Diffuse field equalized headphones recommendation

After yesterday's testing I came to one conclusion more. Except slightly higher bass, like Golden Ears consider, I think slightly recessed midrange, circa -1,-1.5 db really makes us percieve headphones speakers like. Just played with some of my headphones, EQ-ed them and then recessed midrange by mentioned measure... boom! Sound much more like monitors now.

 

Yeah when I was EQing my HD800S I did find that raising that upper midrange area (that is commonly recessed on these headphones and most v-shaped headpones) made the headstage appear to shrink in and vocals become shoutier and more forward/present and overall made them sound more 'like headphones' and less 'like speakers'. I think it definitely attributes to the HD6x0's commonly being described as having a very tiny headstage.

 

@chakku

Exactly, that's why neutral headphones sound like "in your head" and very V shaped create the ilusion of soundstage. This idea came to me way before when I got my KSC75, they weren't neutral, but sounded so speaker like to me. Mixing on them I noticed that I can pull a great mix, but had to pull down my midrange when checking on speakers by -1.5 db and it would sound very good. KSC being circa -3db overal around 1K gave me an idea of -1.5 number. I flattened my headphones today and started lowering the midrange until it sounded "out of my head" and I came to -1/-1.5db blindly pushing it down. Maybe it's just me, but I love it that way.

 

Those physical factors are definitely the biggest contributors, there's no denying that. However I do think in an apples to apples comparison, using some form of EQ on certain frequency ranges, the recession and additional gain on differing frequencies could alter your perception of distance/placement, at least IME.

 

What chakku said.

 

I very much agree with this. Just adding my $0.02.

 

I also think this is a myth. There is no logic behind mixing/mastering different types of music on different types of monitors. Checking on different systems yes, but when mixing/mastering I think you want flattest sound as possible.

Never really thought of comparing movie vs music industry, but when I look back, I guess you are right... big time. Very interesting.

One of the best mixed/mastered albums I've ever heard, Hurts - Happiness, mixed by great Mark "Spike" Stent. God I love that one. It has a veary theatrical vibe too (or at least to me). Check it, especially album version of Illuminated.

 

Btw, It would be cool if someone could try what I wrote with HD6X0 and tell the results, A/B ing with speakers if possible.

 

@purrin
Have you gotten around to listen to the 800S yet?
Judging by Sennheiser's graphs they look quite a bit more like the "perfection" they were initially targeting.
Looking back at this thread it seems that I implied that a loudness equalized headphone equals "I can only listen to 20% of my musics" which surely isn't the case.
It remains a mystery why Sennheiser thought it was a good idea to leave the treble as is.
Even on their own HD800 graph in the manual that spike is significant...
Mai Waifu Axel sure knows how to make money.



Since I've left my screwy statements in this thread I bothered my friend Google and found that loudness equalizations are actually really usefull and nothing new.
All you need is an (band)equalizer, the headphone you want to measure, speakers and a sine wave generator.
With headphones like the 800 you don't even need to take them off as they don't isolate.
I think these measurements are quite a bit more meaningful than some random graphs created with a random mic (of course YMMY!)

Apparently the new Orpheus (don't stone me for mentioning) was loudness equalized after a "reference 2.0 system" in a "reference listening room" (whatever reference implies ), so no anechoic diffusefield magic to be found.
So for music enjoyment even Senni thinks that a linear response is useless. uhu

 

Yes you need, they don't isolate, but will deform sound you hear.

Exactly what were we talking about in this thread, why this hasn't been done yet, or more frequently. Since my flat is not worth the price of Orpheus 2, i'll stick to the EQ.

 

I don't think it matters. Well, atleast up to 1kHz, above that you should take them off so you're absolutely right.

What you do is basically you play a 100Hz Sine wave (lower is to physical, will be to wonky to evaluate) and try to volume match the headphone to the monitor using the 100Hz Band on the EQ.
You repeat this for every frequency you have on your band equalizer (of course with matching sine wave frequency).
Once you get to ~15kHz you'll end up with the equalization for the headphone you measured.

I'd like to try this myself but I don't have speakers so...

 

@Lurker With some practice I was able to make really, really good results just with sine generator, EQ and music. It's night and day difference, I bet people wouldn't recognise K400 for example on blind test. Try that first if you haven't (I assume you have). Might go to friends place or some studio to try it with monitors too, excellent idea.

 

If one of your stops on your Australia trip was to the island to the right of it I'd have offered