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Oratory1990 has REMEASURED a load of headphones and updated his pdf's

Suuup

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Thank you for your work, Suuup.

Re. copyright, it does not apply to measurements.
Copyright became law based on the idea that creations by humans are " proper" (→ some kind of limited property), specific re. their human author, i.e. a book is written according to the proper, supposedly unique, personal writing style of the human author, and much later this was extended to works of art (painting, musical composition, and more recently to photographs).
Copyright does not cover works created by a machine (even creations by so-called "artificial intelligence" do not fall .under copyright).

Headphones measurements are not the specific personal artistic expression of a human artist, but are automatically generated by a device, hence they do not fall under copyright :) .
I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'm not convinced. A measurement is not done solely by a machine, in fact two different people might measure headphones wildly different and get wildly different results, even if using the same "machine" and same headphones.
>A person who finds and records a particular fact does not create that fact; he or she merely discovers its existence
Is this really the case for headphone measurements? If so, does this mean I can rip any headphone measurement on any site, and simply put it all in a single database?

I am by no means an expert, but also not keen on potentially breaking copyright based on a single forum post by a guy I don't know - no offense meant in any way.
 

amirm

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A measurement is not done solely by a machine, in fact two different people might measure headphones wildly different and get wildly different results, even if using the same "machine" and same headphones.
This unfortunately is the case and especially if you include frequencies above a few Kilohertz. For my headphone measurements I search for all the ones I can find and then try many techniques to see if I can get what they are posting.

And then there is the issue of not using the same gear. Some of the details are different even if the tester uses the same general measurement gear.

This is why I verify what I measure with listening tests.
 

Suuup

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This unfortunately is the case and especially if you include frequencies above a few Kilohertz. For my headphone measurements I search for all the ones I can find and then try many techniques to see if I can get what they are posting.

And then there is the issue of not using the same gear. Some of the details are different even if the tester uses the same general measurement gear.

This is why I verify what I measure with listening tests.
This is also one of the reasons why I want to collect as many measurements as possible. In the long run, if I get enough measurements, I could do more stuff with them.
 

bidn

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I am by no means an expert, but also not keen on potentially breaking copyright based on a single forum post by a guy I don't know - no offense meant in any way.

I understand your concerns.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'm not convinced. A measurement is not done solely by a machine, in fact two different people might measure headphones wildly different and get wildly different results, even if using the same "machine" and same headphones.
>A person who finds and records a particular fact does not create that fact; he or she merely discovers its existence
Is this really the case for headphone measurements? If so, does this mean I can rip any headphone measurement on any site, and simply put it all in a single database?.

When facts are established or discoveries made, human are always involved, as the devices" autonomy" is too limited, the purpose, arrangements, parameter configurations, etc. are set by humans, nevertheless copyright never applies to facts, science, discoveries (but the devices themselves or the processes for running them could be seen as inventions which might be protected by patents if fulfilling certain requirements).

The closest you can get are copyrights for photographs and for industrial designs (dimensions and arrangements of the pattern of a device). Because one would not be able to recognize the author, artist behind the result, this is not really specific for the author, artist, and so for me this is wrong, an abusive extension of the copyright. I understand this was justified because there is an aesthetic endeavour, the photograph taking a picture of a landscape or of a portrait being compared to the painter painting the same, i.e. as producing "works of arts"(aesthetically) unlike what happens in pure fact-finding and science.

As long as there is no "artistic" intent but only technical fact finding, graphs representings measurements cannot fall under copyright, and the less the numerical values represented on the graphs.

There is one thing though about which you should be careful:

In the USA copyright was extended to cover the selective creation of databases, and through the TRIPS agreement the USA managed to impose this and many other recent US extensions of "intellectual property" to many other countries (e.g. in Europe).
While facts such as measurements are unprotectable, creating through selective work a database of such facts can be considered to be a "creative" work if it "constitutes an original work of authorship" and the database could then be copyrighted. So someone could create a database of measurements, and apply and obtain a copyright for it, even if he didn't do the measurements himself. The individual facts (measurements) remain unprotected and all can always be extracted, but copying the whole copyrighted database would be a violation of the obtained copyright.

