CHANGSTAR: Audiophile Headphone Reviews and Early 90s Style BBS
Lobby => Soapbox => Topic started by: Marvey on November 26, 2011, 07:46:14 AM
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What does it mean when something is said to be neutral sounding? Well to start, neutral sounding is definitely not one of the following:
- Something up for a vote
- Something according one's personal preferences
- Something that has similar tonal balance to one's favorite headphone of the month
- Or even something that sounds most like a live performance
Neutral sounding is simply something that measures flat - that is a flat frequency response. Audio professionals and even most experienced audiophiles know this. The only reason I would even bring this topic up is to set things straight here. This is not Head-Fi, therefore personal re-interpretations and subscription to false knowledge is not acceptable.
Which leads to another important point: Take headphone frequency response graphs with a grain of salt. If they measure flat, they may be necessarily sound flat. This is because headphone measurement methodologies are still in their infancy (on the other hand, speaker measurements are not in their infancy, so we do trust their measurements.)
So how we would know if a headphone is neutral sounding? If we have trained ears, we would know. If we had a neutral reference (speakers) to compare to we would know. Even if we were experienced audiophiles, we would probably know, unless we were those insane ones lurking on the HF threads.
We may ask, if a headphone is neutral, how could some recordings sound so bad on it? Blame it on the sound engineers. But for the most part, if we listen to a wide variety of music, we will note that neutral sounding equipment tends to do the best overall.
There may be some personal preferences in play, some people may like more bass, some people may like more treble, but at the end of the day, it's important for us to understand what "neutral" really means in order to enable transmission of knowledge and avoid misunderstanding.
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where's my popcorn?
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Nice to see a post like that Purrin! So many people feel neutral can be talked about, argued about and then put up for vote. :o
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where's my popcorn?
you really like popcorn don't you? i can't blame you. with butter it is pretty delicious...and sometimes gummie bears added is nice as well.
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My personal hypothesis is that as far as frequency balance is concerned, a pair of neutral headphones should share the same perceived frequency balance as a pair of speakers equalized to have a measured flat frequency response at the listening position. Ideally, in a well treated room, a pair of flat (anechoic frequency response) would till measure very flat at the listening position with any further EQ.
NB: This only concerns the frequency response, the room's reflections and the speaker's directivity necessarily impact on soundstaging. I will also admit the imprecision of my definition as I don't know whether the measuring window should include the reflections or should be short enough to only capture the direct signal (the latter case wouldn't not be possible with all rooms)
I hope for some further inputs.
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My personal hypothesis is that as far as frequency balance is concerned, a pair of neutral headphones should share the same perceived frequency balance as a pair of speakers equalized to have a measured flat frequency response at the listening position. Ideally, in a well treated room, a pair of flat (anechoic frequency response) would till measure very flat at the listening position with any further EQ.
NB: This only concerns the frequency response, the room's reflections and the speaker's directivity necessarily impact on soundstaging. I will also admit the imprecision of my definition as I don't know whether the measuring window should include the reflections or should be short enough to only capture the direct signal (the latter case wouldn't not be possible with all rooms)
I hope for some further inputs.
they use to measure headphones like that, but not anymore since everything is done on computers. i know things like doby surround is based off of Diffused-field equalization standards but not headphones. they have computers that ''imitate'' frequency response of diffused-field but not measured like real diffused-field(head dummy in an 10x10 echo chamber playing 2nd/3rd octave pink noise on flat frequency response speakers).
before that they use to use free-field(head dummy measured in an anechoic chamber with flat frequency speakers). i think the sextetts were one of the few free-field equalized headphones for studio work(i have documents showing how the sextetts were measured). i know stax still uses free-field but modified version of what they believe in. i know AKG still somewhat uses diffused-field with their current 701/702 but not like their older models like the 240DF. the 240DF were equalized for German radio broadcasting IRT standards. every other company like sennheiser uses their own type of diffused-field techniques. sennheiser was gonna fellow the same diffused-field method that the 240DF took but were suggested to not fully fellow that type of measurement so they designed their own ways of measuring diffused-field.Stax made one headphone that used a diffused-field Box. the headphone was still free-field equalized but when hooked up to the box it will present the headphone with diffused-field equalization. i forgot the model but they had one.
