Yes, but the SDR modification is the most important part.
You could also use any of a number of EQ tools to adjust the FR of the HD800 … it doesn’t have to be Sonarworks. But the SDR mod is important because EQ can only lessen, not eliminate, the 6 kHz resonance.
Great!!!
Thanks!!!
This morning I gave a try to Sonarworks True Fi and here are so impression. Since I’m not in the sound/music field ( I just like music) and my experience in this hobby of headphones is very, very young, my ideas here are provably going to be very poor compared to others.
A few weeks ago I got the Focal Clear and it was a love at first listen , I put back in the box the Elears and took some pictures to put them for sale and HD58x where also back in the box to give them another chance in the future.
Clear, HD800 and HD6xx where the ones in use until I found a problem in one of the drivers of the Clears and had to return them and start a claim to the seller( that story is not for this post)
Trying to fill the emptiness I asked @Torq about Sonarworks for the Elears and also for the HD800.
This morning I use it for about 20 min on each.
For the Elears was a big hit!! It absolutely change the signature sound of the headphones, they get really, really close to the Clears, is missing probably some resolution and details, but they get really close to the point I don’t think I’ll be buying them again even if the issue resolve in my behalf .
For the HD800 Sonarworks do a great job, is not a drastic change like the one on the Elears, but it help a lot. I was never bother for the infamous peak resonance of the HD800, at least not for about 70% of the time( the other 30% I was using my Schiit Loki ). I already order the resonators for the SDR modification, but I’m going to use Sonarworks for a while and maybe I don’t need to perform the surgery on the HD800.
I also use True Fi on my HD6xx, I don’t see( hear) any problem on them, but…why not. They are from the three headphones the ones less affected by Sonarworks, or at least the ones I care the least to the point I probably use them as they are and Sonarworks stay off. There are changes, sure are, but the result are a little “meh” to me.
Right now I’m not sure if Sonarworks is going to make me forget about my love to the Clears using the Elears, but is hitting really close. I probably end up putting in a drawer the resonators for the HD800, or maybe not, let’s give some time to those issues and Sonarworks to work together.
The test this morning was done using FLAC files-Sonarworks-Foobar-Ifi Nano iDSD Black Label and the headphones mentioned. Probably the Ifi Nano was not ideal for the two Sennheiser but was what I had at that moment.
Thanks to all the ones commenting about Sonarworks and specially to @Torq and @TylersEclectic for the help.
You can however, whine like me in emails to support and they will give you another key code to use for another 10days, and so on…realy PITA, but that’s how small companies can act sometimes…clueless when it comes to common sense.
Has anyone submitted their response to the current email request to take a short test on two different tracks using True-Fi? It’s kind of like when you go to your eye doctor and get tested back n forth between tiny changes in optics…is this sharper? Then they flip back to another prior lens correction and keep asking you which looks sharper/better to your eyes.
I did the test, didn’t care for the 1st track, but with only one more to chose…from memory they do 3 sets of tests at 3 differrent frequencies representing bass, mid, & treble(can’t recall if there is a chart that tells you the frequency where they are testing you on?
But this test is, imo; highly dependent on the hp/ep you are listening to, as to what your preferences would be. I don’t have access to any of the listed models other than the free earbuds that came with my ip6+. Using those, via my Macbook Pro as source, I couldn’t understand what the resulting graph is all about. And the test gives you 3 levels at each frequency, boosting or lowering around that specific bass/mid/treble level. Because of the Apple earbuds, I simply choose mostly emphasized treble, just to get greater clarity, but I did not want all of the treble boosted, which is what that test does. I only want certain parts of treble boosted, because those Apple buds do not do treble well, imo. Bass, I adjusted downward, same for mids…but my resulting graph indicates all 3 frequencies of a slight, maybe 3db cut…now that doesn’t make any sense at all too me…confused. This given my age 60+, shouldn’t I prefer a different ‘equalization’ curve???
on Macbook, I don’t have Apple Music or any paid service at present other than trials, but amazon music, d/l itunes songs, all play through True-Fi, same for BT TWS earbuds, all can be adjusted via True-Fi.
they say you can’t polish a turd…maybe so, but True-Fi does change Apple earpods to give bass especially, I would have not thought these could produce, won’t shake my head around, but damn, at full volume, I’m getting heavy duty bass down way low, 30hz levels…over the top vibrating/irritating bass…sure as hell would not want to listen to some of these tracks on high-end can like the LCD24s + Hugo2, would turn my head into giggling jello asap!
