Hifiman planars for music production

[GaryH]

Audiophiles are making observations and even though the "elitist" in me wants to correct people, we must respect those observations

No, we certainly must not. Observations in which no attempt has been made to control for confounding variables (e.g. level-matching to control for volume affecting perceived sound qualities, which is a known effect, or blind listening to control for the innumerable cognitive biases sighted listening elicits), which audiophiles rarely do, should not be respected or even considered as valid observations at all. If you want to come to true conclusions, basic scientific methods are required. Otherwise you can be led down nonsensical paths that just give credence to falsehoods.

 

[Goschie]

No, we certainly must not. Observations in which no attempt has been made to control for confounding variables (e.g. level-matching to control for volume affecting perceived sound qualities, which is a known effect, or blind listening to control for the innumerable cognitive biases sighted listening elicits), which audiophiles rarely do, should not be respected or even considered as valid observations at all. If you want to come to true conclusions, basic scientific methods are required. Otherwise you can be led down nonsensical paths that just give credence to falsehoods.

You do realize chopping up my quote is not going to convince anyone but yourself that I believe we should blindly believe observations. Any lurker can read the entire thread to realize how blatant of a strawman that was.

It seems you have an almost prejudicial distaste for audiophiles, and it seethes from the way you write about them. I'm not even an audiophile. Just a guy learning about headphones with a scientific background, so he can make the best decisions with his wallet, and the fact I gave any care about their observations triggered you.

 

[Dealux]

A fast transient response being related to how flat the frequency response is, is not just conjecture. Its a fact that the more perfect or flat the frequency response of the transmission space is, the narrower the temporal transient response of the space is. A perfectly flat infinite frequency response would have the transient response of a dirac delta function, which can not possibly exist.

That would be my definition too but I'm not sure most audiophiles would agree. They seem to think that there is little to no relationship between frequency response and "speed".

 

[jae]

While I enjoy my monolith M570 and 4XX's atmospheric soundstage, I wouldn't use them for mixing & mastering work. They are far too peaky for mixing. If I didn't use my Jbl 306Pmkii's, I would be going with an etymotic ER2SE, ER4XR, or ER2XR/ER3XR(if you want a bit more bass). The name of the music-production game is minimal peaks and dips, which is why we use flat measuring studio monitors/speakers.

However, nothing beats an open back for auditioning. I can't remember who said it, but it went something like this. "Listen to your mixes everywhere, bluetooth speakers, cars, and all of the most popular headphones, as that's what your audience will be using".

So, just go with a sundara or ananda, but I'd get some etymotics on the side to seal the deal. In the USA, adrorama has them all on sale frequently.
https://slickdeals.net/newsearch.php?q=etymotic&searcharea=deals&searchin=first

View attachment 146524

How do the older etymotic in ears compare to the newer ones apart from the FR?

 

[Goschie]

That would be my definition too but I'm not sure most audiophiles would agree. They seem to think that there is little to no relationship between frequency response and "speed".

Seems like we need to try harder to convince them that they have come to a poor conclusion. We need to teach them that a transient reproduced by a headphone is effectively getting eq'd, and a faster transient response headphone is eq'ing the transient less. We need to try to build an intuitive connection between them because they wont be able to just learn what a fourier transform is. Much less what an integral is.

 

[fieldcar]

How do the older etymotic in ears compare to the newer ones apart from the FR?

As long as you don't have distortion through a bad MMCX or a failing driver, it's mainly going to be frequency response that varies. The graph below shows the DD based ER2SE/XR have lower THD compared to the BA based ER4XR, but I don't know what sort of dB's they were pushing when this graph was made.

 

[GaryH]

You do realize chopping up my quote is not going to convince anyone but yourself that I believe we should blindly believe observations. Any lurker can read the entire thread to realize how blatant of a strawman that was.

It seems you have an almost prejudicial distaste for audiophiles, and it seethes from the way you write about them. I'm not even an audiophile. Just a guy learning about headphones with a scientific background, so he can make the best decisions with his wallet, and the fact I gave any care about their observations triggered you.