besides, doing those techniques nowadays cost thousands or even millions(well by today standards due to how much the dollar is worth compare to the 70's and early 80's where they had the freedom to experiment with no cost restrictions)and lots of time and study. that's why headphones like Stax cost so much. they use to measure headphones in acoustic chambers but not anymore. only speakers are measured in acoustic chambers nowadays. only headphones i know of is sennheiser ''reference/audiophile'' line-up and i believe the Beyer DT48s(another diffused-field headphone) is measured same way when it comes to dynamics. electrostatics are still and will always be measured in a free-field. only other dynamic besides the sextetts was the K1000 that was measured in a free-field.
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But those headphones all sound so different. Even within the same brand, the Sextett and K1000 sound miles and miles apart.
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i know. just mentioning they both used free-field. stax uses free-field and all their ear speakers sound different.
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Mastering of different cd's (targeted at different audiences) is done not only ON, but also FOR different speaker (type's). Where a good recorded classical cd might be mastered for neutral speakers, a lady gaga cd is probably mastered to also sound great on earbuds and Dre Beats. Some recordings actually sound like crap on my studio monitor's and AKG K1000, but great on cheaper speakers. I noticed that on a NAD amp I used to own, it had the 'english NAD hump', and it added some nice warmth and got rid of sibilance, actually made listening to music very enjoyable. Much like the HD650 also does this (to some extent). What I read on HF a lot, is that people buy a headphone that is too bright for their taste (or missing low-end), and then finding a bad tube amp to compensate it (I say bad, because a good tube amp shouldn't add, just amplify). The whole synergy thing is just about compensating for each component's flaws, imo. Are there any 'reference cd's', for testing audio equipment? I'm not talking about frequency sweep things (though they can be useful), but about music being mastered as neutral as possible? (which might in itself be impossible, as it is mastered on speakers as well, but let's say, some of the best monitor's available.)
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Mastering of different cd's (targeted at different audiences) is done not only ON, but also FOR different speaker (type's). Where a good recorded classical cd might be mastered for neutral speakers, a lady gaga cd is probably mastered to also sound great on earbuds and Dre Beats. Some recordings actually sound like crap on my studio monitor's and AKG K1000, but great on cheaper speakers.
This is a common misconception....
A well mastered CD will sound good on any equipment designed to reproduce music properly. It will only sound bad if the speaker/headphone/gear is extremely colored or faulty. A Lady Gaga CD is simply mastered to sound loud because people feel that sounds better. Dynamic range can't be appreciated in a noisy car either.
The argument that there is some magical EQ curve to make music sound good on all types of equipment is BS.
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Actually, having produced music myself and been to different mastering studio's, I know it from experience. You can actually request specific things for your master, some of those things (eg exciter, stereo spread etc.) will reduce the quality on high end speakers (booming bass, spiky treble, artificial seperation), but will make it sound much better on cheaper speakers.
I'm sure as a mastering engineer you have plenty more experience (my example was from the electronic music industry, I had some releases there).
I'm not sure where you read anything about a magical eq curve, it was definitely not in my post, or my intent. The rest of your post I agree with completely, so it seems you have misunderstood (or I was unclear in) my post.
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Actually, having produced music myself and been to different mastering studio's, I know it from experience. You can actually request specific things for your master, some of those things (eg exciter, stereo spread etc.) will reduce the quality on high end speakers (booming bass, spiky treble, artificial seperation), but will make it sound much better on cheaper speakers.
I'm sure as a mastering engineer you have plenty more experience (my example was from the electronic music industry, I had some releases there).
