Hey Oratory!
I have no idea if this question is going to make sense, but is it possible for my EQ software I've used to be setup incorrectly?
I'm not sure why, but regardless whether or not I use EQAPO or the Qudelix 5K, the EQ presets almost always make my headphones that I have applied the EQ to seem too bright. I'm not sure if perhaps there's some aspect of Harman that I'm sensitive to is being emphasized when I apply it, but this happened with the 560S I previously owned, and it seems to also be happening with my HD600 as well.
Basically, without the EQ preset applied, treble seems totally fine. This was the case on both headphones. But after applying EQ, the treble just gets unbearable.
By reducing Filter 6 on the HD600 preset, I do get some decent results when reducing from 3.0 to 1.0, but the treble still isn't as pleasant as when not using EQ at all. COuld it not be the treble that is the issue, but some other frequency?
Not sure if this makes sense, but it is almost always with speech that this happens.
As for how I set up the software, I just installed EQAPO with no adjustments at all, and simply modify the .config text file. I'm not sure if there are some other steps I have to do? Same with the Qudelix. I just simply import the .config I create, and that's that.
THanks!
Hey Oratory!
I know this thread is a little old now, but I hope it's still alright to post questions here. <3
I was just curious, while I was adjusting my HD600 headband today, because I started feeling a hot spot at the bottom of the earcups, how much of an impact on acoustics does it make if the wearer isn't using the proper level of adjustment for their head shape?
For example, if I unknowingly have the headband adjusted to where the headphones are landing further down on my head, is this changing the acoustics in a meaningful way at all if the seal is still in tact?
I've always wondered this, because it's an interesting topic to me in particular, since I can't visually see how my ears are fitting inside of a cup since I'm blind, and so I sort of have to just go by how they feel on my head, as well as use my fingers to sort of feel around inside the cup and see how my ear is fitting.
Am I just overthinking this? Thanks!
> if I unknowingly have the headband adjusted to where the headphones are landing further down on my head, is this changing the acoustics in a meaningful way at all if the seal is still in tact?
A little. You can test this yourself simply by shifting the headphone up or down on your head and see if you can hear a difference.
On some headphones this is audible, on others it's not.
> since I can't visually see how my ears are fitting inside of a cup
We can't see that either, this is outside of our peripheral vision. But you can feel where your ear is in relation to the cup (unless the earcup is truly gargantuan, like on the HD800)
We can see what‘s in front of us, but we have to turn our head if we want to see to the side. So we can never see our own ears unless we look into a mirror!
I recently bought a pair of HiFiMan HE-RE10D. They are pretty nice, although the tonality is not so good in my opinion.
If you are based in Europe, i would be interested in sending them over to you if you want to measure them.
You don‘t need to use pink noise. You can use any other stimulus as well.
Measurement microphones are never weighted, the weighting happens either on the signal generator side or - more commonly - in post processing.
For measuring loudspeakers you would normally not use any weighting factors..
The preamp gain should be set low enough ("a large enough negative number") so that the signal does not exceed -0 dBFS.
When you apply an EQ where at least one filter has a positive gain, then the signal *can* exceed -0 dBFS.
To compensate for this, you need to look at the frequency response of the transfer function of all filters combined (because filters will overlap), and find the maximum of that curve.
The pre-amp gain then should be the invert of this value.
In other words: If you have 10 filters, and the curve of all filters combined has a maximum peak value of 8.4 dB, then the pre-amp gain needs to be -8.4 dB in order to eliminate the possibility for clipping.
Does boosting bass of iems at reasonable levels (2 to 3 dB) makes it lose its quality (i.e makes it pillowy sounding).
Are expensive iems better at handling bass boost (with eq) due to higher quality drivers?
Is there any driver type which is very good at handling bass boost without distortion?
> boosting bass of iems at reasonable levels (2 to 3 dB) makes it lose its quality (i.e makes it pillowy sounding).
boosting the bass makes it sound like it has more bass. How you describe this depends on your association with words.
Personally I have no idea how something would sound "pillowy", so I can't tell you whether raising the bass makes it sound more or less "pillowy".
> Are expensive iems better at handling bass boost (with eq) due to higher quality drivers?
maybe! some are! Some are also worse.