Haha oh dear. There's only one person triggered here, and it's not me Where did I say you blindly believe audiophile observations? Talk about a straw man...I only truncated your post in order to show which part I was disagreeing with - that we "must respect" the observations of audiophiles "until they are scientifically tested as being false". No, we must not. Bertrand Russell's teapot comes to mind here. If someone said there's a teapot orbiting the Sun somewhere between the Earth and Mars, but this claim was arrived at without any scientific process or evidence, should that claim be respected? And so should we all remain agnostic over the existence of this teacup until this claim has been scientifically tested to be false? No, that would be absurd. Nonsensical, amorphous claims that have not been arrived through any kind of scientific method or basis as audiophiles' often are should be assumed false, until evidence in their favor is forthcoming. Here's some observations on how audiophile rocks and crystals placed on top of your system can improve their sound:

http://www.adventuresinhifiaudio.com/26/01/2018/audiophile-rocks-down-the-rabbit-hole-once-again/

Should those observations be respected until they're scientifically disproven and should we all be agnostic over the sound benefits of audiophile rocks until that point?

 

[dasdoing]

your best bet is to use one of these: https://www.waves.com/plugins/headp...id-view|paging:currentPage=0|paging:number=20

 

[Goschie]

Haha oh dear. There's only one person triggered here, and it's not me Where did I say you blindly believe audiophile observations? Talk about a straw man...I only truncated your post in order to show which part I was disagreeing with - that we "must respect" the observations of audiophiles "until they are scientifically tested as being false". No, we must not. Bertrand Russell's teapot comes to mind here. If someone said there's a teapot orbiting the Sun somewhere between the Earth and Mars, but this claim was arrived at without any scientific process or evidence, should that claim be respected? And so should we all remain agnostic over the existence of this teacup until this claim has been scientifically tested to be false? No, that would be absurd. Nonsensical, amorphous claims that have not been arrived through any kind of scientific method or basis as audiophiles' often are should be assumed false, until evidence in their favor is forthcoming. Here's some observations on how audiophile rocks and crystals placed on top of your system can improve their sound:

http://www.adventuresinhifiaudio.com/26/01/2018/audiophile-rocks-down-the-rabbit-hole-once-again/

Should those observations be respected until they're scientifically disproven and should we all be agnostic over the sound benefits of audiophile rocks until that point?

You are misquoting betrand, and you are falsely equivocating being agnostic with respect. You can still believe something to be untrue yet respect it at the same time. You just hate audiophiles, admit it. You'd never take a word they say seriously, even if it turned out to be true. Thats why nobody should trust what you say about audiophiles, you are not impartial.

EDIT: I think this is going to be my last reply to this thread. Someone who consistently misquotes is not arguing in good faith and is trying to bend them to their perception.

I will certainly respect your observation that audiophiles are wrong, but I'm not going to blindly believe your opinions about audiophiles.

 

[GaryH]

You can still believe something to be untrue yet respect it at the same time.

Ok let's hear in what way exactly you respect the above observations about audiophile rocks then (I assume, nay hope, you at least think they're untrue).

You just hate audiophiles, admit it. You'd never take a word they say seriously, even if it turned out to be true. Thats why nobody should trust what you say about audiophiles, you are not impartial.

Haha you really are getting desperate now. I don't hate audiophiles at all. I am an audiophile, just one concerned with provable truth and not nonsensical anecdotal claims. I don't like anyone making unfounded claims without even trying to control for confounding variables i.e. following the most basic of scientific principles. As a physicist, I would have thought you would understand this. This is a science forum after all, not Head-Fi where any old unsubstantiated claims are tolerated, respected, and even encouraged.

 

[spartaman64]

Crinacle actually wrote an article trying to explain it but in trying to do so he made it even clearer that not only is it all pure conjecture but the terms are just plain and simple wrong. Also, "time domain" is just a buzzword that doesn't mean anything.

But then he had this to say, which is honest but confusing.

So he admits it's technically wrong but he still uses technical terms badly because...word salads = good?

This is a bit like caveman thinking. We're wired to make assumptions about things we don't fully understand. Like when people used to think that thunder came from angry gods that wanted to punish humans. Or that respiratory infections were caused by cold weather because you feel cold when you have a fever. Except that the two are basically completely unrelated. You feel cold because your body expels heat at a rapid rate when it raises its temperature to kill of the virus. So clearly humans are really bad at inferring objective facts from subjective experiences.