I'm not sure where you read anything about a magical eq curve, it was definitely not in my post, or my intent. The rest of your post I agree with completely, so it seems you have misunderstood (or I was unclear in) my post.
Yup....probably misunderstood....not surprising seeing your a producer. (J/K...couldn't help a little dig) :P
What you are talking about is what we call EQ compensation or mastering for the masses. I can see what you meant to say now.....
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A well mastered CD will sound good on any equipment designed to reproduce music properly.
omg,omg,omg. that's preposterous my good sir! everyone must have the big loud boom boom to sound hood yo.
actually, naw just playing. but,duh! a good sounding recording will sound good on everything as well, that's why my mind gets blown when lot of big time studio's resort to something like the loudness war. i mean if people don't care about the quality of sound in the first place then they wouldn't care what you did to it, and there forth should master it properly in the first place. people won't notice anyways.
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A well mastered CD will sound good on any equipment designed to reproduce music properly.
omg,omg,omg. that's preposterous my good sir! everyone must have the big loud boom boom to sound hood yo.
actually, naw just playing. but,duh! a good sounding recording will sound good on everything as well, that's why my mind gets blown when lot of big time studio's resort to something like the loudness war. i mean if people don't care about the quality of sound in the first place then they wouldn't care what you did to it, and there forth should master it properly in the first place. people won't notice anyways.
Logical arguments don't work at media companies.....
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Can we please fix the original post to reflect the (correct) idea that neutral is in fact a perfect reproduction (with respect to SPL) of real life? And that a truly flat headphone is not at all close to reproducing real life? That is to say, a neutral at the ear, and not neutral at the speaker? (ie. a canalphone, headphone, speaker that sound of the same tonal balance, instead of a tonally balanced speaker, an extremely "dark" headphone and an even darker canalphone?).
The issue of equalisation was brought up quickly by khaos. While it can be confusing to consider that "flat" is NOT neutral until after HRTF and so on, it is correct to say so.
Here's a graph by Moller.
Black = The response required by a headphone to sound identical to a FLAT speaker (i.e. sound neutral) in a Free Field situation.
Blue - The response required by a headphone to sound identical to a FLAT speaker (i.e. sound neutral) in a diffuse field situation
Red is - The response required by a canalphone to sound identical to a FLAT speaker (i.e. sound neutral) in a diffuse field situation.
I've attached two graphs that were provided by manufacturers which reflect two different design ethics. One is a free field target curve by Stax, the other is a diffuse field curve target by Etymotic.
Every site on the planet perpetuates what I like to call The Flat Delusion, because they simply omit the information that headphones should not and do not measure flat. Ever.
While this may seem like a victimless crime, reporting neutral as flat (such as the manner in which Tyll does it), underrepresents a number of headphones with different design mechanics, due to the lack of standardisation of headphone response curves (which is addressed by Moller in the study that produced the graphs below). It is therefore, in the best interest that people learn to recognise these graphs, and then use them to modify on their own.
Consider for example, if a site decided to use an HRTF from a diffuse field for ALL of it's headphones. Using the graph provided by Stax, can we not see how the Lambda (pro and normal) pictured would be poorly represented, even though it does a very good job of free field equalisation? The stax design is slightly panoramic, creating a degree offset, theoretically similar to what you'd get with nearfield monitors. Meaning that, freefield is the CORRECT method to use in this case. How is it fair to judge all headphones by the same curve when no standard actually exists?
PS. I do not wish to endorse the graphs posted here as 100% accurate, even though I do believe they are relatively accurate.
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This post should be a sticky. Too many people still get confused why neutral and natural on headphones don't necessarilly jive with each other at all times where with speakers, a neutral measurement almost always means natural. I say almost when talking about speakers because if other factors are highly flawed ex. distortion, impulse response, etc... then we wouldn't be sure if some factors that conbtributed to that flat response was the box making a certain resonance or some other anomaly. An example would be a driver that measured with a certain dip in reponse when mounted on a certain enclosure compensated with a peak at the same frequency with the ports resonant frequency, some box vibration or whatever else.
