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IEMs close to Harman curve?

Soniclife

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Anyone know of any list of IEMs that come close to the Harman curve? Or even single models that might do? I'm having no luck tracking down models to investigate.
 

Wayne A. Pflughaupt

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A room curve is determined based primarily on the size of the room and the distance the listener is from the speakers. As such, the Harman curve, and indeed any room curve, is irrelevant with headphones.

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Wayne A. Pflughaupt
 
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Soniclife

Soniclife

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He is referring to the curve that harman found to be preferred in listening tests of IEMs. I know of one example but I am not at liberty to say.
Are you able to give a clue to it's price range?
 

Slapo

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AFAIK, Moondrop tried to tune some of their earphones to come close of one of the revisions of the Harman curve. However, they seem to have have a bit more treble. It's not bad, but they can sound a bit bright.

TANCHJIM Oxygen should also be somewhat close.

All that being said, I have found that Etymotics all sound very natural. I also have the Moondrop Kanas Pro and they sound pretty natural for the most part, although I use non-stock ear tips to bring upper treble down a bit.
 

daftcombo

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Are we talking about listener preference or fidelity to real sounds of instruments?
 

amirm

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gr-e

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Thanks. Took me a while but I found his measurement protocol and it is not the same as Harman's. Without perfect matching, I don't know that we can cross-correlate the results.
I haven't found any information about Harman measurement setup, but I don't think there will be much difference below 4k.

To my taste Harman target has too much bass and the 3k peak is also overdone. The upper bass / lower midrange area sounds recessed.
 

Tks

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He is referring to the curve that harman found to be preferred in listening tests of IEMs. I know of one example but I am not at liberty to say.

Why would something like that be something you need to feel at liberty disclosing? Like contextually unless you have some convoluted financial conflict of interest, why would this be something you feel you must hold privy?
 

amirm

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Why would something like that be something you need to feel at liberty disclosing? Like contextually unless you have some convoluted financial conflict of interest, why would this be something you feel you must hold privy?
When Sean Olive presented his research at CanJam, I asked him if he would tell us the top performing IEMs/Headphones. He said he can't do that in public. It is a Harman policy to keep the identity of such products. I then privately reached out to him and got the information for my own use. Without him being comfortable with the info being public, I can't disclose what I learned in confidence.

If he had answered in public, of course I would be sharing it. But that didn't happen.

So the conflict of interest you speak of, is me putting higher priority on my professional ethics than pleasing you all. I hope you understand.
 

Tks

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That makes sense. I didn't know it was something revealed to you in confidence.

Now I wonder why Sean would have this policy of keeping the identity of such products secret.. Also, when you say best performing, you mean more close to his target, or literally other performance metrics like THD, FR consistency, driver matching averages, and things of that nature?
 

amirm

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Now I wonder why Sean would have this policy of keeping the identity of such products secret..
I am sure he wants to shout as loud as he can about these measurements. It is their marketing department that objects. It is one of those unwritten rules to not talk down about your competitor. There may also be legal liability issue with them complaining that the data is wrong and such.
 

Tks

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Just wondering, who's Sean's competitor in this instance?

Also don't you face the same liability. I see nothing to quell an effort to sue you for example for every single review, even if they knew they had no case, they can simply harass you with legal proceedings as is the usual case for someone ardent enough on spoiling your day irrespective of reason?
 
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