Headphones with low sensitivity to seal

[Ilkless]

I'm looking for headphones that exhibit minimal rolloff with an imperfect seal, extended low distortion bass, low placement variation and a lack of any high-Q peaks or cancellations. In terms of FR I find myself liking flat or very slight shelved up bass (rising slightly lower in frequency than Harman does, and with less boost), so even with reasonable amounts of leakage it stays flat. And pinna gain matching Harman till 2kHz, then staying about 1.5-2dB lower than Harman till ~7kHz when it can start to approach Harman levels again.

The way I see it is that in the absence of full body vibrations, what (mid)bass headphones have should at least excel in FR and distortion, which a HD650 couldn't do it for me. I don't need extreme 20Hz rumble but I expect exemplary performance down to ~30Hz.

Candidates I have are essentially the Meze Empyrean for its exceptionally smooth and consistent pinna gain, or Audeze LCD-3 (seems to be the smoothest LCD headphone with least odd-shaped and high-Q FR features). The Empyrean needs significantly less EQ than the LCD-3, but has higher distortion in the midrange and some low-Q resonances in the midrange vs Audeze. Even though my gut feel is that these low-Q resonances are in a range where leakage doesn't affect it, but are also of a large enough wavelength that placement variation is low (compared to the treble, making EQ likely straightforward) is there anything like an Empyrean, but lower midrange distortion, no low-Q midrange resonances, and more energy 1-2kHz?

The Meze Elite seems like one step forward and two steps back - lower midrange distortion, but also a shelved down subbass, more prominent 1-2kHz dip and more prominent low-Q resonances throughout the midrange, so I'm not keen at all about it unless the placement variation is so low that all of those issues can be reliably EQ'd out.

Dan Clark's headphones are wonderful with a perfect seal, especially with ergonomics, build and midrange tuning, but the fairly high-Q (but also high enough magnitude to be readily audible) 6kHz peak and sensitivity to imperfect seal are more problematic IMO than either Audeze or the Empy.

The Audeze MM-500 looks very promising, but no distortion measurements yet and the upper end of the pinna gain doesn't seem as smooth at the Empyrean.

The Stax SR-007 also looks a good fit tonally but placement variance seems to be a lot higher. And I live on the Equator with 90+% humidity constantly so any electrostat will need babying.

My requirements (especially regarding seal sensitivity, placement invariance and extension) seem to favour planar drivers but I'm also happy to consider any dynamic candidates.

 

[jae]

You are asking for a lot, most closed are going to be off the menu and susceptible to this problem, but closed planars are generally the only ones that are going to give you somewhat acceptable bass and low distortion/versatility to EQ out of the box, but many of them seem to suffer from some of those idiosyncracies even more.

Not sure if open/closed is a requirement but I am in a similar boat regarding the choices and it seems the only reasonable options for a headphone these days if you don't want to go down the Stealth or Noire route is either a) Drop + DCA Aeon X open ($429 + shipping) or b) Audeze LCD ($4500). Every single one of these is going to require EQ, the question is how much and where. Bonus is that if you buy an Aeon X open, you can get $600 off the Stealth or some future costly DCA flagship.

 

[jae]

Tonally similar headphones that have problems of their own

 

[Ilkless]

You are asking for a lot, most closed are going to be off the menu and susceptible to this problem, but closed planars are generally the only ones that are going to give you somewhat acceptable bass and low distortion/versatility to EQ out of the box, but many of them seem to suffer from some of those idiosyncracies even more.

Not sure if open/closed is a requirement but I am in a similar boat regarding the choices and it seems the only reasonable options for a headphone these days if you don't want to go down the Stealth or Noire route is either a) Drop + DCA Aeon X open ($429 + shipping) or b) Audeze LCD ($4500). Every single one of these is going to require EQ, the question is how much and where. Bonus is that if you buy an Aeon X open, you can get $600 off the Stealth or some future costly DCA flagship.

Actually I picked the Empy and Audeze because they exhibit minimal measured roll off with a broken seal (Keith Howard of Headphone Test Lab helpfully tests with glasses and hair to simulate a broken seal). That is the unusual thing about some open planars, no roll off until sub bass and even then just minimal. I would slap on a light bass shelf so it evens out to flat even with a broken seal, and with a perfect seal, just a pleasant amount of rumble that's not intrusive.

