doctor-gooch t1_iufchi4 wrote on October 30, 2022 at 10:08 PM

Reply to comment by Daprosy in Hifiman HE400SE Versus HD560S - Modestly Priced Madness by slooploop2

You can’t expect everyone buying a headphone to EQ or even know about EQ.

Remember; the point of reviewing isn’t supposed to be giving you or anyone validation for liking or not liking things. It’s to give feedback to brands on how to improve their product and information to consumers on what the headphone will be like in use. EQ doesn’t really make sense for either of those things.

I understand you probably like your headphones with EQ, but reviewing a headphone with EQ isn’t defensible IMO. It closes the gap in performance and gives brands more of a handicap than they ought to have, and is overly forgiving to a product experience that will likely be worse for the end users than it would be for a reviewer with a measurement rig + EQ.

Fwiw oratory’s EQs are only usable up to like 4-5kHz anyway. EQ is a nuanced thing that wouldn’t even necessarily fix 400SE’s most glaring flaw (the treble).

Daprosy t1_iuhtya8 wrote on October 31, 2022 at 1:24 PM

People buying an open backed low sensitivity headphone that requires an amp to drive properly would know what EQ is I think. If this was a review on Apple air pods then fair enough, maybe they wouldn't.

The point of consumers reading reviews is to help them make an informed decision. If applying EQ to a headphone improves enjoyment or lessens some of the drawbacks of stock tuning it is fair for this to be mentioned in reviews. I didn't say that the review should only mention sound when EQ'd. If it doesn't improve enjoyment then that also is fair to say. Nothing dishonest about that IMO.

"Closing the gap in performance" - sounds like a positive thing for me, especially if it is free to do so.