When talking about headphones... HRTF, measuring methods, etc. are extra factors making things more confusing as to whether a headphone is really neutral.
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This post should be a sticky. Too many people still get confused why neutral and natural on headphones don't necessarilly jive with each other at all times where with speakers, a neutral measurement almost always means natural. I say almost when talking about speakers because if other factors are highly flawed ex. distortion, impulse response, etc... then we wouldn't be sure if some factors that conbtributed to that flat response was the box making a certain resonance or some other anomaly. An example would be a driver that measured with a certain dip in reponse when mounted on a certain enclosure compensated with a peak at the same frequency with the ports resonant frequency, some box vibration or whatever else.
When talking about headphones... HRTF, measuring methods, etc. are extra factors making things more confusing as to whether a headphone is really neutral.
For what it's worth, I feel that the phrase "natural" has too much sway for personal taste.
I would prefer it if the accepted terms were FLAT to depict a speaker that outputs uniform sound energy (regarless of type), and NEUTRAL to reflect speakers that sound identical (in terms of frequency balance) at the ear.
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It is true that the word natural is used so many times with personal taste coming into play. This is only due to the fact though that no headphone is perfect and the one that sounds natural to a person is the one with the least annoying flaws ex... having very little peaks or having dips maybe in frequencies where there are peaks in our hearing response... etc... Some people find certain frequency peaks more bearable than others though while others may find a peak at a different frequency more annoying which is why the term natural can never be consistent.
In a perfect world though, neutral and natural should be synonyms unless a certain hearing impaired person needs a certain frequency response to compensate for their lack of hearing acuity in certain frequencies. This makes that specific transducer sound more natural to them than what they can actually hear in a live orchestral show for example :)
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In a perfect world though, neutral and natural should be synonyms unless a certain hearing impaired person needs a certain frequency response to compensate for their lack of hearing acuity in certain frequencies. This makes that specific transducer sound more natural to them than what they can actually hear in a live orchestral show for example :)
I disagree with your comments about hearing acuity. Large amounts of damage (for example to the treble region) has been directly linked to a problem called hyperacousis, which is in essense an over sensitivity to sound. It would actually be a bad idea to prescribe a bright headphone to someone with high frequency damage for music, as it is more likely to cause them discomfort. If for the purpose of understanding speech etc, it is probably a good idea to recommend a speaker/headphone with peaks at around 2khz and 6khz, to aid with diction, which is usually the first thing to go.
To consider your argument further; Neutral is neutral, under the model where neutral = exactly like real life. People with specific damage, experience that damage in all walks of life; at concerts, from a speaker, from headphones, during conversation. "FLAT" (for speakers) and "Neutral", for headphones are still the ideal, scientifically speaking. If you want to consider that someone might enjoy more treble due to hearing loss that's fine, however it imposes an ideal signature - which frankly doesn't exist (in objective terms).
One can argue however that neutral has no meaning for headphones. Many curves are based on averages, which means that it is not likely to be a perfect reproduction for you. Likewise if you have a particular issue (for example, if you have a missing ear/pinnae/have calcification in the ears), you may find it difficult to find an equal, centred sound, particularly for treble - which is much more easily effected because of the wavelength.
:)
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I was just making a simple point with that statement basically saying that they might want headphones that sound more like a hearing aid than what they hear with their natural deafened hearing capability. I wasn't really being very technical there... Maybe my english was just wrong by using the word acuity.
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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.
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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....
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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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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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You can read my post again. I added an edit when you added your edit.
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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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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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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.
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[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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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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alright, let's forget about headfi, I understand those folks are lost souls.....So this thread was for people who are really way off the mark and it's not meant to be a discussion in any finer detail as to what the words mean and how they get defined?
