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Is the harmann curve a littel smiley?

tomtoo

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Whats your impression?

So 3 days ago i got that cheap panas. Than i eq'ed it to harmann curve. First time i could hear harmann curve. First impression was a littel to much highs and a littel to much upper bass. Not much, i talk about 2-3 db. Whats your impression? I mean thats maybe just personal preference, nothing to realy complain, but interesting for me what others think?
 
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Jimbob54

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Whats your impression?

So 3 days ago i got that cheap panas. Than i eq'ed it to harmann curve. First time i could hear harmann curve. First impression was a littel to much highs and a littel to much upper bass. Not much, i talk about 2-3 db. Whats your impression? I mean thats maybe just personal preference, nothing to realy complain, but interesting for me what others think?
Invariably I prefer less bass than HTC based EQ and that 2 - 4k region often too much for me too.
 

Zensō

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Whats your impression?

So 3 days ago i got that cheap panas. Than i eq'ed it to harmann curve. First time i could hear harmann curve. First impression was a littel to much highs and a littel to much upper bass. Not much, i talk about 2-3 db. Whats your impression? I mean thats maybe just personal preference, nothing to realy complain, but interesting for me what others think?
Harman feels more like a downward slope than a smiley to me. Too much bass, not enough air. I adjust accordingly to taste.
 
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tomtoo

tomtoo

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At the moment i use a -3dB shelf at 2.8kHZ just to play around. And add then some air at 12khz up.
 

MayaTlab

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Whats your impression?

So 3 days ago i got that cheap panas. Than i eq'ed it to harmann curve. First time i could hear harmann curve. First impression was a littel to much highs and a littel to much upper bass. Not much, i talk about 2-3 db. Whats your impression? I mean thats maybe just personal preference, nothing to realy complain, but interesting for me what others think?

There is a degree of imprecision in Harman's research caused by several factors, among others inaccuracies / variance when measuring headphones on ear simulators, sample variation, variation in how headphones interact with various people's anatomy, etc.
An illustration of that phenomenon with my own on-head measurements (please don't take it too literally, it has its own degrees of imprecision) : https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...snt-like-this-curve.19668/page-22#post-844726

It's not big to the point of making Harman's findings invalid, far from it, as great care was taken to control quite a few nuisance variables, but probably big enough to be audible.

If you have other HPs available for which exist presets to EQ them to Harman, I encourage you to do so, you may (or may not) form a different opinion of the target with them as they may then hit a slightly different FR at your own eardrum.

As long as HPs can't deliver a predictable and constant FR at anyone's eardrum across a large enough range of the audible spectrum we may not be able to experience the exact target. This is a solved problem below 800Hz or so with ANC headphones with a good feedback mechanism and no volume dependent EQ (so not Bose) as it means that we can both easily measure them and that they can then deliver an exact dB value at anyone's eardrum for a specific digital value, but not above.
 
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tomtoo

tomtoo

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There is a degree of imprecision in Harman's research caused by several factors, among others inaccuracies / variance when measuring headphones on ear simulators, sample variation, variation in how headphones interact with various people's anatomy, etc.
An illustration of that phenomenon with my own on-head measurements (please don't take it too literally, it has its own degrees of imprecision) : https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...snt-like-this-curve.19668/page-22#post-844726

It's not big to the point of making Harman's findings invalid, far from it, as great care was taken to control quite a few nuisance variables, but probably big enough to be audible.

If you have other HPs available for which exist presets to EQ them to Harman, I encourage you to do so, you may (or may not) form a different opinion of the target with them as they may then hit a slightly different FR at your own eardrum.

As long as HPs can't deliver a predictable and constant FR at anyone's eardrum across a large enough range of the audible spectrum we may not be able to experience the exact target. This is a solved problem below 800Hz or so with ANC headphones with a good feedback mechanism and no volume dependent EQ (so not Bose) as it means that we can both easily measure them and that they can then deliver an exact dB value at anyone's eardrum for a specific digital value, but not above.

Interesting. Just wanted to give my first impression. And to talk a littel, what others think. Overall i like the harmann curve. And then there is adaption, thats why i liked to give first impression. Just easy talk.
I used this eq settings.

Cool part is, you can get cheap some impressions, and exchange worldwide. I mean thats realy cool. Some kinde of a quantum step.
 
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Zensō

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Its not so far from me, just have the impression of a littel to much lower highs.
My experience is that it depends a lot upon the particular headphone. I’ve EQ’d quite a number of headphones to the Harman curve with varying degrees of success; some sound harsh in the upper mids/treble, others too bassy, some greatly improved, etc. I suspect this may have to do with each particular headphone’s distortion levels at different frequencies in relation to the curve, how much EQ is required to match the curve, etc.
 
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tomtoo

tomtoo

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My experience is that it depends a lot upon the particular headphone. I’ve EQ’d quite a number of headphones to the Harman curve with varying degrees of success; some sound harsh in the upper mids/treble, others too bassy, some greatly improved, etc. I suspect this may have to do with each particular headphone’s distortion levels at different frequencies in relation to the curve, how much EQ is required to match the curve, etc.

Yep, that sounds possible.
 
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