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Author Topic: Neutrality  (Read 11728 times)

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AstralStorm

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Re: Neutrality
« Reply #20 on: November 28, 2012, 10:17:01 PM »

Necromancy time.  :gross:

Neutral should be a headphone that actually sounds flat to a representative listener. Now who that is is up to the debate or rather statistics.
I remember I did find a comparison of a few different HATS flat responses by a two score of listeners. Not large enough to be conclusive, but a bit suggestive.
(If you can help me find that PDF again, it had KEMAR in the european "large ear" setting winning significantly over the rest -  that included some GRAS model too.)
Measuring flat is not good enough if we don't know what flat (or rather representative) actually is.

The old joke goes that a statistical person is a Chinese 28 year old male.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1362709/Typical-human-face-28-year-old-Chinese-man.html
Now actually headphones are probably sold in larger quantities outside of China...

The real fun thing would be to estimate frequency dependent variance of equal loudness contours. We'd then know what matters more for a consistent sound.
That kind of headphone could be called neutral - matching the mean response in k% like Etymotics - except with this value being based on proper weights.
Many other artifacts should also be weighted in this way, but we lack enough data.
« Last Edit: November 28, 2012, 10:30:55 PM by AstralStorm »
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thefoundMIDrange

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Re: Neutrality
« Reply #21 on: December 02, 2012, 04:35:03 AM »

I don't understand the premise of this thread. the op seems to state that the word neutral is not up for debate because the debate begins and ends with measurements that are flat and then in the next paragraph it states that headphone measurement techniques can't be relied on because they are in their infancy? And so eventhough something measures flat it cannot be stated as such until someone who has authority to determine such a thing weighs in and establishes it as so.....So the debate cannot be put to rest with a technique that is not put to rest? That I get. But which professional or audiophile gets to settle the debate with his ears? This is confusing. I just want to understand so as to not break forum rules when using the words natural and neutral....
« Last Edit: December 02, 2012, 04:46:10 AM by thelostMIDrange »
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Tari

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Re: Neutrality
« Reply #22 on: December 02, 2012, 04:46:01 AM »

You seriously need to brush up on your critical reading skills.


Paragraph 1 - Neutral measures flat.  For speakers.
Paragraph 2 - Headphones measuring neutral doesn't necessarily mean neutral, because headphones are not speakers.
Paragraph 3 - How to tell with headphones then?  Subjectively, using a known neutral speaker as a reference or your experience as a listener.


Can everyone tell?  No, some may have bias, may be unused to hearing what a neutral transducer sounds like, may have acclimated themselves to something else, etc.  (When he says it's "not up for debate" that means one person saying elevated 4Khz sounds "natural" and therefore neutral as an example.)


Edit - in response to your edit, you don't need one "authority" (like Purrin as an example) to "settle" a debate about neutrality.  It is or it isn't - and you'll notice with headphones like the HP1000 that there's really not much debate among the hundreds of experienced listeners who have heard them.  A lot of people out there know what neutrality sounds like (even if its not always their preference.) 


As an aside, even if headphone measurements aren't that advanced compared to speakers, you won't see wild discrepancies between flat measurements and neutrality - there's no way a headphone with an AT curve would ever sound neutral.
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thefoundMIDrange

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Re: Neutrality
« Reply #23 on: December 02, 2012, 04:49:06 AM »

I see, so one must match up a headphone with a known neutral speaker because speaker measurement has been perfected and so a human authority must step in to determine what is neutral in the case of headphones?
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Tari

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Re: Neutrality
« Reply #24 on: December 02, 2012, 04:51:40 AM »

You can read my post again.  I added an edit when you added your edit.
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thefoundMIDrange

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Re: Neutrality
« Reply #25 on: December 02, 2012, 04:54:40 AM »

so it really has nothing to do with measurements?  the grado doesn't look neutral the same way as a senn800 does on graphs. Are both neutral or just the grado? and the grado because of concensus over time?

