Ehh, again, not exactly what I am talking about. It is “trust”, and trust is not an objective thing. I get what you are saying, but it simply doesn’t truly prove if a headphone is indeed uncolored in sound - these people are professional, so they find their own way about it, we are talking about sound, and that has more to do with the result with given tools (monitors and/or headphones)
You can look at it the other way around.
If a bunch of people master using the headphone and it doesn’t turn out the same as with studio monitors - what good is the claim of uncolored sound?
Absolutely, I like this point.
The argument is that these engineers are used to either very particular monitors or headphones. If you just give them these, you cannot compare years of work with their preferred equipment to 5 minutes of experience with the claimed uncolored headphones. This should be a fair argument, because they are more familiar with the equipment they used for years. Their ears adapted and they also probably know how it behaves in terms of sound.
Imagine if you don’t have the bias of long years of experience with using a certain product, you are just starting out. Imagine if you can do it the “correct” way and get used to the claimed uncolored headphone’s sound (even though professionals rarely rely on headphones solely), it would be a different thing - then they would be biased on using this uncolored headphone and would have a hard time using anything else, much like the example you stated above.
Which also means, since there will never be perfection once an engineer finds a monitor or headphone that they can map to the end sound they want, they don’t need another headphone.
A ‘more perfect’ headphone might flatten the learning curve for a new headphone though.
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Absolutely. But that doesn’t help me prove if this product lives up to its marketing.
Once an engineer gets used to a monitor/headphone, his ears lose their “virginity” as I like to call it. They are biased to their preferred product, this includes both the brain and ears.
It is like living in a house or a country for years and years, then all of a sudden you move into a new space - completely alien to you, things aren’t where you are used them to be, etc.
But this is a different case. I am talking about putting the claim to the test objectively, what we are discussing are subjective things - the user (engineer). I am talking about the sound signature and coloration which is a technical thing, as sound is an objective and technical thing (sound interpretation is a subjective thing though, sound and sound interpretation/perception are completely different)
So we’re back to the beginning.
The headphone has no value unless people listen to it.
Since you can’t know what people actually hear and experience you can’t make any absolute, universal statement about the headphone.
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This is why you exclude people from it, you focus on the equipment.
And I know this isn’t ideal, but you simply cannot make a headphone that is flat for individuals - as a manufacturer this wouldn’t be quite practical. As you can see from the video I attached, the frequency response from the headphone alters from the traveling distance of headphones to your ears, which means that you would individually have to tune the headphones to the individuals ears. That would be the only way to make a flat headphone for the user.
But I am trying to test whether the headphone is flat on its own. This is why you do not use headphones for sound engineering, you would need them to be custom made and tuned to specifically your ears.
My view is “flat on it’s own” either doesn’t exist or is irrelevant.
Maybe others will have something more helpful.
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It would be irrelevant in a way, mainly because this flat on its own frequency response gets distorted and altered by the time we actually hear it (watch the video I included), but it would be the only objectively “flat”. Our interpretation of this “flat” is the subjective part.
Would definitely be interesting to hear what others have to say, but you made some very valid and strong points
Maybe I misunderstand what you are saying here, but it seems to me you are talking around the “Circle of Confusion”:
There has been a lot of research by very knowledgeable people around this problem over the years and (arguably) the currently accepted best solution is using measurement gear with external pinnae like the Gras 43 and compensating to the Harman Target curve. Therefore the closer to the Harman Target the S4X measures, the “flatter” or more neutral the sound will be perceived. Yes the pinnae on the Gras is an average, but that’s as good as it gets right now without measuring it inside your own ear and closer to what you will hear as flat than using no pinnae at all.
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Yeah just keep in mind that the preference curve is a ‘kind’ of neutral. I know there’s some disagreement about this, but I highly suspect that the results would be different if they asked people “what do you think is neutral” rather than “what do you prefer”. I can see a reason why that outcome shouldn’t matter, but at the same time it would help explain some of the pushback the Harman target has received from the audiophile community.
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Product vendors generate normative distributions from real people, and the resulting values are always an average of the participants’ individual differences. Their sample may not correspond with certain subgroups either. Consumer products (e.g., Sony, Bose, Beats) are indeed intended to please the masses as either ‘average’ or ‘average for people with a strong bass preference.’
My work in progress (following my Utopia review) is to sketch out how the hardcore audiophile community could generate reliable perceptual and preference data to span the gap between subjectivity and ‘objectivity’ of a kind. It’s not new, but likely hasn’t been done because of the small market, no clear path to profit for vendors, and the need for methodological rigor.
[I’m about half done with my draft. The method required may suck the joy out of audio for some…]
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I am not sure whether that’s exactly what I am talking about.