The Ether 2 starts rolling off massively from 700Hz with a broken seal where the Meze and Audeze are only affected below 100Hz and even then only a few dB which can easily be evened out by EQ.

 

[jae]

Not sure about the Meze, but one thing for me, at least, is that long-wear comfort/weight of the LCD-3 and performance does not justify the price tag. Does not compare to DCA comfort, and the hirose connectors are nicer than mini-xlr imo. That high-Q dip in the middle of the ear gain on the LCD-3 is also a non-starter. Aeon X open does have lesser problems if one wanted to EQ to harman, and I'd say even less problems if you wanted to EQ it as you describe since less gain is needed and that area would be easier to correct. The main problems with the Aeon X open is that it is less listenable out of the box because of the 100-400hz energy, but if you've already resigned to needing EQ anyway, this is not as much of a problem.

 

[Ilkless]

https://headphonetestlab.co.uk/mobile.php?id=media/Mr_Speakers/Ether_2/leakage_responses_right_HTL_3.svg

Ether 2 has terrible roll off with a broken seal. Ditto for Aeons from measurements I'm seeing out there. I used to own an Aeon 2 Open. I didn't like the sensitivity to seal. The 6kHz peak didn't help either. It's not exactly low Q but it is also high in magnitude.

https://headphonetestlab.co.uk/mobile.php?id=media/Meze/Empyrean/leakage_responses_right_HTL_2.svg

Compare with Empyrean. Other sources also show Audezes showing similar extension with a broken seal.

I wear glasses, that's why I'm very picky about a broken seal. Plus, that sort of seal sensitivity makes EQ much more of a moving target, and makes DCA hard to consider unless there's evidence to show seal sensitivity is not as massive now.

Never understood Hirose connectors, very fiddly IME with the Aeon 2s, with the metal sheath on the connectors. I would have to twist the connectors hoping they'd align and snap in. I like being able to release the mini XLRs with a button, and the pins are a whole lot easier to align.

 

[ADU]

You're talking mostly about headphones that are well out of my price bracket, that I have no direct experience with. But I'd agree with a couple of the points which have already been made. That open headphones are probably going to be somewhat less sensitive to seal-related issues than closed. I have no idea which open headphones that would fit your budget would be the least sensitive though. (?)

Planars may be less sensitive in some ways than dynamic headphones, because they tend to use larger drivers, I guess. From conversations here though, it seems that some planars can have an increase in their lower frequencies from an improper seal!

Some reviewers/graphers will sample a headphone's response from multiple seatings, which can help to identify issues with the consistency of the headphone's seal. Tyll H certainly used to do that on all his measurements for Inner Fidelity. And I think Rtings does something similar with their "Consistency" ratings. AFAIK, ASR isn't currently offering something like this.

There is at least one closed headphone I know of which can compensate the bass response for different seals. And that would be the Apple APM. And there may be other manufacturers working on similar things, maybe for their Bluetooth or noise-cancelling headphones, since they already have some DSP built in. I haven't really been following the developments on this kind of thing though. And doubt that's what you want.

I started a similar ASR topic, btw, after Dr. Olive put out a request for headphones that seal consistently for some of their work at Harman. But there didn't seem to be a whole lot of interest here...

Over-ear headphones that would seal & respond consistently across multiple seatings & individuals?

If you've happened by Doc O's twitter recently, you've probably heard that he's searching for both a set of good closed and open headphones with these characteristics to use for some new testing on HRTFs. So thought I'd start a thread on the subject. I have little to no personal experience with...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[Ilkless]

You're talking mostly about headphones that are well out of my price bracket, that I have no direct experience with. But I'd agree with a couple of the points which have already been made. That open headphones are probably going to be somewhat less sensitive to seal-related issues than closed. I have no idea which open headphones that would fit your budget would be the least sensitive though. (?)

Planars may be less sensitive in some ways than dynamic headphones, because they tend to use larger drivers, I guess. From conversations here though, it seems that some planars can have an increase in their lower frequencies from an improper seal!

Some reviewers/graphers will sample a headphone's response from multiple seatings, which can help to identify issues with the consistency of the headphone's seal. Tyll H certainly used to do that on all his measurements for Inner Fidelity. And I think Rtings does something similar with their "Consistency" ratings. AFAIK, ASR isn't currently offering something like this.

