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How to do a proper headphone review on Youtube (Oluv's Gadgets)

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lashto

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It probably depends on what you are looking for, aye.
I always wanted neutral gear as a baseline (and it happens to be what I like in my sound as well).
I was never looking for sth. "brighter than my current one" or "darker than what I have" because that can be achieved via EQ.

For me, videos like these do not answer the question whether the demonstrated headphone is closer to the target of neutrality or not.
Could be that you are chasing a non-existing ideal with that "target of neutrality". At least not with the current tech/knowledge.

First of all, the best you can get nowadays in terms of "is this HP neutral" is a FR comparison with a neutral-curve like Harman's. But even if we assume that Harman's curve is neutral, it may or may not apply to your ears. Any such curve is just an average and the shape of your ears may or may not be inside that average. To fix that, you'll need a precise HRTF compensation for your own ears. And it gets quite complex from there because the inside of your ears, your brain, etc also play a role and may or may not be "average" and surely aren't neutral.

Long story short, truly neutral HPs do not and may never exist. But you can still chase an 'ideal' best-HP-for-me!
And that's where those comparisons help. Do an original-track vs recorded-with-hp-X comparison and you get the difference between hp-X and your current HP. Since you know how your HP sounds, you'll know if hp-X would be better or worse *for you*. That should be a very useful and a huge step in the right direction. Or as @Frank Dernie did put it, "a billion times more useful than nothing" :)
 

dasdoing

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What State of the art measurement equipment is he using for his measuring ? Also sound demos aren’t all that useful from YouTube as you are playing them with your dac, amp and headphones , presumably adding it’s own flavor to what he recorded, even if it’s reference level

they are very usefull when comparing 2 or more products.
this video for example let me decide for the Anker as my beach speaker
 
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lashto

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this video for example let me decide for the Anker as my beach speaker
You might have made the wrong choice, the video shows the Anker as a snow/woods speaker :D
 

korynt

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By the same token, Sundara sound too bright even listening though the warm LCD-3 and the neutral KH-310 to me, so it does tell me it's too bright for me.

Iirc they revisioned the cans at least partialy adressing these problems.

 

Aerith Gainsborough

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Oh I'm well aware that there is no such thing as an ideal / neutral headphone. Just as there is no ideal / neutral human ear. ;)
I was lucky. I found both the DT-880 back in 2012 and the Clear in 2019 via FR graphs and subjective descriptions on Head-Fi.
So unless one of them goes belly-up, I'm out of the headphone game.
Or as @Frank Dernie did put it, "a billion times more useful than nothing" :)
I'd say the videos could be useful, with the caveat that you need to have competent gear in the first place to be able to hear the differences properly.
If you have a can that has e.g.: anemic bass performance, you won't really hear the improved bass performance of the test candidate that much, leading you to the conclusion that it doesn't sound much better in said department. Most certainly you won't hear fine details like lower distortion, less ringing better dynamics etc. These are often subtle enough even if you have both cans on your lap and switch back to back.

Worse: it could lead you to actually purchase a bass cannon because your own anemic can made it sound great but the real Mc Coy is way over the top. That's why I think caution is advised and one needs to use these "listening impressions" only as a complementary datapoint.

Whether such procedures are worth Amir's time? Personally I'd say not really, given what the Senpai has on his plate already but obviously only he can decide that.
 
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lashto

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Oh I'm well aware that there is no such thing as an ideal / neutral headphone. Just as there is no ideal / neutral human ear. ;)
I was lucky. I found both the DT-880 back in 2012 and the Clear in 2019 via FR graphs and subjective descriptions on Head-Fi.
So unless one of them goes belly-up, I'm out of the headphone game.

I'd say the videos could be useful, with the caveat that you need to have competent gear in the first place to be able to hear the differences properly.
If you have a can that has e.g.: anemic bass performance, you won't really hear the improved bass performance of the test candidate that much, leading you to the conclusion that it doesn't sound much better in said department. Most certainly you won't hear fine details like lower distortion, less ringing better dynamics etc. These are often subtle enough even if you have both cans on your lap and switch back to back.

