Neutral(ish) headphones [Continuous poll]

I understand the theme of this thread ... But in the digital domain it is possible to make just about any headphone perfectly flat (if that is your definition of neutral) by using the Sonarworks VST plugin. And then realise that a flat response is only a small part of the music appreciation experience and generally sounds very wrong.

 

Well, that is a good question. What is neutral? Is it a perfectly flat response? If I remember from my readings (a while back mind you), people tend to prefer a flat in room response with speakers, but headphones that measure completely flat, and I haven’t seen any that do, don’t sound right. So what does neutral sound mean in a headphone? I know it when I hear it, I think, but I’m not sure if I can describe it exactly in words. Any one want to give it a try?

Edit: I should have said a flat in room bass response. Not a totally flat response at all frequencies.

 

This thread is great. Thank you for all the discussion.

Just want to add that I agree with various others here about adding modded headphones to the list, well maybe in a separate list along with a link to their respective thread maybe. I feel like some modded offerings can sound pretty damn close to what we're seeking that it would be a shame not to include them in this thread. Some can be modded on one's own quite easily for cheap even.

This is going to be a big help to newcomers (like me), too, to have a table-of-content-like list for them to read more. I mean I had to scour threads on here for a few weeks to know the existence of Code-X, why it's so great, and what does it derive from. This thread will be a huge time saver for them. Just my two cents.

Well crap, this is going to be quite a big task for the OP if he's up for it, isn't it? You have my best wishes.

 

When I was still collecting headphones my emphasis was on headphones with a reputation for use in the studio and/or neutral-ish sound. After a while I gave up. I ended up with things like DT48s and vintage headphones no one knew.

After getting rid of most headphones I was just happy to enjoy the music. The quest for neutral-ish sound is one with many disappointments. When you find that one neutral-ish headphone you like, get a tube amp for a bit of fun.

 

1 - Recordings are all over the place in terms of tonal balance. What sounds neutralish/balanced for a set of recordings might not sound neutralish for a different set of recordings.

2 - Our perception of tonal balance changes with volume so what's neutralish for a listener playing tracks at 65-70dB SPL average might not be that neutralish at 85-90dB SPL average.

I think the thread has some potential to be useful, but without a better framework you might end up adding each and every headphone short of the most coloured ones. To say something is true to the source you really need to know how the source sounds on a reference system which might or might not exist strictly speaking. People with different reference of (let alone guessing) how the source should sound will point in different directions.

Saying "headphone X sounds neutralish/well balanced to me with this set of recordings, at these levels" makes sense. And it's something other people can replicate up to certain point (different DAC/Amps will still play a role here)

Saying "headphone X is neutralish because it sounds close to the JBL M2 on Harman's reference room" might be considered useful information if you happen to trust the listener and Harman's room. Same would apply to other reference speakers on professionally treated environments (maybe Grimm's LS1 on Studio Eleven - Hilversum, ...). By the way these reference systems might not sound exactly the same anyway. The problem with this aproach is that it's hardly replicable because only a few are able to hear these reference systems.

Saying "headphone X is neutralish because it sounds close to the (write your speakers here) / (LSR305 studio monitors) on my desk" is not very useful information in my view. It's still unprecise for various reasons and hardly replicable.

 

While I have a bit of functional knowledge in the fields of acoustics and psychoacoustics, I’m certainly not a scholar or professional, so please correct me if I’m wrong (and take the following with a grain of salt) -

I have a few theories as to why a given in-room frequency response on speakers is heard to be "correct" whereas the same response on headphones might sound "incorrect" -

Low- and mid-frequency spectral decay would likely be much more sustained in a room than that found in headphones, given that a headphone housing's resonant properties cannot possibly match that of a room many hundreds of times larger.

The air pressure fluctuation (sound) produced by speakers is coupled with the air, which produces a damping effect that is variable across the frequency spectrum. Lower frequencies have much more energy behind them and thus the air takes much longer to reach equilibrium within a closed acoustic environment.

Bodily conduction of air pressure fluctuations via speakers in a room also likely influences the perception of tonal balance. This is almost entirely absent from all headphones to a large extent, unless you’re using something with uber-magnets and high diaphragm tension like the HE-6 (your head will conduct some of the energy at lower frequencies and higher volumes, but your torso is still totally uninvolved). Since you literally have more tactile feedback with lower frequencies in an open environment, it seems probable your tonal perception might be tilted towards the low-end with speakers.

