Hifiman HE1000v2 aftermarket pad measurements?

[asrUser]

Hi,
To help equalizing we can search Oratory Reddit, some ASR reviews, autoeq.app and some instances of squig.link. These measurements are made using stock pads mostly. As I like to use aftermarket pads from Dekoni I wonder if there are some measurements out there for this headphone model?

My only measuring tools are miniDSP EARS and the non expensive 711 coupler clone to measure IEMs. I already measured on EARS, but especially the higher frequencies are way off compared to GRAS measurements. So what am I left with? Equalizing by ears or afford an expensive GRAS?

 

[Mr. Haelscheir]

I can at least offer my in-ear microphone measurements for all four pads as measured for my Arya Stealth and HE1000se to give an idea of what kinds of changes the pads make relative to the stock pads. Considering how similarly these headphones measured on my head, they shouldn't be too far off from the HE1000 V2.

Figure 1: Arya Stealth. NS: New Stock pads. DES: Dekoni Audio Elite Sheepskin. DEH: Dekoni Audio Elite Hybrid. DEV: Dekoni Audio Elite Velour. DEFS: Dekoni Audio Elite Fenestrated Sheepskin.

Figure 2: HE1000se. 1/12 octave smoothing. Same abbreviations.

The main points of interest are the deviations between 500 Hz and 6 kHz.

For reference, a diffuse-field-tuned headphone would measure roughly flat from 20 Hz to 6 kHz before we reach my personal HRTF nulls, the rest being quire similar between the pads.

I wouldn't EQ past 6 kHz unless you are trying to match your in-ear response to a speaker HRTF you've measured with in-ear microphones, or if you want to adjust peaks to taste. Even GRAS measurements are no guarantee of how your ears respond in the treble or where your own nulls are located, whereby you had best EQ those by ear using sine sweeps or pink noise, else with in-ear microphones. I repeat the story of how when I auditioned the DCA Expanse, Meze Elite, 2022 Focal Utopia, and Final Audio D8000 Pro after EQing based on headphones.com's GRAS measurements, they all still sounded different, and the Meze Elite EQ profile ended up having a 600 to 800 Hz lift relative to "true" neutral that made it sound "sweeter".

 

[asrUser]

Maybe I should also buy some in-ear microphones and get more into measurements. Soon

 

[Mr. Haelscheir]

Maybe I should also buy some in-ear microphones and get more into measurements. Soon

I got mine from https://www.earfish.eu/, though since they are from a university, communications mind payment processing turnaround can be lengthy. The binaural head-tracking experience is quite something, at least the closest I can get to listening to speakers in an anechoic room.