$99 fixed the hd800 (subjectively for me)

Discussion in 'Headphones' started by Ice-man, May 8, 2016.

  1. Ice-man

    Ice-man Friend

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    That's pretty much it.
     
  2. Hrodulf

    Hrodulf Prohibited from acting as an MOT until year 2050

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    Well, yea? You can't really do much else digitally. We're a company which has devised a way to reliably measure headphones and developed a target curve, which makes them tonally like a neutral pair of speakers in a well treated room. The DSP engine behind the plug-in was built from ground up, so it doesn't add more than is needed to the overall sound.

    We do introduce frequency domain changes, but I wouldn't call it an EQ. It's more of a filter engine. EQ's usually involve an interface where the user has to tweak something. Our's is a more set-and-forget affair.
     
  3. AKG701

    AKG701 New

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    Any discount planned/to expect in the future ? I'm interested but 99€ is too big of a step for me.
     
  4. murphythecat

    murphythecat GRU-powered uniformed trumpkin

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    I removed my sd resonator with sonarworks as I find it made the sound hollow. hard to describe but I didnt like the combination
     
  5. TRex

    TRex Almost "Made"

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    Sonarworks + Valhalla 2 is a very bad combination for stock HD800. Treble happy with almost no air, super dry vocal; just not coherent. SonarWorks + Mojo is way better. But then, HD800+Valhalla 2 without Sonarworks is even better.
     
  6. RonShaun

    RonShaun New

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    @Hrodulf I'd like to know, if possible, what Sonarworks' flat target curve is or looks like, and if you're not allowed to tell anyone for business reasons, could you at least describe any peaks or curves that might exist in it or, even better, maybe say what target curves it's similar to (Harman Target, B&K target etc.)? I really want to make an attempt to create my own Sonarworks-esque EQ since my headphones don't exist on the compatible headphones list.
     
  7. murphythecat

    murphythecat GRU-powered uniformed trumpkin

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    have you tried using sonarworks around 70%
    100% for me is too much, but 70% is pretty perfect.
    I also sometime prefer listening hd800 without sonarworks, I alternate. Both ways allow me to hear different things in a album.

    interestingly, it took me a couple of months to really enjoy listening without sonarworks. at firs I found hd800 way to bright without eq, now I find them much more bearable.
     
  8. TRex

    TRex Almost "Made"

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    Yes, I tried many percentage settings - none of them works well with valhalla 2. I think it's the tubes; they aren't really neutral.
     
  9. k1arg

    k1arg Facebook Friend

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    Other than the obvious solution of sending your headphones to be calibrated, I guess that you could get a very rough idea by taking a screenshot of the sonarworks before, target and correction curves and superimposing it over a frequency response plot. For instance, the before curve for HD 800, when rotated a bit less than 10 degrees clockwise, matches up pretty closely with the (diffuse field) compensated FR curve from InnerFidelity (except ~11-12kHz). From there, looking at how much correction is applied gives some idea of the difference between the sonarworks flat target curve and a diffuse field curve. This would all be very rough, and working from highly smoothed plots, so not sure how well it would actually work.
     
  10. badf00d

    badf00d Friend

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    @Hrodulf - I bought the headphone edition, and definitely can't afford to send off headphones to Latvia for custom measurement. Any possibility you could offer "beta" profiles of headphones as you measure them (separate downloads, clearly marked as experimental), even if the sample isn't up to your standards? It would at least likely be an improvement, and eventually you have a big enough sample to promote it fully into the product.
     
  11. Hrodulf

    Hrodulf Prohibited from acting as an MOT until year 2050

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    It's rather similar to the Harman (rather - Olive, because Harman doesn't seem to be using it) curve. We developed it independently from Sean, but the end result was pretty similar.

    Sorry, man - we don't sell improvement, we sell consistency. The HD800 no-limits curve was a notable departure, because I wanted to see what would happen if we'd share it. Sharing undercooked stuff would mean extra adventure for our support guys and they have enough work as it is right now.

    Also - the measurement profiles are a way for us to protect our software from piracy. All of the files are fetched from our servers and are encrypted so they can only be used on your machine. It takes a lot of man-hours to create and test them, so we're not too keen on letting them float around freely. Wouldn't be fair to the engineering team.
     
  12. badf00d

    badf00d Friend

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    @Hrodulf - What about a measurement partner in the US?
     
  13. Hrodulf

    Hrodulf Prohibited from acting as an MOT until year 2050

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    Not my call to make, but currently the measurement routine isn't easy to outsource. It involves our homegrown equipment and software. With that said, if we ever change our minds this will be the first place we'll look.
     
  14. cizx

    cizx Friend

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    It's like every other post is a press release. ;)
     
  15. Hrodulf

    Hrodulf Prohibited from acting as an MOT until year 2050

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