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since joe grado is not making phones any longer....is there a currently made headphone that would be considered neutral by the same group who determined the hp1000 is neutral? I'm not suggesting it is the senn800 but there seem to be alot of folks who feel it is the essence of neutral.
btw, the graph of the hp1000 here on this site is not flat, and rhythmdevils says that flat = neutral and the hp1000 is it? I'm still not following....
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who, shills at Sennheiser? Keep in mind, nothing is actually neutral. Everything is colored. Some things are closer to neutral than others.
I don't really get what is happening in this thread, seems like we're going round in circles. Maybe we should take this to your "are we on the same page thread"
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Only way for a headphone to be completely neutral... measure his personal HRTF with a dead flat speaker inside a anechoic chamber, then compensate a given headphone's response accordingly...
I would disagree. My own experience has told me that our brain already does a great job of filtering out HTRF effects. I think that any headphone that could replicate the performance of the reference speaker would get close to perfection. The only advantage that the Realizer provides is being able to account for time delay and aural-localization (inherent to the shape and size of a user head) that headphones cannot attain by conventional design. To that end, what the Realizer guarantees is natural sound-stage, not neutral FR.
Please do take the time to correct me if I am missing something.
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rhythm. believe me, I don't feel anything senn makes is neutral or natural. I'm just trying to get the op's point and I guess it's more of a basic general point for people who are way off the mark and it wasn't meant to be a discussion in depth about the topic. So i'm done here on this thread. Maybe we can get into more detail on my other thread at some point because the two words do have great meaning.....
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RD, you're mising missing the point of HRTF in headphones. It's only relevant due to the proximity of the transducer to the ear and the chamber that forms between them, it has nothing to do with how our brains adapt early on on life or how we hear real life. It's just the way sound waves behave and how physics work.
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And I agree the horrendous anomalies of most headphones are inexcusable.
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Angle of the sound to the ears is why HRTF is important... not just proximity. A flat FR speaker doesn't measure flat if measured with a mic inside your ears for instance. Then the same flat FR speaker will also measure different using the same mic measured while in my ears.
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Neutral in audio terms is too tricky for me to describe. I can't trust my brain on this so I just go with what I prefer. Therefore I stopped looking for the next best thing and stuck to my favourite headphones.
For me there are two approaches to find out what neutral really is: science or exposing yourself to live performances and taking a walk through the park every now and then.
If you are able to apply both approaches you are lucky i.m.o.
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Neutral in audio terms is too tricky for me to describe. I can't trust my brain on this so I just go with what I prefer. Therefore I stopped looking for the next best thing and stuck to my favourite headphones.
"I don't trust my brain to know flat so I trust my brain to have preferences."
(http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/250x250/18738823.jpg)
For me there are two approaches to find out what neutral really is: science or exposing yourself to live performances and taking a walk through the park every now and then.
The tricky part about live performances is that they're venue and recording dependent though. (You need a recording to compare the reproduction to the original. Preferably on the spot, when the memory is fresh. It pays to make friends with a good sound engineer.
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The thing is that I started quite late in this hobby. I always loved listening and analysing music but it wasn't until I was 21 that I started to seriously look at headphones and the science behind audio.
For the time being I can only read and observe. Learning to play an instrument comes as an extra and if ever I can become a sound engineer I'll have to start from scratch because I never understood the use of the exact sciences until I came to understand how much the exact sciences have meant for audio. (I consider music my sanity medicine.)
As a kid I was more drawn to the cultural and linguistic side of the school programme and now, years later I'm slowly trying to understand what I never really grasped: exact sciences. (Quite lovely how my school insisted on theory more than theory and practica otherwise I would've been into exact sciences a long time ago, oh well...)
Regarding to neutrality in audio, I can't quite grasp it. I tried some headphones of which some have been mentioned as 'neutral' sounding but as far as I know neutral comes in flavours depending on what the manufacturer deems 'neutral' and all I can do is choose which flavour is most to my liking. Therefore I decided to use the word neutral regarding audio as little as possible...