Still don’t think True-Fi could work such wonders on Audeze sine/LCDi3 or i4, no matter how many ppl love (crinacle) the supposed neutral sound of those iem planar.
, but look at my test result graph, 3db down across the frequencies they tested for, makes no sense to me? What are they trying to do with this test? I wanted better treble (not from age related hearing loss, I hear up to only 12khz now, but sometimes I want lots of treble boost to emphasize singers voices, or instruments…well beyond what the ‘studio’ recording was set at, same goes for ‘live’ youtube performances. and other times, boosted treble sounds just too bright, and I drop any correction for age down to no more than 3db boost or none at all. Problem with True-Fi, using age related treble boost, all treble above around 8hz is boosted, when I don’t want the entire treble above a certain frequency boosted equally.I also bump up bass, but with those Apple buds, the bass is not so great, I’ll turn off or drop 10db on the bass w/True-Fi when the bass gets way to ‘muddy’/congested sounding for my liking. But there are tracks where I will boost the living daylights(8db is the max above base line neutral, but since Apple’s buds drop off more than 10db below 100z, it’s a 20db boost over non-equalized) out of the <100hz bass, and it sounds pretty damned good.
I’ve been listening to many of my favorite low-fi tracks on youtube, constantly changing the settings on True-Fi, many times a full on extreme V shape, occasionally leaving the supposed studio reference setting as is, but that doesn’t happen often, I’m constantly changing to suit my own preferences of how i want the songs to sound, couldn’t care less what ‘correct’ equalization should be. My own personal EQ, is not the same for any given headphone or song.
Which is why I want Apple to spend a few billion and get Siri to memorize all my song EQ settings for every headphone/earphone I have, or at least start with some way of measuring actual in-ear/on-ear music reprodution from Apple/Beats line…sure they could put some microscopic measuring microphone in the nozzle ends of em, or inside the earcups of each headphone…total customization for each ear, for each earphone/headphone. hurry up Apple I’m getting old, can’t hear much in another decade or so.
True-Fi is intended to bring the headphones it has profiles for to as close to a common, neutral, response curve as possible. And then provide a little personalization to accommodate some basic, coarse, personal preferences.
It is not a general purpose EQ solution, which is what you’d need (among other things) to get what you seem to be trying to get. And it can only work within what’s possible in terms of the raw capabilities of any given transducer.
If you really want different, arbitrary, EQ for every song/headphone combination then there’s no CoTS solution available today that I’m aware of.
Raw tools exist to do various individual parts of what you’re trying to achieve, starting with a proper EQ tool, but you’d need to combine several of them, and apply a lot of manual work, and a fair amount of custom scripting/coding to have it switch EQ on a per song/headphone basis, as well as, of course, setting up each individual EQ profile ahead of time.
The more capable EQ tools allow you to set up entirely different, and highly complex, EQ profiles for each ear if you want to. And they don’t generally have limits on how many such profiles you have - so if you wanted to create them for each song/headphone combination (i.e. have total customization), you could. It’d be slow, manual and very time consuming to setup, and you’d still have to script the automatic switching behavior, but it could be done.
Same here, True-Fi makes the Elear sound completely different from the dark original to a much clearer can and that, without losing what Elear has always done best among the Focals: bass.
Considering the insane amounts Focal charges for pads True-Fi is a lot cheaper solution 
I also use True Fi on my HD6xx, I don’t see( hear) any problem on them, but…why not. They are from the three headphones the ones less affected by Sonarworks, or at least the ones I care the least to the point I probably use them as they are and Sonarworks stay off. There are changes, sure are, but the result are a little “meh” to me.
It may be because the HD6xx are the most “meh” of the three to begin with, they don’t belong in the same tier.
