Well I’m happy to report my sr1a experience is changing pretty rapidly. Maybe its because I’ve been playing pink noise at moderate levels for hours at a shot when I’m not using them. Maybe its my ears adjusting. Maybe its the learning curve of switching from medium range monitors to high end headphones.
Playing with the eq and comparing to the harman curve, I figured try removing the move fiddly adjustments I had made last night, and see if I could just locate the fatiguing freqs that way.
Sure enough, the problem energy was around 14k. Rolling that off with a sharp filter, in ‘wings closed position’, I can listen just fine with a completely flat eq except that high end roll-off for fatigue purposes. With wings ‘semi extended’ a minor bass boost of 3 db with gentle shelf centering around 150Hz was enough, and even that wasn’t needed, more to taste.
The result either way is super flat but relatively non-fatiguing, and super resolving. I expect the remaining fatigue to go away over time, and eventually I expect these will equal my studio monitors for mixing. I can hear the precision and flatness and tons of detail (currently listening to Steely Dan’s ‘Royal Scam’ on tidal, hearing entire new instruments there I hadn’t noticed before as we speak).
I suspect I will sell the HEDD, but want to give it a few more days to see if the fatigue fades with regular use the new hf rolloff. Don’t get me wrong, the HEDD are incredible, half the price, more immediately pleasurable and traditional headphones, completely non-fatiguing out of the box, and despite what people have said, i find them super comfortable. It’s just my bank account is already screaming.
I think some of this can be chalked up to my odd mix of longtime recording and mixing experience with monitors, coupled with almost zero prior experience using cans for anything but tracking, and otherwise viewing them really askance. My sinuses have also been a little cranky the last few days with very light seasonal allergies. But I think its mostly the learning curve.
Really appreciate the input folks, super helpful. Will keep posting as my experience with these and the HEDD changes. I can say quite comfortably I’d mix on either with no hesitation. There is a slight tuning issue somewhere in the HEDD I haven’t located just yet, but I’m sure corrective eq would catch it. The HEDD really does sound nearly identical to my Neumann monitors in out of the box tuning. With the minor hf rolloff, so does the sr1a, but with what is likely greater accuracy. But I do hear that the bass on the HEDD comes in part from resonant cupping of the ears, even with crossfeed, and for the first time I guess I’m seeing the downside of that. On sr1a, the sound is presented coming at you in a more speaker like way.
One reason for me investing so heavily in sr1a is that 3.4k (what I paid for it in mint used condition, sticker still sealed on unit?!, with jotunheim r) will get one ‘mid’ range monitors, but absolutely TOTL cans. Since I’m going back to mixing in a small apartment, it seemed a logical move if I could make it work, and while clearly beyond pricey, perhaps more bang for the buck in terms of monitors. Granted, I will still upgrade from my Neumann monitors eventually, but bank account needs to recover.
Also worth saying that it’s also genre dependent. I record rock music. Listening to vocal music on the sr1a (Moses Sumney’s Aromanticism, wow), I find no eq of any sort needed, even in ‘wings semi-open’ position. It’s glorious.