So as long as you are not replicating an entire database created by creative selection and for which copyright could be obtained, you are fine. I am not aware of any copyrighted database re. headphone or IEM measurements (probably not worth it for big companies).
But even if someone managed to copyright such a database, you would still be able to extract all the factual records inside (as long as there is no issue of privacy, e.g. names and addresses of customers, which does not apply here) and use or reproduce all of them in a different manner, you would only not be allowed to replicate the whole database.
 
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wasnotwasnotwas

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I understand your concerns.



When facts are established or discoveries made, human are always involved, as the devices" autonomy" is too limited, the purpose, arrangements, parameter configurations, etc. are set by humans, nevertheless copyright never applies to facts, science, discoveries (but the devices themselves or the processes for running them could be seen as inventions which might be protected by patents if fulfilling certain requirements).

The closest you can get are copyrights for photographs and for industrial designs (dimensions and arrangements of the pattern of a device). Because one would not be able to recognize the author, artist behind the result, this is not really specific for the author, artist, and so for me this is wrong, an abusive extension of the copyright. I understand this was justified because there is an aesthetic endeavour, the photograph taking a picture of a landscape or of a portrait being compared to the painter painting the same, i.e. as producing "works of arts"(aesthetically) unlike what happens in pure fact-finding and science.

As long as there is no "artistic" intent but only technical fact finding, graphs representings measurements cannot fall under copyright, and the less the numerical values represented on the graphs.

There is one thing though about which you should be careful:

In the USA copyright was extended to cover the selective creation of databases, and through the TRIPS agreement the USA managed to impose this and many other recent US extensions of "intellectual property" to many other countries (e.g. in Europe).
While facts such as measurements are unprotectable, creating through selective work a database of such facts can be considered to be a "creative" work if it "constitutes an original work of authorship" and the database could then be copyrighted. So someone could create a database of measurements, and apply and obtain a copyright for it, even if he didn't do the measurements himself. The individual facts (measurements) remain unprotected and all can always be extracted, but copying the whole copyrighted database would be a violation of the obtained copyright.

So as long as you are not replicating an entire database created by creative selection and for which copyright could be obtained, you are fine. I am not aware of any copyrighted database re. headphone or IEM measurements (probably not worth it for big companies).
But even if someone managed to copyright such a database, you would still be able to extract all the factual records inside (as long as there is no issue of privacy, e.g. names and addresses of customers, which does not apply here) and use or reproduce all of them in a different manner, you would only not be allowed to replicate the whole database.

Regardless of copyright law, using someone else's content wholesale without consent might not be the best move from a PR perspective
 

Suuup

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I understand your concerns.



When facts are established or discoveries made, human are always involved, as the devices" autonomy" is too limited, the purpose, arrangements, parameter configurations, etc. are set by humans, nevertheless copyright never applies to facts, science, discoveries (but the devices themselves or the processes for running them could be seen as inventions which might be protected by patents if fulfilling certain requirements).

The closest you can get are copyrights for photographs and for industrial designs (dimensions and arrangements of the pattern of a device). Because one would not be able to recognize the author, artist behind the result, this is not really specific for the author, artist, and so for me this is wrong, an abusive extension of the copyright. I understand this was justified because there is an aesthetic endeavour, the photograph taking a picture of a landscape or of a portrait being compared to the painter painting the same, i.e. as producing "works of arts"(aesthetically) unlike what happens in pure fact-finding and science.

As long as there is no "artistic" intent but only technical fact finding, graphs representings measurements cannot fall under copyright, and the less the numerical values represented on the graphs.

There is one thing though about which you should be careful:

In the USA copyright was extended to cover the selective creation of databases, and through the TRIPS agreement the USA managed to impose this and many other recent US extensions of "intellectual property" to many other countries (e.g. in Europe).
While facts such as measurements are unprotectable, creating through selective work a database of such facts can be considered to be a "creative" work if it "constitutes an original work of authorship" and the database could then be copyrighted. So someone could create a database of measurements, and apply and obtain a copyright for it, even if he didn't do the measurements himself. The individual facts (measurements) remain unprotected and all can always be extracted, but copying the whole copyrighted database would be a violation of the obtained copyright.

