Post by Rabbit on Mar 30, 2014 10:11:33 GMT
This is a subject that has caused all kinds of nonsense on some forums, depending on their subjectivity/objectivity stances. I like both stances and feel that there has to be room for both to a greater or lesser extent. I know that on this forum, these kinds of discussion don't cause troubles so it's nice to air what many forums find difficult. I struggle with it too and I've been listening/using headphones for a long time. (Nearly 50 years!!)
That is, if you feel the need to have your listening 'justified' by a set of figures, then that's fine. Or whether you have the confidence to just go the totally subjective route and trust your head/ears totally.
For a long time, because of the lack of knowledge/understanding with regards to headphones, most of us have relied on our own ears, blissfully unaware of the problems and differences between headphones unless we could 'hear' something.
Since I actually started to 'speak' on forums my own views have changed over the years, mainly thanks to Frans way of looking at headphones and amps. I read on forums way before I actually appeared on one and noticed rave comments about a headphone followed by a total damning of the headphone, often followed by a run down of the poor guy's character for daring to write such a daft review!! I always thought that was nuts though.
The way a subjectivist ridicules an objectivist for daring to use measuring gear and not trust their ears is quite a horrible way to treat anyone and equally, the snobbish attitudes of some who rely totally on measurements and make remarks about pure objectivists is also quite ugly to watch. I've always felt like piggy in the middle when these kinds of things have cropped up actually. I can't stand snobs and I hate ignorance as well!!
So this morning, I decided to do a simple experiment due to my M2000 which has a strange frequency response in a way and yet I do quite like it for certain things.
I basically got a frequency generator to do tones and sweeps with some chosen headphones and listen. So to some extent, I'm using objective measurements while using my ears to judge (subjectivly speaking!!)
First of all, what an amazing job they all do. Believe me, they all go down low and pretty high too. Even some cheapos!!
First of all, I tested the family's hearing. Mine gets to its threshold around 15.5KHz. (Lower than it was ten years ago). My daughter goes to 19.5KHz (Just above actually) and my wife only gets to 14 KHz.
Now I know the threshold of my hearing, it seems that I need a headphone to be even up to about 16 KHz. At the lower end, I have no problem detecting 10 Hz. It thuds like a bass drum and I can easily hear the beats of the waves.
So Ideal for me is 10 - 16KHz.
So I went through headphones just playing around to see what produced high and low frequncies plainly and which showed more efficiency up there or down in the bass. Of course, this is really rough because of differences in volumes but it was really surprising.
I tried the HD650, T40, M2000, HD595 just to start with.
All get to 14KHz with ease and then they tail off at varying degress because of my hearing. My daughter could hear them without wearring them up to 19KHz quite plainly!! She was on the other side of the table and could even tell in another room when I had turned them off!!!!!
So they all do a pretty good job of getting up there. No surprises with the HD595 - it was stronger in the top and went a bit further too because the volume was staying high whereas others tailed off for me since the volume was rolling off.
The bass was also interesting but for some headphones, I had to turn up to see if they were actually receiving anything. Again, no surprise, the HD595 needed to be turned up. Some needed more volume than others to match each other.
Now the reason I'm saying that this is a subjective/objective view is that I am using a sine generator but using my own ears to monitor so this test, would be personal to us all, depending on your hearing.
I then tried doing sweeps from 20 - 20 in order to listen for peakes and troughs. Not as massive as some might think, but my hearing also has peaks and troughs, I think, so now, I was hearing the combo of the headphone and MY ears.
That means if a headphone has a peak in an area that my ears might have a trough' there'd be a match!!
I found this hard to do, but some had some big peaks around 4 KHz - say between 2KHz - 6KHz and then things started to roll away due to my hearing I guess.
So I played around for quite some time, comparing how each headphone extended into bass and treble and whether any showed big peakes in my ears. It wasn't conclusive since it was a rough test with the family all wanting to test their ears but it showed me what a great job most headphones actually do.
The best was the Senn HD650. It extends further than the others and also goes low. The t40 was a hairs breadth - goes to 10 Hz easily but without filter doesn't extend as far up as the Senn. (Not as loud anyway) What surprised me is just how far up the T40 goes. It's not as poorly extended as I thought. It is in fact close to my own personal limits. Just below, it fades away. (13.5 or so)
The M2000 which is a cheapo goes down to 10 albeit a bit lower but it hit 14KHz quite strongly - yet it sounds like a closed headphone!!
The HD595 struggled in the really low bass but extended with surprising volume.
I'm going to get my sound meter from work and measure the volume of these headphones via the cups I think. I may get a frequency reponse graph that way and then compare to what I hear in order to 'spot' a more ideal headphone for me personally.
So what I'll do is play a 1KHz tone and work out where each headphone needs to be on the volume control to get the same Db reading and then do a sweep to spot peaks and troughs without my ears and then compare to peaks and troughs WITH my ears.
The whole area is quite fascinating actually and has given me a deeper respect; even for cheaper headphones which actually seem to do better than our ears think!!
So .......
a) Measure hearing range.
b) Listen for peaks and troughs.
c) measure peaks and troughs.
d) compare since if a headphone shows a peak in my ears trough - bingo!!
The theory's great but in practise it's nuts!!! It's great fun though. (and surprising)
So my best headphones ...... no surprise - HD650 and T40. Even the T40 without filter is close to my hearing range which is perhaps why I don't mind it without the filter switched in!! (Even with the dip in FR)
The M2000 shows a peak at 4KHz which is quite funny, since it's quite a dark headphone!!
