Suggest audio-related topics for us to cover on our podcast, The Noise Floor!

It seems intuitive, right? And certainly I imagine people want perceptually smooth with music to some degree. But there’s no guarantee [evenly balanced with test tones] gets you that.

Topic request : revisiting old reviews and update your impressions .. maybe tell us about what you have learned in the past few years and how that effected you opinion.

Because people still watch very old reviews butt we know things have changed .

Also we would like to know everybody’s impressions about old headphones that still available . Not only the person who made the review .

2 Likes

Topic request: Personalize your audio experience

Teach people how to do it.

How to figure out your HRTF (in all the different ways).

How to become a trained listener.

How to identify peaks and dips in the treble and how to EQ them.

How useful in-ear microphones are.

How useful headphone measurements are.

How useful reviewers’ expressions and suggestions are.

Etc.

The goal is to achieve the purest audio experience for yourself.

1 Like

Topic request:

People in the industry/hobby

Who is your favorite person in the industry/hobby?

Who has influenced the industry the most, and how?

Who has influenced you the most, and how?

What would your life be like if you had never met them or read their work?

What would your life be like if you weren’t part of the hobby/industry?

Topic request :

Hearing heath with an audiophile doctor guest

Topic Request:

Has sound quality (fidelity) hit a plateau, and are we now entering an era of chasing tasteful colorations?

What improvements can we expect from future (Headphone/DAC/Amp/Speaker) releases?

Are you, as a reviewer, still chasing the Dragon, and very enthusiastic about the future of the industry or have you become jaded?

1 Like

Topic Request: PGGB and PGGB-RT

What it does, and is it worth using?

I would like for you to discuss how the audiophile community and the music nerd community are so separate from one another. To oversimplify, audiophiles are listening to audiophile test tracks while music nerds are listening to amazing music on awful gear. How can we bring these two closer together and get a better experience for both?

Related, I think it’s great you launched a “track of the week” segment for this reason. Maybe you guys could collaborate with Fantano or Deep Cuts, too?

1 Like

I consider myself an audio enthusiast. I don’t seek out audiophile test tracks. A lot of the music I like to listen to was recorded long ago. I’m into this hobby in order to get the music that I enjoy sounding as good as possible.

Topic request : car audio

Happy weekend everyone!

Topic suggestion for The Noise Floor podcast:

A live Apple AirPods Pro 3 listening impressions and measurements session, followed by a comparison to the beloved APP2.

2 Likes

A few topics:

Cleaning up your signal chain

What do you get from moving up a price bracket (budget to mid-fi, budget to hi-fi, mid-fi to hi-fi)?

Get a subwoofer to pair with your headphones*

*Edit: Get a 100” subwoofer to pair with your headphones - THE100 SUB PRO PASSIVE SEALED

I’d go more precise on this one:

  1. Realistic/practical hearing protection measures vs. the most important modern-day sources of danger (environmental exposure scenarios where you don’t have control over the source, exposure scenarios where you DO have control but are getting too much cumulative exposure while loudness doesn’t seem to be excessive if judged only short-term, and also maybe watching for overconsumption of known ototoxic medicines like various OTC painkillers?)

  2. Continuing to enojy music after diagnosed hearing loss - can you simply turn up whatever frequencies where your hearing is now worse, will it accelerate further damage, can you retrain you brain in some ways(?) so that continuing to enjoy full-spectrum Hi-Fi doesn’t have to involve too much frequency boosting etc. etc. (this is where it would be very important to have an audiophile doctor, as you said, no just any ENT who couldn’t care less about the state of our hearing past 8 kHz).

2 Likes

A topic for The Noise Floor podcast:

Tier list discussion :

Take us through the process of making it , because it seems like a very hard work .

Is it possible to create a headphone tier list for the average HRTF?

Is a Harman-target-compliant tier list a good idea?

How can people use the list to make their next purchase?

Is there HPTF information ?

Are open back and closed back headphones comparable?

“The D1 came out on top of the list. Does that mean it’s the best headphone in the world? Will it work for everyone, and should it be the default recommendation? Or what does it actually mean?

Send your top headphone picks to other people like (Blaine, metal571, DMS) and Force :sweat_smile: them to give their impressions on a live stream.

1 Like

Definitely good topics. That said, safe exposure limits are pretty straightforward. Check the NIOSH guidelines; they are more conservative than OSHA. There will always be some individual variation in vulnerability, but safe ranges for listening in the general population are well understood. An audiologist, safety professional, or even just a well-informed layperson could walk you through it.

Ototoxic medication – you’d want a doctor or pharmacist for that one for sure.

I think about no. 2 a lot. I would not assume you will need to EQ up what looks low on the audiogram. I have some mild noise-induced hearing loss from 2-4kHz, the typical thing for a middle-aged dude who’s gone to a lot of concerts, had some occupational exposure, etc., and that notch does not correspond to a preference for more juice in that region. It’s not predictable, and if anything actually nearer the opposite (I usually like less 4k).

The TRRS connection on headsets, is it just me or does no one talk about the audio bleed from output to input over the ground wire? Every TRRS I’ve owned, even closed backs will bleed music and game sound to the mic while I’m on Discord.

Hello my fellow nerds, I have a hot take for a spicy hour if you find the this content interesting or you haven’t touched on too deep.

I have being munching on this ideas for a while:

:hot_pepper: The real endgame isn’t finding the ‘best’ frequency response. It’s using parametric EQ to cancel your own HRTF deviation from a standard, collapsing every headphone into the same perceptual target, and letting neuroplasticity do the rest. At that point, the transducer becomes irrelevant. You’re not buying sound anymore. You’re buying hardware to run a correction profile on.:hot_pepper:

second best:

:hot_pepper: If neuroplasticity requires at least weeks of uninterrupted exposure to recalibrate your auditory reference, and reviewers and hobbiest never give their brain that time, the entire headphone market is selling tonal diversity to ears that were never given the chance to normalize :hot_pepper:

1 Like

How about a discussion of live acoustic or mostly acoustic music and a discussion of how the best recordings of the same with playback via speakers or headphones is just a pale imitation.

Go a step further and discuss why.

Jazz, classical chamber or trio through sextet, piano or harp, folk, even vocal.
Dare you!

I’d love to hear about your tuning and EQ methodology in more detail - specifically issues I brought up in another discussion and also for establishing a good personal baseline / reference preference for the entire frequency range using commonly available tools and applicable to any headphone / IEM.

I’m aware of videos and discussions on the topic but I find they lack the nitty-gritty details and tips and tricks - regarding the methodology specifically.

Links to any good resources highly appreciated :folded_hands:

1 Like

Would like to hear something on this topic too.