CHANGSTAR: Audiophile Headphone Reviews and Early 90s Style BBS
Lobby => Headphone Measurements => Topic started by: Marvey on March 04, 2012, 07:09:54 AM
-
Beyer DT1350 Frequency Response and CSD Waterfall Plots.
Driver matching is nothing short of horrible. Yay for Beyer. T1 repeats itself.
(http://www.changstar.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=147.0;attach=677;image)
Voice comes from left of center. The matching gets better as the frequency increases - so the imaging is kind of wierd.
CSDs are at -30db and -40db floors. Very clean with the exception of a spike near 15k. The spike there wasn't that noticeable to me, probably because it's down in comparison to the rest of the spectrum below it - rather unlike the Ultrasone ED8.
Audibly the three major dips at 150Hz, 3kHz, and 8kHz are hurtful and contribute to its funny tone. Subjectively the tonality of the headphone doesn't have anything horrible sounding (in terms of nasty spikes that destroy our hearing), but it just kinda sounds "not good." Mid-bass dip is never good.
-
I guess the QC wasn't fixed after all. Just have to get lucky.
-
I guess the QC wasn't fixed after all. Just have to get lucky.
updated with more graphs. what were the QC issues with these?
-
Oh wait, I'm thinking of the T50p. Forgot this was sort of the fixed/updated version w/ the same Beyer QC.
-
Nice to see the reasoning behind the weird tonality. I mostly noticed the dip at 3k, but couldn't pinpoint it when I was listening. There are some posts on HF that show different damping material in the driver housing between the early serial and later serial numbers. Do we know which this is?
-
Interesting. I think these are the same pair I heard and I didn't notice the channel imbalance. But I couldn't listen to them for long, I really agree that they have a strange sound that seems "good" at first because nothing was really jabbing but at the same time you're thinking "something is really wrong here". I thought the treble sounded tinny, maybe that was caused by the rather large mountain range. I thought they also lacked warmth and bass. I was guessing they'd have some dip somewhere in that upper bass/lower mids area.
It's fun to guess what the graphs will look like. Not easy when it's made by Beyer!
-
Nice to see the reasoning behind the weird tonality. I mostly noticed the dip at 3k, but couldn't pinpoint it when I was listening. There are some posts on HF that show different damping material in the driver housing between the early serial and later serial numbers. Do we know which this is?
s/n 12###
Some thoughts:
- There's definitely some trouble in the treble too - it's uneven.
- IMO, a little bit of warmth and bass bump (at least with my measurements) from 100-200Hz is required for headphones to sound right. Think SRH840: it lacks a bump in this region - so it too sounds a little cold and antisceptic.
-
One thing to be aware of is that I think my measurement system is a little bit off in terms of measured FR tilt when it comes to the supra-aurals. Here is a comparison of three supra-aurals:
V-Moda M80 (my favorite of these) - slight bump at 1.5k
(http://www.changstar.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=47.0;attach=142;image)
HD25-1 ii - has sharp treble peaks and excessive bass
(http://www.bestheadphonesguide.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/HD25-1-II-R.txt.jpg)
DT1350 (again) - sounds thin and cold compared to the others
(http://www.changstar.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=147.0;attach=677;image)
-
very interesting. i didn't know the dt1350 had bad QC. i thought it was only with the T1 and other tesla line-up. maybe i can ask a friend if he be willing to send his DT48A(1960's model) for some measurements if interested. i'm personally curious about the dt48A and DT48S models the most but there so dang hard to get a hold of(well on ebay and stuff. i don't have 500 bucks to blow for a new pair of DT48A model and then you have to wait few weeks cause they're still hand built and matched since the 1950's).
-
very interesting. i didn't know the dt1350 had bad QC. i thought it was only with the T1 and other tesla line-up. maybe i can ask a friend if he be willing to send his DT48A(1960's model) for some measurements if interested. i'm personally curious about the dt48A and DT48S models the most but there so dang hard to get a hold of(well on ebay and stuff. i don't have 500 bucks to blow for a new pair of DT48A model and then you have to wait few weeks cause they're still hand built and matched since the 1950's).
Oh please, I've been dying to hear the DT48 forever. Btw, I confused the 1350 w/ the T50p but seems they fall far from the tree anyway.
-
I'd like to see how the DT48 measure being that they were made in the 50's. Would add some nice evidence...
I'm guessing the only difference between the T50p and DT1350 at this point (now that they've given the 50 the 1350 pads) is that the 1350 has a little damping disc of some sort in the cup. Whether it's accomplishing anything, I don't know...
