Hot Take (or not), if you EQ your headphones to your ears, you can easily beat ANY unEQ'd headphone.

[JoelDollie]

Not really, because you're missing a key piece of data: how the headphone actually interacts with your ear canal and eardrum.

Standard headphone measurements only tell you how they perform on a measurement rig's coupler. That's useful for comparing headphones measured on the same rig, but it doesn't tell you what's happening at your eardrum.

Here's the thing: the air trapped in your ear canal has its own stiffness, and it couples with the stiffness of the headphone driver. That interaction is unique to you. Unless you know your personal HRTF and how a specific headphone system couples with it, you're basically aiming in the dark when you EQ.

Above 2kHz especially, it's the wild west. Everyone's ear canal interacts differently with each headphone.

That said, headphones with low acoustic impedance (low driver stiffness) tend to minimize these individual differences, so they behave more consistently across different ears.(Electrostatic headphones for example)

View attachment 508871
Here's how few closed back headphones measure next to the eardrum of different individuals.

Yes actually I completely agree, maybe you misunderstood something about my post or I didn't express myself properly but actually all my friends had different high mids and treble. High mids pretty similar for all of us, but treble wildly different actually. So the sweeping has to be done individually and the corrective EQ will only work for you.

This is also why sonarworks sounds a bit crap, their corrective curves are not personalized to each human and too detailed in the highs and they land on the wrong spots, reason why almost everybody only puts sonarworks headphone at about 50-60%, because 100% is just as ''wrong'' as with no EQ, depending on the headphone. Because again they can't know the HRTF. Sonarworks created other bad peaks in other places for me.

Very obvious ones, not subtle ones.

A lot of excitement in your post but I can’t for the life of me, work out what you actually did!

Any chance you (or someone else who understands) could explain in a few bullet points what the actual procedure is that you went through?

I used a sine wave generator plugin in my DAW and sweeped from bass to treble listening for perceived SPL variations. I matched the SPL variations to what my super accurate monitoring system told me, eliminating any doubts related to my personal hearing flaws or potential damage. Since I've been doing this for a while and can easily tell 0.5db variations I was pretty confident about this process. I then checked against actual music and fine tuned until the sound was almost identical to my monitors.

The difference isn't subtle. Well just looking at the EQ I did you can see how drastic it is. Without EQ the HD800S sound incredibly tinny and wrong. I didn't know they were that ''wrong'' until I got my monitors.

everything makes sense now, like, the hi hats in well mixed pop songs aren't supposed to fight with the vocals and the sibilances aren't supposed to be massive.. By default on HD800S they are.

 

[JoelDollie]

I used a tone sweep to get my EQ started for the Truthear Zero Blues, which had way too much treble, among other issues. I could hear the peaks and dips and it was much easier to focus on where the improvements should be made.

I posted my results in the thread and was laughed at. There were all kinds of snide comments about how I shouldn't do it that way, that's not how it works, etc.

Well the reality is, that is how it worked. Only fine tuning was needed afterward while listening to music to get the overall balance nailed down and any remaining brightness tuned out. They then matched very closely my neutral speakers in my main system, which are my reference. People who tried my EQ said it mostly fixed the issues for them and then they could adjust the overall tilt to taste since with earphones there is a greater variance from person to person.

So if you are someone who has normal to good hearing and a good ear for tonality, there is nothing wrong with this method.

And it turns out, later when the company came out with their Red version, the response was much closer to what I ended up at. So not only does that validate what I was hearing, but that others were hearing it, too, and that I can successfully develop a really good EQ.

The problem with this is that in order to have the absolute confidence you didn't do random crap is to have a great monitoring setup. I probably wouldn't have dared to do that if I didn't have my Kiis.

Only thing I will never get on headphones is the bass, will never extend as low, but in terms of sound they now sound better than anything else that I could possibly get at any price point, and by far. Just because all these narrow peaks are solved for my hearing.

Second point is that our ears are very forgiving and get used to a ''wrong'' sound very easily. Hot swapping between different EQs, even a ''bad'' EQ towards a ''good'' EQ, will sound weird. Even if you FIXED bad resonances, having them cut will highlight new resonances and actually the ''good'' EQ might sound weird and wrong in comparison for a hot minute, resulting in doubt. Sweeping and hearing the peaks gone and comparing is the only way. Then you start listening to a bunch of music and realized that you actually fixed most of the issues.

But without a reference point it's extremely hard to trust.

