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Headphone Frequency Response vs Price

solderdude

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What's interesting in the 'state of the art' presentation is that only a few HP's pass the cited criteria.
The HD800, HE60, SR009, HE6 and LCD-3

Those that heard the HD800, SR009, LCD3 and HE6 will know these do not sound the same yet all pass. The HE60 I never had the pleasure of hearing but did hear the HE1 (HE1060). One thing they have in common is that they sound good to me (not to everyone of course)

I would have to agree the HE6, LCD3 and SR009 sound good to me without EQ, the HD800(S) does not.

The 'specs' were based on Tyll's measurements which had the wrong compensation applied so when 'air' = -15dB is mentioned he actually means '0dB' when he would have used the right compensation.
Therein lies the crux of the measurements. What is the correct compensation for each HATS/measurement rig, Do you compensate for 'preference' things or give a second target line for perceived linearity? (Golden Ears).
Based on who's findings ? Would an 'average' suit most people ? Who were used for the subjective taste tests ? What recordings were used ?
Did people compare this to speakers in a 'perfect' listening room ? at what distance and angle ? Compared to actual sounds ? at which SPL level (this is really important !)
In case of thinking up a standard should personal tastes even matter ? Should it be measurements only based on measured SPL ? Would a flat measuring headphone (after compensation when applicable) sound 'correct' to an average audience ? At which level ?
Should the Pinna interaction be included and if yes... what would be an 'average' Pinna/Concha ?

These and many other questions might be the reason there is no 'standard' yet accept perhaps for Harman affiliated headphones ?
Why do all Harman affiliated headphones still sound very different when their standard is 'set' ?
Will other manufacturers comply to standards they may not agree with ?
Will they still build headphones for their target audience and simply not comply ?
Will such a standard (if shooting high like in the PPT) lead to 'better sounding' cheap and expensive headphones ?

My HE-6 measurements:

he6-fr.png


One of the 'flattest' headphones I measured. A real masterpiece and did not have the pricing of the current flagships yet.

Some of the current flagships (I had the pleasure of measuring and listening to) and ones mentioned in the PPT but with my correction and on a very cheap flatbed measuring rig of just a few Euros.

LCD4z:
fr-lcd4z.png


LCD3 (Fazor):
fr-lcd3.png


Beyer T1 mk2
fr-t1mk2.png


Hifiman Susvara
fr-susvara.png


Ether Flow (granted the stat is the real TOTL one)
fr-ether-open.png


Sennheiser HD800, HD800S and HD820
hd800-vs-800s-vs-820.png


40 year old Stax SR5 (a cheapy) to illustrate how far the headphones progressed.
sr5-srd-6.png


Yep, a jungle. I don't expect one 'standard' to make much of a difference.
Afterall.. Beyerdynamic, Sennheiser, Harman and other brands all already have their own standards in place.
All of them, even within their own brand, have different sounding headphones yet they all already have their own 'standards' and 'house sounds'.

It could be that when one single standard exists some TOTL models may sound a bit closer to each other with respect to tonal balance.
 

andreasmaaan

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@solderdude I may have missed it in an earlier post, but you are using a particular HATS rig and then posting the compensated FRs here, right?
 

solderdude

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Yes the plots are compensated. Not a HATS as explained here. (Scroll down below the measurement links)

Can't find a reasonable priced and realistic Pinna to add to the rig.
Sam (Rtings) has measurements with and without a Pinna (on a HATS) and have interesting results.
He made his own 'compensation' as the 'standard' ones do not relate to how it sounds.
Is still a work in progress but is doing a good job so far.
Somewhat similar to O-W, Goldenears and my measurements.

What I find fun in headphones that it measuring headphones is still in a 'pioneering' stage when it comes to measuring and interpretation.
 
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Grave

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I do not think that anything will ever sound better than cheap Sennheisers to me. Frequency response is everything IMO since almost no headphones get it right, to my ears.
 

svart-hvitt

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Yes the plots are compensated. Not a HATS as explained here. (Scroll down below the measurement links)

Can't find a reasonable priced and realistic Pinna to add to the rig.
Sam (Rtings) has measurements with and without a Pinna (on a HATS) and have interesting results.
He made his own 'compensation' as the 'standard' ones do not relate to how it sounds.
Is still a work in progress but is doing a good job so far.
Somewhat similar to O-W, Goldenears and my measurements.

What I find fun in headphones that it is still in a 'pioneering' stage when it comes to measurements and interpretation.

@solderdude , you wrote that headphones are «still in a 'pioneering' stage when it comes to measurements and interpretation».

I concur and that’s been the point I’ve tried to make all the time :)
 

maverickronin

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40 year old Stax SR5 (a cheapy) to illustrate how far the headphones progressed.
sr5-srd-6.png

The real comparison should be a normal bias Lambda. Those are just as old and still better than any non-'stat I've head.

I do not think that anything will ever sound better than cheap Sennheisers to me. Frequency response is everything IMO since almost no headphones get it right, to my ears.

Honestly I put frequency response is farther down the list since it's so easy to correct for.

Harmonic distortion, ringing/breakup modes, and power handling are much more difficult, and sometimes impossible, to correct for.

The HD650 is easily one of the best dynamic headphones on the market though.
 

Sal1950

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The HD650 is easily one of the best dynamic headphones on the market though.
I agree, many talk about the Senn veil. I'm not convinced it's not just a lack of "enhanced" detail heard due to a brighter response of some others they are reacting to?
 
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solderdude

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@solderdude , you wrote that headphones are «still in a 'pioneering' stage when it comes to measurements and interpretation».