The Elear was designed to be a less-frills-but-less-bugs companion to the Utopia. The more I listen to them through True-Fi the more I think Focal launched the Elear prematurely to meet the demand created by the flagship Utopia for a headphone with similarly killer looks but at an audiophile high-end price, not the sort of cash the reference-class high-end the Utopia commanded. The Elear sounded okay for $1,000 and it delivered even more that what was expected in the looks department, but that response hole, or “mid suck-out” as they say, is typical of an unfinished tuning process with an ambitious goal: to bring out those high-mids to just the right level without affecting bass and sub-bass response (which the Utopias lack). I’m sure the French knew very well they could tune the Elear to sound like it does with the True-Fi curve but decided to ship as is to meet demand all the while designing a “corrected” model that they will call Clear to drive the point in
Now, the only USB DAC I know that can almost replicate that curve bit-for-bit is the DAC V1’s which Focal “strongly suggested” be used with the Elear. That’s dodgy marketing and was a thinly veiled attempt at pushing the Naim to Elear buyers (Focal is Naim’s parent company) In the end buying that combo (like I naively did) made the set just as expensive as buying the Utopia. But doing that you get better sound than the Utopia alone (My Utopia didn’t spend much time out the cat-proof library, where I keep my collection. Sounded too airy for me, reminder of Senn HD800 and 800s but not as tricky to “operate” and having to “operate” headphones is where I draw the line. But the Clear has issues, as does the Utopia. But so does the competition so what the heck. The heck is called True-Fi, I doesn’t bring much to the Clear or the Utopia but on the Elear… wow, it’s unbelievable. And to me it proves that the Elear was not made dark by design, but by rush to ship early. That parametric tuning turns the $1,000 Elear into a $3,000 can, It’s that good. It doesn’t do much good for the Clear and the Utopia probably because Focal didn’t leave any room to tune when they shipped.
Right now I’m not sure if Sonarworks is going to make me forget about my love to the Clears using the Elears, but is hitting really close.
Well it did the trick for me and big time at that. Once you take a look at the Elear’s original curve it’s pretty obvious that area was originally destined to be tuned correctly. Anyway I hardly ever listen to my Clears since running the Elears with True-Fi. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that the Elears get to keep their deep bass which is something the Clears somewhat lack, and the sound is more limpid and crisper than on the base Elear. And the detail is astounding (I am assuming here here that the reader does not use a smartphone or tablet or laptop as sources, but rather a desktop w. beefy PSU and DAC, or a streaming receiver. There’s very noticeable sophistication in delivery, very similar to high-end planars of similar impedance
Yeah they did come out with Sound ID but I wish they had told us it meant termination of True-Fi instead of pocketing the money without mentioning the alternative Reference for Headphones, which I would have bought instead had I known. True-Fi DID the trick but now they don’t dance no more. Even though they tell me the termination of my 6-week-old so-called lifetime license is slated to occur in a few few days I feel ripped off.
They had True-Fi on both mobile platforms long before SoundID was announced (even its beta). As I talked about In the dedicated SonarWorks/True-Fi thread, that you’re also posting in (but don’t seem to have read) … I bought and used both True-Fi and Reference (I still use SonarWorks Reference, at least in the studio).
Not sure why you’re quoting me, nor resurrecting a year-dead thread about it though. Your issue is with SonarWorks … no one else can do anything about it.
SonarWorks Reference is the first product listed on their website.
It is desktop-only, there is no mobile version (I mention this since you quoted my 18-month old comment that a mobile version of True-Fi was coming, so I assume mobile-use is of interest to you).
Reference is not quite the same as True-Fi - both in what headphones it supports and in how it works, though the bulk of the functionality in True-Fi is supported by Reference.,
The software still works.
SonarWorks are going to continue making it available to existing licensees.
It won’t get updated with support for more headphones, but otherwise it will function as it does today unless some OS-level update breaks it. So any headphone you bought to use it with, or that was on the list of supported cans … you can still use it with.
I get that you feel ripped off, and that is understandable.
Your license is still valid, however - and the software still works.
In the US, at least, “lifetime licenses” (or warranties for that matter) generally define “lifetime” as either “the life of the product” or “the life of the company”. It is rarely (almost never) the life of the customer.
Even Tivo lifetime subscriptions were tied to the life of a specific Tivo device (i.e. if your unit failed outside of warranty, you had to buy a new subscription).
I imagine that if you contact SonarWorks support they’ll be able to work something out for you.
If you do nothing, then you’ll get a free license to SoundID instead, once it releases:
From the SonarWorks web-site:
Do I have any advantages for SoundID Listen desktop app if I’m already a True-Fi license owner?
Definitely, all True-Fi license owners will be provided with a SoundID Listen lifetime license for free! True-Fi license activation keys will not be a part of the SoundID activation/migration process since SoundID Listen will be based on a subscription plan. True-Fi license owners will be notified via email and instructions will be provided for migrating to SoundID.
That may not be much consolation, since the products do not do exactly the same thing.
But the same would be true if they made it a free Reference license also, as that’s not available as a mobile product at all, nor can it play files (it’s just a virtual sound-card/plug-in).
So, again, contact them and see what they’re actually willing to do.
