I did not do a blind test, but it was level matched.
I asked if it was
accurately level matched. You've given no details of your matching protocol.
The thing is, this much of a difference was immediately recognizable, to the point that it wasn't even close
Just like your
'night and day' impressions that headphones 'scale' differently with 'higher end' amps?
And... I wasn't the only one to have this same experience between the two.
You're not the only one to believe in 'scaling' either, looks like most of your headphones.com reviewer friends are
afflicted with the same nonsense. This is what happens when sighted and expectation bias combine with groupthink, and is why you all need to do your listening tests blind, because you're evidently susceptible to these, as everyone is of course, although you and other subjectivist-leaning reviewers seem especially prone (this situation is
well summed up here).
Moreover, you should know by now that it's not uniquely about level in one region of the FR
No, but the region over which our ears are most sensitive, at the nadir of the
equal loudness contours, is paramount to get right, which it doesn't seem like your target does.
You can't just point at 3khz on our target without considering where the rest of the treble is.
I have considered the rest of the treble. If anything the lower-level treble of your target above the excessive 3 kHz peak may actually perceptually accentuate the latter even more due to reduced downward masking by higher frequencies. Which I see
you yourself say a similar thing about the Harman 2013 (GRAS) target sounding shoutier than their 2018 target (which is a similar but actually even less in magnitude difference than between yours and Harman's 5128 targets at 3 kHz and above, see below):
I could’ve just gone with 2013 but I know a lot of us find that to be too shouty at 3khz, myself included, and I also suspect this is one of the reasons for the treble lift in 2018, since, as you increase the treble above 3khz, the glare goes away with lower harmonics not dominating as much over upper ones.
And this is the last time I'm going to be replying to you...
That won't be a huge change, considering your answers to my questions have been pretty vague and evasive.
Headphones behave differently on different heads/rigs.
We all know this is possible,
to varying degrees in the general case. But here's your problem: you repeatedly use this as a crutch to justify any subjective claim you make from sighted listening (be that the Truthear Zero sounding shouty to you, which can in fact be explained by their deviation from Harman without you invoking your ear canal geometry; DCA headphones lacking 'macrocontrast'; or here the Expanse sounding shouty despite matching your 5128 target), without you giving
specific evidence of this supposed high on-head variation being the
primary cause in these particular cases, significant enough to dominate over other potential causes that you ignore, in this case sighted bias, and your new untested target being at fault. And there is evidence it is at fault, comparing it to Harman's 5128 target (reverse engineered from the error curves
in this video, credit Sharur), which as Sean Olive showed produces a low mean predicted preference rating error of 5.8 points in relation to the predicted ratings from the original GRAS measurements and Harman target:
Here we see your target peaks ~2 dB above Harman's around 3 kHz where our ears are most sensitive. Bringing it back to the Expanse, this likely explains why you find it shouty as it matches your target there. Further corroborated by
your comments on what you find objectionable with the Expanse:
I find myself preferring the sound signature of the Aeon 2 Noire, which has a bit less focus towards the upper mids and a bit more focus towards the treble.
And the major difference between the Expanse and Aeon 2 Noire? That peak above Harman around 3 kHz again (which you classify as upper mids) present on the former but not the latter, as shown by good old industry standard GRAS measurements and deviation from the scientifically robustly, perceptually tested Harman target, without need for the claimed more accurate (despite lack of evidence confirming this) B&K 5128, an untested theoretical target, and invoking your assumed non-average hearing/preferences with no valid evidence for this in the form of controlled blind listening tests.
Aeon 2 Noire:
It seems just like with most subjectivist reviewers/audiophiles, you really want your hearing and sound preferences to be 'unique' or somehow inexplicable by measurements, and you've latched on to what you fallaciously think is a catch-all objective 'cause' of this you can apply at will to explain away any subjective claim you make to objectivists, when that really won't wash with those who understand the basic scientific principles of controlled testing and providing specific valid evidence for your claims, and the more statistically probable truth you're not willing to accept is that, just like most other people, your hearing and sound preferences are likely pretty average, and it's your new untested target that may well not be representing that average.