Yeah, we should hit up some local dealer and see if they have them.

I'm going to come off a little strong here (as usual), but rest assured I'm only addressing this commonly espoused belief directly and not making a personal comment. That said, I couldn't disagree more. Playing real life musical instruments requires ZERO brain-adjustment/psychoacoustics to understand their sound. They too pass through 'ear structures'. If it sounds muddy or low resolution, it's just wrong period. Real instruments do NOT sound muddy or low resolution.

Making an objective claim about what the proper and accurate frequency response of a headphone should be, and then falling back on the subjectivity of letting your brain burn-in is just a bunch of crap.

Having said that, precise diffuse field tuning for a headphone does sound bright and inaccurate up top. Both are wrong to different extents.

Well, "muddy or low resolution" is not what I perceived when I was listening to these headphones. From CES to near-production model I've heard at a recent meet have been consistent: a little bit warm but otherwise very neutral. However, a lot of people say such terms describing the headphones.

The reason why I said 'brain-adjustment' is that, despite what you said, very few people actually listen to real life musical instruments these days, thus used to electronically amplified sound. Pretty much 90% of music they listen to is electronically amplified. To many people, their most expensive headphones (it can be HD700 or K812... you get the idea) are usually their 'reference' sound.

If people are getting used to harsh sound... the brain will eventually make 'adjustment' on that sound. For instance, if I was listening to my unmodded HD800 for a long period of time, and suddenly I change to HD650, I usually feel HD650 dark and muddy for first 10~30 minutes until my brain re-adjust itself.

The ideal solution would be listening to real-life performance first then listen to same performance via headphones, but we all know that's near impossible.

So basically, they designed a pair of headphones based on their own goals and methods. An okay approach, I guess, but i don't get the brain-readjust thing. Does this mean if I don't like them my brain hasn't adjust correctly?

I would have to agree with Anax here. It's one thing to say "we have a target response that we think will subjectively fit most folks", and it's another when one claims "we have a target response that is more right than everything else that's being used, and if you think our target is false, your brain needs adjustments".

On that note, I haven't heard new Nighthawk, but what I heard last time was like... "Eh?"

If it is to be neutral to me, it needs to get brighter up top. And some here knows my preference typically goes for something like the LCD-2. In fact, I find the LCD-2r2 kinda grating and grainy in the treble.

There is such a thing as a headphone that's smooth, slightly dark, and super clean/clear that is not a Stax. I think this is what AudioQuest is gunning for. I need to hear the new version (if there is one?) to judge, but I don't think their target is right.

So basically, they designed a pair of headphones based on their own goals and methods. An okay approach, I guess, but i don't get the brain-readjust thing. Does this mean if I don't like them my brain hasn't adjust correctly?

I have to admit this brain adjustment is still rather uncertain subject. One thing sure is that brain does a lot of calculations to make a sound collected by ears "right" (it does not mean the final signal we feel is accurate.) But as far as I know, not much is known.

My uneducated guess is that some people would prefer and adjust quickly to certain colorations of the sound (hence some people do like high-end Ultrasone, for example) while others may never be able to (I never could 'adjust' to the sound of Sony SA5000 even after long period of listening, eventually returned back to the vender, for example.)

Brain does a lot of the adjustments, that's for sure. It is theorized that one of the reasons why tinnitus occurs is this adjusting behavior of the brain. For instance, if a person loses an ability to hear a certain frequency of the sound due to hearing loss, the brain tries to compensate the loss by perceiving other nearby frequencies in amplified manner, causing pain.

Trained ears > measurements based on blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah science.

Sure, but we still do need 'reference' that everyone should follow.

I wonder what 'flagship' headphone they used to compare the NH to ?
Or did they use the 'average' of a few flagships ?
Never seen any flagships measure like that.

I agree that setting a 'new' target response is a bit fishy and also think MOST pop recordings suffer from 'conditioned' guys at the mixing table + their monitors and thereby creating colored sound to begin with.
Sure there are some engineers with excellent ears + gears but I seriously wonder about most of them.
I am quite sure most recordings sound excellent in the studio they made the final mix in at blasting SPL's.

Olive Welti and Tyll also created new target responses... I wonder how many will follow.
I do think DF and FF are both incorrect as well.

Well made recordings, without too many 'adjustments' SHOULD sound 'real' on a good headphone and if that makes lesser recordings sound crap so be it.
That (real sounding music) is what should determine the target response IMO not what a recording sounds like in 'a room' with speakers nor what (averaged) type of headphones sound 'most right' to a large group of people.

I believe it's Beyer T1. Yeah, not exactly 'flagship' headphone.
I don't think they used subjective listening to create their target response. From what I've read, it's pretty much created by calculations based on measurements (such as effects of human torso, absorption, etc)

Well, about 'real sounding music' part... It's really hard to define 'real sounding music' because it is not just instruments and/or human voices that determine the sound.... The environment takes a huge role on how sound is produced. I mean, it's obvious that sound signature of a large orchestra hall is quite different from that of a small, enclosed room or inside of a church. Real sound music should be reference, but in reality it is also completely impossible at the same time.

Harman Kardon uses the sound signature of their reference listening room to create their Olive Headphone target, while others use non-resonant chambers.