Just so you know, I installed the Reference 4 System Wide trial yesterday and even though it’s a bit more complex than True-Fi and had me fiddling with some slightly buggy functions here and there I finally found a sound that’s even superior in SQ than it was with True-Fi. That’s the full Reference 4, speakers and headphones. Ref 4 doesn’t have as large a selection of headphone models than True-Fi or Reference 4 Headphone Edition but the Elear was there,
I was thinking about my gripe with Sonarworks yesterday, looking up some stats on the Net about the furious growth of mobile devices and high-end IEM’s that can be worn without looking ridiculous like one does with those jumbo phones (I see a LOT of those kids in the subway), and came to the conclusion I would have made the same choice as Sonarworks and that being irritated at them had no justifiable basis. They say only idiots never change their mind, which I find comforting 
This morning while listening to phones with Ref 4 turned on and decided I’ll purchase the software before the 21-day trial expires. Reference 4 System Wide costs substantially more that Headphone Edition even though they have the same SQ, the extra expense is due to it having tons of well-documented functions and software.
Sorry that it came off wrong, but the quoting you was nothing personal, it’s simply that you had the most befitting words to describe how Sonarworks was preparing a mobile platform. I am not really mad at then jusr extremely irritated and honestly if it had happened to you you may have reacted the same way and wished that online outfits that sell Dilaudid (hydromorphone, powerful stimulant methylphenidate (Ritalin Immediate-Release pills), Dextroamphetamine/Amphetamine compound (Adderall), and pure dextroamphetamine (illegal in the US but still widely commercially available in Canada, they even presribe
Also re-reading my posts I saw that it could be conceivable that someone would believe that I was expecting Sonarworks to compensate me.'People who buy goods from Eastern-Block country which is now a mob-ridden cesspool are taking a huge risk but I had neglected to read that and thought it would be easy.
Easy? Right. I went for her in Arizone only to be told she had flew out to Germany (her parents had gone to Paris. Hopped on a looogn flight to France and went to the dame hotel we used to stay in in’68. That night I got
Well the contact I’ll be having with them will be the purchase of Reference 4, the edition that handle both headphones and speakers. Like I said in another post I installed the trial version yesterday. It’s good for 21 days but I’m buying that software today or tomorrow because it is, well, totally great.
Not much, I’ll say they were politely distant, not their usual friendliness. They are probably overwhelmed with ranting idiots like yours truly. But I’m about to pay for the Reference 4 license, that ought’á warm things up a bit. Using the Ref 4 yesterday I achieved better SQ than I ever had on True-Fi and that, among other considerations, made me change my mind about them. They are damn good at what they do, just not accustomed to Western ways of doing things. Here a lot of businesses simply lie to customers, but Sonarworks never actually lied to me, they just failed to explain things clearly and that’s not a big deal.
Thanks @Torq for putting this thread. I saw their ad in my Instagram and thought it would give this a try.
Downloaded the trial version (Windows chap here), and by playing a few minutes I quickly realized this is something I was looking for. Not to mention I could get rid of EqualizerAPO. I mean, DYI and free stuff are nice, but it’s always nicer to purchase something that someone already gave a lot of thought on it. Two sayings apply here: “make or buy decision” and “reinventing the wheel”.
They’re actually on sale now, ending tomorrow though.
I’m planning to give it a try in the rest of my headphones as well.
My initial plan is for listening purpose. Some kind of “always on” thing. For DAWers, plugins are there as well. This is probably what it was conceived for: music production.
Cheers.
I’m not sure what kind of hocus-pocus is there but it seems that Sonarworks can make Windows sound system to work in ASIO mode. 
I can listen to Google Play Music and Youtube at the same time (not that Google wants you to do that anyway), but it works. Typically, ASIO is a dedicated kind of thing.
I’m getting closer to leverage that spring sale promotion.
Cheers.
P.S.: My brighty bright DT 770 is sounding stellar now. 
Has anyone actually tried SoundID? This one is on a membership basis.
There’s a 60-day trial until May 18th. I’m still having fun with their Reference for PC.
I downloaded it but, they dont have any profiles for my headphones. 
Haven’t bothered with Sound ID.
My use-case for Sonarworks Reference 4 is simply neutralizing the headphones it has profiles for. In other words, flattening the apparent/percieved FR for the selected/supported headphone.
If I want EQ, I use a proper Parametric EQ tool.
Different use-cases and tools …
Your bar is probably too high for them. Now go purchase a SkullCandy Crusher to use the app. 
Here’s the list of currently supported headphones.