Another surprise - my daughter is hearing 18.4KHz on the T50 without filter.
I know it's rough and ready and not scientific, but it's really interesting and getting a testing programme for an Ipad or Ipod is cheap!!
That is, if you feel the need to have your listening 'justified' by a set of figures, then that's fine. Or whether you have the confidence to just go the totally subjective route and trust your head/ears totally.
For a long time, because of the lack of knowledge/understanding with regards to headphones, most of us have relied on our own ears, blissfully unaware of the problems and differences between headphones unless we could 'hear' something.
Since I actually started to 'speak' on forums my own views have changed over the years, mainly thanks to Frans way of looking at headphones and amps. I read on forums way before I actually appeared on one and noticed rave comments about a headphone followed by a total damning of the headphone, often followed by a run down of the poor guy's character for daring to write such a daft review!! I always thought that was nuts though.
The way a subjectivist ridicules an objectivist for daring to use measuring gear and not trust their ears is quite a horrible way to treat anyone and equally, the snobbish attitudes of some who rely totally on measurements and make remarks about pure objectivists is also quite ugly to watch. I've always felt like piggy in the middle when these kinds of things have cropped up actually. I can't stand snobs and I hate ignorance as well!!
So this morning, I decided to do a simple experiment due to my M2000 which has a strange frequency response in a way and yet I do quite like it for certain things.
I basically got a frequency generator to do tones and sweeps with some chosen headphones and listen. So to some extent, I'm using objective measurements while using my ears to judge (subjectivly speaking!!)
First of all, what an amazing job they all do. Believe me, they all go down low and pretty high too. Even some cheapos!!
First of all, I tested the family's hearing. Mine gets to its threshold around 15.5KHz. (Lower than it was ten years ago). My daughter goes to 19.5KHz (Just above actually) and my wife only gets to 14 KHz.
Now I know the threshold of my hearing, it seems that I need a headphone to be even up to about 16 KHz. At the lower end, I have no problem detecting 10 Hz. It thuds like a bass drum and I can easily hear the beats of the waves.
So Ideal for me is 10 - 16KHz.
So I went through headphones just playing around to see what produced high and low frequncies plainly and which showed more efficiency up there or down in the bass. Of course, this is really rough because of differences in volumes but it was really surprising.
I tried the HD650, T40, M2000, HD595 just to start with.
All get to 14KHz with ease and then they tail off at varying degress because of my hearing. My daughter could hear them without wearring them up to 19KHz quite plainly!! She was on the other side of the table and could even tell in another room when I had turned them off!!!!!
So they all do a pretty good job of getting up there. No surprises with the HD595 - it was stronger in the top and went a bit further too because the volume was staying high whereas others tailed off for me since the volume was rolling off.
The bass was also interesting but for some headphones, I had to turn up to see if they were actually receiving anything. Again, no surprise, the HD595 needed to be turned up. Some needed more volume than others to match each other.
Now the reason I'm saying that this is a subjective/objective view is that I am using a sine generator but using my own ears to monitor so this test, would be personal to us all, depending on your hearing.
I then tried doing sweeps from 20 - 20 in order to listen for peakes and troughs. Not as massive as some might think, but my hearing also has peaks and troughs, I think, so now, I was hearing the combo of the headphone and MY ears.
That means if a headphone has a peak in an area that my ears might have a trough' there'd be a match!!
I found this hard to do, but some had some big peaks around 4 KHz - say between 2KHz - 6KHz and then things started to roll away due to my hearing I guess.
So I played around for quite some time, comparing how each headphone extended into bass and treble and whether any showed big peakes in my ears. It wasn't conclusive since it was a rough test with the family all wanting to test their ears but it showed me what a great job most headphones actually do.
The best was the Senn HD650. It extends further than the others and also goes low. The t40 was a hairs breadth - goes to 10 Hz easily but without filter doesn't extend as far up as the Senn. (Not as loud anyway) What surprised me is just how far up the T40 goes. It's not as poorly extended as I thought. It is in fact close to my own personal limits. Just below, it fades away. (13.5 or so)
The M2000 which is a cheapo goes down to 10 albeit a bit lower but it hit 14KHz quite strongly - yet it sounds like a closed headphone!!
The HD595 struggled in the really low bass but extended with surprising volume.
I'm going to get my sound meter from work and measure the volume of these headphones via the cups I think. I may get a frequency reponse graph that way and then compare to what I hear in order to 'spot' a more ideal headphone for me personally.
So what I'll do is play a 1KHz tone and work out where each headphone needs to be on the volume control to get the same Db reading and then do a sweep to spot peaks and troughs without my ears and then compare to peaks and troughs WITH my ears.
The whole area is quite fascinating actually and has given me a deeper respect; even for cheaper headphones which actually seem to do better than our ears think!!
So .......
a) Measure hearing range.
b) Listen for peaks and troughs.
c) measure peaks and troughs.
d) compare since if a headphone shows a peak in my ears trough - bingo!!
The theory's great but in practise it's nuts!!! It's great fun though. (and surprising)
So my best headphones ...... no surprise - HD650 and T40. Even the T40 without filter is close to my hearing range which is perhaps why I don't mind it without the filter switched in!! (Even with the dip in FR)
The M2000 shows a peak at 4KHz which is quite funny, since it's quite a dark headphone!!
Another surprise - my daughter is hearing 18.4KHz on the T50 without filter.
I know it's rough and ready and not scientific, but it's really interesting and getting a testing programme for an Ipad or Ipod is cheap!!