(If I come across as naive so be it. There is a limit to what I know and understand.)
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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.
Yeah, the L3000 has rather poor bass extension. Seeing people wax lyrical about it has been a source of befuddlement for me since joining head-fi...
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RD, you're mising missing the point of HRTF in headphones. It's only relevant due to the proximity of the transducer to the ear and the chamber that forms between them, it has nothing to do with how our brains adapt early on on life or how we hear real life. It's just the way sound waves behave and how physics work.
My experience says otherwise based on trends on HF and my own experience comparing headphones to speakers along with simple logic. HRTF may play a small role and explain a very small percentage of the differences between headphones and impressions, but my main point is simply that HRTF does not explain the wild variation in headphone signatures. There is not that much difference. No one hears the inverse of an ED10. That is a bullshit excuse to validate wacky preferences. I think HRTF is misused and exaggerated and distorted by headphone crazies.
There's a lot more I could say, but I'm weary of derailing this thread wiht my thoughts on HRTF.
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I wouldn't call +/- 5db either way of difference between subjects a "very small" difference. The ED10 and similar hyper-expensive phones have only one explanation: total morons.
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I didn't say +/- 5dB. Whatever difference there is, it is not meaningful compared to the real problems and real reasons behind the variation in headphone signature and preferences.
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My point was just to get across that there's no thing as 100% anally-neutral in a headphone, compared to speakers, unless HRTF is compensated for. A better standart target curve will go a long way ofcourse. From there on people just need to stop buying whatever manufacturers like to pull out their asses, and that's probably the hardest part of it all.
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I disagree, there is neutral. I'll go ahead an say it- I think HRTF is fucking bullshit
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Cool, cool. No
concrete basis explanation whatsoever... I give up.
Move along with the thread.
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I have plenty of basis, this isn't head-fi. Just not wanting to get into it here and now because it always leads to a lot of bullshit debate.
I'll start a thread at some point.
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I disagree, there is neutral. I'll go ahead an say it- I think HRTF is fucking bullshit
HRTF is bs because there are just too many variables. Averaging doesn't seem to help much either.
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Fuck yeah.
Wait, it's unclear, which part is BS, that "anatomy affects the way you perceive sound", or that some claim to be able to 'compensate' for it?
In full disclosure, I know nothing about this subject, so I'm definitely not trolling for dialogue, I'm just trying to read what's already written here accurately, and what's here is ambiguous.
Oh and, I find it amusing how F-bombs are thrown around fucking willy nilly.
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It comes down to how much variance there is between individuals in the populace. If the variance is fairly high (disregarding outliers of course) then yeah something that is perceived as neutral by one person's hearing could potentially sound wonky by another person's, even if both have healthy hearing. If it is low then most people will hear similar things, and neutral would be accounted for as truly neutral.
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Nothing wrong with a little heated give and take.
I love to watch a good cockfight, but i won't join in. I like to remain neutral.
I was sitting in my rx7 today and the effin thing wouldn't get me to that special place I wanted. Then I realized the effin thing was in neutral. I shifted through the gears and was instantly transported through space. Frickin miracle.
neu·tral [noo-truhl
a.gray; without hue; of zero chroma; achromatic.
b.matching well with many or most other colors or shades, as white or beige.
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Can I be neutral on this neutrality thing ? :P...
I'd love to... but while enjoying the thread popcorn I think I have a preference for RD's viewpoints as they seem to match mine closest.
Oh wait... that means I am not neutral either ... F..k neutrality... it doesn't exist.. it is just perceived that way. :-Z
I think the OP says it all though and should not be up for discussion.
I believe that was his point all along.