Phase and amplitude differentials (which are a big part of the perception of spatialization and tonality) can also only truly manifest in accordance with HRTF when the sound is coupled with open air in a live acoustic environment. When directly coupled to the head, independent channels can play completely out of phase material and still be clearly audible. This is why highly localized deep bass is only possible in headphones, and why some tracks sound as if the bass is slightly off-balance towards the left or right (though heard to be perfectly centered on speakers). Both constructive and destructive phase interferences are more likely to occur (and at lower frequencies) in an acoustic space with a deeper resonance than that found in headphones.

Phase interactions between speakers in a room are also additionally complicated given that speakers have polar patterns that are variable across the frequency spectrum, leading to greater or lesser interference within an acoustic space before it is perceived by the listener. These relationships are more complex and sensitive to physical adjustment as the frequency increases, and thus some coloration may occur in a more dramatic fashion with speakers in a room. Reflected sound can even interact with the direct sound itself or the following sound coming from a speaker (which couldn't be measured just with FR), whereas these reflections are much shorter lived (and the resonance is at a much higher frequency) within a headphone housing, which is possibly why some perceive a fatiguing quality in the upper register with so-called "face tweeters".

Basically, an in-room speaker system at any given FR would likely be perceived as bassier, less sibilant, and have less glare in the presence region than a headphone with similar FR measurement.

EDIT: @Marvey corrected me about how flat-measuring in-room speakers would sound (very bright) with a reference to an AES article. My initial post was incorrect, so thank you for pointing this out. That being said, I would still be curious if my above theories might apply to a comparison of tonal perception between headphones and speakers sharing similar FR measurements. I've edited the post to correct the misinformation.

 

Jude (admin at head-fi) made an interesting post with proof that "HD800S has added second order distortion in the bass to thicken it up" is just an urban myth and not true. According to Jude:

 

HD800S is a tricky headphone. Many would actually consider it to be neutral, at least around here (in Europe). Maybe in a similar manner a lot people in Asia would call Audio-Technicas neutral? Not sure but I have decided to include HD800S in the poll to stick with the rules of this thread. Not only allegro feels and described the headphone as neutral but I suspect others could be found around here with the same opinion. I am actually interested in how they will fare in the poll - they should receive little votes anyway if SBAF members in general do not feel they are neutral(ish) enough. If they do though, it would imply opinions can be more scattered on SBAF than what would seem to be the case.

At this point, consider the nominated headphones (with listed impressions) simply as official candidates with opinions from different members provided in a useful, to-the-point manner. The voting poll then ultimately displays how SBAF feels about the candidates. In other words, consider this thread to be a continuous journey rather than its expected end. (If needed, it is of course possible to take the best of this thread anytime in the future in order to create some sort of recommendation guide or whatever we may feel would be useful. I also have have the third post of this thread reserved for any final outcomes we may come with.)

Your notes on HD600 and PMx2 added, thanks!

I am hesitant to include modded headphones that are/were not offered as an official product for purchase (as a fully standardized package with predictable sound reproduction as well as measurements). There is an endless potential for different materials, different styles of mod implementation, different mod combinations or personal adjustments. IMHO, there is a large gap between purchasing an AudioZenith-modded PM2 headphone and visiting SBAF in order to try various mods on your HD650s... if you know what I mean?

Apart from the MSRP tiers, I could create another section for modded headphones. That being said, I would like to avoid having 5 different mod variants of HD650 or HD800 included. I have experience with mods myself but wanted to focus on headphones people all around the world could hear and vote for. (Which I feel is not really the case with custom mods in practice.)

So maybe if you guys are able to agree on one particular modified version (of HD650, HD800, ...) that would represent what SBAF feels is best, it could be added.

What do you think?

P.S. for obsiCO: I will think about what else could be added to improve information value of this thread even more. Feel free to suggest if you have some particular ideas.

As per the original post of this thread, I am intentionally making sure not to suggest neutrality is only about frequency response. For the same reason, I am not posting frequency response graphs in this thread but rather linking the whole measurement threads/articles/PDFs.

Guys, love the detailed discussion, keep it up! That being said, I personally do not really expect this thread to solve all the mysteries and scientific challenges associated with the grand quest of finding out how neutral sounding headphones are technically defined. This thread just attempts to find out how SBAF members feel about this topic, provide some summary in terms of subjective impressions and quantifiable votings.

I just found that headphones that are IMHO closed to balanced/neutral just sound good with whatever music I throw at them while not-so-neutral headphones always tend to amaze with some genres and disappoint with others. What is supposed to sound bright sounds bright with balanced sounding headphones but not offensively so while rather darker-mastered music still sounds present and involving enough. Another way to look at it would be that my brain does not need to adjust a lot to neutralish headphones. They pretty much immediately sound agreeable to me (once I put headphone like PMx2 on my head and start playing some music) while I always needed at least 15 minutes (or even more) to get comfortable with something like LCD2 or HD800.

