enough in there to conclude that every headphone design will sound best with the same curve.

A few experts in the headphone review industry have a preference curve that deviates a bit from Harman by lowering the treble bump to provide more energy around 1000Hz and less around 2000-3000Hz. You see this deviation in a lot of the headphones measured. I personally prefer it as well.

The research also doesn't conclusively show that headphones can be evaluated (correlated with listener preference) on the basis on frequency response alone. With IEM's, probably. With headphones, there is no good way to do a blind test that would allow one to draw such conclusions. To my ears, there is more to a pair of headphones than its frequency response, and others who have listened to a lot of headphones would probably back me up there. I have headphones that are textbook Harman, and there are qualities to the sound other than their tonality that are bested by other headphones. The research never measured anything else, and there is no such research of which I am aware that correlates anything other than frequency response with listener preference, making other measurements useful but not necessarily backed by science. I also know of no research that correlates the technical aspects of a headphone (not tonality) with measurements, making it difficult for reviewers to get to the bottom of what we mean when we talk about things like resolution, soundstage, imaging, etc. in headphones. We have guesses, but no science.

As someone who has been through this myself, I would tell you to trust your own ears over a stranger on the internet. If you like a pair of headphones that doesn't measure perfectly over one that has better measurements, then do as much comparing you can to see if you aren't being fooled. If you still like the one that doesn't measure as well, then you should just go with what you think sounds best.

 

[MayaTlab]

To my ears, there is more to a pair of headphones than its frequency response, and others who have listened to a lot of headphones would probably back me up there.

I'd like to think that I've listened to quite a bit of those, at various price points, and I won't follow you there . For one simple reason : frequency response at your (or mine !) eardrum remains an uncontrolled variable beyond threshold of audibility in all likelihood.

I have headphones that are textbook Harman, and there are qualities to the sound other than their tonality that are bested by other headphones.

It's most likely that you've never really heard what is a "textbook" Harman tuned headphones, because the frequency response on headphones at your own drum is very, very likely to vary at least a little bit (enough to be audible) from measurements on artificial ears - and the latters aren't always in agreement beyond threshold of audibility to begin with (the AirPods Max is a prime example of that past 800Hz).

This is nothing really new : https://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=16877

This has been one of the impetus behind my attempts at measuring my headphones on my own head with various devices and characterising how representative they are of the actual output at my drum : https://www.head-fi.org/threads/how...guarantee-a-better-sound.958201/post-16405751

Using the probe above, this is an illustration of the actual response of my samples of the HD560S (orange), HD650 (blue), Hi-X65 (purple) and K371 (green) on my own head (right ear). Above traces are with no EQ, bottom traces with Oratory1990's Harman EQ preset applied.

Please don't over-interpret these measurements, they have their limitations (cf. link above). Mainly focus on the relative differences between headphones and don't look at numbers in a dogmatically exact way. You can't say "at 8548Hz headphones A is 5.67dB louder than headphones B when normalised at 347Hz", but rather "at around 7500Hz, headphones A tends to be 3-3.5dB louder than headphones B". I'm I the process of eliminating a number of concerns I have about this methodology by comparing this probe's measurements with blocked ear canals measurements at the canal's entrance and while I'm not certain that I can find a single constant transfer function between the two methods for all headphones (particularly above 7kHz), at least below the "different differences" between the two methods seem to have identifiable causes (mainly related to the blocked ear canal) which is reassuring me about the results I'm getting so far.
Also note that the K371's results are less reliable than the other three as it's got quite a bit more seatings to seatings variation.

Results ? While Oratory1990's profiles helped in coalescing the curves together when looking at them with a lot of smoothing, there are still audible differences, whether in terms of large bandwidth "tilt" of the response or in terms of fairly high magnitude, narrow bandwidth peaks / dips, both above the typical tolerances I tend to allow for with this measurement process.

