Yes, for worse. EQing past just one or two frequency ranges by just a few Dbs will always have bad results in my experience. Also EQing produces effects some people are more sensitive to, specially digital EQing. Just research it up. Also, trying to make the driver act in a way it doesn't want to can results in distortions elsewhere, clipping and other problems. I tried EQing in many ways, in many headphones, I don't like the effects over just listening to headphones as they are, I find they always produce the best they can the way they come, a small EQ bump here or there may be fine, but from my experience anything more than that produces worst results every single time, that is my experience with it.

Why would that be bad? I your headphones has minor problems in a few frequency ranges a 3-4db EQs are all you need to get it to the desired sound signature, i myself got a 3,4db bass boost and a 3,6db 2khz boost on my 800S, it doesn't make a huge difference but it makes them fit my preferences more closely without completely chanign the sound signature, if you do it in the right way and tastefully i don't see a problem with this

Yes. While most things that people consider technical performance is hard to pinpoint and not something you can simply EQ in most of the time, you can affect how headphones sound quite drastically with EQ. Usually in the case of headphones that may sound "muddy or low resolution". Changing the sound signature with EQ can make them sound "detailed" or "faster" if we're going by those types of terms.

How much EQ? A little boost in the low frequencies or something to that effect will have no real negative affects.

I find eq'ing mostly effects slower drivers like dynamics. For faster drivers like planar's, I find the technical performance isn't effected nearly as much because it can account for more demanding loads. If you, for example, boost the midbass on a DD too much, it can run into issues with mud due to how much more air it has to push, lowering the precision of higher frequency notes. That being said, eq'ing too much of anything can present quality issues, it mostly depends on how much eq you're applying.

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I typically use EQ on most of my headphones to get the tonality I want but there are some oddities I've experienced when doing so that aren't exactly technical performance changes though they do have an impact on enjoyment. Auto EQ is my go to but Harman target doesn't sound good on some headphones. I can't stand it on my LCD-XC but it sounds great on my Ora graphene Q, both of which measure very close to Harman once auto EQ is applied. Another issue I've had is some amps distort the bass when I use a bass shelf but some don't.

Digital EQ is far cleaner in terms of distortion and phasing than analog EQ. By the way, human hearing is rather insensitive to phase unless it's really pushed to produce an effect.

In fact, EQ, as well as other DSP, is applied in all active headphone and speaker implementations to produce performance characteristics that many passive counterparts would struggle to achieve by electro-mechanical means.

We've even got a database of EQ settings, maintained by a professional acoustic engineer, for thousands of different headphones, earphones and IEMs designed to put them into compliance with a very well researched, industry standard, target frequency response curve:

AutoEQ is a project for equalizing headphone frequency responses automatically, and it achieves this by parsing frequency response measurements and producing equalization settings which correct the headphone to a neutral sound. This project currently has over 4000 headphones covered in the results folder.

Can a headphone be overdriven by EQ into audibly distorting? Of course, it can. However, if it is under the circumstances that we're concerned with, which is correcting to a target, then its got quality control issues to begin with and is a poorly designed product I'd avoid purchasing.

The improvement from the EQ itself usually outweighs the performance lost for me. I'm sure I'm definitely introducing distortion, but at that point I just don't really care.

If the headphone's tuning is so egregiously wrong that I have to do wide >5db adjustments, then maybe it lets me hear what the headphone is doing better.

Usually though, no. You're just changing the input signal, not how the headphone driver reacts to that signal. Sometimes the headphone even gets worse with EQ because it brings out more distortion.

There is no technical aspect that tonality doesn't change the perception of. For many the tuning is the biggest part.

This

cough cough 1990 treble spike. Soundstage sounds more closed in but honestly, it might just be all that ‘air’ that was gone by reducing the 8kHz peak. In terms of tonality though, it sounds so much better.

It depends on the headphone driver of how much EQ it can handle before the driver is over driven. The another issue is phasing with EQ, not all drivers like eq on some parts.
You can add perceived detail by increasing the treble, fake widen the soundstage with lowered lower mids then a little upper mid boost.

Instructions unclear. Cant vote.

where is the ''it depends'' option? every headphone and speaker driver reacts differently to eq. Some take eq really wenn while others do not. thats not an ''unsure'' oppinion but ''it depends''

>Also, trying to make the driver act in a way it doesn't want to

Please, not this quote again, I don't know if I should laugh or cry. Probably both.

You're simply changing the amplitude of a frequency, just like when you lower or higher your volume. You're not making the drivers go sideways or whatever you now believe EQ does.

If you're just EQing to fit your ears, like adjusting minute upper mids energy, treble peaks etc it doesn't really affect performance, maybe the soundstage suffers a bit but that's it. I've found that, however, playing with the bass REALLY impacts performance, adding just a few dBs will drastically change the details and characteristics of the mids. Usually I EQ the bass only when playing at very low volumes, and turn it off when listening during daytime at normal volumes

I similarly think the 7hz Timeless sounds like shit targeted to Harman. But I really like it on the HD 800, both because it tamps down some harsh treble and gives the bass presence.

Yea, e. g. if you lower treble frequencies most likely the soundstage will get smaller, details are also harder to pick out of the mix if the treble is on a lower volume. Imaging is also kind of dependent on treble frequencies in my experience. Tactility is probably one of the things that I haven't noticed changing too much, because it is more of a "technical ability" of the driver itself.

However, most headphones tonalities benefit massively from EQ, so I am not too concerned about the negatives. Some headphones shouldn't be EQ'd too much though in my opinion, e. g. the HD800 and HD800S lose much of their "speciality" (their massive soundstage and fantastic imaging) if you lower the treble volume too much.