There is at least one closed headphone I know of which can compensate the bass response for different seals. And that would be the Apple APM. And there may be other manufacturers working on similar things, maybe for their Bluetooth or noise-cancelling headphones, since they already have some DSP built in. I haven't really been following the developments on this kind of thing though. And doubt that's what you want.

I started a similar ASR topic, btw, after Dr. Olive put out a request for headphones that seal consistently for some of their work at Harman. But there didn't seem to be a whole lot of interest here...

Over-ear headphones that would seal & respond consistently across multiple seatings & individuals?

If you've happened by Doc O's twitter recently, you've probably heard that he's searching for both a set of good closed and open headphones with these characteristics to use for some new testing on HRTFs. So thought I'd start a thread on the subject. I have little to no personal experience with...

www.audiosciencereview.com

IMO consistent seal (and therefore consistent low end performance) as well as low variation in the treble with placement is very underrated. It's doubly important in applications with EQ. Lots of boutique bs out there with awful variation in the treble. Don't understand how those subjective reviewers can be so confident about the perceived properties of headphones that vary so wildly even in between listening sessions.

And yes, I filtered out choices based on the clustering of the FR curves with multiple seatings from reviewers like Crinacle and Keith Howard from Headphone Test Lab.

My concern is the polarising subjective reviews of the Empyrean with very vehement dislike for it despite exemplary FR smoothness, leakage resistance and good placement invariance from certain enthusiast quarters. My suspicion is the low-Q resonances in the midrange are probably the issue. A broad minor bump like the one it has around 400Hz looks innocuous on a measurement but can be very audible.

BTW I'm buying these used because they depreciate fairly strongly (especially Audeze, and it really helps that their headphones, while not the most rugged or refined in construction, have good repairability and support), so prices are rather more palatable! The LCD-3 in particular never quite recovered from its reputation for driver failure early on so I can get sets with replacement drivers that are still in warranty for ~35% of retail. And the Empyrean's polarising subjective reviews also mean depreciation is nearly as much locally.

 

[ADU]

IMO consistent seal (and therefore consistent low end performance) as well as low variation in the treble with placement is very underrated.

I'm not sure about "underrated". But I agree that these issues, and also the issue of driver symmetry should probably be given a bit more attention in some reviews.

Tyll Hertsens usually did a pretty good job on most of this. Certainly the seal, and placement of the headphone, and how that could effect both the low and high frequencies. I suspect when he encountered headphones with badly matched drivers, he would probably just have assumed they were defective, and return them to the manufacturer.

Driver matching/symmetry can certainly be an issue though on lower-cost headphones. Especially headphones with single-sided cables, which are pretty much the norm now on more affordable headphones.

 

[ADU]

My concern is the polarising subjective reviews of the Empyrean with very vehement dislike for it despite exemplary FR smoothness, leakage resistance and good placement invariance from certain enthusiast quarters. My suspicion is the low-Q resonances in the midrange are probably the issue. A broad minor bump like the one it has around 400Hz looks innocuous on a measurement but can be very audible.

I have not listened to the Meze Empyrean. But this is a diffuse field compensated plot of the Empyrean with leather pads made by Oratory1990, along with a few other headphones I sometimes use as a general guide for a neutral-ish response for my closed headphones. The Empyrean is the red curve.

A feature that stands out to me on this Empyrean plot is the rather pronounced hump at around 220 Hz in the upper bass. The Empyrean also has a fair amount of "air" up top in the higher treble. Particularly around 15 kHz, where the other headphones all have a notch in their response (which is normal on Ora's plots). And it seems a little withdrawn in the lower treble, in the 6 to 7 kHz range. Not as bad as the Apple APM is in that area, but still probably noticeable.

The hump in the upper bass will be problematic for some folks. Especially those who like good separation between the bass and mids, and maybe a bit more of a dip in the crossover between the two.

I personally would not use this headphone without some EQ to try to fix some of the imbalances in its response that are indicated above.

 

[MayaTlab]

IMO consistent seal (and therefore consistent low end performance) as well as low variation in the treble with placement is very underrated. It's doubly important in applications with EQ. Lots of boutique bs out there with awful variation in the treble. Don't understand how those subjective reviewers can be so confident about the perceived properties of headphones that vary so wildly even in between listening sessions.

And yes, I filtered out choices based on the clustering of the FR curves with multiple seatings from reviewers like Crinacle and Keith Howard from Headphone Test Lab.

