Receiver Mic Mad Scientist Speaker/Cans Measurements

Hmm, getting expensive. I think thats passing the realm for me of "worth it".

I think ill just wait on this, as right now im a senior in high school, so ill wait till after college when I have my own place that might be better for sound.

Ill also try repositioning my speakers in my room, see if I can improve on sound that way.

 

Ok, well I improved it a little with a different room location. Ill also play around with foobar.

 

Measured my new Grado SR80e's. Now its not the best measurement method, but the results seem fairley acurate to what I hear.

 

Using a coupler for this one? I still need to get around to trying my Yamaha mic again.

 

No. Pretty bad system I used... Literally just placed the phones on top of the mic....
I should make something better.

 

Better measurement rig created, with different measurements:

 

So I guess welcome to the rabbit hole that is headphone couplers. Look forward to trying 38 different coupler materials in 73 configurations so the measurements best match what you hear, until you realize that none of them do and that you will need a compensation curve that is different for every coupler. Now you have to try all of them again while at the same time building a compensation curve that is different for every coupler. At this point you realize that different measurement systems produce different results (TM) and that none of the relative differences match exactly what you hear, but since everything is a compromise you have to settle on something eventually, so you use the one that's closest to anechoic in the mids and treble, close to what the skin seems to be doing (but likely different from dummy heads).

BTW: Unlike most other people I like to not use anything behind the 3cm thick material I'm using. No "bone simulator", no foam, just air. Going from one material to a different one introduces problems for me and air seems to have the least issues.
But even this part of my coupler design may change in the future, best to just do your own experiments yourself. I would like to see more people using measurements and subjective impressions to explain exactly why they made their choices for their couplers.

 

Now what if I used leather? Would that work well, as its essentially skin?

 

I haven't tried myself. Leather is actually pretty high on my list of materials to try (after pork belly), but I doubt that leather has acoustical properties comparable to skin based on how it's made. Maybe something more "raw" than normal leather would be closer to skin. I also think that it depends on the animal. I actually tried to measure skin on different parts of my body and IIRC the skin on my head got the cleanest CSDs (lol).
I'm also not sure if human skin would actually be the "best" material for a coupler. Even if the skin CSDs looked very clean, I actually think that the foam I'm using is less reflective based on the FR (it's all interrelated anyway). More anechoic compared to skin could very well be a good thing.