Not sure I like Harman curve

[thyristor]

AKG K712s have been my headphones for many years. I love the spacious sound and comfort.

I've been back and worth with the EQ from the review thread.

I feel that the EQ makes the sound very dull. The airiness that I love about these headphones is gone. It just comes a very boring headphones to listen to.

I'm just not used to neutral. And not sure that I want it.

 

[MayaTlab]

If you have other headphones, have you tried EQing them as well towards the target ?

 

[Doodski]

AKG K712s have been my headphones for many years. I love the spacious sound and comfort.

I've been back and worth with the EQ from the review thread.

I feel that the EQ makes the sound very dull. The airiness that I love about these headphones is gone. It just comes a very boring headphones to listen to.

I'm just not used to neutral. And not sure that I want it.

Tune the PEQ by ear then. That's what I do. There are no hard and fast rules here in this endeavor. There is only what you like and dislike.

 

[thyristor]

If you have other headphones, have you tried EQing them as well towards the target ?

I have not. I have ordered K371s so I can compare.

 

[Jimbob54]

You're fighting a battle on at least 3 fronts at the same time there.

1. A headphone that wasnt really designed to cope with Harman levels of bass - adding 8dB of bass lift on that distortion profile is far from ideal
2. Your ears/ brain just plain are not used to that level of bass from headphones even if there wasnt the added distortion. Takes some adjustment
3. You will have added I assume 8 or 9 dB of preamp reduction and a resulting overall drop in loudness from any given setting on your amp dial which you likely arent fully accounting for (ie you are overall listening quieter with EQ enabled = duller sounding.

Added to that, you might just be one of those people for whom Harman sounds wrong anyway and you would need to adjust significantly the EQ settings to taste (my tip, see how you go with uing the same frequency adjustments but with far less adjustment for each of the big peaks and troughs in the EQ settings- see if a halfway house position works better)

 

[HarmonicTHD]

AKG K712s have been my headphones for many years. I love the spacious sound and comfort.

I've been back and worth with the EQ from the review thread.

I feel that the EQ makes the sound very dull. The airiness that I love about these headphones is gone. It just comes a very boring headphones to listen to.

I'm just not used to neutral. And not sure that I want it.

Harman is what the average listener in a large test group preferred. Nothing wrong with having preferences outside of average.

Besides who should argue about your tastes and preferences anyhow.

 

[roderickvd]

While @Jimbob54 is absolutely right of course, I am with you brother. I can't stand EQ'ing of my Beyers towards that Harman target curve. Others may hate Beyers for being V-shaped or have too much sub-bass. Clearly a matter of preference.

But what is the point of buying different cans and all trying to EQ them to the same curve? Part of my fun of having different cans is that they have different signatures. Subjective again, little point in being dogmatic about it.

 

[solderdude]

AKG K712s have been my headphones for many years. I love the spacious sound and comfort.

I've been back and worth with the EQ from the review thread.

I feel that the EQ makes the sound very dull. The airiness that I love about these headphones is gone. It just comes a very boring headphones to listen to.

I'm just not used to neutral. And not sure that I want it.

Try to ONLY EQ in the lower bass and not EQ anything above 300Hz.
You should EQ to personal preference not to a specific target for the sake of EQing to a target and thinking this MUST be the only correct way.

When I EQ bass to Haman levels I find bass-shy recordings to sound good and well made recordings too bassy/fat.

 

[thyristor]

I've been listening to acoustic music for couple of hours with the EQ. It sounds very natural. Turning of EQ makes the sound very boomy.

With acoustic music it's definitely more neutral with EQ.

 

[Bow_Wazoo]

Ideally, the Harman curve should be viewed as a starting point, not a target.
For over ears, I would prefer Oratorys settings (clearly).

 

[captainbeefheart]

I thought the Harman curve was for loudspeakers and was thought to be for headphones but new studies have shown the Harman curve is not close to neutral for headphones. The study uses a composite ear made from measurements of 40 different real human ears, inside is a calibrated microphone.

There is a youtube video about this I'll try and find it.

 

[HarmonicTHD]

I thought the Harman curve was for loudspeakers and was thought to be for headphones but new studies have shown the Harman curve is not close to neutral for headphones. The study uses a composite ear made from measurements of 40 different real human ears, inside is a calibrated microphone.