Also there's the personal preference aspect yes but this isn't really a huge issue, just like some people prefer almost flat in room, other people prefer +6db bass in room response. Personally I'm more of a +6db bass guy in room on speakers, with a slight tilt. So I matched my headphones to that, makes music more balanced sounding to me.

 

[IsaacOscar]

The problem with this is that in order to have the absolute confidence you didn't do random crap is to have a great monitoring setup. I probably wouldn't have dared to do that if I didn't have my Kiis.

Aah, I see what you did: you made your headphones sound like your speakers!
Unfortunately some of us are too poor to buy good speakers

 

[JoelDollie]

Aah, I see what you did: you made your headphones sound like your speakers!
Unfortunately some of us are too poor to buy good speakers

Yes and the fact that I had almost perfectly flat in room measurements and a treated studio (-+1.5db or so PSY smoothing in room) gave me confidence that this is absolutely right.

And I understand this is not possible for most people. but the thing is even approaching ''flatness'' by not changing the overall ''shape'' of the headphone but just targeting the wild variations in SPL in the highs, will already fix most issues. Without needing to double check against speakers.

I believe everybody can hear 6-8db peaks. It's not subtle. Worth doing. It can only be better than not doing it.

 

[HissingFree]

I always have doubts about this topic, because there are some that say our ears are not made to listen to individual sine tones, to individual frequencies, or something along those lines, I think Oratory says this for example. But I don't know how true this is.

 

[JoelDollie]

I always have doubts about this topic, because there are some that say our ears are not made to listen to individual sine tones, to individual frequencies, or something along those lines, I think Oratory says this for example. But I don't know how true this is.

Sweeping at medium speed shows flaws. Stopping at a particular frequency makes no sense as a single sine wave can cancel randomly, or feel very different from ear to ear depending on room reflections, comb filters etc.

Sweeping at medium speed clearly shows SPL variations across narrow frequency ranges but not too narrow, so from 4000 to 6000hz for example. From my experience this is very reliable as you can directly compare with speakers and get a different result. Basically flat on speakers, apart from a bit of a high mid boost due to natural ear sensitivity, around 3k.

 

[Mr. Swordfish]

QUESTION: there's a lot of talk about headphone EQ, and I'm wondering if anybody makes a stand-alone product that addresses it. i.e. a headphone amp that takes either analog or USB as input and has some internal configurable DSP EQ. Bonus points for something small and portable.

My home setup has my PC feeding six different pairs of speakers around the house, so applying EQ at that stage is a non-starter.

 

[Chromatischism]

The problem with this is that in order to have the absolute confidence you didn't do random crap is to have a great monitoring setup.

Right, like I said, I have a very good setup to refer to as neutral, and good hearing, so both my in-room and an isolated tone sweep in the IEMs point me in the right direction. Also I generally am able to tune an EQ to get music sounding balanced, so all things point in the same direction. So there are hours of music listening as well.

But by fixing the major issues and smoothing out the response, others can then adjust the tilt for more or less bass or treble. But the complex adjustments in between are done.

I prefer things that don't need EQ

 

[kemmler3D]

Only thing I will never get on headphones is the bass, will never extend as low

Try the Audeze LCD-XC sometime. The extension is crazy, but it's so clean it's pretty unlike most bass you hear from speakers.

Case in point, I put on a 15hz tone and cranked it up. I didn't hear anything per se because the THD is low even there. But I had a moment of visceral panic because for a split second I thought there was an earthquake. My brain reacted to the infrasound before I knew what was happening. For me that's plenty of bass and extension...

 

[JoelDollie]

Try the Audeze LCD-XC sometime. The extension is crazy, but it's so clean it's pretty unlike most bass you hear from speakers.

Case in point, I put on a 15hz tone and cranked it up. I didn't hear anything per se because the THD is low even there. But I had a moment of visceral panic because for a split second I thought there was an earthquake. My brain reacted to the infrasound before I knew what was happening. For me that's plenty of bass and extension...

yeah planars are special for sure. What I'm a bit worried about is their mid range, most planars seem to have some weird things going on although probably can be EQ'd as well!
LCDX seem to be the most accurate although someone I know who has both HD800S and LCDX told me that the presentation of the HD800S was more ''speaker like''. Wondering if I would miss that with the LCDX

 

[kemmler3D]

yeah planars are special for sure. What I'm a bit worried about is their mid range, most planars seem to have some weird things going on although probably can be EQ'd as well!
LCDX seem to be the most accurate although someone I know who has both HD800S and LCDX told me that the presentation of the HD800S was more ''speaker like''. Wondering if I would miss that with the LCDX

I don't own the 800s but have heard them and I don't disagree with that statement. The LCD-XC sound like headphones, I think the 800s have the drivers further away and at an angle, and the open back also gives a greater sense of space somehow.

