It is rude to ask an audiophile their age.
Well it is pertinent here (of course they don't have to say if they don't want to though). Harman found preferred bass level decreases with age (likely due to less upward masking beneficial for presbycusis,
poorer hearing at higher frequencies with age):
This poorer hearing results in higher variability (lower reliability) of sound quality judgements with age:
Similarly, noise-induced hearing loss also leads to lower sound quality judgements, an occupational hazard for e.g. sound engineers, of which it looks like the audiophile in question is (or was) one. Dr Floyd Toole again:
Hearing loss is an occupational hazard in many professions, unfortunately including professional audio. At the very least, mixers exposed to periods of very loud sound incur temporary hearing loss. Repetitions of such exposures result in permanent hearing loss. As illustrated in Section 3.2 and discussed in detail in Chapter 17, both of these seriously affect what is heard in mixes, and it is not consistent. Judgments of sound quality are impaired. Paradoxically, the people who do the mixes may not be the best judges of the results. If they think their work has "translated” to a different venue, it is very possible that others with more normal hearing may have different opinions not only about how successful the translation was, but also about the original work. Tragically, if one seeks an evaluation of hearing performance, what an audiologist considers to be “normal” hearing is not an adequate criterion. Audiometry is focused on speech intelligibility, not the audible attributes and intricacies of high-quality broadband, spatially complex music and movies. A threshold determination is merely a starting point. There is much more to the perception timbre and of sounds in spaces than merely detecting that they are present. With gaping 4 kHz notches in hearing thresholds attributable to noise-induced loss, and the eroded high- frequency hearing limit, the ability of listeners has been more than slightly compromised. All of this is a gross intellectual and emotional insult to audio professionals, but it is an unfortunate reality. It is not possible to learn your way around these problems after the “microphones” are broken.
Having said that, I agree objectively speaking that as said the general bass shelf
shape (although not level to most) of the Zero Red may be more natural to people, being more similar to the Harman bass shelf shape, as the original Blue version has a disjointed dip in the upper bass, excess in the midbass, and deficiency in the subbass (but closer in general bass level to Harman). The original also has a broadband excess in the upper mids /
lower treble over Harman which could contribute to an unnatural ('shouty') sound; the Red is conversely deficienct here which could also sound unnatural (dull, muffled) to many. As for upper treble extension, they're both clearly lacking here compared to many other (cheaper) IEMs, with the Red in particular dropping off a cliff up there, something that will unlikely be able to be adequately EQed up from such a low level. Whether you notice this treble extension deficiency will depend on your age and/or level of noise-induced hearing loss. The preferred IEM upper treble level (the Harman target doesn't claim validity above 10 kHz) was
investigated by Knowles with blind tests and was found to increase with age (highly likely due to presbycusis):
But as can be seen no age group tested preferred a low level of upper treble as exhibited by the Truthear Zero Blue or Red (even lower than the Harman target, which Knowles call 'Olive' above). So yes, the Zeros are objectively
worse in this regard then most other IEMs that have better treble extension.
suporsalad.squig.link