Worse: it could lead you to actually purchase a bass cannon because your own anemic can made it sound great but the real Mc Coy is way over the top. That's why I think caution is advised and one needs to use these "listening impressions" only as a complementary datapoint.

Whether such procedures are worth Amir's time? Personally I'd say not really, given what the Senpai has on his plate already but obviously only he can decide that.

You make many good points but it doesn't look like any of those issues are attributable to the videos/reviews. A lot of what you say falls into the old "this tool is not perfect, it does not do everything I want/need". Well, nothing is and nothing does. And nothing will replace your own due diligence and good judgement. Blame the universe :)

The bolded scenario I think is particularly relevant for my point. Yes, that is a real problem and I bet it happened many times. But it is just a simple error of judgement. You cannot blame the review or the reviewer or even those "anemic cans", the only problem(s) lie *between* user's own ears. Pretty much same as the old "the hammer is just a tool" thing: if you break your fingers, 99,99% of the time is not the hammer's fault.

And btw, I listened to the Verum vs Sundara recording on the crappiest earbuds I could find: some really old handsfree freebie which sounds atrocious. And I could clearly hear the same diffs between Sundara & Verum. So no, you don't need good cans to make good use of these sound comparisons, just good brains :)
 

pozz

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Binaural comparisons are one step closer to the virtual world and William Gibson's simstims (tech that records and broadcasts a person's sensorium).
 

JohnYang1997

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He is a good friend of mine(online). I got him a pair of iec60138-4 couplers early this year. For headphone recording the in the ear method is by far the most accurate presentation I have ever heard. This guy is no joke. He present the recordings in the way he hears not just as is. He would process the recording heavily to match what he hears(when using EARS). If there's one guy you can take advice from on YouTube, it's him.
 

JohnYang1997

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It probably depends on what you are looking for, aye.
I always wanted neutral gear as a baseline (and it happens to be what I like in my sound as well).
I was never looking for sth. "brighter than my current one" or "darker than what I have" because that can be achieved via EQ.

For me, videos like these do not answer the question whether the demonstrated headphone is closer to the target of neutrality or not.
"Videos like these". Obviously you don't what his videos. It's not just another sound demo channel. If you want neutrality, listen to him.
 

detlev24

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[...] What microphone you suggest? Professional ones are well over $1,000. Hobby ones are around $100.
miniDSP just recently introduced their ambiMIK-1: USB Ambisonic microphone with "Binaural VST plugin powered by Dirac Research".

Might this suffice?
 
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lashto

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miniDSP just recently introduced their ambiMIK-1: USB Ambisonic microphone with "Binaural VST plugin powered by Dirac Research".

Might this suffice?
Interesting suggestion. Not an expert but that one doesn't look like it'll fit. May be ok(ish) for speakers but how would you measure headphones/earbuds with it?
Also, miniDSP seems to be in a very different market lately :). (that is the same miniDSP EARS binaural mic from Oluv's videos)
 

dasdoing

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He is a good friend of mine(online). I got him a pair of iec60138-4 couplers early this year. For headphone recording the in the ear method is by far the most accurate presentation I have ever heard. This guy is no joke. He present the recordings in the way he hears not just as is. He would process the recording heavily to match what he hears(when using EARS). If there's one guy you can take advice from on YouTube, it's him.

I like him. I just don't agree with his Anker EQ lol
 

100rounddrum

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Well I literally can't hear any difference between the headphones and the original tracks in those sound demos... Don't know how you guys are hearing the Sundara as bright in that demo, it literally sounds the same as the Verum-1 and the original track.

Conclusion: absolutely useless
 

Sgt. Ear Ache

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Could be that you are chasing a non-existing ideal with that "target of neutrality". At least not with the current tech/knowledge.

First of all, the best you can get nowadays in terms of "is this HP neutral" is a FR comparison with a neutral-curve like Harman's. But even if we assume that Harman's curve is neutral, it may or may not apply to your ears. Any such curve is just an average and the shape of your ears may or may not be inside that average. To fix that, you'll need a precise HRTF compensation for your own ears. And it gets quite complex from there because the inside of your ears, your brain, etc also play a role and may or may not be "average" and surely aren't neutral.

