CHANGSTAR: Audiophile Headphone Reviews and Early 90s Style BBS

  • December 31, 2015, 09:38:34 AM
  • Welcome, Guest
Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  
Pages: 1 [2] 3 4 5 6

Author Topic: MEASUREMENT FAQ  (Read 4807 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

x838nwy

  • Ultra Paranoid
  • Able Bodied Sailor
  • Pirate
  • ***
  • Brownie Points: +10/-0
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 118
Re: MEASUREMENT FAQ
« Reply #10 on: April 22, 2015, 02:02:12 PM »
Thank you Marv. for an awesome thread.

I generally get the CSD and FR plots and how they're derived, but i'd like to ask, if I may, what the 'distortion' caluesa actually measure and also what is meant by 2nd, 3rd and 4th order distortion. Do you excite the diaphragm with one freq. and measure amplitudes of 2x , 3x and 4x freq.? Or am I totally wrong?

Thank you,

C
Logged

spoony

  • 5 years late on rickrolling
  • Able Bodied Sailor
  • Pirate
  • ***
  • Brownie Points: +13/-0
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 274
  • ex c61746961
Re: MEASUREMENT FAQ
« Reply #11 on: April 22, 2015, 03:40:28 PM »
Quote from: atomicbob on April 22, 2015, 01:36:11 PM
In my opinion, it takes living with a headphone for a period of time, through many situations, to assess how it fits with one's personal preferences.
This can't be overstated. Unless, you know, it's an Ultrasone.
Logged

Marvey

  • The Man For His Time And Place
  • Master
  • Pirate
  • *****
  • Brownie Points: +555/-33
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6698
  • Captain Plankton and MOT: Eddie Current
Re: MEASUREMENT FAQ
« Reply #12 on: April 22, 2015, 03:56:34 PM »
Quote from: x838nwy on April 22, 2015, 02:02:12 PM
Thank you Marv. for an awesome thread.

I generally get the CSD and FR plots and how they're derived, but i'd like to ask, if I may, what the 'distortion' caluesa actually measure and also what is meant by 2nd, 3rd and 4th order distortion. Do you excite the diaphragm with one freq. and measure amplitudes of 2x , 3x and 4x freq.? Or am I totally wrong?

Thank you,

C

Close. Let's take for example the 2nd harmonic of 1kHz. So when you see <x> amount of 2nd harmonic distortion at 1kHz, that means there is a signal at 2kHz that shouldn't be there when only playing 1kHz.

The limitation with harmonic distortion measurements is that they only show signals at shouldn't be there at integer multiples of the original signal.

This is a very interesting topic I will follow up on.

Logged

Marvey

  • The Man For His Time And Place
  • Master
  • Pirate
  • *****
  • Brownie Points: +555/-33
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6698
  • Captain Plankton and MOT: Eddie Current
Re: MEASUREMENT FAQ
« Reply #13 on: April 22, 2015, 04:02:52 PM »

Quote from: spoony on April 22, 2015, 03:40:28 PM
This can't be overstated. Unless, you know, it's an Ultrasone.

I can tell if a headphone is craptastic in 15 seconds if I am familiar with the recordings. There are many a time at headphone meets where I simply sit there bored staring at the ceiling because I don't want to be impolite and get up after 15 seconds.

I can tell if a headphone is fantastic within three recordings if I am familiar with the recordings and they are played back on good rigs I am familiar with. Headphones are easy to subjectively assess with experience and a consistent methodology. Amps a little bit harder. DACs most difficult
Logged

Marvey

  • The Man For His Time And Place
  • Master
  • Pirate
  • *****
  • Brownie Points: +555/-33
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6698
  • Captain Plankton and MOT: Eddie Current
Re: MEASUREMENT FAQ
« Reply #14 on: April 22, 2015, 04:18:32 PM »
Quote from: knerian on April 22, 2015, 08:54:22 AM
Can you recommend some common or popular headphones with high levels of distortion, and those with very low distortion, so that any of us who have heard or own those headphones can try to listen for the difference?