So as long as you are not replicating an entire database created by creative selection and for which copyright could be obtained, you are fine. I am not aware of any copyrighted database re. headphone or IEM measurements (probably not worth it for big companies).
But even if someone managed to copyright such a database, you would still be able to extract all the factual records inside (as long as there is no issue of privacy, e.g. names and addresses of customers, which does not apply here) and use or reproduce all of them in a different manner, you would only not be allowed to replicate the whole database.
As far as I understand it, you don't actually have to register the copyright beforehand, you can do that after the fact.

The collection clause is also what held me back originally, as the law seems super vague to me. What constitutes a creative selection, I've no idea.
Regardless of copyright law, using someone else's content wholesale without consent might not be the best move from a PR perspective
Innerfidelity is dead though. I made a Discord bot that can pull up all the graphs and can compare different measurements, which Tyll was aware of, and commented that it was cool.
 

wasnotwasnotwas

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As far as I understand it, you don't actually have to register the copyright beforehand, you can do that after the fact.

The collection clause is also what held me back originally, as the law seems super vague to me. What constitutes a creative selection, I've no idea.

Innerfidelity is dead though. I made a Discord bot that can pull up all the graphs and can compare different measurements, which Tyll was aware of, and commented that it was cool.

I thought Stereophile had acquired it- as to what "it" was, I dont know.
 

bidn

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The collection clause is also what held me back originally, as the law seems super vague to me. What constitutes a creative selection, I've no idea.

Building a database by sequentially adding all the measurements one makes is not a creative selection and will not be a valid basis for copyright, i.e. the present lists of measurements (made by reviewers) do not entitle for copyright.

What one would need to do to would for example be the following:
reviewing all measurements from many existing sets created by many different reviewers, intellectually selecting out of them only those matching a given Frequency Response target curve, creating a new database by compiling those selected measurements, publishing this newly created database (e.g. on the internet) and at the same time copyrighting it. In any case, anyone could still freely extract all the measurements as copyright will not apply to the measurements themselves.
 

Suuup

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Building a database by sequentially adding all the measurements one makes is not a creative selection and will not be a valid basis for copyright, i.e. the present lists of measurements (made by reviewers) do not entitle for copyright.

What one would need to do to would for example be the following:
reviewing all measurements from many existing sets created by many different reviewers, intellectually selecting out of them only those matching a given Frequency Response target curve, creating a new database by compiling those selected measurements, publishing this newly created database (e.g. on the internet) and at the same time copyrighting it. In any case, anyone could still freely extract all the measurements as copyright will not apply to the measurements themselves.
It's definitely interesting. I reached out to Stereophile to see if they wanted to make some sort of deal, but I'm not sure it's going to happen. Might be worth paying an IP lawyer to answer the question.
 

lyons238

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what EQ are you all using on Mac? I'm currently using Fabfilter Pro Q 3 but it uses a different algorithm and it's a de-cramped EQ so Orotary's parameters do not match up, nor do they from REW I believe. Any suggestions on how to either matchup with Pro Q or another EQ that's good?
 

Patrick1958

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what EQ are you all using on Mac? I'm currently using Fabfilter Pro Q 3 but it uses a different algorithm and it's a de-cramped EQ so Orotary's parameters do not match up, nor do they from REW I believe. Any suggestions on how to either matchup with Pro Q or another EQ that's good?
Fabfilter pro Q3 : multiply Q value oratory by 1,40845.
This will give you similar results.
 

lyons238

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Fabfilter pro Q3 : multiply Q value oratory by 1,40845.
This will give you similar results.

