innerfidelity plots and Rtings

The graphs aren't 'staightened' out because at the time Tyll started with his pdf's he was ill-advised by the guys who installed the dummy head (software) at least that's what he stated a while ago.

A dummy head with ear canal and Pinna needs to be compensated because of ear canal gain and concha gain as well as the angle under which the sound enters the ear.
Free field (sounds coming from the front only) isn't the correct correction as it is for a pointsource in an anechoic room.
Diffuse field also is not correct as that requires sounds coming from all directions in a certain way.
A headphone is delivering the sound directly in the ear canal.
There was no 'correction' for it.
Perhaps they choose the wrong compensation and then erroniously added 'a specific type of room correction' making it worse.

After many measurements were done Tyll could not change it any more as he would have to redo all the pdf files (seen how many there are)

a year ago he experimented with Olive Welti correction BUT again is not correct as the OW dummy head differs from Tylls.
O.W. noticed the 'known' corrections are not the correct ones for headphones and they made their own.

Agree, Ian, about many musicians tolerating abominable sound quality. Possibly because they are so far inside the music that mere auditory perception is a trifle. ;-)

I'm the exception - as an acoustic musician (who agonizes over instruments/strings/tone from technique etc) - I can't tolerate crappy sound. Especially monitor sound. Used to hate playing the festival circuits because they wouldn't allow me to setup my tri-amped studio monitor setup - small powered studio monitors on stands and a sub. And my mixer. And my eq. And other stuff in the rack. 1 hour soundchecks for 45 minute performances is an ask too far.

If the sound was bad so was my playing - or rather my overplaying. LOL! Sadly, never got on well with in-ear monitors either. Bandmates didn't like my 'isolation', which I loved, who needs timbale poisoning ever night? And because, it was an elaborate sub mix to setup. As well worried about someone tweaking a knob and instant temporary or longer deafness. Plus accidentally pulling my head off at the end of the set walking off stage. ;-)

Conversely, with good open full-sized phones I can enjoy almost as good a soundstage as with speakers. Maybe I have spacial synesthesia. Or, just an active auditory imagination. With a good recording with some room ambiance I can zen-listen into the mix and voila! The headstage is out of my head - maybe only a foot or so, but still can perceive front-to-back depth, that's out front. Sort of like tilt shift photos. The objects are smaller sure, but the sense of space is still present. And the detail from good phones...oh my. However, if I focus on the soundstage or it's just a bad recording, the imaginary sound space collapses to the band-in-the-head mode. It's a subtle thing - can't try to perceive a out-of-head soundstage. It's a process of allowing it to spread wide and deep into my awareness. It's almost like an out-of-body experience, but my crude explanation is more of an out-of-my-mind one. I studied psycho-acoustics at university and my motto was, 'putting the psycho into acoustics' ;-)

I've mixed on phones for years with good results when the canon states that you can't get a good mix on phones. Although there's more examples of bad mixes made on speakers than good. So there's that. And since the Appletic iPoddish Revolution, more people listen on phones - mainly terrible horrible ones - than on speakers. Instead of these endless re-re-re-releases of re-re-remastered classics, why don't they (the Recording Industry), release headphone tweaked mixes as well as speaker mixes? The phone mixes would not require the ear-numbing, soul-crushing make everything-louder-than-everything-else brickwall limited semi-square waving racket. Neither would the speaker mixes, but human nature is involved in the recording arts so...

Digital encoding promised so much for music - less noise, less flutter, less rumble, less distortion with vast dynamic range. Instead it led to the Great Volume Wars, which no one won.

/rant

Thanks for letting me vent. Didn't hear that coming.

Back on topic. Thanks, Frans, for your excellent analysis of Tyll's somewhat dubious measurement process. Dummy head recordings. Dummy head measurements. And consumed by dummy consumers on the internet. We just about have it all. ;-)

Jim

For pop type things Jim, I was never even given the choice of monitors. What was set up was what you got!! I played the notes and they set up the sound and it seemed like the two never really mixed too well. Engineers seemed to take care of what everyone heard and we just made sure we played right!!! I was allowed my own iem for monitoring playback but that was always biased towards my voice since in loud stuff, you often can't hear yourself properly in order to sing in tune. I used an ie8 because the treble was rolled away for loud monitoring. Daft isn't it? So the mix sent to my receiver had me much louder than what the audience would hear. That's why we don't really know how we sound to the audiences I suppose!!!

Generally though, the tech people did a really good job and some of them are real experts in sorting out very tricky venues to at least make the sound acceptable whereas if you played a straight show with no engineering, it would probably sound pretty bad.

Orchestral stuff was also quite different for players. From an oboe perspective, I could naturally hear myself much better so all done acoustically, other than dubbing over previous recorded stuff, where you played into a headphone. For me, the volume had to be lifelike so I didn't naturally hold back on the oboe which can make it sound nasty!! So I tended to use something like a dt150 which is rolled away up top so that loud volume isn't painful.

Curiously, I often felt that the final product sounded like a clean, more distant version of what I heard. I think that's why I have a natural preference for headphones with a raised bass. For me, it brings the music a little closer than a thinner, more distant version of some headphones.

At one point, I was really keen to make sure that everything was 'balanced' and all that, but I have got to the point where I'm not quite as picky and go much more readily for a fuller sound than a clinical kind of sound. I find myself using whatever is around and tbh, I don't mind that much nowadays. Maybe I'm going deaf.

Having said that, the headphones that Frans has equalised for me to as flat as they can probably go are very good at most volumes. They are crystal clear at low volume but also go up without nastiness which some headphones don't do well. Probably because they are more even in FR.

I even enjoy the old v6 sound very often and find it perfectly good and yet so many Hi-Fi people hate its sound. I never thought it that bad and funnily enough, tonally, it sounds very good with live broadcast music. I can see why many technicians swore by them actually and don't fully understand why they get so much bashing in audio forums. Maybe I replace the actual sound with 'learned reference' sound - I'm not sure, because I do seem to be able to accept a much wider variation of headphone response than many.

Sam is very thorough in his measurements.
He has made quite some progress in all of this.
I have been in contact with Sam about his measurements quite a few time and discussed it at length.

His consistency plots are interesting and are mostly caused by people wearing glasses (seal issues) or slightly different headshapes and possibly mic insertion depths as well.
But at least you have an idea about the spread.

I think he has made more progress and done more usefull research in a year than Tyll in his whole measurement life.

Rtings is very thorough with their evaluations. But for the life of me I don't understand the sound ratings on the HD700, AKG701 or the DT990's. But as you have noted Frans. There is a lot of variation in what people find enjoyable, or in this case useful for critical listening. I find these three to have a treble response that is just piercing, almost painful. I owned the 701's after a great review in Stereophile, when they first came out. Gave them to a friend. The DT990's I had to return in a week. Too bright. Perhaps I am more treble sensitive than I think. 

Do I sense "Rabbit and Ronzo's Ratings"?  

Too mature (spelling intentional) audio enthusiasts give their weekly take on why mid-range frequencies have mysteriously disappeared, headphone makers have lost the ability to accurately reproduce treble frequencies, and sub-bass is king. Get their take on the current state of the "Loudness Wars". Why all sides are losing. Tune in each week as six or seven people find out the same thing we knew last month in hi-end audio trends. (The prices are increasing for the same thing). Special guests, with no measurement experience, will join them to explain what their iPhone tells them about the sound of a headphone they have never actually listened to, as well as sharing their current grade in first year algebra. Join us. And try to stay awake!