I'm not arguing that the grado is not neutral btw
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wiinippongamer

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Re: Neutrality
« Reply #26 on: December 02, 2012, 05:04:53 AM »

Only way for a headphone to be completely neutral to any-one individual would be to measure his personal HRTF with a dead flat speaker inside a anechoic chamber, then compensate a given headphone's response accordingly using DSP. The Smyth Realiser does just that(and more), or you could do it manually but it'd be a huge pain in the ass and you can't do it with IEMs.

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thefoundMIDrange

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Re: Neutrality
« Reply #27 on: December 02, 2012, 05:07:19 AM »

that's pretty technical. tari seems to be suggesting that there is no individual authority that determines neutral and neither can measurements be the final arbiter. A group of people who are familiar with a neutral transducer must get together and decide, yes that is neutral, this is not ?  I mean I understand that an AT or grado rs is not neutral. I'm not a headfi moron. But in terms of finer subtleties - are both the senn800 and gradohp neutral? Is the audeze neutral as well?

And then there is the question of natural. I'm not clear if the two words are the same? and who determines what is? Again, I just want to get the facts straight to avoid misusing the terms on the forum.
« Last Edit: December 02, 2012, 05:18:19 AM by thelostMIDrange »
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Tari

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Re: Neutrality
« Reply #28 on: December 02, 2012, 05:17:36 AM »


[size=78%]The measurements tend to have a correlation to what we hear (especially in a general sense), but... yes, where headphones are concerned.  Of all the graphs I've seen, (IF, Rin Choi, Goldenears, headroom) Purrin's happen to match what I'm hearing the closest, but still not always a slam dunk.[/size]

[size=78%]No, do not take me the wrong way, it doesn't have to be a group - if you have people who's ears you trust to tell you what's neutral, whats bright, etc, (LFF and Purrin are examples I trust) then that's good enough for me.  The proof is in the pudding though, when over the course of months and hundreds of (qualified) impressions, there doesn't seem to be much variance - it sounds neutral to most others familiar with sound as well.[/size]

[size=78%]Of course, with the advent of the internet there is the phenomenon of a million "reviewers" all over forums, and sometimes they can start trends that just aren't true (L3000's bass - in reality it has horrible extension) or post misleading impressions, leading to it becoming a "thing" that gets repeated until everything is clear as mud.  There are still plenty who listen with a well adjusted brain and acute ears though.  They just don't post much on Head Fi.[/size]
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rhythmdevils

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Re: Neutrality
« Reply #29 on: December 02, 2012, 05:19:26 AM »

Better to call it an HP1000 because it's not a Grado the way most people think of a Grado.  It's a JOE Grado.  Completely different. 

The HD800 is not neutral, check the FR graph again. 

The HP1000 is fairly neutral because it is.  Because when a trained listener compares it to a netural reference, it is not that far off. 

Remember also when comparing measurements that Purrin's are the only headphone FR graphs in existence where neutral = flat line.  A neutral headphone measured on Tyll's rig is not a flat line.  It's like a scale that is not zeroed out, and you have to compensate for what the measurement device is adding. 

Only way for a headphone to be completely neutral to any-one individual would be to measure his personal HRTF with a dead flat speaker inside a anechoic chamber, then compensate a given headphone's response accordingly using DSP. The Smyth Realiser does just that(and more), or you could do it manually but it'd be a huge pain in the ass and you can't do it with IEMs.

This is a myth spread by people who want excuses for subjectivism and is the opposite of what this whole thread is saying.  We all listen to the same world.  The constructs of our ear are irrelevant.  We surely do hear differently, but our brains learn to compensate for it early on.  There are extreme exceptions of course, and it probably plays a small role, but it does not explain the kinds of gross colorations you see in headphones.  It probably explains 5% of the variation in headphone signature.  Let's discuss this in a different thread though, I'll try to post something at some point. 
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