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JVC HA-SZ1000 Review (Headphone)

Rate this headphone:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 92 85.2%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 6 5.6%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 8 7.4%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 2 1.9%

  • Total voters
    108

MC_RME

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While I agree that Amir shouldn't waste too much time with outdated and no longer available items, a quick 3 band EQ fix and then listening to deep bass music at Amir levels would have explained while this one is called the 'king of bass'. It will shake your brain, heavily, rumble along unimpressed at highest SPLs.

Now that was years ago. As time goes by these phones are just no longer acceptable. Their FR is so broken that even the best EQ can't fix it. And they are big and clumsy. No comparison to the Hifiman Edition SX that I currently enjoy (and many more).
 
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ALaylowguy

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How does it feel on your head @Amir? If it wasn't horrible I would find one and try to EQ it. The review left me with so much curiosity haha
 

solderdude

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The headband is quite bulky and stiff, putting fair bit of pressure on the pads.

How does it feel on your head @Amir? If it wasn't horrible I would find one and try to EQ it. The review left me with so much curiosity haha

I would take that as... high clamping force. Most people prefer a low clamping force (below 4N).

Besides EQ'ing narrow band 1.5kHz up by 10dB and pretty adjacent band (500Hz) down by 10dB (so a total correction of 20dB) is not something that inspires confidence.
 

Yasuo

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I'm surprised it measures so bad, I wanted this headphone many years ago, but I couldn't afford it.
 

martijn86

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How does it feel on your head @Amir? If it wasn't horrible I would find one and try to EQ it. The review left me with so much curiosity haha
If you or anyone else actually gets to it and makes an EQ, do you have the ability to test the distortion characteristics post-EQ? That always makes me curious when a headphone is recommended but only with EQ. How close can tracking truly get? At what cost?
 

someguyontheinternet

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If you or anyone else actually gets to it and makes an EQ, do you have the ability to test the distortion characteristics post-EQ? That always makes me curious when a headphone is recommended but only with EQ. How close can tracking truly get? At what cost?
If the listening level is within the range of distortion measurements, you can mentally add the EQ to the distortion graph.
Since distortion tends to get worse with higher db and EQ only adds and subtracts db for specific frequencies, the effect of EQ is predictable within the measurement range.
 

thewas

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Until EQ becomes universally available, I like to see a response much closer to target than these deliver. In my situation, youtube listening on Windows for example is without EQ.
Especially for Windows there is Equalizer APO which is freeware, very easy to install and use and works system wide (also with Youtube etc.), since its discovery it has replaced all my past hardware and software EQs and is my only EQ source even for my hifi systems.
 

Jimbob54

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If the listening level is within the range of distortion measurements, you can mentally add the EQ to the distortion graph.
Since distortion tends to get worse with higher db and EQ only adds and subtracts db for specific frequencies, the effect of EQ is predictable within the measurement range.

Yup- Oratory1990 comments on the flip side of that- you dont need to measure the FR post EQ IF the HP response is linear ( so low distortion like this HP) . Where the wheels come off is on high distortion HP which means the EQ you apply might not be linear, resulting in all manner of unwanted changes.

 

edahl

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Philosophically, I think EQ is "the right" way to tune a headphone. After all EQ is just a coordinate change from a signal meant for flat speakers in a well-treated room (just kidding, we all know it's car stereos) to whatever headphone you happen to be using. That way, heaphones get to be the best possible platform for sound reproduction they can be, free from physical tuning constrains, and the signal gets to be shaped to fit the medium. HOWEVER, we're far from a place where is philosophy is a practical widespread reality.

Unless everyone just gets the RME ADI-2 DAC FS of course, hehe.
 
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Yorkshire Mouth

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Especially for Windows there is Equalizer APO which is freeware, very easy to install and use and works system wide (also with Youtube etc.), since its discovery it has replaced all my past hardware and software EQs and is my only EQ source even for my hifi systems.

There are many of us who can't get this to work on anything, and others for whom it's flakey, suddenly stopping working for no reason, etc.
 

thewas

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There are many of us who can't get this to work on anything, and others for whom it's flakey, suddenly stopping working for no reason, etc.
Interesting, I have it running on 6 different Windows machines currently without any problems, the only period I had few problems was a couple of years ago on some Windows 10 service pack but was solved from MS quickly.
 

Morpheus

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Until EQ becomes universally available, I like to see a response much closer to target than these deliver. In my situation, youtube listening on Windows for example is without EQ.

Right..Plus if even the owner said they sounded awfull anyway so why would you EQ it to death just to make them palatable? One can polish it to a t, and a t it will remain undernath the shine, and agressive, narrow band equing brings other issues too.
 

SimpleTheater

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Anything with distortion that low can be eq'd, so I had to give it a "fine" rating. Out of the box, terrible.
 

peniku8

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Still many people here believe that EQ is mandatory anyway. If the Idea is to leave the frequency response task to what can be done digitall more easily than with mechanical tuning, it does look like a good candidate for high fidelity no? To me there is some merit to achieve distortion that low if you are going to EQ anyway. isn’t digitally crafting the response with EQ going to bring less degradation that trying to play with the physics to ask a driver to follow a certain curve? I think this make sense, let the drivers do what they do at their optimal mechanical capabiilities, and do the frequency response thing the most transparent way.. Maybe.
This is actually how high-end PAs operate (stuff you'll see at Tomorrowland, Wacken or a Taylor Swift concert).
These speakers are tuned for maximum efficiency. The more efficient the speaker is, the louder it can play, but it'll also do so with less distortion.
 

Robbo99999

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I just read the review, that's quite a nasty headphone in the worse sense of the word!

I agree and while it definitively isn't a well tuned headphone, the fixed frequency based choice of the reference curve makes it look worse than it is, below I redraw it manually quick and dirty at a difference level and there you can see it mainly needs 2 PEQ with approximately -7 dB for the two upper bass / lower mid bumps and possibly smaller one for its "Beyer" bump between 7-10 kHz (would experiment if filling partially the narrow-ish dip between 1-2 kHz is worth it):

View attachment 200907

It's still a pretty nasty headphone though, but if unit variation is low on these (no idea if it is), then at least EQ from measurements can go some way to fix it - but the 5kHz sharp dip and the peak next to it from 7-9kHz are not easy to fix (probably can't fix the 5kHz dip), and the hole between 1-2kHz needs a lot of boosting, but the upper bass should be easy to EQ by contrast as it's not sharp deviations. Overall nasty!
 
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