bass boost defeats side chained brick walled mastering for actual dynamic range. Flat is inherently less dynamic with a wide variety of music. Why would you want a presentation devoid of flavor and character? Like eating flour and water for every meal
something can be both 'neutral' and sloped. People can't conceive of this idea because most sloped 'phones have dips and bumps other places in the FR, poor linearity. Pink noise is as 'neutral' as white noise. Which one is more pleasant to listen to?
Using EQ could be educational for that aspect. I learned a lot (mostly in negative directions) about what flat fr means after intensively equalizing various products myself.
Btw flat vs non-flat is fairly easy debate imho. But linear vs non-linear or smooth vs non-smooth feel like a lot trickier topic to me.
I don't need EQ to hit a damn-near flat response. Linear is important, but a net slope of 0db is not. I could have been more clear about what I meant. A slope of about -15dB from 20-10k is the sweet spot for me. 'smooth' is too ambiguous a term to argue about.
LOL! Flat works for being genre agnostic, and though the HD600 isn't perfectly neutral it's enough to teach that there's always a place for it. It's all preferences and use case IMO.
I'm not trying to be antagonistic, I am truly seeking understanding. @Magnetostatic_Tubephile care to justify your opinion? Have you heard a perfectly linear downsloping headphone?
@Lyander wrong on the genre-agnostic front IMO, dead flat automatically makes all modern music sound like ass. Unless you're living in the past or only listen to pedophile-produced eurocentric acoustic fetish music
@rhythmdevils ever listen to Michael Jackson, future funk, hyperpop, DNB , pretty much any non-acoustic music at a level over 85dB? I mean maybe I'm the oddball here but I still maintain there is no widespread reference for a linear downsloped headphone so it's all speculative until both can be compared with a wide spectrum of music.
I don’t find that to be the case. My Yamaha orthos measured as some of the flattest headphones ever maybe THE flattest and almost no recordings are harsh. Maybe you haven’t heard truly flat headphones because they don’t exist?
My mackie monitors are dead flat and almost no, close to zero recordings are actually harsh. Close maybe, but never painful
@rhythmdevils Your Mackies are super scooped and have ultra damped poly woofers and low detail plate amps unless they’re 20 years old, when they’re warm and cuddly and scooped. Those are both not even close to flat and are very “voiced”
I have the older wooden finish hr624 and I would strongly disagree with that analysis having owned them for years, compared them with measured headphones and used them as a reference for tuning headphone that measure dead flat.
I will concede the idea that theoretically flat can be a useful albeit boring point of reference for exclusively low-level listening ASSUMING the timbre is flawless, there are ZERO peaks or ringing of any kind above 4khz, the recording is masterfully produced, and no part of the chain adds any annoying colorations. But still I would prefer linear+sloped for higher level listening and with 99% of music.
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