The question then becomes : which one is the most representative of the Harman target ? It's actually probably a moot point as an individual can't really know, since HPs will invariably vary at least a little bit on your own head. We can have a general idea of it, but not a particularly exact one I think.
More interesting IMO is to ask : which one is the most representative for you of Harman's research intent, ie reproducing "good loudspeakers in a good room" - which is something that will necessarily vary a little bit from what is measured on a HATS as your own anatomy differs from it to some degree.

Degree is in my opinion the key word here. It's not that high that it makes Harman's research predictive value invalid, or justifies rubbish FR responses such as this one : https://www.rtings.com/headphones/1-4/graph#1619/4011
But it's probably high enough that it's audible, and makes Harman's research predictive value fall apart once two headphones are measuring close to each others to begin with, or close to the target (ex : HD600 vs HD560S).
Ie to the question "what is the probability you will prefer headphones A over B ?", I think that the probability would in all likelihood be quite high if headphones A is Harman tuned to begin with vs., let's say, the monstrosity above, less so if headphones A is the HD600 and B the HD560S.

The research never measured anything else, and there is no such research of which I am aware that correlates anything other than frequency response with listener preference, making other measurements useful but not necessarily backed by science.

There is ! Particularly for THD I believe.

I also know of no research that correlates the technical aspects of a headphone (not tonality) with measurements, making it difficult for reviewers to get to the bottom of what we mean when we talk about things like resolution, soundstage, imaging, etc. in headphones. We have guesses, but no science.

"What we mean" is a question for terminologists, but I'm not sure that it's of that much value for acousticians .
In any way it's a bit of a moot point if FR can't be a controlled variable below threshold of audibility.
"Soundstage" might actually be one of the most operationally definable terms in the list above, as "true" soundstage may be tested, for example, using object based rendering formats / engines (let's say an FPS game with such format) and generic or personalised HRTF profiles, and asking people to properly aim at a target blindfolded for example (or even better move in a virtual 3D space to the location of the sound source), and score them.
With the usual stereo music recordings played through headphones it's probably not such a meaningful term as they necessarily lack some of the components that help us locate sounds in space.

 

[Chyżwar]

I spent a lot of time with the K371 and Buds+ because people say it's a reference tuning. I don't like it Don't get me wrong, these aren't bad headphones, there are a lot of very weird sounding headphones on the market (Grado, Audio-Technica, etc.) so these are the safer choice. But these headphones aren't neutral, don't sound like flat studio monitors, definitely not. No headphones are, but I think ER4EX or ER3XR or ER2SE are much closer to neutrality.

I think ultimately that well-designed headphones that have consistent frequency responses close to Harman will end up being solid favourites over time. Take the HD600 for instance, manufactured way back in the 1990's I believe, yet they are still being made today with a respected following - happens to track Harman Curve really well.

The HD600 have nothing to do with the Harman Target! The HD600 are Diffuse Field headphones. Of course, the Harman and DF equalizations are not very far, especially in the upper midrange and treble, but the bass is completely different. The HD600 sound "warmer" and "fuller" than the Harman Target headphones (150-300 Hz boost) and have much less sub-bass. K371 and Buds+ sound different than the HD600, especially the Buds+ (Harman In-Ear Target 2019) sound V-shaped while the HD600 are very mid centric.

 

[Robbo99999]

The HD600 have nothing to do with the Harman Target! The HD600 are Diffuse Field headphones. Of course, the Harman and DF equalizations are not very far, especially in the upper midrange and treble, but the bass is completely different. The HD600 sound "warmer" and "fuller" than the Harman Target headphones (150-300 Hz boost) and have much less sub-bass. K371 and Buds+ sound different than the HD600, especially the Buds+ (Harman In-Ear Target 2019) sound V-shaped while the HD600 are very mid centric.

You're right that Sennheiser claim in their literature that comes with the headphone that they are Diffuse Field tuned, but in actual fact the HD600 is closer to the Harman Curve than the Diffuse Field Curve. First up here's the HD600 vs the Harman Curve - very close (ignore HD560s red line).

