Massdrop Focal "Elex"

[pkane2001]

30 minutes ago, crenca said:

 

Yep, the Elear simply is not "complete" if you are not EQing presence region, 10k spike, etc.  Luckily, the design "takes" to EQing pretty well  - no funky artifacts/breakup that I can hear. I actually don't do much with the bass but perhaps that makes me a bass head.  On the other hand, I find the  mid bass hump of the HD6XX ruinous to the lower mid/mid balance that no amount of EQing can really fix (even if it does mitigate it some).  What bothers me just as much is the graininess of the HD6XX treble.  I find the top end of the AT M50x more listenable.  IMO (and thats all it is) the HD6XX, like the rest of Sennheiser line, is outdated and yesterday's sound.  Tyl's review of the "new" (read the review - you have to put "new" in quotes) 660S is devastating.  Sennheiser is obviously either not able or unwilling (maybe lack of development $dollars$ ? ) to innovate...

Interesting. I don't profess to have much experience with headphones. Bought HD650 recently for under $200 (used). With EQ, the response is as flat as I like it to be, with no major humps. Bass is solid, much better than I had expected. And I have none of the problems you describe in treble after EQ. I made balanced cables for mine, and use DSP to apply crossfeed. I'm sure there are better headphones out there, but did you try to EQ HD6XX? I do find the uncorrected HD650s a bit harsh at the top.

[pkane2001]

4 hours ago, dalethorn said:

 

I've listened to speakers for 30 years, headphones for 40.  None of the above is absolutely true, even if there are some useful tips there.

 

The biggest problem with headphones by far is their ragged frequency response, which makes the sound unnatural and (what few users realize) damages the soundstage.

 

A far better fix for "headphone sound" is to use a parametric equalizer to achieve a natural sound, rather than just "mix and smear" with crossfeed.

I agree with you, but EQ with crosfeed is even better, IME.

[pkane2001]

17 minutes ago, buonassi said:

Anywho, if there is enough interest I may start a topic that covers the techniques I've learned (not all of them my own) for smoothing out headphones.  There may not be since you need a computer that can run VST or AU plugins inline with your software player.  

 

I’d be interested in your techniques. I use HQPlayer DSP, with PEQ filters produced using REW and rePhase. I’m sure there will be some translation necessary due to  different software, but hopefully the process is not too dissimilar.

[pkane2001]

On 1/3/2018 at 9:44 PM, pkane2001 said:

 

I’d be interested in your techniques. I use HQPlayer DSP, with PEQ filters produced using REW and rePhase. I’m sure there will be some translation necessary due to  different software, but hopefully the process is not too dissimilar.

 

By the way, for those who have not tried EQ'ing their headphones, I can highly recommend it.

Here is a comparison of pre-EQ and post-EQ frequency response with my HD650. If you think the post-EQ chart is tilted, that's because it's a house curve that I prefer. It sounds better to me, no doubt due to my particular hearing and the type of music I listen to

 

 

The red line is frequency response before EQ (measured) the blue line is after EQ (also measured). Notice the lack of lower frequencies before EQ and big dips an other nastiness at the higher frequencies. The chart doesn't show that I also optimized this impulse curve for minimal phase and added crossfeed.

 

[pkane2001]

5 minutes ago, dalethorn said:

I would like to add for those who have the interest -- I EQ partly to compensate for obvious large deviations from "flat" in the frequency response, but from there my objective is NOT to bias anything for my hearing or "tastes", rather it's to achieve a natural sound just like I hear in the real world.  So whatever the quirks are in my hearing, they don't bias the EQ because my EQ'd sound is the same as what I hear live.

 

The reason I think this is so important is 1) I can hear the difference, and natural sound sounds OK to me, and 2) I believe all those other "fixes" have audiophiles chasing their tails trying to achieve something that's rarely if ever satisfactory.

 

I don't pretend that the house curve I use is somehow ideal, but it is commonly used. I start out by EQ'ing for a completely flat response, and then slowly, over time, tune it to the way I feel sounds best (most natural) to me with the music I prefer. The tweaks are rarely major, and always involve a simple tilt of the FR curve.