-
very interesting. i didn't know the dt1350 had bad QC. i thought it was only with the T1 and other tesla line-up. maybe i can ask a friend if he be willing to send his DT48A(1960's model) for some measurements if interested. i'm personally curious about the dt48A and DT48S models the most but there so dang hard to get a hold of(well on ebay and stuff. i don't have 500 bucks to blow for a new pair of DT48A model and then you have to wait few weeks cause they're still hand built and matched since the 1950's).
Oh please, I've been dying to hear the DT48 forever. Btw, I confused the 1350 w/ the T50p but seems they fall far from the tree anyway.
alllllriighty then. will go ask him later on tonight and see if he doesn't mind sending his DT48A out to be measured. i know he's interested on how well they do cause they're one of his favorites right next to my 240DF i loaned him while ago before to let him try them out.
-
This matches what I thought I heard when I borrowed them.
Nothing "peaky" but something seemed "scooped".
They seemed "small and closed" at first, but did seem "bigger" after I relaxed into them.
The build quality felt really good (hardware). Shame if drivers not matching with the apparent level of build quality.
-
Really interesting. While many argue that they are actually warm sounding, most seem to agree that they find the 1350 cold and analytic, I can agree with that, but with the seal right I'm not going to agree with "thin".
The 4db of channel imbalance baffles me! I'm ussually super sensitive to things being off center (drives me nuts) and I feel like I would have heard that! Hmmm...
Overall, I have had similar impressions of a slightly off tone... Easier to live with if you stick with them and let your brain forget what "right" sounds like, but pretty apparent when you first get them on after listening to something else. This is a problem for me because these are not my one and only headphones...they are typically filling in at the office on the same day I'll be listening to full sized stuff at home.
The thing that kills it for me with these is that the seal is super hard for me to get consistently and when I do it's generally not comfortable. Why fight with these when I can grab the 25-1 II (whose treble doesn't bother me) or the V-moda which is so easy to live with all around.
Thanks Marv for doing the late night work and posting up the measurements.
-
One thing to be aware of is that I think my measurement system is a little bit off in terms of measured FR tilt when it comes to the supra-aurals.
I'm not sure on the details of your rig but positioning tends to be pretty important for sealed supra aurals like those. OTOH the consistency of the Senns would indicate that Beyer really does have a lot of work to do on matching their drivers and its not some artifact.
I like the sound of my pair though. I think I can hear the ringing at ~15kHz but other than that I like them. Maybe I got lucky with a good pair or something.
-
"Thin" would definitely not be the word to describe these. "Cold" would be too much. Maybe "cool?"
The channel imbalance thing is odd, I re-calibrated and measured several times to confirm. It's hard to pick up because the higher frequencies are decently matched - compared to the lower frequencies which are totally off. Most spacial information (and the all-important harmonics) is contained in the higher frequencies.
@Ss: Once you get them back, you'll notice the bass and mids are louder on the left.
This is very obvious with test tones. There's no doubt in my mind that these headphones would sound less "cool" and "off" if the channels were matched properly (that is with the one with the better FR.) It would bring out the overall bass - since bass seems especially missing on the right channel. It's very hard to detect channel imbalances with headphones anyways when compared to speakers.
I'll be making my usual report on HF and shame Beyer again. Maybe you can get a refund?
-
??? FS... Slightly imbalanced... I'll keep listening and see if I can live with them now that I'm going to be listening for it. It will be interesting to see the response on HF, there are a lot of fans who aren't going to want to hear any criticism.
Beyond QC it does make me give more credit to those that claim additional cost for driver matching, well those that actually seem to do it anyway.
-
One thing to be aware of is that I think my measurement system is a little bit off in terms of measured FR tilt when it comes to the supra-aurals.
I like the sound of my pair though. I think I can hear the ringing at ~15kHz but other than that I like them. Maybe I got lucky with a good pair or something.
Send your pair in! ;)
-
Send your pair in! ;)
I'd like to but I think I need to sell them pretty soon, even though I do like the sound of them. I need some cash and I just don't have as much use for a pair of portable supras as I though I would.
I enjoy their sound, especially the super deep bass, but the comfort pretty much restricts them to using on the go. They're less comfortable and don't sound as good as my T50RPs which rules them out for home listening. IEMs are more comfortable and convenient if I'm going to be listening for longer periods of time since they're a pain to take on and off. That's why I got the 1350s for throwing on and off for short periods of time or when I didn't want to risk the more delicate IEMs when doing something strenuous.
Those situations seemed to stop coming up too often right after I bought them. I held on to them because I did like them but I hardly even listened to them for the reasons outline above.
Also, I did double check mine with a frequency sweep. They aren't perfect and the louder side wanders back and forth a little but there's no wholesale mismatch with vocals coming from off center like the pair purrin measured.