If you watched the video you will see why this is potentially a very large problem. If you tune the headphone according to this GRAS 43 with external pinnae, the frequency of that headphone will be tuned to that very pinnae. If you tune the headphones, in my opinion it should be done on a measurement system without external pinnae, this ensures an unbiased frequency response. I don’t think that the Harman Taget curve would be something that you want to use to judge sound. Or maybe you do, I don’t know.
My point is that if you tune your headphones to have a flat frequency response, this frequency response will get distorted in a unique way in each persons ear, so they will be hearing an altered version of the original frequency response.
My main concern is for the sound signature to be as uncolored as possible. But maybe I am wrong, maybe flat frequency isn’t the definition of uncolored, maybe Harman Tagret is. I am not entirely sure.
Are you referring to the video I attached or?
I personally don’t think you need uncolored and flat freq. response to make good music. If you look at the best sound engineers, all of them have a much different preference in what monitors and loudspeakers they use. Yes, there are the so called “industry standards” but those are mostly followed by people who are starting out, the true professionals that have been engineering for several decades tend to have a very specific loudspeaker that they use to create music. This may be a reason why flat frequency response is completely irrelevant, but in my eyes Ollo Audio S4X may be one of the most uncolored headphones on the market - by this I mean the frequency response before it gets altered in our own ears, this should technically mean that it is a headphone that will be the “truest” even though the flat frequency response will get changed, it is much better than having a headphone with more imperfections in the frequency response.
And do note, I am just focusing on the frequency response because other aspects are impossible to see on the FR, and frequency response does show the coloration in the headphone itself.
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No, I just meant for the use of Harman to take a meaningful step out of the circle of confusion.
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I see what you mean, but it implies that the Harman curve was created based purely on listener preference.
Agreed but also “audiophile” products are intended to please the majority of those types of listeners as well. Neither is necessarily accurate to reproducing the original recording even though both may be marketed as doing so.
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I’ll do a full video on this at some point - because they did also consider many other targets as potential starting points. But yeah, it wouldn’t be incorrect to think of it primarily as a consumer preference curve.
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Now this, this is a completelyyy different subject. To be able to hear the original recording in the very bare way, you would have to be listening to the track on the exact same speakers/headphones as the engineer’s that were used to create it - this is not taking into consideration things such as the room (for loudspeakers this is important), nor volume that the track was made at. This is impossible - you would need to listen to each track on the individual setup that the engineer used… a very big challenge.
Look, the way I look at any audio products that are not meant for sound engineering (where it should be “accurate” and unbiased), is that they are aimed at a very specific group of people. Audiophile products are made for people who find a match of the product’s sound signature and performance and their personal preference. What pleases the majority (now I am talking about people who aren’t in the audiophile hobby, just people who want a tool to listen to music (headphones, earphones, speakers), they just look for something that pleases their ears, and this is usually bass, non fatiguing highs, and okay mids will pull it off, most of the ears don’t even care too much about the mid-range, if the bass is thumping, it’s a pass.
This is just part of the issue – but on the right track for what ‘objective subjectivity’ requires in terms of methods and data. Microphones are mirror-image transducers, and their particular limitations color the sound of the instrument or voice as it’s used during recording. So, much of the ‘life’ of a live performance can be forever lost at the very start. Positioning mics (e.g., closely in front of a drum or speaker vs. capturing the room and echoes) is an art too. Studio engineers perform a lot of art to make it sound pleasing and cohesive, but it cannot reflect a God’s eye ground-truth of neutrality (which is meaningless to a listener).
The problem arises when people try to communicate in language. It quickly degenerates into flowery uncertainty or marketing-speak. Each person is a measuring device that’s never been calibrated and that lacks an easy way to be calibrated.
To address this I ask: “How well can you hear?” “Are you ears particularity sensitive in a specific range?” “Is your perception of loudness different than most other people?” Etc. Etc. Etc.
All of this can be assessed in formal research.
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Please do, because I don’t see it that way. My understanding is that it is based on a measured curve that research shows also matches listener preference. I don’t have access to the original papers so I have to go off of what I read from people who should know, oratory1990 being the main source of understandable information. Here’s a couple of his posts about this:
“Now if we measure a headphone on that same artificial head and the headphone were to have the same frequency response that we measured in the room, then this frequency response would be ideal, or so Sean Olive proposed. And further research proved that he was right, the majority of both trained and untrained listeners prefer this target curve over any other target curve.”
"is the Harman Target Curve more like a simulation to the sound of the loundspeakers in the studio, or a preference result of most people?
in short:
both, those things are not exclusive."
I believe the 2013 curve is based on matching listener perception with headphones to flat measuring speakers in a good room. The 2018 curve added more listener preference to that, mostly in the bass region. But I am perfectly open to being wrong here and would really like to know if I am.
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