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tim-405 t1_j21em1n wrote

Reply to comment by TheFrator in I don't get the "frequency response graph" thing. by ICrySaI

>So how a headphone looks on its FR, and how it is perceived by the individual, is totally subjective.

I find this highly debatable. First of all as the study points out the individual hrtf is basicly the same as the mean up until 2khz for open ear canal and 5khz for blocked ear canal. This means that at least the bass and mid frequencies are perceived the same. Which you can also see on your picture where the lines basicly deviate 1db up or down at worst, thus we can say based on the just noticable difference for sound (1db) the stimulus is pereceived the same. Above 2khz and 5khz the difference get's larger but still when you look at the right graph which shows the individual hrtf variations for +-1 std are still very low (+-1.5db variation for ~70% of the people) under 7/8khz. Above that deviation get's quite big but that is also the area where tweeters stop to play, music has less content and hearing loss starts to become very frequent. Thus the importance of that is debatable imo.

It really depends on how noticable amplitude change is perceived to be but based on the known theory and my own experience I would say that for at least the majority of the people most headphone will sound the same, differences probably will be in perceived treble levels which other research also proofs (treble sensitivity etc.).

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TheFrator t1_j21lhn0 wrote

I know this is an anecdotal example so feel free to dismiss my following subjective impression.

The Meze 109 Pro is lauded and praised by many reviewers and people in the headphone community. I found its treble to be way too hot and I couldn't comfortably listen to more than 1.5 songs with it. This anecdote ties into the sentence you conclude with

> most headphone will sound the same, differences probably will be in perceived treble levels which other research also proves (treble sensitivity etc.).

My experience with the 109 differs from most. And it sounds different to me than it does to someone else.

If you think that any given headphone will sound the same to everyone who tries it, then we disagree and I'm not budging on this point. I don't mean to come across as stubborn or anything but there is not a single headphone that everyone agrees to sound the same. Sure there are general trends e.g. DT990 is bright, but how much a headphone is enjoyed will vary from person to person.

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tim-405 t1_j21rhhu wrote

>My experience with the 109 differs from most. And it sounds different to me than it does to someone else.

Let me first start of saying that what you're hearing is not wrong, I 100% believe you. This is important because the reason you hear what you hear could have in my opinion based on what I know about this topics and what I read could have 2 reasons. The first is your hrtf doesn't match with the mean as pointed out in the paper we're talking about; you literally hear different.

The other reason is probably that you are used to other headphones which have a different response and because the meze probably has more highs than the other headphone you perceive it as too much highs. This means that the error is not that you hear different meaning (e.g. you have a different hrtf which was the point I was making) but that you are used to other headphones or just have a different preference. Comparing the Meze to the headphones in your flair seem to confirm that it indeed has more treble meaning the target represents your hrtf probably pretty well.

Really my point is that we are (most of the time, 80%+ of the people) not hearing differently but that we have different preferences (or known/used to targets), this is also supported in the harman target research paper which pointed out that some people like more bass and some less highs. This means in short (in my scientific based opinion at least) that if we both listen to a pair of dt990's after having listened to hd650's for a good while (so it is our definition of neutral and our only audible memory of a reference) that we both would think the dt990 is a bright sounding headphone and not still have different ratings because our ears are literally different.

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TheFrator t1_j221dsu wrote

> but that you are used to other headphones or just have a different preference.

100% true. I prefer dark headphones and EQ in treble to taste / mood / genre.

> Really my point is that we are (most of the time, 80%+ of the people) not hearing differently but that we have different preferences (or known/used to targets),

I can get behind an 80/20 weighting of preference to literally hearing different. I'm still holding onto a shard of hearing differently because I don't know how some people can listen to Beyerdynamics (990 and 1990) even after testing headphones with different signatures. They both pierce my soul haha.

It'd be cool to be a participant in that study and get our own HRTF profile.

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tim-405 t1_j223s7p wrote

>I can get behind an 80/20 weighting of preference to literally hearing different. I'm still holding onto a shard of hearing differently because I don't know how some people can listen to Beyerdynamics (990 and 1990) even after testing headphones with different signatures. They both pierce my soul haha.

As I said in my first post it is not entirely clear how that is perceived by all people. But I know from reading Floyd Toole's book and doing some research, because I also find this rather facinating (Why do people love speakers/headphones with ear piercing highs?). That hearing loss could also be a potential reason why some people seemingly enjoy it, besides what is already stated see here for example noise induced hearing loss 'notches' https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Audiograms-showing-onset-and-progression-of-noise-induced-hearing-loss-First-a-notch_fig3_264555852. Which quite coincedently are exactly around the treble peak of a beyer headphone... With normal hearing loss it also kind of acts like a low pass on the sound making the highs less audible; https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Age-related-hearing-loss-according-to-the-International-Organization-for-Standardization_fig1_338597788

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goldfish_memories t1_j21pbap wrote

For IEMs, changing the insertion depth changes not only the resonance peak but also the treble frequencies by 3-5db. That's why the Z1R treble is so divisive. I believe crinacle or some other reviewers have the measurements for that.

For over ears, anecdotally my left and right ear HRTF is different enough I can hear the difference between them when doing frequency sweeps.

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