Need help understanding my treble sensitivity - is it just me?

To make a long story short, I have discovered over the years that I am sensitive to bright treble, and lately I feel like I'm a weirdo or something. Where I read such (pun intended) glowing reviews of various headphones, amps, and DACs, where peoples' experiences are raving about the treble region's clarity, detail, airiness, and otherwise sounding natural and amazing, when I hear such products myself I can't help but feel like I'm crazy. Often times, to my experience, some of these components are outright unlistenable to me.

Historically, I have always been one to considerably cut treble frequencies in EQ, whether in my car sound systems, speaker-based systems, or headphones. Going to audio events, car audio SQ competitions, and the like, I have always been put off by what is universally considered as "reference" sound. It just sounds harsh and completely unnatural to me.

Perfect example was yesterday. I went to audition some headphones to compare against my LCD-X (2021), including the Focal Clear Mg, HifiMan HE1000se, and HifiMan Arya Organic. Reading so many user impressions, professional reviews, etc. suggested to me that these were truly remarkable headphones with incredible detail and clarity while also sounding so accurate to recordings..........WHAT?!?

Aside from the Clear Mg, which I truly did enjoy (just not as much as my LCD-X), the HifiMan sound was extremely bright - the HE1000se were egregious in their treble frequency response, utterly unlistenable, and I could not enjoy the wonderful spaciousness because of it. I will, however, say that the Arya Organics were truly fantastic, but again, I still could not get over the plastic-like sound and brightness of the treble. It was a HUGE improvement over the HE1000se, but still nowhere near my preferences.

Am I weird? I just don't get why I am not enjoying these things like so many others clearly do.

 

Nah you just know what you like. Have you heard any ZMFs? So far the only headphones, short of modded HD650, that I truly enjoy the treble presentation on.

 

We're all weirdos in this hobby. What you like is what you like. I also think that generally reviews are useless. Unless they are from someone who has the same preferences as you do and there's a history there. Other than some people here and a couple real life dudes I know, I need to hear it myself. I think material is a huge factor as well. Are we listening to classical ? Brickwalled modern metal or pop ? Old school 60's 70's 80's albums recorded analogue and impeccably regardless of genre ? Or anything in between. Dacs make a huge difference as well as source (CDT, Streamers, etc.)

I have major treble dislikes as well and hate brightness but love the clarity and openness and "detail retrieval" you can get all that without bright phones IMO.

 

Are you a young guy?

I used to be super treble sensitive, but give it a couple decades and hey now I think Grados aren't so bad after all *shrug*.

 

Relieving, I guess! I have never had the opportunity to hear any ZMFs, though there seems to be consensus that they do treble very well. Hoping I get a meet up chance to try them.

 

Agree on the material side of things - Audeze and Hifiman are both planars, but the materials present things very differently in the treble regions. Likewise, I had a decent range of genres during my auditioning, covering well recorded prog, some more aggressive metal, female vocals, and live instrumentals - regardless of the genre or quality of track, I was clearly noticing the treble "issues" with the Aryas. And for DACs, agree as well - I'm getting some more exposure to different DACs, and am discovering that I don't think I like AKM/ESS-based DS DACs very much. I definitely need to get a taste of the R2R sound.

 

I'm 37, so not young but not old either (right?.....RIGHT???)

 

Old enough that you won’t have to wait too long.until treble is “just right” and then on to “lacking somewhat.”

 

It’s the same for me. I love my Clear Mg for exactly this reason, and like you, I can’t stand the treble reproduction of Hifiman headphones that sounds completely unnatural to me.

Not sure if it’s the same for you, but I don’t mind high treble—the Clear Mg has rather strong high treble >10k, and I hear that as wonderful air and space. It’s the region roughly around 6-8k that bothers me, and what many Hi-Fi headphones (not only Hifiman) are doing in this region sounds massively overblown to my ears, not like real instruments at all.

The HD650 sounds good to me (I personally don’t find it very special, but the FR is ok). So do all Focal headphones I heard including the Utopia 2022 (didn’t ever hear the Utopia OG or the Clear OG). At least under meet conditions, I was completely blown away by the ZMF Caldera and the Abyss Diana Phi. Maybe these are options you could have a look at.

 

I concur with others' opinions here regarding dismissing reviews in preference to auditioning headphones yourself if you can.
Reviews are 99% subjective anyway and what works for one usually doesn't necessarily work for another.
The fact that you are sensitive to higher frequencies just means certain headphones aren't going to do it for you.

It's also the primary reason I offer a loan-cable service. I would MUCH rather prefer that people try out my cables in their system before committing to buying them in order to make absolutely sure that there is a good synergy between their components, cables and ears!
(It's currently only available in NL, sorry)

Hence my advice - screw everyone else's opinion. Audition audition audition and define your own acceptance criteria for what makes a great-sounding headphone.

 

Totally agree - I have exactly the same treble sensitivity. Gotta agree with Sparda here too - ZMF does treble best imo. The Verite Opens are perfect, to my ears. Audeze CRBN's pretty good too.
Also, thanks for the heads-up on the LCD-X as a planar that fits the bill. I'll have to give it a listen sometime, see how it compares with my 6XX.
Bottom line is, rest assured, it's not just you!

 

So much of perception happens in the brain rather than the sensory organs, so there's plenty to go astray or differ.

I have a bunch of sensory nopes, which have become vastly worse after Covid did a number on my brain, it's a real thing that you often can't do much about. Hard to get that hardware replaced, too. It's not at all weird to have preferences based on avoiding stuff that bothers you.

At least shouty treble is one that you can address now you know it bugs you, with smart choice of gear. It's often worth ascertaining the preferences of anyone whose subjective opinion you're paying attention to. If you triangulate people with taste similar to yours, it can save time when gathering impressions and making decisions. Sometimes you can't get hold of a loaner or schedule some listening and need to try to partly rely on impressions, so look for people with some actual consistency and work out what their tastes are, rather than listening to the dopamine hype-cycle of tin-eared headfiers.

Not liking overly-harsh treble is common enough that you should find plenty of resources to avoid it. Even just overly-clinical treble can put some people off, let alone the Beyer's remorse middle finger in the upper-mids of the FR graph (that sounds like an icepick after a few minutes).

Personally, I'm happy with neutral-ish, but if it has to veer, would prefer it a bit warm compared to piercing, just for comfort.