No pelting from my point of view haha. I don’t think people should expect to have to make a multitude of fine-grained high Q EQ adjustments to get their headphones to sound great.
4 Likes
I think you are confusing analog EQ with graphic EQ, both Parametric and Graphic can be analog or digital.
As far as preference, I like graphic EQ for quick tweaks of songs or albums, where parametric is my preference if I want to fix something (not necessarily headphones but a track in a recording etc).
Heck, the good, old 10-Band graphic equalizer, in software at least, is good enough most times for me.
Sorry for any confusion. I’m talking old-school knobs – a hardware-based solution.
1 Like
Per @SenyorC, this is a graphic analog hardware equalizer:
The sliders are linear pots (and they often degrade sound horribly as they age).
1 Like
Sorry, I didn’t wish to be pedantic lol
Basically a graphic EQ has fixed frequencies you can adjust, with fixed bandwidth.
Parametric allows you to choose the frequency and the bandwidth.
Either of these can be analog or digital.
1 Like
Parametric analog, is that like the bass and high shelf knobs on the Loki Mini?
My bad. I didn’t mean to misquote you. I don’t know who Blaine is but if he posts to the interwebs, please send me a link. He sounds like someone I could learn from.
Yes but he seems to be talking about using them as a starting point for tuning to your subjective preference. I’ve asked him specifically about how to adjust his presets to be more objectively accurate for your individual HRTF. The only method I’m aware of him mentioning is using a sine sweep together with pink noise to listen for peaks and valleys.
Thanks for the link to the Hammershoi and Moller paper. I like it when I’m wrong because that’s an opportunity to learn.
I really think we are not so far apart on this though. It mostly boils down to the 5k-8k range. I still believe a quality EQ preset will likely be closer to correct than not.
When you think about it, an EQ preset is just additional tuning on top of the factory tuning. Many of the same limitations are present in both.
1 Like
Yeah that all sounds right to me, although in some sense subjective preferences supersedes HRTF. Matching that says nothing about how you want your music to sound, although I imagine you’d see some trends there.
Yeah I think quite often this will be the case.
1 Like
Blaine from Cascadia Audio, @Mad_Economist here.
(just a few of the things he’s done)
4 Likes
Yes, he’s been extremely helpful/influential when it comes to learning about this stuff - and not just for me but for the audio community generally.
3 Likes
Wow thanks for your effort into this comprehensive introduction. I am very familiar with @Mad_Economist and his posts here. I just didn’t know his name was Blaine. 
Definitely. I have a lot of respect for his work in this regard and the work you two are doing together too. I hope it continues. 
5 Likes
Agreed. I don’t consider myself an objectivist. But I do think there is value in starting reasonably close to neutral before tinkering with adding my own flavor.
Isn’t that one of the conclusions of Olive’s research? And so the starting point of the Harman target was to sound neutral but later it was revised using listener preference because it turns out they are very close - except in the lower bass region.
1 Like
Even 2013 involved listener preference. Or did you mean before that? The preference tilt is supported by the preference tilt in speakers as well, and my understanding is that Olive’s 2009 work was used for the initial stages in the 2013 curve. Like when they found RR1_G and RR_G from “The Subjective and Objective Evaluation of Room Correction Products” to be preferred.
2 Likes
I also post on ASR and Reddit from time to time, usually being just as pedantic and troublesome there as here 
Olive doesn’t generally acknowledge a definition of “neutral” outside of “listener preferred” - we talked to him about that for a bit on video call a while back (which was broadcast, I think). “Neutral” runs into circle of confusion problems pretty hard, and people tend to regard the timbre of headphones and speakers which they prefer the sound of as “neutral”.
Edit: I’ve also been on @Resolve’s livestreams a few times - once I actually crashed the stream because I was being so noisy in the chat that Metal571 had them just add me to the call 
7 Likes
I may need to watch that again then. Here’s what he said in 2013: Audio Musings by Sean Olive: The Relationship between Perception and Measurement of Headphone Sound Quality
“Listeners Prefer Headphones With An Accurate, Neutral Spectral Balance”
EDIT: To me that means he concludes listener preferred and neutral are the same thing. So tuning for neutral should give you the best sounding headphone to the majority of listeners. This pretty much follows speakers where tuning the speaker for a flat response (measured under specific conditions) is considered neutral and also the best sounding.
I remember that episode! Wasn’t oratory1990 on that as well? It’s my favorite Headphone Show livestream. 
1 Like
He had listeners give descriptions, and many of them landed on ‘even spectral balance’ or similar kinds of descriptors for the ones they favored.
1 Like
By this, I don’t mean to contradict you. There is no doubt in my mind that the purpose of Olive’s research is to create a tuning target for headphones that people will buy. So listener preference is definitely the focus of his research, not breaking the circle of confusion.
It’s just that I see many audiophiles look at the bass level of the default 2018 Harman target and/or the fact that it is based on preference and dismiss the entire concept. Which is a shame since adjusting the bass level to your individual taste is not only highly recommended, it’s relatively easy.
1 Like
Yeah I think that does happen unfortunately. What’s interesting though is that the preference tilt for headphones is congruent with the preference tilt in speakers. So it’s fairly well-anchored to that research as well.
1 Like
I really enjoyed that one as well. I am hoping @Resolve has Oratory back on soon.
2 Likes