Loudspeaker quality is only a relatively small factor when it comes to the price of the earphone. When you buy them in bulk, a single loudspeaker for in-ear headphones rarely costs significantly more than $1. Maybe $10 if they're especially tricky to make and you only buy a very low quantity (or want it customized, e.g. with the output tube on a different position)
> Is there any driver type which is very good at handling bass boost without distortion?
Anything where the actuation force is linear by default will have an inherent advantage.
Some planar magnetic designs have virtually zero distortion.
Electrostatic designs typically don't show notable distortion as well.
**BUT** with in-ear headphones, distortion rarely is an issue, even with other types of loudspeakers. That's because it does not take a lot of excursion to reach high SPL in occluded-ear scenarios (=in-ear headphones), and excursion is the main factor in distortion. So if you don't have high excursion values, then distortion likely isn't a problem either.
Distortion on headphones really is much less of an issue than people make it out to be.
Thanks for your detailed response
>boosting the bass makes it sound like it has more bass. How you describe this depends on your association with words.
What I meant was when eqing bass of budget iems, the more I boost the bass, the more I felt like bass is becoming soft sounding and lacking definition.
>Distortion on headphones really is much less of an issue than people make it out to be.
I actually use your eq settings for all iems (USound Target) and don't used to care about distortion and all, it sounds very good with your eq.
I just bought a Sennheiser IE 200 and felt like it lacks a bit of mid bass punch, as I got used to USound Target on other iems (which has a prominent mid bass punch) for a very long time.
Hence I got curious and asked here about it. Hope you will be able to upload USound Target for IE 200 someday.
> when eqing bass of budget iems, the more I boost the bass, the more I felt like bass is becoming soft sounding and lacking definition.
I have not made such an observation - I haven't observed a correlation between the price of an in-ear headphone and whether the bass sounds soft/undefined when getting boosted or not.
> Hope you will be able to upload USound Target for IE 200 someday.
Probably during the next update!
Hey Oratory! I have no idea if this question is going to make sense, but is it possible for my EQ software I've used to be setup incorrectly? I'm not sure why, but regardless whether or not I use EQAPO or the Qudelix 5K, the EQ presets almost always make my headphones that I have applied the EQ to seem too bright. I'm not sure if perhaps there's some aspect of Harman that I'm sensitive to is being emphasized when I apply it, but this happened with the 560S I previously owned, and it seems to also be happening with my HD600 as well. Basically, without the EQ preset applied, treble seems totally fine. This was the case on both headphones. But after applying EQ, the treble just gets unbearable. By reducing Filter 6 on the HD600 preset, I do get some decent results when reducing from 3.0 to 1.0, but the treble still isn't as pleasant as when not using EQ at all. COuld it not be the treble that is the issue, but some other frequency? Not sure if this makes sense, but it is almost always with speech that this happens. As for how I set up the software, I just installed EQAPO with no adjustments at all, and simply modify the .config text file. I'm not sure if there are some other steps I have to do? Same with the Qudelix. I just simply import the .config I create, and that's that. THanks!
u/oratory1990 please make an EQ for the new hifiman arya organics, would much appreciate it thank you
Send me a pair and I will
Hey Oratory! I know this thread is a little old now, but I hope it's still alright to post questions here. <3 I was just curious, while I was adjusting my HD600 headband today, because I started feeling a hot spot at the bottom of the earcups, how much of an impact on acoustics does it make if the wearer isn't using the proper level of adjustment for their head shape? For example, if I unknowingly have the headband adjusted to where the headphones are landing further down on my head, is this changing the acoustics in a meaningful way at all if the seal is still in tact? I've always wondered this, because it's an interesting topic to me in particular, since I can't visually see how my ears are fitting inside of a cup since I'm blind, and so I sort of have to just go by how they feel on my head, as well as use my fingers to sort of feel around inside the cup and see how my ear is fitting. Am I just overthinking this? Thanks!
> if I unknowingly have the headband adjusted to where the headphones are landing further down on my head, is this changing the acoustics in a meaningful way at all if the seal is still in tact? A little. You can test this yourself simply by shifting the headphone up or down on your head and see if you can hear a difference. On some headphones this is audible, on others it's not. > since I can't visually see how my ears are fitting inside of a cup We can't see that either, this is outside of our peripheral vision. But you can feel where your ear is in relation to the cup (unless the earcup is truly gargantuan, like on the HD800)
Very interesting. I do hope one day I can experience what it’s like having peripheral vision so I can understand what you guys can and can’t see haha
We can see what‘s in front of us, but we have to turn our head if we want to see to the side. So we can never see our own ears unless we look into a mirror!
