What headphones would you like Amir to measure next?

[watchnerd]

Measurements of your gear, are you talking about your headphones? You can't really get them as accurate as a set of good speakers, for the reasons I've described, even when the headphones have been measured.

Maybe I'm playing fast & loose with my use of the words "most reliable reference standard".....but probably not thinking about it. The gold standard for speakers is what we know from this site - anechoically flat speakers (not to mention the Floyd / Toole work). That is a far more reliable standard than a set of headphones that almost certainly have random peaks and dips which you can't know about (even if they've been measured)....for the HRTF and headphone transfer function reasons I've already described which varies from person to person. I think the only way to get rid of a lot of those issues is using the Smyth Realizer system which is prohibitively expensive. That doesn't mean you can't enjoy headphones, but they're certainly not more accurate than a good set of speakers. Yes, they can be more accurate in the bass (like I described earlier), but not in the treble.

You can't assume that everybody who listens to your music will be using Toole-approved designs.

And even if they are, there are enough differences between speakers with good spins to affect all sorts of elements of a mix.

The Circle of Confusion is real.

 

[Feelas]

I think the only way to get rid of a lot of those issues is using the Smyth Realizer system which is prohibitively expensive. That doesn't mean you can't enjoy headphones, but they're certainly not more accurate than a good set of speakers. Yes, they can be more accurate in the bass (like I described earlier), but not in the treble.

I'd be surprised if producing music by mainly using headphones to analyze the treble portions, that doesn't make sense to me (you'll be emphasising or deemphasising details during your music production that aren't really there) , for the bass yes, not the treble.

Well, there always is the Impulcifer, which I'll probably test in the upcoming year. Since I just have to gather some monies for Sound Professionals in-ear mics, after I'm pretty much done doing the basic corrections on speakers, I believe it'd be a nice thing to test how Impulcifer fares.

 

[Robbo99999]

How different is the MassDrop K7XX from the 702?

(I have a pair of the K7XX)

Very different, the K702 doesn't have bass like this:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/fa9gm1am98ndkqj/AKG K7XX.pdf?dl=0

 

[Robbo99999]

You can't assume that everybody who listens to your music will be using Toole-approved designs.

And even if they are, there are enough differences between speakers with good spins to affect all sorts of elements of a mix.

The Circle of Confusion is real.

Sure, the Circle of Confusion is real, but you don't want to turn it into a Whirlwind of Confusion by using headphones as your primary music creation tool.

 

[watchnerd]

using headphones as your primary music creation tool.

Nobody said that.

 

[Robbo99999]

Nobody said that.

Cool, well I wouldn't use it to analyze the treble regions, I think it's valid for the bass and sub 1kHz.

 

[watchnerd]

Cool, well I wouldn't use it to analyze the treble regions, I think it's valid for the bass and sub 1kHz.

Then you seem to have missed the point about vibrato monitoring.

 

[Robbo99999]

Well, there always is the Impulcifer, which I'll probably test in the upcoming year. Since I just have to gather some monies for Sound Professionals in-ear mics, after I'm pretty much done doing the basic corrections on speakers, I believe it'd be a nice thing to test how Impulcifer fares.

Cool, is this the link to it, I don't know much about it:
https://github.com/jaakkopasanen/Impulcifer
EDIT: and here: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/recording-impulse-responses-for-speaker-virtualization.890719/

I should look into that, I'm all for making headphones sound more real. K702 is most lifelike re soundstage in comparison to my speakers out of all the headphones I've tried, but I wouldn't mind taking it up a level.

 

[Robbo99999]

Then you seem to have missed the point about vibrato monitoring.

Yeah, ok, I don't know. I know what I know in terms of the points I made re headphone accuracy though & in terms of how that relates to speaker accuracy. So I'll leave it there.

