At CanJam 2025, I was privileged enough to have the ability to use the HBK’s Type 5128C HF-HATS to help people at the show measure their headphones. Many thanks to Vince at HBK for making it all possible. There were a ton of people who came up to measure stuff I’d never seen before, and we were even able to measure a few CIEMS!
Below are all of the headphones/IEMs I’d measured at the show Saturday + Sunday.
If anyone would like an alternative view for one of the measurements, feel free to ask for it here in the thread.
If any of the people who got their headphones/IEMs measured would like the raw data for use with EQ, feel free to DM me here or on Discord to get the data.
Interesting to see the 5128 doesn’t get the big ~11khz spike on the immanis. But that also goes to support the variation we see there in terms of what people have subjectively reported
I was just about to say this too - I’m shocked at how reasonably the Immanis graphs here, at least in the treble where it looks not too dissimilar to the Sennheiser HD 490 Pro or HD 580 below.
Yet subjectively… it can be nuclearly bright on the right (wrong) tracks.
I thought it sounded quite good to me. It’s got the easy listening vibe, and if you’re old with less treble sensitivity, without that 11khz spike that might or might not be audible depending on anatomy, it’s not necessarily a bad set of headphones.
I can understand why some people have such a negative reaction to the Raal Immanis, but to my ears a lot of very expensive boutique headphones have “interesting” tuning, and the highly praised ZMF lineup wasn’t any more pleasing to my ears.
All that said none of these boutique headphones really sound amazing out of the box for me. To me it’s the difference between photo realistic vs oil paintings, both have their place. I do find it quite funny how a lot of people describe the Immanis as “detailed” however.
I was watching as @listener performed the Immanis measurement. He took great care in performing a number of measurements and discussing with the owner aspects such as how do you typically wear them. I believe this helped ensure a quality set of measurements. Good job.
I found I liked the Immanis more than I disliked it, but the treble was an issue for me on music with a decent amount of hats and cymbals (read: rock). I think for the more “audiophile-y” type of music that they play at speaker shows it’ll probably be quite a nice experience.
Yeah I agree. the 1600hz to 4700hz 4-5db dip along with 6000-10000hz 2db rise can sound quite nice for jazzy music and classical, I just tried that now on my DCA E3s. Without the forward sounding ear gain region, everything sounds a bit further away, but still have some sense of “detail” due to the elevated treble.
Thank you Listener (and sometime Resolve) for measuring mine and everyone’s else headphones over there. Feels bad for you who spend most of CanJam stuck on front desk working, hope Resolve can stop slacking off next time
With ≈ 85 measurements and assuming you measure 7hrs per day, it would average around 10 mins for one set of headphones to be measured.
Thanks for doing these! It was a cool experience to see how the measurements were taken and to get an objective comparison for my gear, especially my CIEMS.
I know that Dan Clark Audio sells “AEON 2 Noire” headphones, and “NOIRE X”, headphones, but I’ve never seen the “DCA Aeon Noire X” [shown above] as part of their inventory. I’m assuming the graph reproduced here is from the test of the newer “NOIRE X”. Could you clarify this for us? I’d love to buy whichever DCA model was tested, because it appears to have one of the most nearly Harman-compliant profiles of the over-ear headphones on this page.
HELLO! I’m the owner of the “modded LCD-XC” (see *), Euclid, and Verite Closed w/Eikon pads (at least i think they are, as they’re my fav)
I did my best and waited patiently for this thread. And what a masterpiece of a post it is! What we have here is one amazing piece of work, effort, dedication, and a benefit to the headphone community et al!
It is an understatement to say that the privilege was all ours. And am immensely thankful to you and Headphones.com for hosting this and footing the bill!
(*) for the readers what those LCD-XC mods are are this:
Measurements were taken with two screws removed from the cups, and a lite foam filter placed in front covering about 2/3 of the driver, over the rear 2/3 of the inside of the cups. I thought the foam proved to have little effect except for at the highest frequencies but looking now using a large monitor it’s actually a pretty significant effect thru most of the treble range that these old ears are capable of still hearing.
@listener , you also took a baseline measurement with all four screws in-place and no front filter. Could you also cut and share another graph that compares the measurements of my LCD-XC in stock (4 scews) and modded (2 screws and front filter) forms? Or is that what the plot using the brighter blue is? If so, I have a question in a follow-up post after this one.
The second resp curve pair in the orange variants on the same graph with the flatter response from midbass thru mid and big dip in the lower treble is with the XC modded to be an LCD-X by
a) swapping the carbon cups with Arctic Cable LCD-X grills (got gold but wish now that I got silver, if anyone would like to swap I’d be open to that, PM me)
b) stacked two foam filters, one thicker than the other behind the driver (I dont have the normal Audeze rear filters yet), and
c) honestly can’t recall if the front foam filter was in-place on this measurement, but the legend seems to indicate that it was in place.
Want to mention any difference thru the midbass in the 2-screw plots – if ever posted, I see the plots posted are an average of L & R, which is perfectly understandable – is due to the left cup being ever so slightly loose. Therefore the left measurement should be slightly different around 250Hz than the right. I only realized that a day later.
Furthermore @listener my mention of having developed a crinkle-pop in the left cup was eliminated. As the left carbon cup was ever so slightly loose ever touch would result in a light crinkle-pop sound. But once I tightened the screws very slightly, that sound went away. Thinking now, that may explain why the measurement of my 2 screw version is mistakenly elevated above and below 250Hz, as the L+R/2 graphed here may be elevated more than is actually the case by the left being higher than right over that octave~ish due to the rear cup leakage, approaching the response of an X? Guessing right now; really can’t say for sure until seeing the L & R separate for the 2 screw measurements. Okay, really off on a rambling tangent; finished there.
But pretty remarkable how the slightest alteration to venting thru screw presence and tightness has such a noticeable effect on response!
Enormous thank you again! You’re the best! (and I want your job, lol, j/k)
I have a question about the legend label on this. Is it possible something got transposed?
I seem to recollect when you overlayed graphs while doing live measurements, that the measurement with the 2 screws removed demonstrated the largest dip @ 250Hz. Which jived with what my ears were telling me too.
But the legend suggests – and I may be wrong in what I’m interpreting that – that the graph w/the “Screw Removal” in the label represents when 2 screws affixed the cup, and the bottom record in the legend plotted in the brighter blue is the measurement with all 4 cup screws affixed.
That however doesn’t seem to be what I remembered or what my ears tell me when I use 2 vs 4 screws on the cups.
OTOH the rise in response in the 3.2K - 5.2K Hz related to the 2 screw mode of operation is in agreement with what my hearing told me. And I recall getting excited when I saw that as it reinforced one difference I heard when I removed 2 screws, making the response seem to sound looser and brighter, shockingly.
So assuming it’s all correctly labelled what that may mean is what I’m attributing to hearing more lower bass in 2 screws vs 4 screws may actually be more energy immediately in the octaves above and below 250Hz? That would be , and maybe so.
I’m the owner of the “modded LCD-XC” (see *), Euclid, and Verite Closed w/Eikon pads (at least i think they are, as they’re my fav)
, and maybe so.