I don't find any issue with the mids on the LCD-XC but I also haven't really done a deep dive on EQ, I am just using Oratory's.

 

[Sir Sanders Zingmore]

I used a sine wave generator plugin in my DAW and sweeped from bass to treble listening for perceived SPL variations

Ok I think I get it, so you’re not measuring with a mic and nor are you fitting to any “standard” curve like Harman.

You’re basically creating an equal loudness type correction for your own ears. Is that right?

A bit like this online tool

Free hearing test on line – Equal loudness contours and audiometry

This free hearing test on line is an interactive test to produce equal loudness curves or equal loudness congtours.

www.phys.unsw.edu.au

 

[Jiraya369]

tried "simulating"

doesnt work like that mate

I just get very self-judgmental.

then stop doing what you're doing and enjoy your music, that's the crucial bit

1.5dB/oct

yeah, -1db/oct tilt is the df+10db graph basically. Some sites have it named like that.

 

[Jiraya369]

yeah planars are special for sure. What I'm a bit worried about is their mid range, most planars seem to have some weird things going on although probably can be EQ'd as well!
LCDX seem to be the most accurate although someone I know who has both HD800S and LCDX told me that the presentation of the HD800S was more ''speaker like''. Wondering if I would miss that with the LCDX

if the hd800s was speaker like then idk what to say man lol it is tuned so horrendously to make sure the soundstage seems massive

but the headphone itself might have SOME merit in its soundstaging capabilities but even then, not a massive difference compared to a hifiman, audeze or anything else. Get a good fr out of it for your ears and just enjoy any semi-decent open back. Headphone soundstage is a vastly overrated thing anyways

 

[JoelDollie]

Ok I think I get it, so you’re not measuring with a mic and nor are you fitting to any “standard” curve like Harman.

You’re basically creating an equal loudness type correction for your own ears. Is that right?

A bit like this online tool

Free hearing test on line – Equal loudness contours and audiometry

This free hearing test on line is an interactive test to produce equal loudness curves or equal loudness congtours.

www.phys.unsw.edu.au

Well not quite sure if it's really matched to the loudness contour but it's matched to my speakers which have a -2db shelf in the highs and a +6db boost in the bass in room, which is basically sort of what you get in room with normal speakers, if the room is untreated, and that's also sort of what most people like in terms of tonality. So I matched my headphones to that.

And actually all that was needed was a 6dbbass boost on the HD800s and 2-3db overall treble reduction + individual narrow cutting for the resonances, then it basically sounded like that ''most people's preference'' Toole curve.

Realistically I need more bass but I measured some distortion in the HD800 that was starting to get a little high at 40hz so not sure I want to do more.

 

[Sir Sanders Zingmore]

Well not quite sure if it's really matched to the loudness contour but it's matched to my speakers which have a -2db shelf in the highs and a +6db boost in the bass

I think I get it now!
So you’re not purely adjusting to remove “perceived SPL differences”. In some cases you are deliberately creating SPL differences to match what you hear with your speakers. So for example you are increasing bass SPL relative to other frequencies.

 

[JoelDollie]

I think I get it now!
So you’re not purely adjusting to remove “perceived SPL differences”. In some cases you are deliberately creating SPL differences to match what you hear with your speakers. So for example you are increasing bass SPL relative to other frequencies.

Yeah, I mean if we go from the principle that headphone target curves are approximations and that even then it varies from person to person depending on ears, the most reliable imho is to do it by ear against ''perfect'' speakers.

 

[Peterinvan]

EAR MUFFS
When I am out for a walk in this cold weather, I love my B&W PX8. They keep my ears warm.

I have the PX8 EQ set to -3db bass and +6db on treble. This works for my old ears.

Snug and warm

 

[Merkurio]

It’s not a hot take at all, that’s exactly why the Sony MDR-MV1 are my endgame after having tried (and owned) a hundred pairs of headphones.

With EQ they sound just as good as the best ones I’ve ever equalized, but with a mechanical design that’s unbeatable for my head.

 

[Jiraya369]

It’s not a hot take at all, that’s exactly why the Sony MDR-MV1 are my endgame after having tried (and owned) a hundred pairs of headphones.

With EQ they sound just as good as the best ones I’ve ever equalized, but with a mechanical design that’s unbeatable for my head.

if comfort were not so person dependent headphone shopping would have been so much easier!