Long story short, truly neutral HPs do not and may never exist. But you can still chase an 'ideal' best-HP-for-me!
And that's where those comparisons help. Do an original-track vs recorded-with-hp-X comparison and you get the difference between hp-X and your current HP. Since you know how your HP sounds, you'll know if hp-X would be better or worse *for you*. That should be a very useful and a huge step in the right direction. Or as @Frank Dernie did put it, "a billion times more useful than nothing" :)

Is the Harman curve not based upon real world listening tests of real people choosing their preferred sound signature? Personally, I think the whole shape of the ear thing is a meaningless concern. Our ears may all be different, but our hearing systems are all tuned to the same baseline - aka the world around us. We live our entire lives with our ears hearing the sounds of reality and our brains adapt to that so that the shape of our ears are essentially neutralized from the equation. To me it makes little sense to try and evaluate headphones based on the shape of an individual ear.

And I believe Oluv is pretty big on the Harman curve is he not?
 

Thomas_A

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Well I literally can't hear any difference between the headphones and the original tracks in those sound demos... Don't know how you guys are hearing the Sundara as bright in that demo, it literally sounds the same as the Verum-1 and the original track.

Conclusion: absolutely useless

Differences are quite huge...
 

dasdoing

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Harman curve(s) is(are) very far from beeing neutral. in fact the first headphone Harman curve was created by trying to neutralize HPs and THEN make them sound close to the (far from neutral) loudspeaker Harman curve
 

Thomas_A

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Recently discovered Oluv's Gadgets on Youtube and was quite impressed with his reviews. Covers lots of Bluetooth speakers/boomboxes but also some standard speakers, soundbars and headphones. Very down to earth style, technical minded and no bullshit. His English accent might not be the best (I think he's Austrian) but nobody is perfect :)

I was particularly impressed by his latest headphone reviews which include excellent sound demos and side-by-side comparisons done with binaural mics. A unique feature AFAIK and very well done, check the video below for an example.
If you want to skip the intro-talk, the binaural demos start at ~13:00, followed by measurements. With comparison-measurements between different pads as extra bonus - another pretty unique feature which I find really useful. IMHO, every headphone review should contain those kind of sound demos & measurements, much better than the usual "lalalaaa, I hear crickets" review.



edit: he actualy has a whole database of those recordings and you can select&compare as desired http://switcher.oluvsgadgets.net/.
@amirm This looks like a lot of effort but if you can somehow find the time, such binaural recordings would be a great addition to your speaker/HP listening tests.

P.S.
Just to clear the air: I did post this on another thread but I think it deserves much better visibility; hopefully the cross posting is not an issue. Also, I have no connection whatsoever with that guy/channel, just think that those are the best and most useful headphone reviews I ever saw.

Interesting review and database.
 

100rounddrum

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Differences are quite huge...
Well we obviously hear different. It's for this reason why I look on graphs alone, to avoid this sort of confusion about differences one may hear vs another that doesn't hear any differences.
 

raistlin65

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Is the Harman curve not based upon real world listening tests of real people choosing their preferred sound signature? Personally, I think the whole shape of the ear thing is a meaningless concern. Our ears may all be different, but our hearing systems are all tuned to the same baseline - aka the world around us. We live our entire lives with our ears hearing the sounds of reality and our brains adapt to that so that the shape of our ears are essentially neutralized from the equation. To me it makes little sense to try and evaluate headphones based on the shape of an individual ear.

And I believe Oluv is pretty big on the Harman curve is he not?

As someone who doesn't prefer the Harmon target response curve, I'm not a fan of calling that "neutral." In fact, in Harman's testing, one out of three people did not prefer the Harmon target response curve.

And note how I keep calling it the "target response curve" which is a term that Harman uses. That is because it is a target response for designing headphones that suit the most people. It's important to remember that is the goal--designing a headphone to sell. And not confuse it as a one size fits all solution for headphone sound preference.

And as someone with an XXL hat size, I'm continually reminded when shopping for a new baseball cap how much the one size fits all view of the world sucks when you don't fit that one size fits all. lol

So I think it's a bad idea to equate the Harmon target response curve with neutral, when it excludes the listening preference of 1/3 of listeners.
 
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