I am intentionally not defining any borderlines or rules on how to listen or assess headphones before posting/voting here because it is simply unrealistic to expect people to follow any such rules around here. This IMHO is not a place to do a controlled scientific study.

 

It's true, here in the country of Europe, we do, as a unitary whole, consider them neutral. It's hard to get to listen to them, though, as the cables are always getting tangled around the necks of our fine old stringed instruments (which we all play).

 

Here's the thing though, it's quite easy to confuse "neutral" with "natural" in this context, at least in the sense that headphones described as one or the other are capable of reproducing various types of music without tripping over themselves.

However, while I would be perfectly fine accepting something non-neutral to sound "natural" (i.e. reasonable balance with good decay, imaging, and speed) as per someone's subjective impressions, what is NEUTRAL can be verified through objective measurements with no room for guesswork or subjective impressions. Granted, there are various target curves to choose from and any deviation therefrom could disqualify something as neutral, but I think we're getting close enough to a consensus that a few dBs of difference between said curves can easily be (mentally) compensated for. The HD800/S was voiced using a DF curve, I think, which I believe many agree is a bit outmoded.

Oh, and people on here having differing opinions shouldn't come as a surprise to you, @Magnetostatic_Tubephile. Lots of people, even among the old guard, have their own preferences and occasionally disagree with one another. What's important on here is that each member be consistent in their preferences and impressions that others may be able to take the latter and understand the context of their evaluation. To say that ALL SBAF members should agree on how something sounds is... fascist. Hell, Marv loves the Klipsch HP3 while Tyll's impressions of the same are far less flattering.

Also, for those not in on the joke @Kattefjaes is referencing this one guy who said all Europeans play musical instruments and are better qualified than others to know the sound of live music. Forgot what their name was, but those were fun times.

 

Also, @Magnetostatic_Tubephile - turning text vomit-inducing colours isn't terribly useful. Don't forget that the site has two skins, a dark and a light, and specifying colours rather than letting the skin handle it tends to make things look like ass and be largely unreadable.

 

Honestly didnt know there are more themes available. I have re-done all my posts to make sure the text is readable on both skins. Let me know in case of further issues or suggestions!

I honestly do not think we are close enough with measurements. It is still guesswork, you cannot really say how particular headphone would sound solely based on measurements.

Various measurement standards, procedures and targets are followed among other issues. I do not even think we are measuring all parameters we could (and should) be measuring - FR, CSD and THD is not enough to get the whole picture. I mean, I could hardly describe how say MA900 and Edition X differ from each other based on available measurements... I do not think anybody could reliably do. (Please prove me wrong, I will gladly admit my mistake!)

Still, I find correlations between objective side (measurements) and subjective side (listening impressions) the most useful and thats why I include links to measurements in this thread.


I do not expect everyone to agree with each other, that is why I want to include opinions of various people with every headphone listed in the poll. That being said, the poll so far clearly shows that some headphones could be better candidates than some others. (I would say HD600,HD650 or PMx2 are safe choices that could help anybody to get a taste of what neutral could sound like even though they are not perfect.) And, at the same time, I for example do not expect HD800S to reach HD600 numbers based on what I have read on SBAF during the past months. So lets see what interesting points and outcomes we can come with as part of this thread!

This thread actually makes me want to purchase and re-evaluate HD600 even though I preferred HD650 in the past.

 

As an Italian, I of course have a large collection of mandolins, which I play skilfully and romantically when I serenade the ladies, as all Italians do.

Jokes aside, don't we have a whole bunch of measurements and impressions for the Auteur here?

 

Whoa, steady on there

 

I'm not too sure yet myself, but based on these graphs I think we should aim for headphones to have a similar FR as speakers measured when both speakers are playing mono noise. Soundstage will be very different anyway, so I think we should focus on tonality of things that are centered mainly. Something like this

Uh, the HD650 is much closer to DF than the HD800. DF is a very upper mids forward (think Ety) target and the HD800 is a very upper mid laid back headphone. Whatever Sennheiser claims about HD800 being DF accurate simply isn't true.
The old Headroom measurements are DF compensated. HD650 vs HD800

 

Got my compensations mixed up, which just goes to show I've a lot of reading left to do, haha. Thanks for clearing that up! And didn't know that HeadRoom used DF, was somehow under the impression that it was something else (I just Googled, the Harman and Sean Olive targets are a fair bit newer than I thought they were— damn).

 

Jeez Jude could have at least used some contrasting colors for the graphs instead of black and grey.