I forgot to mention I've been doing this and it does get fairly close but not exactly (I may send my headphones in to him so I'd like to figure out a way to get it as accurate as possible). Also do you know if the required formula is dynamic? Meaning as you get closer to the Ryan Nyquist frequency, does the formula for Q change or is the 1.4 fine to use across the entire spectrum? Also, since Pro Q is de-cramped, I noticed 20k is above 0db where on Oratory's parameters, his filters return back to 0db at 20khz, is there any preferred method to handle this? I'm splitting hairs here because I can't notice much if a difference at the 18-20k range of just a db or 2 but I'd still like to get it as close as possible.

Lastly, it seems Pro Q may actually be able to be utilized to adhere to targets, you can upload a frequency spectrum file as sort of a target curve and then use the EQ match feature to have it try and match it. I'm not exactly sure how to get the Harman target as well as the RAW headphone measurement into Pro Q accurately but I'd like to try and do this.

With all that said, would you still recommend using Pro Q 3 as a headphone EQ despite the inconsistencies when using oratory's parameters? I really love Pro Q, I've been using it for years for music production and it just seems to sound really transparent and the UI is very easy to use, plus I spent the money on it so I'd like to take advantage of it, but if there is a comparibly good EQ that does not have the inconsistencies aka an EQ that uses the RBJ filters/formula and has normal cramping when approaching the nyquist frequency 9this is the type of EQ oratory is using to set is parameters when using oratory's parameters), I'm all ears. Also, any other general tips for Pro Q or information regarding my questions/comments is greatly appreciated!

Thanks bud!
 

Patrick1958

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I forgot to mention I've been doing this and it does get fairly close but not exactly (I may send my headphones in to him so I'd like to figure out a way to get it as accurate as possible). Also do you know if the required formula is dynamic? Meaning as you get closer to the Ryan Nyquist frequency, does the formula for Q change or is the 1.4 fine to use across the entire spectrum? Also, since Pro Q is de-cramped, I noticed 20k is above 0db where on Oratory's parameters, his filters return back to 0db at 20khz, is there any preferred method to handle this? I'm splitting hairs here because I can't notice much if a difference at the 18-20k range of just a db or 2 but I'd still like to get it as close as possible.

Lastly, it seems Pro Q may actually be able to be utilized to adhere to targets, you can upload a frequency spectrum file as sort of a target curve and then use the EQ match feature to have it try and match it. I'm not exactly sure how to get the Harman target as well as the RAW headphone measurement into Pro Q accurately but I'd like to try and do this.

With all that said, would you still recommend using Pro Q 3 as a headphone EQ despite the inconsistencies when using oratory's parameters? I really love Pro Q, I've been using it for years for music production and it just seems to sound really transparent and the UI is very easy to use, plus I spent the money on it so I'd like to take advantage of it, but if there is a comparibly good EQ that does not have the inconsistencies aka an EQ that uses the RBJ filters/formula and has normal cramping when approaching the nyquist frequency 9this is the type of EQ oratory is using to set is parameters when using oratory's parameters), I'm all ears. Also, any other general tips for Pro Q or information regarding my questions/comments is greatly appreciated!

Thanks bud!
Just recently started using Fab Pro Q3, still in novice state ;)
Sorry i can not answer your questions.
Fact is, i can not hear a difference when using Pro Q3 with adjusted Q values versus JRiver with Oratory's Q values.
 

Jose Hidalgo

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Fabfilter pro Q3 : multiply Q value oratory by 1,40845.
This will give you similar results.
I would like to know where that 1,40845 number comes from. We are on ASR after all. ;)
 

lyons238

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Just recently started using Fab Pro Q3, still in novice state ;)
Sorry i can not answer your questions.
Fact is, i can not hear a difference when using Pro Q3 with adjusted Q values versus JRiver with Oratory's Q values.

No worries! Appreciate the reply. I can notice a tiny bit of a difference myself but if anything the Pro Q sounds better to my ear, but I'm more just trying to be as accurate as possible.

I think there's some opportunity with the EQ match feature. It could be possible to enter in RAW measurements and target curves and have it EQ match them. This could either be done manually, or perhaps if you could somehow generate an audio signal to match the FR graphs, and last and probably most practically, the frequency spectrum curves in pro Q are just text files so I'm sure they could be programmed in without too much fuss. im still trying to learn more about this to give it a go.
 
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