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Poll: Do you like Harman In-Ear target curve?

Do you like the Harman In-Ear target curve?

  • Yes, it is perfect.

    Votes: 50 45.9%
  • No, I like a little less mids.

    Votes: 30 27.5%
  • No, I like a lot less mids.

    Votes: 13 11.9%
  • No, I like more mids!

    Votes: 16 14.7%

  • Total voters
    109

Cars-N-Cans

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What are you on about now? There's nothing fun about misinformation. We have many ways of measuring the speed of light. In fact, it can even be done to reasonable accuracy by a college student with a simple table-top experiment. Please stop spreading pseudoscientific nonsense, whether it's about light, sound, or whichever other subject you think you know what you're talking about but in reality have an obvious lack of basic understanding.
I think what he meant was directly measure it since the information medium that you use to take the measurement is fundamentally limited by said thing you are trying to measure. Edit: In your example, we get around this eventuality by indirectly measuring the speed using the transit time over some distance. Provided the electrical delays in both sides of the apparatus are the same, we then get a corresponding pulse a short time later from the detector. This is not the actual speed, but a quantity that we can use to calculate it.
 
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markanini

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A different example is how we know evolution is true despite not being able to observe it in real-time. This statement shouldn't trigger an overreaction either. But it shows that we can reach knowledge by a number of different means, using data from fossil records, biogeography, artificial selection, vestigial organs. More importantly there's no limitation to sourcing data only within one field. Hi-fi IEMs stand on a lot of audiology research.
 

GaryH

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The lack of basic scientific literacy on here is even worse than I thought...Speed (v) is defined as a derived quantity, distance d covered per unit time t:

v = d / t

If you measure the base quantities (here distance and time) a derived quantity (here speed) is defined by, that is a direct measurement of the derived quantity, whether for light or anything else. The clue's in the name of the paper: "A small tabletop experiment for a direct measurement of the speed of light".

Oh and:
 

GaryH

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According to Amirs measurements the Truthear Zero is slightly shoutier than the Harman target, it has slightly less subbass and a slight hump in the lower mids. So while it rather close, it is not "the" Harman Target.

So if someone finds this IEM okay overall but slightly too shouty or mid-bassy, chances are good he still likes the Harman Target.
Exactly. People (I for one) can find the Truthear Zero for example shouty but still like the Harman target, which means the Truthear's stock response is not sufficiently close to the Harman target to judge the latter from (further evidenced objectively by its very good - but a significant ~20% short of the average scaled score of 100% given to the Harman target in blind tests - predicted preference rating of 81%). How some people are repeatedly failing to grasp this simple fact is mind-boggling. If I had judged the Harman target from the Truthear Zero's stock response (which many will do due to misinformation that it's incredibly highly adherent to it), my answer to the question of this poll, 'Do you like the Harman In-Ear target curve?' would have been 'No, I like a little less mids' (because I find the Truthear shouty), which would have been a false conclusion about my actual opinion of the Harman target. Whereas judging the target correctly via the Truthear (and other IEMs) EQed to Harman, my answer is 'Yes', I do like the target, and I don't think it should have less mids. And I will not be alone in this opinion.
 
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Cars-N-Cans

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The lack of basic scientific literacy on here is even worse than I thought...Speed (v) is defined as a derived quantity, distance d covered per unit time t:

v = d / t

If you measure the base quantities (here distance and time) a derived quantity (here speed) is defined by, that is a direct measurement of the derived quantity, whether for light or anything else. The clue's in the name of the paper: "A small tabletop experiment for a direct measurement of the speed of light".

Oh and:
No it’s not a true direct measurement. If I give you and a friend a laser pointer and have each of you stand on opposite sides of the grand canyon, can you measure the speed of light simply by having him tell you when it gets there from your location? No, because there is no medium that can travel faster than light to let you know it has arrived at the destination to begin with. You cannot measure directly it’s arrival time. You must wait for it to come back to you, and measure it’s transit time. Now, of course we can cheat and use light to tell us by using various cables to convey the signal around and have them all arrive some time later but this does not tell us the instant the light gets to some distant location. We have to measure it implicitly using what you stated above. This is different than, say sound, where the differing arrival times of light and sound allow us to directly see how long it took to get from some location, e. g. a lightning strike. We can see, relative to the sound, when the moment happens in time before the actual sound arrives. There is no analogous effect with light since it’s so fundamental. Information cannot travel faster than it. Now, there are things like the “delayed choice experiment” that appear to violate this, but that is because the laser is continuous in this context, and so is the resulting wave function. Altering one part of it must effect the rest of the wave function simultaneously or conservation of energy would be violated. We could have multiple detected photons simultaneously even when the intensity of the laser beam is below the energy of a single photon.
 

