Philips SHP9500 are the best budget headphones

[solderdude]

That will depend on your ear-canal gain (not so much pinna gain). In general most people are less bothered by a dip of a few dB there than when there is a peak.
A lot of headphones (usually the well received ones) have a small dip in that area.
It will become more obvious when comparing directly with say a HD600.

 

[Cylphio]

That will depend on your ear-canal gain (not so much pinna gain). In general most people are less bothered by a dip of a few dB there than when there is a peak.
A lot of headphones (usually the well received ones) have a small dip in that area.
It will become more obvious when comparing directly with say a HD600.

I mean, as you said on the review hd560s, I think that the dip is simply not audible when there is a pinna involved, being the drivers extremely angled. I don't perceive any dip there and today I've found that Mark has a measured evidence of what I'm saying in his squigs. I'm actually in Asia trying the entire world production of headphones. I just sold my hd600 because I simply think that the shp9500, apart from the slight more natural mids of the 600, is a superior pair of headphones: they measures equally, the perceived soundstage of the Philips is vastly superior, the dynamics are almost the same and the overall presentation is faster and more immersive. Just my take

 

[solderdude]

It still shows a 4dB dip opposite the HD600 which is audible. Chances are your HRTF/preference does prefer a little less 3kHz presence. Join the club there are many people that prefer less ear canal gain as that which is present in measurement fixtures.

The thing is that while the pinna does react to angle of the sound source the 3kHz dip is not angle dependent because it is mostly caused by a resonance in ear canal. The ear canal of humans is quite different from most test fixtures.
There still is some influence on the 3-4 kHz range which is angle dependent (as is shown in research) due to the pinna but not at angles between 90 degrees and 80 degrees, which is what we are talking about here.

You simply prefer a little dip there and so you prefer the SHP9500 and probably also some other headphones like the more recent Sennheisers over the older Sennheiser models which are a bit 'hot' in that area.