I continue to have issues with EQ. All too often, when applying EQ, it seems that whilst the tonal balance can be more uniform from octave to octave, the EQ seems to adversely impact the sound in subtle but noticeable ways. The attack/decay of music seems too often to disappear, making the music sound un-natural.
Some people have stated that if you notice this, “you are not doing it right”. After extended trials with EQ, I have to respectfully disagree with this. Even subtle EQ adjustments seem to have a impact on this. On the occasions when it seemed like EQ helped, would go back and play the same track over, and the difference with the subtle clues of the attack/decay of sound jumps out. This effect is especially heard with the all important midrange. I’d rather listen to a headphone with a neutral midrange that may be a bass shy than one with “lots of bass”, but the midrange just does not sound right. A prime example of this is the difference between the Sennheiser HD 600 and the Focal Clear. The midrange on the HD 600 is still among the best available, especially when driven with a quality OTL headphone amp. The midrange on the Focal Clear never sounded quite right to me.
I haven’t totally given up on EQ yet, but to date, remain skeptical that the the benefits outweigh the potential issues.
It just goes to show that it’s not easy. But more importantly… maybe you like certain colorations that correcting them with EQ is going to make it sound less good.
Can you provide any examples? Mostly what I’ve noticed is the natural sound of a instrument, vocal in the actual environment the music was recorded in seems to sound different when EQ is applied. It could be an artifact of the digital smoothing of the frequency bands that are modified.
It’s not easy to describe. An example would be that EQ seems to take out the ambience of a music hall. EQ seems to remove the echo/reverb effect of the recording. I’ve been in soundproof rooms before at work and a similar effect is noticeable with sound in that environment.
I really wish I could get past this stumbling block. For, now, when listening to open back cans, I’ll just stick with the headphones on hand that don’t need EQ to sound good (HD 600, Verum 2).
Closed back headphones with EQ seems to be " A Bridge Too Far". (For history buffs, look up Operation Market Garden).
I’m reminded of what Oratory said to me when I told him something similar, about how I was struggling to get two headphones to sound the same. His answer was “skill issue”. Or maybe more appropriately, it’s just a matter of time and effort, and maybe the tools you use to do it. And he was right. I don’t have any examples other than just doing it more and getting better at it. Are you using owliophile?
Yeah you’ll want to use tone-gen and use tools like owliophile for that. We of course use REW, the same software we use to measure headphones, but we also use in-ear mics. So without actually doing those measurements, Owliophile is probably the best way to do it.
With the ATH-AWKT, while it was pretty rough, I don’t recall it having specific issues to do with harmonic distortion or non minimum phase behavior. Chances are, because it’s a high acoustic impedance design, the in-situ behavior for you is rather different from what the graphs show, especially at lower frequencies - and this is a common problem with closed backs in general. This means profiles built upon those graphs aren’t going to be right for you either.
Understand. Appreciate the feedback. The ATH-AWKT is not the most neutral of headphones. It does have it’s strong points, especially with acoustic bass and saxophone reproduction. It’s a good headphone for jazz and classical, not so much for rock/pop.
There are times I need to use closed back headphones, so finding ones that work well with a variety of genres has been a challenge. The AWKT is good for jazz and classical, whilst the MDR-Z1R is good for most genres.
