Auditory Cortex
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- Feb 3, 2024
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I have a pair of KZ ZSN PRO headphones that I use for critical listening, however it has been a long journey to improve them to the point where I can both enjoy listening music AND mix and master music with it with complete confidence.
First: this headphones are very sensitive and so it has a problem of a high “hiss” sound everytime it plays anything, for me it was annoying because it decreased the headroom of the audio signal (the noise can be higher that many quiet sounds you would hear in music, and depending of the hardware, the noise can even be increased badly), so the way I fixed this is buying an impedance adapter of around 80 ohms. I got mine from Aliexpress, and depending of the design they can get a little expensive.
Once you plug in the adapter, the noise will get drastically decreased, but it can get back if you have an amp and increase the volume too much. In my case I have an AudioBox iTwo Audio Interface connected with USB and I just turn down the Volume Knob of the Headphone Output to the point where the noise completely disappears, so then you just adjust the volume digitally with the Computer system volume.
In case you want to use a Smartphone, in my case the adapter works perfectly, no further adjustments because the noise is gone and I still have plenty of digital volume.
Now we go to the EQ configuration.
There is a very well known site to get an EQ for headphones of many different brands, AutoEQ, you can choose the headphone model and the Music Player Equalizer Program, or App that you will use.
I selected EqualizerAPO for Windows since it allows for infinite number of filters and to EQ the whole sound of my PC, for both listening music and for producing music, so I chose that and download the settings file.
Once I loaded it, the sound was better, and apparently, matches the Harman EQ curve. However, there were still problems with it, at least for my ears, many different frequencies were unbalanced, sometimes I felt that I wanted to increase the volume to perceive some frequencies but then other frequencies would sound incredibly loud and annoying, so I started adding more filters in top of the original curve.
After many tests and listenings of my favorite music across different music genres and eras, I got this final curve:
And just to compare, here is the EQ curve you would get with AutoEQ:
As you can see, in some frequencies I had to increase/decrease the amplitude up to 10 dB, that's a lot of difference! It makes me wonder if they really followed the Harmand Curve, or if there was anything wrong when they measured the frequency response of the headphones, or if the Harman Curve is wrong.....
Anyway, here is the settings, copy and paste it on a Wordpad and save it as a .txt file, then open it/import with your EQ app, or manually copy the settings if your EQ can’t import EQ txt files.
With this EQ I have arrived to a point where I don’t have to correct or calibrate anything anymore for any music genres. There will be of course outsiders where something is unbalanced, but in those cases you can be sure that is their mixing or mastering what is unbalanced, and so you can make a custom EQ for specific music releases (or epochs/eras in the case of very old music where the bass sometimes sounds quieter).
Here is how it looks in my EAPO:
In case you are wondering, I added a filter to invert the L-R channels because this headphone model fits better in my ears when I place the cable cord in front of my ears and the loop goes first down and then loops around my ear, so I had to invert the cable cords.
In my Android phone here is the EQ with the PowerAMP's Equalizer:
In this case the Preamp has a Max setting of -12dB, so I had to add -5dB to all my filters so they could match exactly my settings.
If you feel that the sub bass frequencies lacks a little, then you can add a filter for this specific frequency if you want (between 10-30 Hz):
However note that this would decrease the Headroom (Max Volume) available for your headphones before the audio signal starts to clip when there is subbass frequencies sounding close to 0 dB, but fortunately music overall has not much frequency content over here, however in movies for example there may be more frequency content in this range, so the solution is just to increase the volume of your Amplifier, the only possible negative thing is that the background noise may start to be more present, so you have to check at your own audio equipment how much you can push the limits before appears compromises in your audio.
First: this headphones are very sensitive and so it has a problem of a high “hiss” sound everytime it plays anything, for me it was annoying because it decreased the headroom of the audio signal (the noise can be higher that many quiet sounds you would hear in music, and depending of the hardware, the noise can even be increased badly), so the way I fixed this is buying an impedance adapter of around 80 ohms. I got mine from Aliexpress, and depending of the design they can get a little expensive.
Once you plug in the adapter, the noise will get drastically decreased, but it can get back if you have an amp and increase the volume too much. In my case I have an AudioBox iTwo Audio Interface connected with USB and I just turn down the Volume Knob of the Headphone Output to the point where the noise completely disappears, so then you just adjust the volume digitally with the Computer system volume.