If our ears and brains essentially perceived things completely flat like microphones we wouldn't be having this discussion. Make the interaction a bit more complex with some fairly complex resonances due to ear anatomy and people suddenly think that headphones have to have magic drivers to sound detailed. Make these people do a blind test with speakers and they will most likely pick the flattest speaker (there are plenty of studies on that). With headphones the concept of flat is more complicated because the interaction with the ear is more complicated. Complicated. Not magical.

then what would you call it? i know the meta here is close to harman good deviate from harman bad. but there are more to headphones

 

[Goschie]

Ok let's hear in what way exactly you respect the above observations about audiophile rocks then (I assume, nay hope, you at least think they're untrue).



Haha you really are getting desperate now. I don't hate audiophiles at all. I am an audiophile, just one concerned with provable truth and not nonsensical anecdotal claims. I don't like anyone making unfounded claims without even trying to control for confounding variables i.e. following the most basic of scientific principles. As a physicist, I would have thought you would understand this. This is a science forum after all, not Head-Fi where any old unsubstantiated claims are tolerated, respected, and even encouraged.

I was going to send this in PM, because I dont want to argue with someone on this thread who is doing so in bad faith, but it says I cant send PM to you.

When determining what INITIAL observations to pursue in a scientific investigation, equal care must go into every observation so that they can be properly weighed before determining what to investigate. If we brush off some observations as being crazy because we have an emotional reaction, then we are letting our bias interfere with the scientific exploration, what comes before the actual scientific testing. Beltrand's quote was not that we should disregard the observations of a teapot because it was absurd, but that we could not assume the teapot exists, as the burden of proof is on those who claim it is true. So we assume it is false. Its not that we KNOW its false, but we assume it to be false. In fact, beltrand specifically pointed out that its too small for telescopes to see it, because the quote is not just about burden of proof, but about falsifiability. An argument has to be falsifiable for it to be sound, in other words, that the premises can be proven.

It has nothing to do with observation; it is about claims. Nobody observed the teapot to be there, the only claimed it to be.

Thats why you are so off in what you are saying. You dont even understand beltrands quote, yet you are trying to use it.

 

[Dealux]

then what would you call it? i know the meta here is close to harman good deviate from harman bad. but there are more to headphones

It's really just clarity in the absence of harshness. I don't think those two exist outside of FR. It's just that graphs are far from 100% accurate, especially in the higher frequencies (where not coincidentally a lot of the detail is coming from) where differences between individuals are greater (the measurement rig is an average and not to mention the averaging that is performed to the multiple seatings required for a comprehensive measurement).

 

[GaryH]

When determining what INITIAL observations to pursue in a scientific investigation, equal care must go into every observation so that they can be properly weighed before determining what to investigate. If we brush off some observations as being crazy because we have an emotional reaction, then we are letting our bias interfere with the scientific exploration, what comes before the actual scientific testing.

It's not an emotional reaction at all. It's a matter of maintaining basic scientific standards of methodology in determining whether an observation is valid or not. If no attempt is made to control for confounding variables that can have a significant affect on the outcome, the observation is not valid and so no thought, time or money should be wasted in pursuing scientific investigation of it. I find it funny how you say you're concerned with bias interfering with scientific exploration, yet you seem fine to permit as valid observations that do not control for the innumerable cognitive biases involved in sighted listening.

betrand

beltrand

At least I get his name right Poor Bertrand...As for falsifiability, one of the problems with a lot of audiophile claims is precisely that they are unfalsifiable, either due to being so nebulous and amorphous to be indefinable in any coherent way (so nonsensical they're 'not even wrong'), or controlling for sighted bias via blind ABX testing is flat out denied with numerous bogus excuses such as 'too much pressure due to time constraints', when ABX testing puts no limits on the length of listening tests.

I see you've now twice dodged my question about whether we should respect the above uncontrolled, sighted observations on the sound benefits of audiophile rocks. If you're not willing to answer that, then I'll leave it there.

 

[Goschie]

It's not an emotional reaction at all. It's a matter of maintaining basic scientific standards of methodology in determining whether an observation is valid or not.