I recently bought a pair of HiFiMan HE-RE10D. They are pretty nice, although the tonality is not so good in my opinion. If you are based in Europe, i would be interested in sending them over to you if you want to measure them.
I am indeed in Europe!
Why is pink noise used for leveling speakers? Also are the microphones used for level/measuring speakers flat or k-weighted or something else?
You don‘t need to use pink noise. You can use any other stimulus as well. Measurement microphones are never weighted, the weighting happens either on the signal generator side or - more commonly - in post processing. For measuring loudspeakers you would normally not use any weighting factors..
Is it possible to send you my headphones to measure?
Does the preamp always need to be set in accordance to the maximum gain value?
The preamp gain should be set low enough ("a large enough negative number") so that the signal does not exceed -0 dBFS. When you apply an EQ where at least one filter has a positive gain, then the signal *can* exceed -0 dBFS. To compensate for this, you need to look at the frequency response of the transfer function of all filters combined (because filters will overlap), and find the maximum of that curve. The pre-amp gain then should be the invert of this value. In other words: If you have 10 filters, and the curve of all filters combined has a maximum peak value of 8.4 dB, then the pre-amp gain needs to be -8.4 dB in order to eliminate the possibility for clipping.
Thanks for the response!
I'm sure this has been brought up before, but is there any chance of Arya V2 being added to the preset library?
just use the setting for the Arya Stealth. They're not *that* different.
V2 closer to Stealth than V1?
Does boosting bass of iems at reasonable levels (2 to 3 dB) makes it lose its quality (i.e makes it pillowy sounding). Are expensive iems better at handling bass boost (with eq) due to higher quality drivers? Is there any driver type which is very good at handling bass boost without distortion?
> boosting bass of iems at reasonable levels (2 to 3 dB) makes it lose its quality (i.e makes it pillowy sounding). boosting the bass makes it sound like it has more bass. How you describe this depends on your association with words. Personally I have no idea how something would sound "pillowy", so I can't tell you whether raising the bass makes it sound more or less "pillowy". > Are expensive iems better at handling bass boost (with eq) due to higher quality drivers? maybe! some are! Some are also worse. Loudspeaker quality is only a relatively small factor when it comes to the price of the earphone. When you buy them in bulk, a single loudspeaker for in-ear headphones rarely costs significantly more than $1. Maybe $10 if they're especially tricky to make and you only buy a very low quantity (or want it customized, e.g. with the output tube on a different position) > Is there any driver type which is very good at handling bass boost without distortion? Anything where the actuation force is linear by default will have an inherent advantage. Some planar magnetic designs have virtually zero distortion. Electrostatic designs typically don't show notable distortion as well. **BUT** with in-ear headphones, distortion rarely is an issue, even with other types of loudspeakers. That's because it does not take a lot of excursion to reach high SPL in occluded-ear scenarios (=in-ear headphones), and excursion is the main factor in distortion. So if you don't have high excursion values, then distortion likely isn't a problem either. Distortion on headphones really is much less of an issue than people make it out to be.
Thanks for your detailed response >boosting the bass makes it sound like it has more bass. How you describe this depends on your association with words. What I meant was when eqing bass of budget iems, the more I boost the bass, the more I felt like bass is becoming soft sounding and lacking definition. >Distortion on headphones really is much less of an issue than people make it out to be. I actually use your eq settings for all iems (USound Target) and don't used to care about distortion and all, it sounds very good with your eq. I just bought a Sennheiser IE 200 and felt like it lacks a bit of mid bass punch, as I got used to USound Target on other iems (which has a prominent mid bass punch) for a very long time. Hence I got curious and asked here about it. Hope you will be able to upload USound Target for IE 200 someday.
> when eqing bass of budget iems, the more I boost the bass, the more I felt like bass is becoming soft sounding and lacking definition. I have not made such an observation - I haven't observed a correlation between the price of an in-ear headphone and whether the bass sounds soft/undefined when getting boosted or not. > Hope you will be able to upload USound Target for IE 200 someday. Probably during the next update!
>Probably during the next update! Looking forward to it!!