I concur and that’s been the point I’ve tried to make all the time :)

sorry.. meant headphone measurements are still in a pioneering state.
Headphones themselves are as good as it can get currently.
 

solderdude

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HD650 (black driver, old pads) in stock condition:
hd650.png



And the same one via dedicated EQ:
hd650-kameleon.png


Try to find a headphone that can measure like this.
The scale is 20Hz to 20kHz here.

Below the 'current' (2017) HD650 but in a 10Hz to 30kHz scale so looks 'worse'.
fr-hd650.png
 

andreasmaaan

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@solderdude, the measurements are useful but of limited application, since no one pair of headphones will measure the same on any two people's noggins.

I agree with everyone about the HD650. Has been a long time since I've listened to them, but from memory, on my head they were clearly an exceptionally neutral pair of cans.
 

solderdude

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Differences between measurements and reality are biggest with closed headphones (Not so with the D8000 b.t.w.)
Most open over-ear headphones measure closely the same with or without good seal.

Has to do with: driver-ear distance, positioning on the head, driver size and position in the baffle, seal (glasses, hair, bone structure, stiffness of pads), Pinna size and shape.
None of these things will ever be 'standardised' in 1 measurement because it is not possible to find a good solution for this, other than how Rtings measures showing results on a few different real heads.

Often the 'problem' of diverging measurements on the same test fixture is caused by a too stiff artificial Pinna which pushes the cups outwards creating a poor seal.
newer HATS have softer Pinnae by the way... improvements are indeed made lately.

My measurements are based on the following assumption. I want to measure the SPL at the entrance of the ear canal position. Ideally I would use a Pinna but don't have one. Looking at pictures of Pinna I noticed they all are quite different so which one would be 'standard' and what could be the extremes.
So Pinnae-less it is, in the same position as they would be on my head (I built it primarily for my own education), and with perfect seal as that is the ideal situation. Easy to achieve with my bald and round head.
To my ears there is a good relation with how I perceive and measure the headphones, at around 75 to 80dB average SPL, when comparing it with 'real' sounds around me. Not necessarily to speakers as my room is not treated.
A headphone measuring 'flat' in my plots directly translates to a 'real' and 'effortless' sound without listening fatigue almost without exception.

I forgot to mention the Focal Clear by the way which also measures 'realistic':
fr-clear.png

clear


I feel it is less fatiguing and doesn't have the weird 'tinnngg' in certain instruments the Utopia has. Still not a perfect headphones but close to it for me.
Below the Utopia:
fr-utopia.png

utopia

utopia

utopia


In my later measurements I also show how much a seal breakage impacts the sound. Using a wig could yet give other results.

Yep, measurements are problematic when trying to match it with perceived quality.
Even 2 exactly the same FR measuring headphones can sound tonally balanced but still different with music due to distortion levels and impulse behaviour. Pinna (Concha mostly) interaction or maybe even phase response could also impart SQ differences.

For this I agree with 'black-white' that there should be a standard for making measurements.
What I doubt is that such a standard will lead to better SQ and a relation between price and FR or price/performance.

The current state of headphones is born out of limitations in practical usage of all materials used in headphone manufacturing.
Measuring is not a problem for most of the better brands. Interpreting the measurements on their rigs is what is important and what currently 'replaces' a standard basically.
A standardized measuring method may lead to a few top models of a few brands having a more similar tonal balance. At the same time I find the tonal balance, openness and 'impulse' response of most TOTL models is already much closer together on various brands than it is to cheaper models.
Most brands will still like to have a 'house sound' which usually means deviating from 'balanced' frequency response.
Of course, as with everything in life, there are a few exceptions.
 
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JJB70

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High end headphones seem to be a price driven product. Brand X as a flagship, it costs $1500, we need one too. Rather than price being a function of cost to design and manufacture, a price point is set and a product designed to fit. Which is no different to entry level and mid range models where products are designed to slot into a market segment and benchmarked against rivals. Not that long ago models like the HD600 and DT880 were high end headphones, now in price terms those models are much closer bargain basement entry level than the high end, yet in terms of performance the difference between those older high end models isn't that great and in some cases it's highly questionable whether the super pricey models are in fact better at all. What is remarkable isn't so much that headphone prices have gone North but rather the speed that what was traditionally an island of normality that tended to opt out of high end ostentation, i.e. headphones, have followed other parts of the hobby in developing a very high price niche.
I'm not saying people shouldn't buy high end headphones, as if you can afford them and want them then why not? However in terms of cost and performance I think headphones are like other high end audio equipment in that any relationship between price and performance breaks down and it gets to a point where the selling point is that a product is expensive. You can almost picture how it goes:

We need a flagship headphone. OK, $1500? Right ho, that'll do. Fancy packaging? Check. Fancy cable? Check? Plenty of wood/leather/metal? Check? Make the drivers bigger than anything else we make? Check. Add another 20KHz to the top end? That'll look good. Throw an expensive case in? Oh yes. There you go, job done. Hang on, it doesn't sound any better than the $400 model we sell in Target! Don't worry, nobody will be bothered about that, just make sure it looks expensive and is expensive and it'll sell. Tip top. Or maybe I'm just being cynical.

A lot of these flagship models are very desirable even if I know that in rational terms many of them don't justify the expense. For example, I'm really not such a fan of the AKG K812 sound (AKG make headphones that cost an awful lot less which I'd much rather listen to, and I'm serious in saying that) but I can't help loving the look and feel of the K812.
The good thing is that it tends to be relatively simple to find B stock bargains, open box/ex-demo clearance bargains and almost new S/H bargains if you can be patient meaning you can get big discounts which bring the price down to something more realistic. I wouldn't have paid the SRP for Beyerdynamic T5Ps but at £399 for new B stock (and I really couldn't find any reason for them to be B stock, I suspect the UK distributor had over stocked but didn't want to prejudice future pricing by offering a normal price cut) they were a decent buy. I bought my Sony MDR Z7's at a similar discount.
 
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