When will we get active EQ for headphones?

[wwenze]

We have speakers using DSP produce a flat response anechoically (or any response they like to compensate for room effects)

We have room correction systems that produce a flat response in room

When will we see the same for headphones? We just need the headphone manufacturers to acknowledge that the response has room for improvement and to stop selling things that sound different to generate hype with FOMO people. And then provide the PEQ setting that we can load into our system.

Bam, good accuracy at low cost.

Or maybe that's why headphone manufacturers are unwilling to do that. But we just need a new low-price brand to start doing it and the market will change.

 

[tehidiot]

Airpods (and the airpods pro/airpods max) and some other bluetooth headphones already do EQ the sound

Outside of bluetooth though, the current solutions are mostly aimed at studio/pro use. Audeze have their Reveal plugin, and there is also Sonarworks for other brands.

 

[m_g_s_g]

We can have that now:

Just buy a portable HPA that includes an internal parametric Equalizer, like for instance @IVX ’s E1DA PowerDAC v2 or the Qudelix 5K (battery powered). They are tiny. After reading Amir’s recent review of the latter, I bought one for my HD6xx phones and I’m impressed.

I happen to own the Bose QC35II headphones as well. They are great for ANC (and not bad for music when in noisy environments, really!!). They seem to be internally equalised to a non-configurable predefined curve (unfortunately not ASR’s one).

From a practical POV, both options (“passive” headphones + dongle AND “active” headphones with integrated EQ) work just the same:

- you charge them every other day
- you pair them with Bluetooth OR plug them to your mobile/tablet/PC
- you configure them with an app (optional)
- you control them with some basic physical buttons

Enjoy