If you're talking about variation in the treble range based on spatial averaging, I don't think that the confidence interval you can derive from this method necessarily is applicable to the seatings to seatings on-head behaviour.

But it does help in determining if some of the observed features are a constant with positioning, in which case you can reasonably well presume that you'll encounter the same on-head and can EQ these with some confidence.

My concern is the polarising subjective reviews of the Empyrean with very vehement dislike for it despite exemplary FR smoothness, leakage resistance and good placement invariance from certain enthusiast quarters. My suspicion is the low-Q resonances in the midrange are probably the issue. A broad minor bump like the one it has around 400Hz looks innocuous on a measurement but can be very audible.

I've occasionally encountered some headphones that while measuring OK above 5-6kHz on ear simulators produced stronger peaks than anticipated in the treble, relative to other headphones (ex : ML5909, HE400SE).

I.e. if it measures peaky even with spatial averaging, there's a good chance you'll experience these peaks as well, but if it measures smoothly, not necessarily so once it's on your head. All squares are rectangle but not all rectangles are squares, basically.

 

[ADU]

Some of the issues with placement and seal are also self-correcting, and on the user. I will often reposition my headphones a bit until I get the seal or response I want. So there can also be some upsides to headphones that vary a bit in sound with placement.

Maybe the Empyrean is also a bit sensitive to different kinds of amps and impedances. And that might also account for some of the differences in opinion about it.

Sensitivity is on the higher side, and impedance is on the lower side at only 31.6 ohms, which might not be the best match for some higher impedance, or higher powered amps.

 

[Ilkless]

View attachment 227351

I have not listened to the Meze Empyrean. But this is a diffuse field compensated plot of the Empyrean with leather pads made by Oratory1990, along with a few other headphones I sometimes use as a general guide for a neutral-ish response for my closed headphones. The Empyrean is the red curve.

A feature that stands out to me on this Empyrean plot is the rather pronounced hump at around 220 Hz in the upper bass. The Empyrean also has a fair amount of "air" up top in the higher treble. Particularly around 15 kHz, where the other headphones all have a notch in their response (which is normal on Ora's plots). And it seems a little withdrawn in the lower treble, in the 6 to 7 kHz range. Not as bad as the Apple APM is in that area, but still probably noticeable.

The hump in the upper bass will be problematic for some folks. Especially those who like good separation between the bass and mids, and maybe a bit more of a dip in the crossover between the two.

I personally would not use this headphone without some EQ to try to fix some of the imbalances in its response that are indicated above.

As mentioned, I will be using EQ, so insensitivity to placement and seal, and lack of high-Q FR features that vary in their centre frequency and magnitude with positioning matter more to me. Oratory, Crinacle and Keith Howard measurements all indicate exemplary performance in that regard for the Meze - in which case EQ is trivial and consistent. The minor question mark is slightly higher distortion in the midrange than what is state of the art though pulling down the midrange would help somewhat.

Audeze LCD-3 has a single, smooth (albeit large) dip between 1.5kHz to 6kHz, that also shows little variation, which is also promising.

If you're talking about variation in the treble range based on spatial averaging, I don't think that the confidence interval you can derive from this method necessarily is applicable to the seatings to seatings on-head behaviour.

But it does help in determining if some of the observed features are a constant with positioning, in which case you can reasonably well presume that you'll encounter the same on-head and can EQ these with some confidence.



I've occasionally encountered some headphones that while measuring OK above 5-6kHz on ear simulators produced stronger peaks than anticipated in the treble, relative to other headphones (ex : ML5909, HE400SE).

I.e. if it measures peaky even with spatial averaging, there's a good chance you'll experience these peaks as well, but if it measures smoothly, not necessarily so once it's on your head. All squares are rectangle but not all rectangles are squares, basically.

I don't really look at the averaged data, but raw data between reseats as some like Crinacle offer, whether the curves are very close in shape, and how much of a spread there is between them. I'm not excluding the possibility of peaking but lowering the chances of it with as much data as possible. I can't tell how it will couple with my head until I wear the headphone, but I know for sure jagged high Q peaks and dips like with Focal headphones just makes the coupling and consistency all the more difficult.

 

[MayaTlab]

I don't really look at the averaged data, but raw data between reseats as some like Crinacle offer, whether the curves are very close in shape, and how much of a spread there is between them.

