CHANGSTAR: Audiophile Headphone Reviews and Early 90s Style BBS
Lobby => IEM Measurements => Topic started by: Kunlun on August 11, 2014, 02:18:44 PM
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http://www.cdpkorea.com/zboard4/zboard.php?id=forum_etc2_1&page=1&sn1=&divpage=7&sn=off&ss=on&sc=off&select_arrange=headnum&desc=asc&no=47719
(http://www.seeko.co.kr/zboard4/data/trashcan/raw.png)
uncompensated
(http://www.seeko.co.kr/zboard4/data/trashcan/comp.png)
with the bass set at min and max
(http://www.seeko.co.kr/zboard4/data/trashcan/thd.png)
etc.
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Ahah... I knew there was something wonky going on with the treble when I heard them last week. poo
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I love when a graph help us to understand what our ears were telling us. It's like "Oh, so that's what it is!"
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Despite not knowing how they are compensating - it looks like crap - huge 7k peak!
Any graphs of known IEMS from that site - to compare on a relative basis?
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Good question, I pm'd the guy who posted the link asking for other graphs from the site of CIEMS and some known headphones like the hd600 or hd800. I don't speak korean so it's a little hard to navigate for me.
Definitely a nail in coffin for the "JH makes flat sounding earphones!!!!" people, though.
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yeah, I can't see a compensation curve looking like the inverse of that 7kHz peak. not a good spot to have spike.
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That spike appears to be perfectly placed to accommodate a feline's HRTF. Do they make a version that's tuned for the human ear though?
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The bass character was too much for me on min setting and just sounded like noise. Jerry thought I should turn it up to make is sound better. I was like, "huh"? That distortion in the bass, mids through treble explains why I thought they were so unresolving and low fi sounding compared to even the JH13fp let alone the UERM.
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That spike appears to be perfectly placed to accommodate a feline's HRTF. Do they make a version that's tuned for the human ear though?
I can confirm this isn't the case!
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Looks like extra resonance due to improper placement in the 711 coupler. I have FR measurements of it at low/mid/high bass settings.
It's not much prettier, but it's more telling because the resonance artifact is not as silly looking.
Don't have time to post now, but I'll try to get it up later. Someone else posted that version on HF as well.
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Thanks, by all means put it up here.
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Marv, that 7k peak is scary, to be sure, but the foothill at 3500 has the potential to be equally problematic. Second harmonic of the second octave above middle C? Yikes.
I may listen to these someday just out of idle curiosity, but that FR plot makes it hard for me to imagine myself liking them.
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Here are the measurements from HF without the coupler artifact.
(http://www.head-fi.org/image/id/6362142/width/400/flags/LL)
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Why do people with bad ears
take publish measurements?
And what's going on with JHA? Different dudes every time at the tables.
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And what's going on with JHA? Different dudes every time at the tables.
High turnover? That's never a good sign.
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Here are the measurements from HF without the coupler artifact.
Yeah, that's the one. Here's a bigger version:
(http://i.imgur.com/K6MSizG.png) (http://imgur.com/K6MSizG)
This is the universal ARK03 version. The Seeko measurements are from a customized version, so it's probable that they couldn't get the right depth of fit when testing it.
I don't love the Roxanne; even without talking about the treble, it has too much bass even at the lowest setting (more than the JH13FP in a direct A/B). However, the treble definitely isn't as peaky as how it looks in the Seeko graphs. In fact, I found the Roxanne less strident than directly compared to the JH13FP. This is as close to an apples-to-apples comparison as the JH13FP was a demo and the Roxanne was the universal ARK03 version. From a technical standpoint, the SWFK drivers definitely exhibit a transient peak between 5-7k (depending on how far it's placed relative to your eardrum and of course the tubing diameter as well as any horn effects). If you do a CSD or burst decay, that peak will look like ringing, but the time course is fairly transient.
FR-wise, it's your classic V-shaped response. I was surprised that Jerry shifted the canal resonance peak to 3k rather than keeping it at 2.5-2.7k; I've had discussions with people that perhaps it's to appeal to the broader Asian market, which tends to have more of this free-field inspired equalization of tuning.
Anyway, that's about all the time I have for now. The Roxy isn't crap, but it's overrated for sure.
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Here are the measurements from HF without the coupler artifact.
I don't love the Roxanne; even without talking about the treble, it has too much bass even at the lowest setting (more than the JH13FP in a direct A/B). However, the treble definitely isn't as peaky as how it looks in the Seeko graphs. In fact, I found the Roxanne less strident than directly compared to the JH13FP. This is as close to an apples-to-apples comparison as the JH13FP was a demo and the Roxanne was the universal ARK03 version.
Agree 100% with this impression.
The Roxy isn't crap, but it's overrated for sure.
Disagree a bit here but I see what you mean. You could do as good or better with some universals for around $2000 less.
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For $2000 less, someone would have to pay you to use the IEM... :)p13
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Another homemade roxanne measurement set
http://www.head-fi.org/t/696828/noble-k10-vs-jh-roxannes/345#post_10831323
This one also has the gigantic spike, perhaps similar to the first one.
