MiniDSP EARS: Deriving SBAF compensations from MiniDSP files?

Discussion in 'Measurement Techniques Discussion' started by purr1n, Nov 7, 2018.

  1. WHO23

    WHO23 New

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    Just to clarify, Purr1n's compensation worked amazing for most of the headphones I measured (such as the DT1990, Verum 1, LCD-2).

    For me it was hard to gauge the treble quantity of diffuse field tuned headphones (such as the ADX5000) so I wanted to just compare them to my HD800S (which I use most often).

    So yeah Hands you're right that it's useless for anyone else who don't have the HD800S (edited my previous post to clarify)

    ATH-ADX5000: Purr1n's 1.1 Compensation (Blue) vs Tweaked Compensation (Red)
    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Jul 11, 2019
  2. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    The bass could be tricky. I have x2 EARS and the material seems all so slightly different leading to different levels of seal. Another factor might also how individuals set their headphones upon the EARS.
     
  3. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Also, the area around 2-4kHz (pinna) gain also can be affected by placement and clamping force. Lots of factors.

    I tend to use a light to moderate clamp, and place headphones a bit toward the front and down like how I use them.

    I do fluff the pads... That sounds bad.
     
  4. WHO23

    WHO23 New

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    That's true, I struggled getting consistent measurements on headphones with angled pads. On that note, it's cool that Sennheiser chose to angle the drivers on the cups instead of just using angled pads so the soundstage is more consistent (when repositioning).
     
  5. Hands

    Hands Overzealous Auto Flusher - Measurbator

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    Diffuse field tuned headphones makes no sense. It'll sound how it sounds on your head. You need a HRTF comp curve specific to headphones for all headphone measurements.
     
  6. WHO23

    WHO23 New

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    Yeah I realised I may have misled some people by not stating what I wanted to do. I didn’t want to compare headphones to speakers. I just wanted to do a compensation so that I can use to help me compare headphones to the HD800S.

    I did this because that the treble on the HD800S my threshold for bright headphones so I don’t over EQ the them. This shenanigan actually started because I was trying to EQ the Ether Flow 1.1.
     
    Last edited: Jul 11, 2019
  7. Biodegraded

    Biodegraded Friend

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  8. WHO23

    WHO23 New

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    Ah great for the heads up. This is exactly what I was looking for. Sorry if I caused some confusion; I just started the headphone hobby not too long ago and i'm still reading up.
     
    Last edited: Jul 12, 2019
  9. wadec22

    wadec22 Almost "Made"

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    okay.... I know I have to be making this harder than it is, but I am struggling like hell lol. I am trying to apply Marv's SBAF compensation to my MiniDSP curve. In notepad, I can't pull out one column. So I copy pasted to Excel, used "Text to Columns", then I can manipulate the column with a formula. The issue is then getting it back into Notepad in proper format. What is the easiest way to pull that off? Losing my mind....
     
  10. Lyander

    Lyander Official SBAF Equitable Empathizer

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    Copy paste the column back into the .txt file? Sounds like literally what I did when applying the same, just copy the text in excel as values and not cell content since those would be formulae. Things were slightly skewed in the pad so I had to manually realign them; I don't think it made a difference with results but knowing they were off bothered me :))
     
  11. Vtory

    Vtory Audiophile™

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    Not sure which sw you're using, but both tab-delimited and space-delimited texts work for REW as far as I remember. Seems it simply uses generic csv loading function internally.. Don't worry too much about the original formatting.
     
  12. wadec22

    wadec22 Almost "Made"

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    thanks. i'll have to try again tomorrow. i think i was worried about the spacing and the cells being tabled or something but now that you say it, I don't think notepad would take the formatting so should have worked. vodka/tonic made me too lazy to try it tonight :) few good songs and i'm off to bed.
     
  13. wadec22

    wadec22 Almost "Made"

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    @Vtory @Lyander thanks guys. got it working. i just needed to take the last step.

    looks pretty good! only real flaw seems to be how the unit still either shows a peak or dip at 4.5khz with pretty much every headphone. super annoying. i wonder if the new units are still doing this..
     
  14. Lyander

    Lyander Official SBAF Equitable Empathizer

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    Glad you got it working! Yeah took a while for me to understand what to do with the txt files but it was pretty easy-ish once I got my feet out under me. Looking forward to your measurements!

    The silicone pinnae really are that weird, it's why I messed around with the EARS to place the mics flush with the canal opening for a bit so I'd have not-entirely-flat plates. The impulse response squiggles looked leagues better as did CSDs, but honestly I wanted to preserve the ability to measure IEMs so I reset to default position for a bit (subsequently killing the one mic via drowning in Dynamat Xtreme but that's beside the point).
     
  15. Azimuth

    Azimuth FKA rtaylor76, Friend

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    I am confused. And pardon my ignorance, I am still learning ARTA.

    Do you enter your compensation on the left side and on the right calculates a new compensation?

    However, in ARTA, there is a place for your mic compensation as well as loading a target response. I mean, guess you could combine both, but why would you do that?

    And so this new file created would be the mic compensation, which is both the mic compensation as well as the target response? or just the target response?
     
  16. Azimuth

    Azimuth FKA rtaylor76, Friend

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    I wanted to clarifiy my question is to do with the Google Docs sheet.

    Do you enter your compensation on the left side and on the right calculates a new compensation?

    I am just trying to figure out the best way to use this.
     
  17. Philimon

    Philimon Friend

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    Hey rtaylor76, glad to see you’ll be sharing measurements. Sorry, cant help with ARTA - I’ve only tried REW.
     
  18. Philimon

    Philimon Friend

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    Oh, that... I don’t use spreadsheets irl so I had a rough time myself. @Lyander and @Biodegraded helped me. I eventually figured it out enough to add minor tweaks later but I’m still too lost to help much.
     
  19. Azimuth

    Azimuth FKA rtaylor76, Friend

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    I will certainly try REW again. Last I tried it seemed too complicated. ARTA is very easy to get going. It is also free, but yo have to pay for a license to save.

    And yes, I reached out to @Biodegraded and was a great help. Since I have HD650 and 600 I will check those first and see where my EARS or my flat plane project lands and we shall see. Once I get consistent results with the right calibration & compensation, I can get to sharing and modding.
     
  20. kee7a

    kee7a New

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    How have the EARS been holding up? I'm not seeing much recent activity in the thread, but have people been using them? I've thought about getting one for a while as a learning tool / something nice to use when I want to measure some headphones, but I've seen a lot of mixed opinions about accuracy and usefulness. Any thoughts or opinions?
     

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