Perhaps I didn't express myself clearly enough . That spread may or may not be representative of the positional spread on your own head with realistic seatings and use conditions (including moving your head such as leaning towards your desk for example). It's a good way to assess how confident you can be in EQing some aspects of the FR past a few kHz, but not in determining positional variation on your own head.

The most stable pair of headphones in terms of real-life positional variation (which is conceptually different from spatial averaging) I've measured with in-ear mics so far are members of the HD6... series, but that isn't the case when measured on ear simulators when performing spatial averaging, and may not hold for someone else.

 

[Ilkless]

Perhaps I didn't express myself clearly enough . That spread may or may not be representative of the positional spread on your own head with realistic seatings and use conditions (including moving your head such as leaning towards your desk for example). It's a good way to assess how confident you can be in EQing some aspects of the FR past a few kHz, but not in determining positional variation on your own head.

The most stable pair of headphones in terms of real-life positional variation (which is conceptually different from spatial averaging) I've measured with in-ear mics so far are members of the HD6... series, but that isn't the case when measured on ear simulators when performing spatial averaging, and may not hold for someone else.

Yes, I don't expect it to determine exactly how much variation it will have on my own head, but as an indicator. And that's also why I'm looking for a response that is less likely to need extensive EQ in at smaller wavelengths/higher frequencies to begin with by having a smooth pinna gain range.

I don't see how spatial averaging and positional variation are conceptually different. Spatial averaging is a methodology that averages the variations. Useful for developing EQ, but not a measurement of how well the EQ holds up. Variation is what it is - variation, the group of reseat data. I'm looking at the reseat data to identify candidates that have a higher probability of enough consistency for a useful EQ to be developed. Nowhere did I imply it was deterministic of on-head performance. This is in the absence of data out there with a high number of reseats, and individualised data for obvious reasons.

This also means looking for minimal high-Q artefacts that vary in magnitude and centre frequency across reseats. I don't think that its particularly controversial to seek headphone with the most consistency in generalised conditions to reduce the amount of variables involved to the listener's head and ears + the effect of coupling between headphone and head.

My budget is around $1500 including used, upgrading from a HD650 and a LCD-2C. A HD650 has excellent properties except for the high midbass distortion and midbass bump/roll off that I think quite defeats the purpose of a headphone to have deep low distortion bass at the expense of no full body vibration. An LCD-2C has too irregular an FR shape and the high Q filters needed for EQ are not exactly optimal.

 

[ADU]

I have used and tried quite a few different headphones over the last 10 or so years. Mostly in the sub-$200 price range. And don't recall many of them exhibiting the sort of high-Q variability that you're describing. So perhaps this is a somewhat more common thing with some planar, or other higher-cost headphone designs?... Or maybe my ears just aren't sensitive enough to pick up on it.

I have seen (in measurements) the high-Q harmonic peaks on Focal headphones though. And seen (and also heard in some cases) the resonant peaks in the sibilant range on headphones like the Senn HD800, Beyer DT-990, and so forth.

Some peaks and valleys in the treble are normal on raw in-ear measurements. Because both the concha and ear canal produce some fairly narrow-band, high-Q resonant effects, as shown below...

And these narrow band resonances can manifest as both peaks and notches, depending on how the resonant characteristics of different parts of the ear combine on different measurement rigs.

The resonances can even be seen on these diffuse field compensated plots of different groups of headphones, made on Oratory's rig...

All of the headphones in the two plots above have a fairly neutral response in the treble and upper mids imo. And they all have some fairly pronounced peaks and dips in their response in that range... which is normal imo.

There's a fairly broad dip at around 2 to 2.5 kHz, which may be partially in the headphones. But probably also at least partially a feature of Ora's measurement rig. And there are also some fairly pronounced notches at around 9-10 kHz and 15 kHz in the treble. Since these tend to show up in the FR plots of most of the better-sounding headphones, they seem to be a feature of Ora's measurement rig or system. And a part of its normal resonant behavior, which should generally be left alone and intact.

The notch at around 15 kHz seems to be largely missing on the DF plot of the Meze Empyrean though. Which suggests to me that there could maybe be a resonance somewhere around that frequency range in the headphones.

 

[Ilkless]

Oratory's curves here are averaged data - useful for developing EQ but we don't know how much variance there is between each measurement used to go into the average. Think his individual datasheets for headphones do contain the data for reseats though. Crinacle's does as well.