My YH-3s are kind of like that which is why I haven't put any effort into modding them. The differences don't start until you get down into the bass. One driver goes like 2-3 octave lower IIRC. At first I though it was probably some sort of issue with the cup or pads sealing properly but I switched them and it still did the same thing. Then I took them out of the cups and held the the bare drivers up to my ears and they did the same thing again so it has to be the drivers themselves that are different.
The weird thing is that I didn't notice it at first, at least consciously. They gave me listening fatigue almost as fast as Grados but I didn't know why. My father and brother had also listened to a track or two on them and didn't notice either. Now that I know its there I can barely listen to them at all.
I also have another interesting anecdote about driver matching relating to my T50RPs. The pair I currently use has drivers from two different pairs since I have a habit of accidentally ripping the leads off of the driver's flexible PCB. (I've since started tacking the leads down with hot glue immediately after I open a pair up...) Despite that it seems to have better matching than my DT1350 when playing test tones which seems like a pretty good testament to Fostex's consistency. Interestingly, when playing actual music the T50RP's imbalance is quite a bit more noticeable than the 1350's, which I don't hear at all. I think its because the T50RPs have much better imaging. The drivers have the most noticeable imbalance in the high mids to low treble and with certain female vocals, especially high pitched Jpop singers, the vocalist's position wavers a bit as the pitch of their voice changes. The imaging on a supra aural like the 1350 would probably never be that good and probably hide a lot of inconsistency. That's not really a good excuse for Beyer though.
-
I've heard some good Beyers obviously, but they seem to elude my measurements... I've got another DT1350 coming in. Maybe I'll grab one myself too.
-
purrin, my friend told me by end of the month if still interested he has no problems sending his DT48A out to you. has to get get new pads for them still and bit busy with school and stuff but he's willing to send them out to you for measurement.
-
My 1350's returned today, thanks Marv... But something is wrong, there is some channel imbalance and the resale value has been cut in half! :P lmao! What did you do to my headphones? ???
-
My 1350's returned today, thanks Marv... But something is wrong, there is some channel imbalance and the resale value has been cut in half! :P lmao! What did you do to my headphones? ???
Shhhh! But seriously, do you hear what I'm talking about? The bass and mids are lower volume on one channel while the treble stays the same.
-
I've actually got a devious plan to measure it using test tones... Not sure if it will work, but if it does I'll report back.
This will be some back yard DIY stuff compared to the stuff you do!
-
So go ahead and tell me why my "test" doesn't tell us anything...
I went ahead and made up a well fitting "adapter" for my SPL meter and ran a series of frequency test from 20 to 20000hz and moved from L to R and recorded the results.
The results seemed quite repeatable as I was able to go back and retest several times and get the same relative difference (or no difference in roughly half the cases). I ran the test at several gain settings and was still able to get the same relative differences in channels.
What I found was that typically the L side was about 1db higher than the right at about 50% of the sample points, more predominantly from 1000 down.
Above most of the readings were even. The only exceptions being 12500 and 16000 where the L was 2db higher. 20000 was even.
50hz was the only lower range where saw the L 2 db higher than the R. 200 and 800 hz were exceptions too, where at 200 we saw the R side +1 over the left and at 800 both sides were even.
I also ran pink and white noise, both showed the L being 1bd higher than the right consistently.
So, what does this tell me? It supports what purrins graph tells us, that there is an imbalance to the left, but, assuming my numbers mean anything, 1-2db seems hard to detect with ears.
Can I make the bold call that the difference in channel imbalance is small enough to be difficult to detect as a shift to the L, but still may have an overall sonic effect.
Ok, don't shoot the poor mechanical engineer here! I for one make no claims to have any background in audio engineering, so this little experiment was just me trying to get my head/ears around why I was not hearing an imbalance.
-
So you don't hear the left channel having significantly more bass than the right and the voices slightly off center to the left? Oh well...
-
No, actually I think I am hearing that... but it's subtle and I was concerned that I now have a built in bias to hear it. Voices are easier for me to pick up than the bass, it's ever so tilted to the left. And while I was trying to hear it I was starting to think it was the recordings, so I went to test tones... Again, subtle, so I thought I'd try and put a more unbiased ear on it. Just playing around... this is interesting stuff, and while at times I like what I hear from the 1350 there are as many times that I find them a little off, so just playing a little to try and learn.
-
Indeed as for the voices - it's very subtle - mainly because the harmonics (upper mids and highs) are still closely matched. For bass - it was more obvious. Certain people are more sensitive to it. LFF immediately detects such things. It took me a while to train myself to hear this, but once you are trained ... you will hear it for the rest of your life.
I find that drivers that don't match well result in headphones that sound off. I'm sure you saw my post on that.
-
I didn't notice. I just heard "off"