Headphones with highish harmonic distortion that intrudes into the mids:

SRH1840
SRH1440
HE-400
Alpha Dog Prime

Headphones with lowish overall distortion:

HE-560
SR-009

Dynamics with relatively good bass distortion: TH900, Abyss
Dynamics with relatively bad bass distortion: MDR-1R, SRH1840

One interesting thing is that distortion in the bass tends warm up the sound. If there are two headphones with the same frequency response, but one has more bass distortion than the other, the one with more bass distortion is likely to sound warmer. Makes sense since instead of a straight 50Hz, we would get a little bit of 100Hz, 150Hz, 200Hz, etc. This is not a necessarily a bad thing and I would argue that most people, including myself, are accustomed to some bit of bass distortion as normal. Good quality bass is really difficult to get right.

P.S. If you ever hear me say something is really clean sounding (subjectively), it probably (but not always) means means distortion is low.
Logged

spoony

  • 5 years late on rickrolling
  • Able Bodied Sailor
  • Pirate
  • ***
  • Brownie Points: +13/-0
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 274
  • ex c61746961
Re: MEASUREMENT FAQ
« Reply #15 on: April 22, 2015, 04:40:14 PM »
Quote from: purr1n on April 22, 2015, 04:02:52 PM
I can tell if a headphone is fantastic within three recordings if I am familiar with the recordings and they are played back on good rigs I am familiar with. Headphones are easy to subjectively assess with experience and a consistent methodology. Amps a little bit harder. DACs most difficult
Yeah, I was really thinking along the lines of "you have to spend a bit of time with it in order to know if you can live with it".
Logged

Marvey

  • The Man For His Time And Place
  • Master
  • Pirate
  • *****
  • Brownie Points: +555/-33
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6698
  • Captain Plankton and MOT: Eddie Current
Re: MEASUREMENT FAQ
« Reply #16 on: April 22, 2015, 04:45:44 PM »
Most of us divorce our headphones within a year or two anyways.  :)p1 The other solution is to practice headphone polygamy.
Logged

atomicbob

  • Able Bodied Sailor
  • Pirate
  • ***
  • Brownie Points: +143/-0
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 143
Re: MEASUREMENT FAQ
« Reply #17 on: April 22, 2015, 04:50:53 PM »
Quote from: spoony on April 22, 2015, 04:40:14 PM
Yeah, I was really thinking along the lines of "you have to spend a bit of time with it in order to know if you can live with it".
That was my intended message as well, fitting one's personal preference. Especially if one has not spent time developing and refining critical assessment skills, which requires practice. I will add that I would not trust my own judgement if I was having a bad day and give the headphone being evaluated another listen on a day when I'm in a better mood.
Logged
auditory illumination

Tachikoma

  • Powder Monkey
  • *
  • Brownie Points: +4/-0
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 61
Re: MEASUREMENT FAQ
« Reply #18 on: April 22, 2015, 05:39:41 PM »
I haven't heard a headphone where my impression genuinely took a 180 degree turn after the first 10-20 seconds tbh.

Having said that, I thought the Beats (no idea which one) sounded ok at a meet, maybe I did need to give it more time :D
Logged

AZ

  • real, live music expert
  • Able Bodied Sailor
  • Pirate
  • ***
  • Brownie Points: +29/-289
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 140
    • Audio Zenith
Re: MEASUREMENT FAQ
« Reply #19 on: April 22, 2015, 06:06:11 PM »
   I have never noticed my hearing abilities to be mood dependent. Though it is very much time dependent for me. Best critical listening time is in the morning, daytime is ok too just have to concentrate a bit harder. Evening and night time is the worst by far, everything starts to sound more rough/edgy and harsh. Never noticed this with loudspeakers though.
   Before every critical listen I normally do a simple massage which helps with both loudspeaker and headphone evaluation equally well (has something to do with equalizing the air pressure between the ears, stretches and warms up the eardrum and exercises some parts of the inner ear and bone conductivity.
Logged
Pages: 1 [2] 3 4 5 6
« previous next »