So now I know that:

1. frequency response doesn't actually tell you anything.
2. oh wait, actually frequency response tells you literally everything you could possibly want to know.
3. but yeah no actually it doesn't really tell you anything lol

cool...

>Soundstage, detail, imaging, dynamics, transients; what do they actually mean? Again, no solid definition, and again, people perceive these differently.

yes but those are the things that I cannot tune myself, so those are the things I am most interested in.

If I buy new headphones and it has too much bass for my liking, I can lower the bass with EQ, problem solved. If I buy new headphones with bad imaging or soundstage then tough luck, I'm stuck with that.

and frequency response is just as subjective as any other metric. I know reviewers don't base their opinions entirely on the graph, but it's what they show and what they explain "sound quality" with.

yeah ok but why? you haven't addressed any of the points I mentioned.

from the fr graph you can guess at things like muddyness or clarity or whatever but ultimately they are guesses. from what I heard there are headphones with wild looking graphs that sound great and headphones with smooth level graphs that suck.

so sure, fr is important, but why?

ok so what does that actually mean? :D

I kinda get you but those things don't really only depend on fr.

you can have two headphones with equally elevated bass where one is muddy and the other is not. same with treble.

or am I dumb?

That might be true but I'm more interested in the aspects of a headphone I cannot change, since those are ultimately what will decide if I like it or not.

And for an audiophile audience who spend thousands on audio equipment I really don't think fiddling with a few sliders to make their stuff sound better should be too much.

Thanks for your explanations :D

I would say with the 10$ buds the instruments are harder to separate, you can't quite "pick out an instrument to listen to". Idk if that makes sense. The detail in the sound might be lost and it just generally sounds "bad"

Kinda like how a low quality file can make music sound bad, except in that case I understand why and how and in this case I don't. If I had to guess it's how accurately the driver reproduces the actual signal it's given. But again I don't know, that's why I'm asking.

I get that but I do use EQ, so when looking at reviews I'm more interested in the stuff I can't change about a headphone, not the stuff I can.

thanks