And here's a pic showing HD600 vs Diffuse Field, it's a long way off Diffuse Field:

 

[Robbo99999]

I'd like to think that I've listened to quite a bit of those, at various price points, and I won't follow you there . For one simple reason : frequency response at your (or mine !) eardrum remains an uncontrolled variable beyond threshold of audibility in all likelihood.



It's most likely that you've never really heard what is a "textbook" Harman tuned headphones, because the frequency response on headphones at your own drum is very, very likely to vary at least a little bit (enough to be audible) from measurements on artificial ears - and the latters aren't always in agreement beyond threshold of audibility to begin with (the AirPods Max is a prime example of that past 800Hz).

This is nothing really new : https://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=16877

This has been one of the impetus behind my attempts at measuring my headphones on my own head with various devices and characterising how representative they are of the actual output at my drum : https://www.head-fi.org/threads/how...guarantee-a-better-sound.958201/post-16405751

Using the probe above, this is an illustration of the actual response of my samples of the HD560S (orange), HD650 (blue), Hi-X65 (purple) and K371 (green) on my own head (right ear). Above traces are with no EQ, bottom traces with Oratory1990's Harman EQ preset applied.

View attachment 140814
Please don't over-interpret these measurements, they have their limitations (cf. link above). Mainly focus on the relative differences between headphones and don't look at numbers in a dogmatically exact way. You can't say "at 8548Hz headphones A is 5.67dB louder than headphones B when normalised at 347Hz", but rather "at around 7500Hz, headphones A tends to be 3-3.5dB louder than headphones B". I'm I the process of eliminating a number of concerns I have about this methodology by comparing this probe's measurements with blocked ear canals measurements at the canal's entrance and while I'm not certain that I can find a single constant transfer function between the two methods for all headphones (particularly above 7kHz), at least below the "different differences" between the two methods seem to have identifiable causes (mainly related to the blocked ear canal) which is reassuring me about the results I'm getting so far.
Also note that the K371's results are less reliable than the other three as it's got quite a bit more seatings to seatings variation.

Results ? While Oratory1990's profiles helped in coalescing the curves together when looking at them with a lot of smoothing, there are still audible differences, whether in terms of large bandwidth "tilt" of the response or in terms of fairly high magnitude, narrow bandwidth peaks / dips, both above the typical tolerances I tend to allow for with this measurement process.

The question then becomes : which one is the most representative of the Harman target ? It's actually probably a moot point as an individual can't really know, since HPs will invariably vary at least a little bit on your own head. We can have a general idea of it, but not a particularly exact one I think.
More interesting IMO is to ask : which one is the most representative for you of Harman's research intent, ie reproducing "good loudspeakers in a good room" - which is something that will necessarily vary a little bit from what is measured on a HATS as your own anatomy differs from it to some degree.

Degree is in my opinion the key word here. It's not that high that it makes Harman's research predictive value invalid, or justifies rubbish FR responses such as this one : https://www.rtings.com/headphones/1-4/graph#1619/4011
But it's probably high enough that it's audible, and makes Harman's research predictive value fall apart once two headphones are measuring close to each others to begin with, or close to the target (ex : HD600 vs HD560S).
Ie to the question "what is the probability you will prefer headphones A over B ?", I think that the probability would in all likelihood be quite high if headphones A is Harman tuned to begin with vs., let's say, the monstrosity above, less so if headphones A is the HD600 and B the HD560S.



There is ! Particularly for THD I believe.



"What we mean" is a question for terminologists, but I'm not sure that it's of that much value for acousticians .
In any way it's a bit of a moot point if FR can't be a controlled variable below threshold of audibility.
"Soundstage" might actually be one of the most operationally definable terms in the list above, as "true" soundstage may be tested, for example, using object based rendering formats / engines (let's say an FPS game with such format) and generic or personalised HRTF profiles, and asking people to properly aim at a target blindfolded for example (or even better move in a virtual 3D space to the location of the sound source), and score them.
With the usual stereo music recordings played through headphones it's probably not such a meaningful term as they necessarily lack some of the components that help us locate sounds in space.

