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Master Complaint Thread About Headphone Measurements

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amirm

amirm

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Assuming that 2%, 3% or 5% THD may not be audible, why report it?
We don't know the level of audibility because THD by itself is not instructive perceptually. However, comparing to other speakers in the same frequency range, the lower the distortion, the better the design.
 

DualTriode

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We don't know the level of audibility because THD by itself is not instructive perceptually. However, comparing to other speakers in the same frequency range, the lower the distortion, the better the design.

On the same page.
 

pkane

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It seems rather averaged/smoothed for a white noise plot.
I meant using white noise while positioning and using a real-time analyzer.
Have made some BT headphone measurements using white noise (generated with a noise generator flat up to 100kHz, really easy to build)
I have to record at least 1min of noise and then analyze it to get something close to a sweep.

bt-nc-off.png

Of course. There was no averaging when I was positioning the headphone. What I posted was the averaged measurement after the headphone was positioned at best and worst locations since I wanted to see clear differences.
 
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abdo123

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I found this graph on DIY-audio-heaven

descriptors2.png


I thought maybe it's a good idea to use it (or for Amir to make his own version of it).

it's kind of a way to show inexperienced readers how the headphones will sound like from the measurements

it can also be used to verify the measurements as Amir perhaps can hear the effect a peak or a dip has on the sound of the headphones.
 
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scherbakov_al

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Can I ask you to make graphs of the same size? After all, the purpose of graphs is to compare different devices. You can open several browser tabs with different test graphs and switch between them. And compare. And if the graphs are of different sizes, they will complicate the comparison a little. I really like the graphs of tests for absolute distortion - you can see the frequency response and you can see the level of distortion - very clearly! Maybe there is not enough such a graph for the speakers (the percentage does not clearly show the distortion).
 
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What is exactly the rig used and measurement procedure (including windowing parameters being used to calculate the frequency response)?
 

TheTalbotHound

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Hello Amir, Is it possible to measure the Acoustic Impedance of headphones on your measurement equipment? Also why do you show measurements of group delay rather than excess group delay?
 

Doodski

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@amirm as a add-on to the headphone tests can we have a comment about any microphonic issues with the cable? Some of the phones have microphonic cables and that would be good to know. :D Basically a slight commentary about the cable properties and whether or not it passes the test too.
 
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amirm

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Hello Amir, Is it possible to measure the Acoustic Impedance of headphones on your measurement equipment? Also why do you show measurements of group delay rather than excess group delay?
Audio Precision can't measure either. Excessive delay is easy to see out of Group delay anyway. I have not seen anyone show acoustic impedance of headphones. The fixture, yes. But not the headphone. Do you have an example measurement and how it was done?
 
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amirm

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@amirm as a add-on to the headphone tests can we have a comment about any microphonic issues with the cable? Some of the phones have microphonic cables and that would be good to know. :D Basically a slight commentary about the cable properties and whether or not it passes the test too.
I have been meaning to comment on that but keep forgetting. :) So far I have not found it to a major issue with these headphones. IEMs is where I find the problem significant.
 

Robbo99999

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I have been meaning to comment on that but keep forgetting. :) So far I have not found it to a major issue with these headphones. IEMs is where I find the problem significant.
Biggest problem for me re microphonic cables is if I'm wearing something like a fleece with the zip undone, then the cable rubs on the zip, that's noisy, but apart from that I don't believe I've suffered from cable microphonics. You can always/sometimes replace the cable, but I guess it's good to know.
 
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amirm

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Is there a Preference list for headphones like we have for speakers?
I have opted to leave that out. Members have been posting the value though in the review thread. The issue is that using same model headphone, the scores computed with my measurements are quite different than Harman's. We did a lot of work to iron these out for speakers and at any rate, measurements there are much more repeatable in that domain. With headphones that is not the case and I hate to make a ranked list like that as it stands now.
 

raistlin65

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The vertical format you presented has advantages although the horizontal format fits better into the aspect ratio of our monitors.

I don't know about ASR. But for several years now web traffic has been showing that people access the web more with their phones than with computer browsers. And that vertical graph would be much better for a phone. It's always a real pain to try to scroll left and right on that big SINAD chart on my phone.
 

TheTalbotHound

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Audio Precision can't measure either. Excessive delay is easy to see out of Group delay anyway. I have not seen anyone show acoustic impedance of headphones. The fixture, yes. But not the headphone. Do you have an example measurement and how it was done?

Honestly i was asking more about whether measuring acoustic impedance is possible. I have no idea myself, but i think leakage response measurements (i think headphonetestlab sometimes do them) give some indication. Also I suggested excess group delay because i believed it would be more straightforward for a larger audience to look at than raw group delay.
 

monkeyboy

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Could you add pass at a more reasonable volume level 70dB or so...94-114 dB seem like ear splitting levels, would a headphone designer be using this high of an SPL to judge the performance...these levels are "worst case", but certainly don't represent the volumes I would be using....
Thank you.
 
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