Well I know that all his measurements have a dip near the 3-4khz region, but I've learned to compensate for that.  I just find it amusing that this particular set measures like an HE-400.  I thought the mad dog was supposed to sound like an lcd-2.

Yes, which is why I find that latest measurement from IF weird, unless there's huge variance in mad dog products.

HE-400 in red, mad dogs in blue:

Yes, which is why I find that latest measurement from IF weird, unless there's huge variance in mad dog products.

HE-400 in red, mad dogs in blue:

I don't think there's a huge variation in the Mad Dogs. I'm talking within the same revisions...obviously the Mad Dog versions with different pads will have more variation.

I know Dan tests every unit before sending them out, so they're all matched fairly closely. I don't believe his matching standards are quite as high as those seen in the Paradox, but still pretty good. Dan has a very different business model than Luis, though, and pumps out headphones pretty quickly. Due to these factors, you are more likely to see a bit of variation across units and more likely to see bad units escape quality inspection. At least, that's my guess. All of this is really a guess on my part from what I've been told by others since the inception of these products. I try to follow them fairly closely...

As I've mentioned, Dan actually measured my pair before with the dog pads and shared that with me. They matched his reference measurement on his website quite closely but weren't exact. I'd say it was on par with small variation you'd see in any good headphone. He also recently posted another MD measurement of a pair I believe he pulled to demonstrate a "lumpier" measuring unit. Still very close to his official measurements on his site.

Of course, this could all be incorrect, but I doubt it. The only way to really test would be to get a bunch of MDs and measure them on the same setup. I think with the IF measurements, it's really more about the setup Tyll uses. It's not uncommon to see headphones with big dips in the upper mids and treble that you don't see on other measurement setups. The Paradox is a good example...compare the IF measurements to the ones on here. You can see how they match in some ways, but they're still pretty different looking.

I've actually stopped using IF so much for measurements. I think there's a lot to be learned from them, but I also see many headphones on there measuring similarly when they'd look pretty different when Marv measures them. I see more variation with the measurements on this site.

Dan recently made it known that the Mad Dogs went through a few revisions already this year. The initial alpha pad release was 3.0 with 3.1 and 3.2 tunings following shortly after. He's also offering the option to retune any Mad Dogs for $30, though you do still have to pay for the alpha pads if you don't have those yet. He claims future revisions will dramatically slow down now, especially since he's focusing on the balanced MD and such.

Anyway, I'm not here to personally comment on his business or practices, though I do appreciate his additional transparency on the matter. I just wanted to lay out the situation so that I could post his comparison measurement of the three revisions:



Blue = MD 3.0
Green = MD 3.1
Red = MD 3.2

For reference, the Mad Dogs I sent to Marv are the 3.0 revision. Mine originally came with the dog pads, and I later swapped them out for the alpha pads. I'm not sure if that makes a difference or not, but Marv did measure them with the alpha pads. I figured posting this would be interesting to some (maybe not), but I mainly just wanted to put this info up here for completeness. I'm assuming it's OK if I share the measurements Dan posted on HF (re-uploaded to imgur)...

The consensus among MD owners on hfi seems to be that the 3.1 / 3.2 revisions boosted the bass so it is much more in balance with the midrange now. I guess it makes sense then that the bass in the OP measurements of the 3.0 seem too little in relation to the midrange "hump".

Deriving what changed from this FR comparison to the 3.0 measurements in OP, yeah the big effect would be that the midrange hump is significantly lowered.