Interesting points you show re variance of headphone transfer on your own head when they "should" have the same EQ'd frequency response (using Oratory EQ). One point to note is unit to unit variation, so some of the variance you see in the transfer function on your own head is coming from unit to unit variation....it's probably somewhat hard to separate out that variable from your conclusions, although I don't doubt that variable headphone transfer functions exist between people.

 

[MayaTlab]

Interesting points you show re variance of headphone transfer on your own head when they "should" have the same EQ'd frequency response (using Oratory EQ). One point to note is unit to unit variation, so some of the variance you see in the transfer function on your own head is coming from unit to unit variation....it's probably somewhat hard to separate out that variable from your conclusions, although I don't doubt that variable headphone transfer functions exist between people.

Agreed, that's another variable to consider.

Also, this series of posts from Jude on the AirPods Max is a pretty good illustration of why in some cases it's a good idea to not take headphones' measurements too literally :
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/airpods-max.949152/post-16058062
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/airpods-max.949152/post-16071445
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/airpods-max.949152/post-16091082
To which I'll add that tweet from Sean Olive himself where apparently simply changing the pinna (I'm not certain that all else was ceteris paribus) resulted in a pretty big change :

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1368458551618805760

All that combined makes me very uneasy about the idea of automatically scoring headphones against a target.

IMO there is a range of acceptable results, based on the sort of HPTF + HRTF variations we see in various parts of the spectrum (a lot more leeway should be allowed past 5kHz or so than between, let's say, 300 and 800Hz), that in the end will result for one specific HP sample + one specific listener in the equivalent of "good loudspeakers in a good room". It shouldn't allow for poorly designed headphones (it's not that big, at least above 300Hz or so, and below, what, 5kHz ?), but reasonable variations around reasonable targets are IMO fine.

I find it just as useful to characterise headphones for behaviours that would affect the FR across different listeners, such as what Rtings does in terms of measuring the bass response on five real humans, or Resolve's use of in-ear mics to assess bass response on his own head vs. his rig, or Solderdude's or Headphonetestlab's attempts at characterising how headphones react to a breach of seal, ie this sort of thing.

This deviates from Crinacle's own target in the ear canal gain region : https://crinacle.com/graphs/headphones/sennheiser-he-1/
But IMO that doesn't make it necessarily bad, particularly given that the response seems to have very few peaks / nulls (and that the specific way it deviates may not be completely irrational to start with (?), cf. figure 4 : https://europepmc.org/article/PMC/5992802#free-full-text).
This, on the other hand, is what I'd start to call objectively bad : https://crinacle.com/graphs/headphones/abyss-ab-1266-phi-cc/

 

[Chyżwar]

You're right that Sennheiser claim in their literature that comes with the headphone that they are Diffuse Field tuned, but in actual fact the HD600 is closer to the Harman Curve than the Diffuse Field Curve.

The HD600 are diffuse field equalised headphones because they were made based on measurements in the diffuse field. And there is no such thing as one perfect diffuse field curve, this curve will look a little different for different people.

Anyway, the HD600 sound different to me than the AKG K371 or Samsung Buds+, which have 10dB more sub bass, 10dB more around 8kHz, so that's a rather big difference

Doesn't help much, the bass of the 600 is considerably different in each chart. See @100 hz

Yeah, but it has been scientifically proven that the Harman Target headphones are the most enjoyable for most people and the HD600 is one of the most liked headphones, so... the HD600 is the Harman Target headphones! It's logical! Who cares that the first and second charts have a different scale? It's a detail
Just kidding.
Personally, I think the HD600 sound nicer than the Harman target headphones I had.

 

[Robbo99999]

Agreed, that's another variable to consider.