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Allow me to slot in my impressions:
Roxanne (Universal) vs JH13Pro (Demo):
Roxanne has this kinda weird hi-sound, like for eg. the hi-hat sounds too splashy compared to JH13Pro, which is to me an alright quantity. The bass is weird too, like felt smaller sounding yet not so tight. The stage has somehow widened because every instrument sounds "smaller" to my ears. 13 sounds rather clean and every instrument is clearly in place. Even the vocals have good breathing sound which i like very much.
The store advertised it as the Rock star IEM. I guess YMMV.
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This one also has the gigantic spike, perhaps similar to the first one.
I still think they're doing something incorrectly --- it's clear that guy is "SoonJa" as quoted in the Seeko reviews. One criticism I have about what they do is that they push the drive power far too high, at 1 mW, which sends everything into distorting madness, ruining a useful look at distortion profiles.
Also, I'm no rabid Jerry Harvey fan, and especially because of their business practices I won't be getting anything from them any time soon or ever, but I just can't plausibly see the Roxanne looking like that in a real ear. It doesn't measure like anything I've heard it sound like, and the choice of drivers, although excessive and definitely does tend toward that way in measurements:
(http://i.imgur.com/6k2xq2Hl.png) (http://imgur.com/6k2xq2H)
Allow me to slot in my impressions:
Roxanne (Universal) vs JH13Pro (Demo):
Roxanne has this kinda weird hi-sound, like for eg. the hi-hat sounds too splashy compared to JH13Pro, which is to me an alright quantity. The bass is weird too, like felt smaller sounding yet not so tight. The stage has somehow widened because every instrument sounds "smaller" to my ears. 13 sounds rather clean and every instrument is clearly in place. Even the vocals have good breathing sound which i like very much.
The store advertised it as the Rock star IEM. I guess YMMV.
I heard the bolded parts opposite from you for some reason. Hi-hats come off less splashy in the universal Roxanne than the JH13FP demo, while the Roxanne at bass minimum still has more quantity than the JH13.
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I heard the bolded parts opposite from you for some reason. Hi-hats come off less splashy in the universal Roxanne than the JH13FP demo, while the Roxanne at bass minimum still has more quantity than the JH13.
I think it's a matter of chosen vocabulary. Agreed about the bass being more in the Roxanne no matter what. I also agree with you about the 13 treble being more splashy. I think phillip might be saying the Roxanne is less natural, perhaps dryer whereas the 13 although splashy is more 'sweet' sounding. Or not...
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I'm not entirely sure what would be the reason of the difference (or perhaps the choice of words). Roxanne has more bass but sometimes it feels "small". I mean, it sound kinda distance to my ears. Not just the bass, but other frequencies as well. Maybe it's due to the tips I used?
The first overall impression I got from Roxanne is :Weird. It's really uncommon to have such strange presentation. Definitely not "better" than 13.
One more, I wonder if this is due to Roxanne being more affected by the H/O 3 Ohm output compared to 13? Although I doubt this would have too much of an impact.
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it was measured with B&K 4157
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This one also has the gigantic spike, perhaps similar to the first one
I posted that graph on head-fi. I hope you realize that it is a same graph that you post
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I posted that graph on head-fi.
Hi, nice of you to join in the conversation!
I have a question about why you guys test THD @1 mW? Wouldn't it be more useful to set the output volume at 85 and 100 dB(A) and measure the distortion that way? 85 dB(A) is the recommended maximum listening volume over an 8 hour workday according to OSHA/NIOSH (and almost all international metrics on noise exposure), while 100 dBA is usually thought to be "very loud". Usually, depending on the headroom they have, the input sensitivities of IEMs, such as multi-BA IEMs, usually are over 110 dB/mW, meaning that the distortion profiles shown are well over acceptable drive volumes (and therefore not useful for responsible listeners, not saying anything about stupid teenagers that voluntarily want to go deaf).
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I posted that graph on head-fi.
Hi, nice of you to join in the conversation!
I have a question about why you guys test THD @1 mW? Wouldn't it be more useful to set the output volume at 85 and 100 dB(A) and measure the distortion that way? 85 dB(A) is the recommended maximum listening volume over an 8 hour workday according to OSHA/NIOSH (and almost all international metrics on noise exposure), while 100 dBA is usually thought to be "very loud". Usually, depending on the headroom they have, the input sensitivities of IEMs, such as multi-BA IEMs, usually are over 110 dB/mW, meaning that the distortion profiles shown are well over acceptable drive volumes (and therefore not useful for responsible listeners, not saying anything about stupid teenagers that voluntarily want to go deaf).
Yes I agree with your THD measurement method. The community website is called Seeko.co.kr and I am one of the measurement believer there. Some of measurement believers including me had recommended seeko to measure THD with db level, yet it has not changed......
I know it is inconvenience way since all of iem has different sensitivity and impedance.
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Ah, okay. I thought you were the one actually doing the measurements, sorry.