 

The tilt I seem to gravitate to mimics the behavior of natural sound at a distance (higher frequencies get absorbed more by air than lower ones). For example, a 20Hz sound coming from an instrument 20m away will be about 10dB louder than a 20KHz sound from the same distance. That's how my house curve is constructed. To my ear, orchestra sounds unnatural when recorded and played back with all the frequencies having equal weight (flat). But that's just me and the music I listen to  YMMV.

 

[pkane2001]

23 minutes ago, crenca said:

 

pkane2001, would you be willing to post a screen shot of your EQ on that HD650?  My efforts of getting my HD6xx to sound good so far have fallen flat

 

If you are using HQPlayer or something that can take an impulse response WAV file, I can actually post these. Don't know how much variation there is between individual headphones, especially if this is a slightly different model. Or here are the PEQ settings:

 

[pkane2001]

Just now, crenca said:

 

The PEQ setup should work. I use HQPlayer (usually with Roon as a front end) but I also sometimes use Roon's built in DSP without HQPlayer (direct to DAC), or JRiver with a DMG EQ plugin, etc.

 

There are probably sample differences, just looking for something to start out with...

Added PEQ screen shots to the previous message. Take a look.

[pkane2001]

Just now, crenca said:

 

The top one is how you got your curve for the HD650 correct?  No adjustment past 3400hz??

 

which HP is the bottom one for?

 

They are both for HD650. rePhase allows multiple banks of PEQ filters, and I usually run a few iterations where I measure the effect of filters, and add new ones to correct for any issues that were not resolved by the previous runs.

 

[pkane2001]

2 minutes ago, dalethorn said:

 

That's where a lot of unnecessary controversy creeps into discussions of headphones and natural sound.  If a person is compensating for their hearing, or for reproduced sound that doesn't work because certain aspects of the recording don't sound right (an issue in the recording most likely), then they should offer those as a disclaimer up front when suggesting EQ curves and so on.  That way, interested users will have more reliable reference points from which to build their own correction curves.

 

True. And I think I did just that:

 

3 hours ago, pkane2001 said:

If you think the post-EQ chart is tilted, that's because it's a house curve that I prefer. It sounds better to me, no doubt due to my particular hearing and the type of music I listen to

[pkane2001]

10 minutes ago, dalethorn said:

 

Umm, no.  Until their curves are truly neutral, a tweak here and there helps make for a more natural sound.  Many audiophiles have complained about irregularities in the HD800's response, but very few have suggested that it's perfect as-is.

 

@GUTB believes that expensive equipment is equivalent to perfection. Anyone with even a slightly less expensive set up is simply lying when they say that they can get great performance from their system.

 

[pkane2001]

10 hours ago, buonassi said:

So I do have to agree with this partly.  There is always a tradeoff when using EQ, of which I am a huge fan BTW.  The purists claim that EQ destroys the subtleties of the headphone's response, and they are not entirely wrong either.  'Destroy' seems to be blowing it way out of proportion however.  Whenever you EQ, you will alter the phase relationship of frequencies.  What you correct in the frequency domain becomes somewhat skewed in the time domain.  This is what "smearing" of transients is all about.  BUT.... I believe that EQ, despite the minuscule effect it has on phase when done properly, corrects the bigger problem - the frequency response!  To me, and many others, this is a perfectly acceptable tradeoff.  Especially if you know what you're doing, how much to EQ and where, which frequencies to treat with a linear phase EQ, and which are better suited to minimum phase processing.  It should also be noted that opponents of EQ usually haven't had experience with a top-shelf software plugin.  I tried countless very good free EQ plugins.  But when I went with Fab Filter, there was a distinct sonic quality the others didn't present.  No I am not affiliated with them nor did I buy this when it was on sale.  You can google me (Vincent Buonassi) and find out that I work in transportation.  I forked out the $179 for it like a regular schmuck.  You really get what you pay for, especially if you take the time to learn about the effects of EQ on phase.  Here's a great video that explains the basics of EQ processing mode and how phase affects frequency:

 

 

 

One thing to note is that DSP is able to not just correct for frequency response (EQ) but also for any phase changes. In my system, I first adjust for FR by creating the necessary EQ filters in the form of an impulse response file. I then use REW/rePhase to adjust this IR file to create a minimum phase filter. This corrects for any phase issues that may be introduced by the EQ process itself.

 

Aside from creating excessive or unnecessary corrections during the EQ process, I am not aware of any downsides to correcting FR of my headphones (or speakers, for that matter).