Also, this series of posts from Jude on the AirPods Max is a pretty good illustration of why in some cases it's a good idea to not take headphones' measurements too literally :
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/airpods-max.949152/post-16058062
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/airpods-max.949152/post-16071445
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/airpods-max.949152/post-16091082
To which I'll add that tweet from Sean Olive himself where apparently simply changing the pinna (I'm not certain that all else was ceteris paribus) resulted in a pretty big change :

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1368458551618805760

All that combined makes me very uneasy about the idea of automatically scoring headphones against a target.

IMO there is a range of acceptable results, based on the sort of HPTF + HRTF variations we see in various parts of the spectrum (a lot more leeway should be allowed past 5kHz or so than between, let's say, 300 and 800Hz), that in the end will result for one specific HP sample + one specific listener in the equivalent of "good loudspeakers in a good room". It shouldn't allow for poorly designed headphones (it's not that big, at least above 300Hz or so, and below, what, 5kHz ?), but reasonable variations around reasonable targets are IMO fine.

I find it just as useful to characterise headphones for behaviours that would affect the FR across different listeners, such as what Rtings does in terms of measuring the bass response on five real humans, or Resolve's use of in-ear mics to assess bass response on his own head vs. his rig, or Solderdude's or Headphonetestlab's attempts at characterising how headphones react to a breach of seal, ie this sort of thing.

This deviates from Crinacle's own target in the ear canal gain region : https://crinacle.com/graphs/headphones/sennheiser-he-1/
But IMO that doesn't make it necessarily bad, particularly given that the response seems to have very few peaks / nulls (and that the specific way it deviates may not be completely irrational to start with (?), cf. figure 4 : https://europepmc.org/article/PMC/5992802#free-full-text).
This, on the other hand, is what I'd start to call objectively bad : https://crinacle.com/graphs/headphones/abyss-ab-1266-phi-cc/

Oh man, I can't keep up with all those links, I've not had my ritalin today....ha, no, I don't take ritalin....but yeah for sure it helps to have an understanding of the limitations and variations that can be seen in both headphone measurements & the process of taking those measurements / headphone unit to unit variation / and differences of HPTF between people which means that a selection of headphones EQ'd "identically" on a GRAS rig can vary from the rig (of course) but also from one another differently if measured on someone else's head. Having said that (given the variations) I still do like to EQ accurately to a Target Curve from say Oratory's measurements, because I feel there's no drawback to doing so and it maintains the maximum resolution of the measurement....I don't feel the need to add another variable of inaccuracy to all of that by EQ'ing roughly/imprecisely to a target from a measurement, instead I like to do that accurately using graphical tools like REW, and Oratory also EQ's accurately to the curve (within reason) using whatever program he does....so I'm not a fan of just eyeballing the measurement and putting in some filters without seeing the effect on the measurement (I know that's Amir's approach, but I think it just adds an extra layer of inaccuracy, I do like the fact he listen test/justifies his changes though).

 

[Robbo99999]

The HD600 are diffuse field equalised headphones because they were made based on measurements in the diffuse field. And there is no such thing as one perfect diffuse field curve, this curve will look a little different for different people.

Anyway, the HD600 sound different to me than the AKG K371 or Samsung Buds+, which have 10dB more sub bass, 10dB more around 8kHz, so that's a rather big difference

Point is the HD600 tracks the Harman Curve accurately, you can't deny that.....this links in with what I was saying about the staying power of headphones that support the Harman research, going back to this post which started our conversation (https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...that-doesnt-like-this-curve.19668/post-844178). The HD600 just happens to have a frequency response very close to Harman, even though it was designed before the research was carried out.

 

[Chyżwar]

Point is the HD600 tracks the Harman Curve accurately, you can't deny that.....this links in with what I was saying about the staying power of headphones that support the Harman research, going back to this post which started our conversation (https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...that-doesnt-like-this-curve.19668/post-844178). The HD600 just happens to have a frequency response very close to Harman, even though it was designed before the research was carried out.