Flat is flat and that is that (assuming ringing and distortion are low as well)
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.....like alot of things, general concensus over time seems to be how things work. As long as headfi forumites are not used as part of that general concensus . I trust folks here and ol joe grado over current headphone producers and those rigid and mechanical germans. them beyers and senns is cold
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If we all hear differently, then how is my YH3 dead flat when I tuned them to sound flat with nothing but music, and flat speakers as a reference. My parents must have surgically implanted rubber Neumann ears on my head when I was a baby. ::)
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My parents must have surgically implanted rubber Neumann ears on my head when I was a baby. ::)
That must be it! :o
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My apologies for bringing up HRTF and dropping F bombs and then not explaining my opinion. I'll try to at some point, a good discussion about it would be good in it's own thread. If you want to pm me some info on why HRTF applies when the driver is close to the ear and not for real life or speakers, that would be cool. Also would like to know if a sealed chamber around the ear creates unique hearing in all of us, then whether velour negates that since it doesn't seal. And whether the K1000 has less HRTF issues.
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Since it's on topic with the thread and might help other people I'll post it here:
Think of it kind of like a room's effect on speakers, you're the eardrum, the outer ear is the furniture and the room is enclosed by the pads and baffle, the difference is in the frequency bands that get affected since high frequency has very little space to attenuate and gets reflected back and forth inside the tiny room along with lower frequencies; while speakers are mostly affected in the bass/lower mids region. The more open/less reflective you make it the less it matters, both for hp's and speakers.
Then there's the thing of compensation curves which are a wholly different subject and have more to do with position of the sound source.
Just to avoid confusion, you can also hear high frequency reflections with speakers in a large room, when you clap inside a church, etc. BUT the reflected wave is (almost) never higher in amplitude than the original, as is the case with headphones, so it doesn't really modify the FR in the end.
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I disagree, there is neutral. I'll go ahead an say it- I think HRTF is fucking bullshit
HRTF is bs because there are just too many variables. Averaging doesn't seem to help much either.
I say it exists but it only matters if all other factors are also done right. It is useless to calculate HRTFs if a headphone doesn't sound fundamentally correct in the first place.
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I say [HTRF effects] exist but [they] only matter if all other factors are also done right. It is useless to calculate HRTFs if a headphone doesn't sound fundamentally correct in the first place.
Bingo! I think a lot of delusional basket-cases ridiculously hype HTRF as a reason why measurements and trying to objective (even with your ears[!!!]) is pointless.
P.S. - I love how "debates" on here actually end with some consensus and advancement. :)p1 Suck it, HF!
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If you want to pm me some info on why HRTF applies when the driver is close to the ear and not for real life or speakers, that would be cool. Also would like to know if a sealed chamber around the ear creates unique hearing in all of us, then whether velour negates that since it doesn't seal. And whether the K1000 has less HRTF issues.
Actually, HRTF applies to speakers as well - but it's the complete HRTF, which is completely compensated by the brain. Headphones remove at least the torso part of it, even K1000 and open ones. (K1000 allows partial reproduction of head shadowing, but still not torso response.) IEMs remove the auricular part and depending on insertion depth, change ear canal resonance (acoustic impedance).
This means that brain will overcompensate some parts of the sound. So what we're actually dealing with is applying inverse partial HRTF.
HRTFs can change over time somewhat, as they are based though on physiology.
Sealed ear canal creates a resonant mode depending on ear canal shape - normally ear canal is not sealed on either end, having modes similar to "open pipe", closing it converts them to "half-pipe", changing resonant frequecy by half or so, depending on the extra chamber size added our of the ear. It's as simple as that.
I'm very open to quantifying the variability in human hearing. This could be done, with error bars, clustering, etc. Also quantifying fit-refit variability and measurement variability. (It seems purrin has partially done the latter - I'd prefer more rigorous presentation of that info.)
If we get that information, we can devise a headphone and/or IEM that sounds flat for most people - truly neutral.
Obviously there are other pitfalls, like the namesake, effin' ringin' and other kinds of distortion.
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Does this site have a guide for decent neutral components?
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Ask Solderdude and Rabbit for that too. On RG there is much debate about good gear, taking it apart and measuring components.
If I would have been seriously into DIY RG would be one of my favourite places on the internet.