In case you want to use a Smartphone, in my case the adapter works perfectly, no further adjustments because the noise is gone and I still have plenty of digital volume.
Now we go to the EQ configuration.
There is a very well known site to get an EQ for headphones of many different brands, AutoEQ, you can choose the headphone model and the Music Player Equalizer Program, or App that you will use.
I selected EqualizerAPO for Windows since it allows for infinite number of filters and to EQ the whole sound of my PC, for both listening music and for producing music, so I chose that and download the settings file.
Once I loaded it, the sound was better, and apparently, matches the Harman EQ curve. However, there were still problems with it, at least for my ears, many different frequencies were unbalanced, sometimes I felt that I wanted to increase the volume to perceive some frequencies but then other frequencies would sound incredibly loud and annoying, so I started adding more filters in top of the original curve.
After many tests and listenings of my favorite music across different music genres and eras, I got this final curve:
And just to compare, here is the EQ curve you would get with AutoEQ:
As you can see, in some frequencies I had to increase/decrease the amplitude up to 10 dB, that's a lot of difference! It makes me wonder if they really followed the Harmand Curve, or if there was anything wrong when they measured the frequency response of the headphones, or if the Harman Curve is wrong.....
Anyway, here is the settings, copy and paste it on a Wordpad and save it as a .txt file, then open it/import with your EQ app, or manually copy the settings if your EQ can’t import EQ txt files.
Code:
Preamp: -17 dB
Filter: ON LSC 5.9992 dB Fc 40 Hz Gain 6 dB
Filter: ON LS Fc 250 Hz Gain -1 dB
Filter: ON PK Fc 240 Hz Gain 2.5 dB Q 0.4
Filter: ON PK Fc 2000 Hz Gain 0 dB Q 0.9265
Filter: ON HSC Fc 3000 Hz Gain -2 dB Q 0.3333
Filter: ON PK Fc 3225 Hz Gain 2 dB Q 9
Filter: ON LSC Fc 3400 Hz Gain 13 dB Q 0.5901
Filter: ON HS Fc 7300 Hz Gain 11 dB
Filter: ON HS Fc 2300 Hz Gain -4 dB
Filter: ON HS Fc 11000 Hz Gain 4 dB
Filter: ON PK Fc 65 Hz Gain 1.4 dB Q 1.6
Filter: ON PK Fc 1670 Hz Gain 1 dB Q 2
Filter: ON LSC Fc 105 Hz Gain -0.5 dB Q 0.7
Filter: ON PK Fc 777 Hz Gain 3.7 dB Q 0.88
Filter: ON PK Fc 1407 Hz Gain -0.3 dB Q 3.36
Filter: ON PK Fc 2153 Hz Gain -2.5 dB Q 2.11
Filter: ON PK Fc 3425 Hz Gain 4.1 dB Q 3.02
Filter: ON PK Fc 4013 Hz Gain 1.3 dB Q 6
Filter: ON PK Fc 4973 Hz Gain -3.5 dB Q 5.82
Filter: ON PK Fc 6359 Hz Gain 4 dB Q 4.7With this EQ I have arrived to a point where I don’t have to correct or calibrate anything anymore for any music genres. There will be of course outsiders where something is unbalanced, but in those cases you can be sure that is their mixing or mastering what is unbalanced, and so you can make a custom EQ for specific music releases (or epochs/eras in the case of very old music where the bass sometimes sounds quieter).
Here is how it looks in my EAPO:
In case you are wondering, I added a filter to invert the L-R channels because this headphone model fits better in my ears when I place the cable cord in front of my ears and the loop goes first down and then loops around my ear, so I had to invert the cable cords.
In my Android phone here is the EQ with the PowerAMP's Equalizer:
In this case the Preamp has a Max setting of -12dB, so I had to add -5dB to all my filters so they could match exactly my settings.
If you feel that the sub bass frequencies lacks a little, then you can add a filter for this specific frequency if you want (between 10-30 Hz):
However note that this would decrease the Headroom (Max Volume) available for your headphones before the audio signal starts to clip when there is subbass frequencies sounding close to 0 dB, but fortunately music overall has not much frequency content over here, however in movies for example there may be more frequency content in this range, so the solution is just to increase the volume of your Amplifier, the only possible negative thing is that the background noise may start to be more present, so you have to check at your own audio equipment how much you can push the limits before appears compromises in your audio.