I have fiddled with the 200-300$ range frequently and frankly IME the compromises in bass extension and distortion (HD650), treble smoothness (Beyers), build quality, support and QC (Hifiman) or difficulty of accessing (Drop collabs with DCA or Focal from Asia) makes it a lot more trouble to deal with, and makes one a lot more likely to go through a wild gear chase/hoard multiple headphones rather than getting a technically competent one to begin with. I would be happy with the HD650 if not for the fact that IMO it is pointless for a headphone to have poor unclear bass with a broad midbass bump, and budget closed headphones are even more compromised, with stuff like the ATH-M50X having a curious double humped bass. It's why I decided to go to the 1.5k new/used range, just because playing musical chairs with the collection and collecting multiple headphones to scratch itches another headphone can't fulfill, rather than getting a single low-distortion transducer that can be EQ'd to almost any sane sound signature, with good support/ergonomics/build materials/QC is more trouble than its worth. I don't believe any headphone should cost more than 1.5k because you can get stunning monitors for that money which demand much more in R&D and materials.

Notwithstanding that the diffuse field curve is a choice that has fallen out of mainstream headphone design with good reason, I disagree that the group of curves are generally neutral and lack higher-Q features because the scale is hugely zoomed out. Higher Q is not in itself an issue, but when combined with significant magnitude of peak/dip, and the trouble it may imply for EQing is also not worth the trouble.

 

[ADU]

Oratory's curves here are averaged data - useful for developing EQ but we don't know how much variance there is between each measurement used to go into the average. Think his individual datasheets for headphones do contain the data for reseats though. Crinacle's does as well.

I've seen ranges on some of his plots on Twitter. But not on the PDFs here....

index/list_of_presets - oratory1990

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

www.reddit.com

...so maybe he keeps those somewhere else?

Here's his PDF for the Empyrean with leather pads btw. Which seems to suggest corrections along similar lines to what I've offered above....

Meze Empyrean (Leather earpads).pdf

Shared with Dropbox

www.dropbox.com

 

[ADU]

I have fiddled with the 200-300$ range frequently and frankly IME the compromises in bass extension and distortion (HD650), treble smoothness (Beyers), build quality, support and QC (Hifiman) or difficulty of accessing (Drop collabs with DCA or Focal from Asia) makes it a lot more trouble to deal with, and makes one a lot more likely to go through a wild gear chase/hoard multiple headphones rather than getting a technically competent one to begin with. I would be happy with the HD650 if not for the fact that IMO it is pointless for a headphone to have poor unclear bass with a broad midbass bump, and budget closed headphones are even more compromised, with stuff like the ATH-M50X having a curious double humped bass. It's why I decided to go to the 1.5k new/used range, just because playing musical chairs with the collection and collecting multiple headphones to scratch itches another headphone can't fulfill, rather than getting a single low-distortion transducer that can be EQ'd to almost any sane sound signature, with good support/ergonomics/build materials/QC is more trouble than its worth. I don't believe any headphone should cost more than 1.5k because you can get stunning monitors for that money which demand much more in R&D and materials.

Good to know that you've done some fiddling with the lower end. (Hmm... that just sounded wrong! ) You left out a few of my pet peeves though, like the single-sided cables, poorly matched drivers, and so forth.

I bought a pair of DT-770's brand new in the box about 2 years ago, and thought they were going to last me a good long while before anything major started to go wrong. And the pleather on the headband is already peeling, and some of my earpads are beginning to come apart at the seams. Ack!... At least the parts are replaceable though on this headphone.

Not sure what I'd get if I had 1 or 2k to spend on some cans. I have rarely owned more than one or two headphones at a time though. And there are a few lower cost mid-fi headphones that I wouldn't mind trying.

 

[ZolaIII]

If I understood what you want correctly check out Denon AX lineup starting with AX-D5200 around 700$ but maybe you could catch them on discount somewhere (where I am they are currently regularly priced around 594€).

https://reference-audio-analyzer.pro/en/report/hp/denon-ah-d5200.php#gsc.tab=0

If I didn't disregard this.
Edit: fun part is Samsung has such EQ profile on it's TWS IEM's it calls it "Clear".
From Buds Pro measurements:

https://crinacle.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/GBudsPro-Clear.jpg