There is a youtube video about this I'll try and find it.

The headphone curve is based on the work by Sean Olive (also former Harman employee) to my best knowledge and looks substantially different from the one for speakers. Simply speaking it accounts for the effect of your ear anatomy on the sound.

Post in thread 'Journal of the Acoustical Society of America'
https://audiosciencereview.com/foru...ustical-society-of-america.31782/post-1126016

 

[captainbeefheart]

There are people that say he is a con artist. Who knows, his Stealth headphones are pretty darn expensive.

 

[Jimbob54]

There are people that say he is a con artist.

What's this now?

 

[amirm]

I thought the Harman curve was for loudspeakers and was thought to be for headphones but new studies have shown the Harman curve is not close to neutral for headphones.

No. Harman redeveloped targets for headphones. They based it on sound of a good speaker in a room. The new study is not much of a study.

 

[kchap]

I'm just confused by the Harman curve(s). Are we saying "because we have been influenced by 70 years of popular music via an electronic medium, this is how we prefer listening" or are we saying "If you have never heard any form of music from an electronic source and I plonk a pair of headphones on your head, this is how you would prefer it".

BTW, If Harman is the way of the future why do we get so upset about DAC filters that cut off at 19k instead of 20k. There is nothing to hear anyway, equalising to a Harmon curve starts to kill everything above 15k!

 

[kchap]

No. Harman redeveloped targets for headphones. They based it on sound of a good speaker in a room. The new study is not much of a study.

Good, clarification. I had read something similar that on a web site, but then it went of at a tangent. It just added to the confusion.

 

[_thelaughingman]

I'm just confused by the Harman curve(s). Are we saying "because we have been influenced by 70 years of popular music via an electronic medium, this is how we prefer listening" or are we saying "If you have never heard any form of music from an electronic source and I plonk a pair of headphones on your head, this is how you would prefer it".

BTW, If Harman is the way of the future why do we get so upset about DAC filters that cut off at 19k instead of 20k. There is nothing to hear anyway, equalising to a Harmon curve starts to kill everything above 15k!

Not even going to lie, but I don't EQ my headphones above 10Khz, absolutely nothing to gain above there. I just slap on a high pass at 10khz if need be.

 

[Cars-N-Cans]

I'm just confused by the Harman curve(s). Are we saying "because we have been influenced by 70 years of popular music via an electronic medium, this is how we prefer listening" or are we saying "If you have never heard any form of music from an electronic source and I plonk a pair of headphones on your head, this is how you would prefer it".

BTW, If Harman is the way of the future why do we get so upset about DAC filters that cut off at 19k instead of 20k. There is nothing to hear anyway, equalising to a Harmon curve starts to kill everything above 15k!

My hearing goes up to 17 kHz still, and there is some content there above 10 kHz, just not very much. Most people wont notice things missing above about 12 kHz, I would hazard to say. Only time I ever had any issue is with my PCs AE7 sound card having a filter that cut in too early and rolled the top end off. It was somewhat noticeable as a loss of air. On the flip side was my cellphone that had an EQ that boosted everything above 8 kHz. That drove me crazy until I figured out how to get rid of it.

As far as the Harman curve goes, I would like to hear the Stealths or some other headphone that fully conforms to it at some point. I have the 2020 revision Sundaras with bass EQ and they are quite good, but still not as neutral as my nearfield speaker system, esp. with classical music. PEQ might fix it, but I'm not sure how much is down to production variation vs. the tune in general, and doing by ear was hit or miss for me. One thing I have wondered is how much physical differences between individuals comes into play with headphones and the target curve? I presume its an average for many listeners, but have not really read anything in detail on it.

 

[HarmonicTHD]

I'm just confused by the Harman curve(s). Are we saying "because we have been influenced by 70 years of popular music via an electronic medium, this is how we prefer listening" or are we saying "If you have never heard any form of music from an electronic source and I plonk a pair of headphones on your head, this is how you would prefer it".

BTW, If Harman is the way of the future why do we get so upset about DAC filters that cut off at 19k instead of 20k. There is nothing to hear anyway, equalising to a Harmon curve starts to kill everything above 15k!

See the link in post 12 and the paper of Sean Olive linked therein. At least read the conclusion. It’s easily written.