Because the Harman curve is not that far from the DF, or at least some versions of the Harman curve are close to some versions of the DF curve. Look at the next classic DF headphones, DT880, from 100Hz to 4kHz they are very close to the Amir's preference curve. But the most distinctive thing about the Harman curve is the bass, and the bass of the HD600 is completely different. You can't deny that
I compared the HD600 to the K371 and these headphones sound different, the bass is different, the treble above 8kHz is different. You could easily like one of them and dislike the other. I really like the HD600 and I'm not a huge fan of the K371, though they're not bad headphones, especially considering the low price.

For you everything is close to Harman Target, even K702 You know, dog and cow are quite similar too, both have four legs, both are mammals, both are human domesticated animals. But there are also subtle differences between them

 

[Robbo99999]

Because the Harman curve is not that far from the DF, or at least some versions of the Harman curve are close to some versions of the DF curve. Look at the next classic DF headphones, DT880, from 100Hz to 4kHz they are very close to the Amir's preference curve. But the most distinctive thing about the Harman curve is the bass, and the bass of the HD600 is completely different. You can't deny that
I compared the HD600 to the K371 and these headphones sound different, the bass is different, the treble above 8kHz is different. You could easily like one of them and dislike the other. I really like the HD600 and I'm not a huge fan of the K371, though they're not bad headphones, especially considering the low price.

For you everything is close to Harman Target, even K702 You know, dog and cow are quite similar too, both have four legs, both are mammals, both are human domesticated animals. But there are also subtle differences between them

It's certainly closer to Harman than DF, you can't deny that! Yeah, HD 600 is very close to Harman in the treble & mids and is off in the bass (like pretty much any open backed dynamic headphone re bass)....whereas with regards to Diffuse Field the HD600 is off in the treble & also in the bass/mids, the only place it matches is at 1kHz, lol! Look, stop making up arguments.....it's not holding any water, may the thread resume....

 

[Chyżwar]

It's certainly closer to Harman than DF, you can't deny that!

No, it's not. It's closest to the Sennheiser's version of the DF from the time they designed these headphones. I think Sennheiser knows better how they made their headphones than you do... And there is no such thing as one DF curve, this curve should be different for me and for you because we hear differently, real DF headphones would need to be equalized specifically to your ears, because in the end the sounds in the diffuse field and the sounds in the headphones should have the same volume for you.

I don't mind that you love Harman Target so much, but consider that this is a topic (also) for people who don't like it very much, so I guess I have a right to complain a bit. I was very excited when I first read about Harman Target. I bought a K371 and Buds+ because they are so close to Harman Target. And I was disappointed, especially the Buds+ sound bad in my opinion. I prefer the ER4XR much more.

 

[Robbo99999]

No, it's not. It's closest to the Sennheiser's version of the DF from the time they designed these headphones. I think Sennheiser knows better how they made their headphones than you do... And there is no such thing as one DF curve, this curve should be different for me and for you because we hear differently, real DF headphones would need to be equalized specifically to your ears, because in the end the sounds in the diffuse field and the sounds in the headphones should have the same volume for you.

I don't mind that you love Harman Target so much, but consider that this is a topic (also) for people who don't like it very much, so I guess I have a right to complain a bit. I was very excited when I first read about Harman Target. I bought a K371 and Buds+ because they are so close to Harman Target. And I was disappointed, especially the Buds+ sound bad in my opinion. I prefer the ER4XR much more.

You're talking nonsense, there's no point having a conversation with someone who is ignoring the facts being shown. Your additional points re DF curve and it needing to be a specific DF tailored to your own physiology is also a nonsense as of course it's different for everyone.....so of course a headphone manufacturer doesn't have visibility of that (as they're not designing a headphone just for your own particular little ears with nothing inbetween) so has to target something so your argument is null & void and an unrelated tangent.....same would apply for Harman Curve. Fact is the HD600 fits the Harman Curve more than the Diffuse Curve. I'm done talking with you as you're not adhering to "integrity of posting/discussion/logic". Night night.