In which you have no standards if you dismiss observations based on emotional reaction. Your standard is whatever observation you personally think is absurd or not, despite you having no authority. And thats even if you know what an observation is, considering you routinely conflate observations with claims, which shows how unscientific you actually are. My standard is respect observations, be skeptical of claims.

If no attempt is made to control for confounding variables that can have a significant affect on the outcome, the observation is not valid and so no thought, time or money should be wasted in pursuing scientific investigation of it.

That fails to work in the real world. Science would never discover anything if every observation was ignored simply because the observation itself was not an experiment. Now I question if you have ever been involved with science. I cant count how many times my colleagues have witnessed something interesting that we decided to do an experiment on. We literally get payed or at the very least supplied with the resources to do that. The reason they give us the resources is because we come to an agreement on what observations or theories we can reasonably test and what would be the most fruitful in our line of study. Some of it is purely because its profitable.

Now in engineering, I could see where you would never waste time on observations that were never apart of experiments or scientific studies. Scientists do more cutting edge work, and some of it is even restricted on a political basis.

At least I get his name right Poor Bertrand...As for falsifiability, one of the problems with a lot of audiophile claims is precisely that they are unfalsifiable, either due to being so nebulous and amorphous to be indefinable in any coherent way (so nonsensical they're 'not even wrong'), or controlling for sighted bias via blind ABX testing is flat out denied with numerous bogus excuses such as 'too much pressure due to time constraints', when ABX testing puts no limits on the length of listening tests.

Observations must be falsifiable, or you cant prove they were even an observation in the first place. Observations are better than a basic claim precisely because of that fact.

I see you've now twice dodged my question about whether we should respect the above uncontrolled, sighted observations on the sound benefits of audiophile rocks. If you're not willing to answer that, then I'll leave it there.

I dont owe you an answer to your question, nor have I watched the video. All I have heard are claims that it improves your sound without a statement of what he observed, so I have no respect for such a claim.

Now if he said that after putting rocks on his amp he heard a decrease in distortion from his headphones, I would respect that observation. Although I would think it is either in his head or his amp was vibrating on his desk and they were external sounds not coming from his drivers at all. I probably would not test it because its only one person and its likely not repeatable unless you had access to the same unit.

But if many people made the same observation, I would love to see a test to narrow down on what is happening with the design of amp.

 

[aLKayeL]

Hi everyone, I'm new to the forum and I'm a music producer. ASR has helped me quite a lot in my music production, especially the mixing and mastering part by providing the actual frequency response curves and distortion values for each headphone and speaker. This greatly helps me in identifying the right gear to purchase which contributes to making my mixing and mastering more consistent and aligned with what might be considered as "sounding right".

To give an example, these 2 songs were mixed 4 months apart with 2 types of headphones.

Song 1 Mixed & Mastered with Bayerdynamic DT990 <-Dynamic driver

Song 2 Mixed & Mastered with Dan Clark Audio Aeon 2 Closed <- Planar driver


While the final result is subjective, I personally feel that Song 2 is a better mix, and it took me a shorter time to achieve the right balance using the Aeon 2.

 

[GaryH]

I dont owe you an answer to your question, nor have I watched the video.

You say we must respect the observations of audiophiles yet when I present you with some you don't even bother looking at them? I can see now you're not arguing in good faith so I don't owe you any more of my time discussing this.

 

[spartaman64]

You say we must respect the observations of audiophiles yet when I present you with some you don't even bother looking at them? I can see now you're not arguing in good faith so I don't owe you any more of my time discussing this.

idk using one instance of someone lying doesnt discredit everyone. ofc there is some kind of filter but if something is plausible then why not investigate it?

 

[GaryH]

idk this sort of seems like the sort of argument some people use against assault victims. ofc there is some kind of filter but if something is plausible then why not investigate it?

Please delete this post. It's incredibly distasteful to draw any kind of parallels between assault and the comparative triviality of audiophilia.

 

[spartaman64]

Please delete this post. It's incredibly distasteful to draw any kind of parallels between assault and the comparative triviality of audiophilia.

and its distasteful to use the same argument that is used against them. if you want to help them then discredit this kind of logic. its just the first thing that came to mind for me since i spent a lot of time fighting against this sort of thing

ideas spread like a virus even though you probably dont intend it to it might make its way into other contexts if we dont stop it here