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Poll: Do you like Harman's target curve for headphones bass response?

Do you like the bass response of Harman's target curve for headphones?

  • Yes, it is perfect.

    Votes: 90 36.7%
  • No, I like a little less bass.

    Votes: 66 26.9%
  • No, I like a lot less bass (less than -2dB than the target curve).

    Votes: 55 22.4%
  • No, I like even more bass!

    Votes: 34 13.9%

  • Total voters
    245

brbsnacks

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It would have issues with most targets beucase It has a peak at 6kHz. EQ presets cut that frequency to look good on paper but it doesn't work as well in real life listening.

Yea I use it for tracking drums and guitar and its great for that. It's definitely not going to magically turn into a reference headphone with EQ. I for the life of me will never understand why people buy tracking headphones when they really want a laid back reference can.
 

markanini

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I mean when it comes to trebles there's some disparity between headphones that are EQ'd to Harman, and those that adhere to Harman un-EQ'd. When I EQ for myself I only adjust +-1-2dB max, for bass and mids OTOH I pretty much follow Harman. The DT770 are actually one of my favorite closed backs for sound. Easily no contest when compared with other classics like AT M50x or Sony MDR-7506. Totally usable for referencing mixes with commercial releases too;)
 

brbsnacks

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Yea I'm all new to this hi fi world. Still got a lot to learn. Probably not giving the 770 the credit it deserves. I'll fiddle with the EQ more this week and see what happens. I could very well have copied the settings wrong. Either way I do love those and they were my first good pair I ever bought.
 

Limopard

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It's ok, but I usually add a 18 db/oct high pass @30 Hz. No need to torture the driver with subsonic frequencies.
 

bobbooo

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@Robbo99999 acording to this pool most people don't and its far from perfect. In order for you to say how it's perfect and majority of people prefer it more than two thirds should have answered that it's perfect. I am not attacking it all that much, think it has to do with partial hearing loss compensation in lows but that's just my theory for now. It can stand as private or this or that (subjective) but as a scientific one it simply cannot.

So you're rejecting the results of Harman's controlled, double-blind listening tests because you claim they're unscientific, yet you accept the results of an informal internet poll open to all manner of abuse and biased responses? :facepalm: And it's not only the responses. Like many of the polls posted on here, the provided options themselves are inherently biased, completely skewing the results. There are two options for liking less bass, yet only one for liking more or the Harman target bass being perfect. And even this option is inherently biased, just by using the word perfect, which restricts the domain of preference for this option to an exact value, making it less likely to be chosen, whereas the other options are all ranges that can be interpreted as varying undefined amounts, increasing their coverage of the preference spectrum. Then there's the OP's completely unnecessary opening sentence which primes readers against the Harman target from the start, making them think it's the norm to prefer less bass than the target (contrary to the research):
Many think the Harman's target curve for headphones has too much bass.

This all completely invalidates this poll, even without considering the innumerable potential biases of the responders, which is the very thing Harman's research removed by conducting double-blind tests that clearly demonstrated a large majority preference for their target.
 
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ZolaIII

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@bobbooo I am not accepting anything. Yes they are unscientific! Dare to claim otherwise? I am among other things professor of methodology. Al do there's little value in this pool (his informal character probably being the biggest one) it clearly shows how most people don't like Harman's preference for the bass region. If we dismiss the bass region as everything else is near identical to dozen other "preference curves" than there's no Harman curve. You have every right on your own opinion or simply not to agree but all of that is in personal subjective domain. I don't think neither that they had ill intentions (researcher's) nor that it is far from truth but they certainly did know better about how it needs to be conducted in order to serve as scientific work. It remains to be discussed why it is preferable and to who (in order to form new hypothesis and perform future studies hopefully and properly).
 

markanini

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Do you know you totally skipped the part where you demonstrate their error you alluded to? That's not an effective way of criticizing someones research.
 

ZolaIII

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Do you know you totally skipped the part where you demonstrate their error you alluded to? That's not an effective way of criticizing someones research.
Sure I did! No objectivity, sever vaolated code of conduct.
I could talk days about what objectivity in research is and we still wouldn't get far.
If you are interested consider reading this as short crash course:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-objectivity/
For code of conduct example you can reach for WHO Code of Conduct for responsible Research document.
After that ask your self what research? As there whose no any which could be characterised as such.
 

Rayman30

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Does anyone know where I can find EQ settings for Sennheiser PX100 ii headphones?
 

ZolaIII

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Funny how you accept an internet poll when you say you care about standards.
I don't accept it, it's indicative (not conclusive or anything else, doesn't pretend to be something that it's not [scientific]).
 

brbsnacks

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Seems that about 50% want more or are fine with the bass and 50% want less bass.

Imagine that... a poll asking about a curve that averages out all the numbers is split 50/50. Ya dont say.
 
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