 

[Feelas]

Cool, is this the link to it, I don't know much about it:
https://github.com/jaakkopasanen/Impulcifer

I should look into that, I'm all for making headphones sound more real. K702 is most lifelike re soundstage in comparison to my speakers out of all the headphones I've tried, but I wouldn't mind taking it up a level.

If you have in-ear mics, then I guess you should give it a try

 

[Robin L]

Then you seem to have missed the point about vibrato monitoring.

Something akin to this explains the popularity of the Sony MDR V-6 and MDR 7506: they're eq-ed [very successfully] for speech.

 

[Robbo99999]

If you have in-ear mics, then I guess you should give it a try

I don't, but I could consider getting some. Are you a guru for in-ear mics, have you got a link to good value good quality one? I might start a journey at some point.

 

[maverickronin]

Cool, well I wouldn't use it to analyze the treble regions, I think it's valid for the bass and sub 1kHz.

To use a visual analogy, using headphones is like listening to music under a microscope. Various sorts of ABX tests for edge cases of hearing perception like distortion and phase have higher success rates on headphones than speakers.

 

[Feelas]

I don't, but I could consider getting some. Are you a guru for in-ear mics, have you got a link to good value good quality one? I might start a journey at some point.

Sadly not, but I'd probably start off with the suggestions from Impulcifer's website itself; but there are a few people on ASR who have successfully done both in-ear measurements and corrections, I think possibly some Impulcifer experimenters are there.

Impulcifer's repo mentions Sound Professionals in-ear mics, and I'll probably be getting SP-TFB-2 in the future, but the import costs to EU (I haven't seen these sold by EU stores) somehow stop me dead in the tracks.

 

[Robbo99999]

Sadly not, but I'd probably start off with the suggestions from Impulcifer's website itself; but there are a few people on ASR who have successfully done both in-ear measurements and corrections, I think possibly some Impulcifer experimenters are there.

Impulcifer's repo mentions Sound Professionals in-ear mics, and I'll probably be getting SP-TFB-2 in the future, but the import costs to EU (I haven't seen these sold by EU stores) somehow stop me dead in the tracks.

I think this would be a major time suck for me, I'm pretty sure I'm capable of doing it if I apply myself and was to buy the equipment, I've skimmed the jaakopasanen link I put in my previous post, but I'll need a deeper read....I'd purchase the stuff before a week off and then give it a go.

 

[Robbo99999]

To use a visual analogy, using headphones is like listening to music under a microscope. Various sorts of ABX tests for edge cases of hearing perception like distortion and phase have higher success rates on headphones than speakers.

Headphones can have impressively low distortion in comparison to speakers, so that's probably an extra plus point and one of the reasons.

 

[Robbo99999]

(I'll stop playing my part in derailing this thread, there were some interesting asides here though).

 

[watchnerd]

Headphones can have impressively low distortion in comparison to speakers, so that's probably an extra plus point and one of the reasons.

And many of them use a single driver, so phase effects from crossovers aren't an issue.

 

[Mimeyar]

https://github.com/jaakkopasanen/AutoEq/tree/master/results

https://rinchoi.blogspot.com/
https://diyaudioheaven.wordpress.com/
https://reference-audio-analyzer.pr...php?&sp_1=1&sp_2=2&sp_12=12&trp1=hp#gsc.tab=0
https://blog.naver.com/PostList.nhn?blogId=gre_nada
https://headphonetestlab.co.uk/home-welcome
https://www.headphonecheck.com/
https://clarityfidelity.blogspot.com/
https://crinacle.com/graphs/

The headphone world moves slowly and a lot of the headphones suggested have been extensively measured elsewhere. It doesn't add much value for another set of measurements that tell the same story.

My suggestions

Open
AKG K245
Spadger CD990
Beyerdynamic TYGR 300R
Mackie MC-450

Closed
Audeze Penrose
V Moda M100 Master

For closed headphones measuring cheap headphones from Amazon will eventually find something great. Some OEM will have produced a cheap headphone that is very good.

 

[MikeJ]

Neumann NDH-20.