Cars-N-Cans

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The lack of basic scientific literacy on here is even worse than I thought...Speed (v) is defined as a derived quantity, distance d covered per unit time t:

v = d / t
Now, if we want to be very literal we could dispense with the distance and time entirely, and have some apparatus that can travel at the actual speed of the light in each medium and directly measure it. From this we would get things like index of refraction simply by pacing the lightwaves as they propagate. Possible? Well, no, of course. Have to use other quantities, and accept that we can never know the time it takes light to cover a fixed distance the instant it completes the journey without having some way to convey the start time using some other method that doesn’t travel faster than our light, such as delay lines for both signals. The apparatus solves this by arranging things by recording the time it takes to go back and fourth with equal delays, and nothing is violated. The start pulse was recorded in advance and thus did not require faster than light travel or communication. This is in contrast to your car, where you can measure its speed at all times since you can travel with it and directly observe the velocity. Same with supersonic projectiles. We can directly observe them using suitable equipment. With light, the best we can do is slight of hand to allow us to deduce its speed. Now the argument may seem to be overly literal or tautological in nature, but it’s still an important distinction to make. We can’t put a speedometer on light and know it’s speed at any time. We have to use stopwatches and measure it later using other quantities.

Edit: Is this thread too far off topic, now? We were talking about quantum mechanics at the beginning, right? :confused: Oh well if nothing else ASRs tangents can be interesting in their own right even if I am sometimes among the guilty for causing said tangents.
 
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Jimbob54

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How does anyone know they have heard the Harman IE 2019? I get how someone can say they have EQd towards / close to it.
 

MayaTlab

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How does anyone know they have heard the Harman IE 2019? I get how someone can say they have EQd towards / close to it.

Since the IE research was performed exclusively with a Sennheiser Momentum in-ear IEI, you could argue that you could try to find one, measure it on a 711 coupler, and EQ it to the IE target.
Some other IEMs may have low enough sample variation to be used for that task, but at least at higher frequencies and possibly at lower ones as well, I'm not certain that they'll couple to your ears in a similar way as the Sennheiser IEMs.
 

GaryH

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Screenshot_20230606_234158.png
 
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markanini

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That's a mature take, and spelling.

Quite different results from my poll. But despite addressing people with hands-on experience, many responders were probably primed by what was said in the recent video discussing Crinacles conversation with Sean Olive. In the past I've reached out to Resolve in private about the issue with energizing people that parrot others. Let this serve as an example of what not being cognizant of social dynamics looks like.
 

Resolve

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As usual, this is taken way out of context. Here is that context:

1686146379991.png


The way people feel about these targets is charged with all kinds of additional baggage that's not limited exclusively to what people prefer in practice. If you ask people what kind of coffee they prefer, they'll tell you they like bold, strong flavors, when in reality a much smaller segment actually prefers that. The point here... which is why I'm bothering to write this, is the same point I made in the Red video. It may in fact be that the majority of listeners actually do enjoy the level of ear gain of Harman IE 2019, and it's only the enthusiast IEM community that has disdain for it with this kind of baggage.

And if that is in fact the case, I'll be the first to report it (or among them... depending on who does the experiments). If it turns out Harman IE is not preferred, however... then I'll be reporting that.
 
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markanini

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1686149249136.png

This would also be part of the context. This is why IMO my poll results are more organic.
 
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audiosciencestudent

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A person won't know what an IEM sounds like till they hear it. But we can't go and buy every brand of IEM and figure this out on our own.

Best approach is if the manufacturer measures it and plots a graph of the the specs against some "reference graph".
This way when I look at it I know how much bass or treble is in that headphone as compared to the "reference graph".

Each person has their own preference, this makes everyone's life so much easier. We see a graph with more treble compared to a "reference graph" or more bass as compared to a "reference graph" so we know without buying it what it will sound like. So simple.

Why the F are we looking at the "reference graph" and arguing if we like the "reference point" or not ? use it for reference purpose to get an idea of how the IEM will sound like compared to a reference point , it may be too bright for some , too dark for some.

What we need to focus on is how accurate the manufacturer is when they publish their specs, how scientifically accurate they are in measuring and publishing their specs as compared to this ""reference graph". This way we know if we are buying something which has missing mids. missing treble, muddy bass.

And lets all assume that no one is deaf or has hearing loss , no one can engineer a solution for those people.. lets stick to the big picture.
Best to use the Harman curve as a reference point to guess how the headphones will sound like w.r.t to a known sound signature.
 
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