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Little help with EQ on Sennheiser Momentum 2.0 (M2)

bloodevil

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Jan 6, 2021
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Hi all, I want to premise that I’m very new to the hi-res world and recently I started to look into EQ. I read oratory1990 threads on Reddit and sadly he hasn’t measured the 2.0 (M2)
So I tried with AutoEQ targeted to Harman curve and found This, however the high gain on those high frequencies causes a noise in the background so I imagine there’s something wrong with the measurements (?). The noise is there with basically every song but it’s not always audible due to lack of quiet passages in most of my songs.
Now my request for help is: could you help me set the right values to safely lower the high frequencies without distorting the sound?
Or well if you have another better settings even better! I don’t know if can or can’t help but I also found These measurements.
I’m using a FiiO Q3 as amp/dac and Neutron player as source (it has up to 60-band parametric EQ).
I will definitely upgrade my headphones in the future but I’d really love to get a decent EQ for them while I’m saving, hope you can help :)
 

julian_hughes

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The issue is that headphone measurements have real deficiencies. Often those incredibly extreme dips you see in FR graphs don't represent reality, but are caused by reflections in the headphone while it is being measured on the test rig, and actually give a totally false idea of its qualities. Those amazingly big dips are as likely in the real world to actually be peaks. So if you try to compensate a supposed 6dB "dip" by adding 6dB, well if that 6dB is *in reality" caused by a small peak being reflected, then you are adding excess dB to excess dB. You get a horrible sound signature and probably plenty of audible distortion too! Also don't rely on *any* data above 10kHz to be accurate - you linked to autoeq's innerfidelity results; Tyll Hertsens who performed those tests at IF always said not to trust that end of the graph!

If you really want to eq your Momentums (despite them being really nice already!) I would use the fixed band eq from that linked page, use only the first 8 bands and apply -3 dB preamp. To be honest if I were you I would just enjoy the Momentums as they are, they don't need any improving.
 

julian_hughes

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A little while after writing the above reply I had the chance to buy a pair of Momentum M2 headphones for a very good price (I already own the original Momentum over ears) and I went ahead and bought them. They really are good. In an ideal environment with all other things being equal then open back headphones are preferable but the Sennheiser Momentums are still superb. These are very high quality headphones, really well designed, beautifully made, great comfort, fabulous sound, and they do not need any EQ "correction"!
 

er|κzvio1in

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May 26, 2023
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The issue is that headphone measurements have real deficiencies. Often those incredibly extreme dips you see in FR graphs don't represent reality, but are caused by reflections in the headphone while it is being measured on the test rig, and actually give a totally false idea of its qualities. Those amazingly big dips are as likely in the real world to actually be peaks. So if you try to compensate a supposed 6dB "dip" by adding 6dB, well if that 6dB is *in reality" caused by a small peak being reflected, then you are adding excess dB to excess dB. You get a horrible sound signature and probably plenty of audible distortion too! Also don't rely on *any* data above 10kHz to be accurate - you linked to autoeq's innerfidelity results; Tyll Hertsens who performed those tests at IF always said not to trust that end of the graph!

If you really want to eq your Momentums (despite them being really nice already!) I would use the fixed band eq from that linked page, use only the first 8 bands and apply -3 dB preamp. To be honest if I were you I would just enjoy the Momentums as they are, they don't need any improving.
Bringing up an old topic, but I have the Momentum 2 and while they are great as standard, they have loudness on as standard: a wide 10 dB boost all the way between 50-200 hz which is nice for low volume listening in public areas, but for at home listening it misses clarity because of that. Then there's a narrow +7 dB dip at 4k
 
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