Flat Headphones?

Anyone know where I can find headphones with a flat frequency response? I don't mean a frequency response that follows the Harmon curve but something that is speaker flat.

I want it more for curiosity to hear what a truly flat headphone would sound like and compare it to my other headphones to hear the differences.

 

Checking the data at innerfidelity the curve for the HD600 looks flat, but that is the compensated curve. The raw data shows the hump at 3500Hz which is part of the Harmon curve and then dives at the higher frequencies.

http://www.innerfidelity.com/images/SennheiserHD600.pdf

I really want something that measures flat before compensation. I realize it might not exist since something like that might sound horrible and way too bright, but I also know there is a huge range of headphone with all sorts of weird measurements.

 

I'm not sure why you would want something that is flat on the raw measurements. You are right that it would sound terrible. Same is true for speakers. They aren't raw flat.

 

IIRC Tyll's compensation deviates from DF a bit in the upper midrange. The only times the Harman curve has been used was in the article about it AFAIK.

The closest you'd find to 'flat' on a raw measurement (which isn't flat at all to our ears) would be some darker planar headphones like the MrSpeakers T50RP mods and pre-fazor Audeze headphones.

 

Home speakers might deviate but most studio monitors are actually flat on raw, or at least strive to be. Headphones are different because when measuring sound within the ear canal as opposed to open space you have a different definition of what is considered 'neutral'. The reason I want headphones like this isn't so much for enjoyment but for comparison.

Although I am also assuming that it was generally accepted that speakers should measure flat; similar to amps, preamps and other components. If I am wrong then please cite me an article to enlighten me.

 

When I say "speaker flat" I mean that it measures like a flat speaker. Not that it sounds like a flat speaker.

Edit:

Although now that I think about it, headphones and speakers are measured in completely different ways. Where speakers are measured with an in room mic and headphones are measured in a simulated head. That would mean that something that follows the harmon curve in a simulated head would actually measure flat with a regular mic.

Sorry about that.

 

Yeah, I see what you mean. I was thinking of room response with speakers, but that doesn't really change your point.

 

FWIW, the AudioQuest NightHawk measure quite flat raw.

http://www.innerfidelity.com/images/AudioQuestNightHawk2015.pdf

 

If you want to hear flat studio monitors from your headphones, the solution is pretty simple -> Sonarworks?

Talking about that, hasn't anyone measured headphones with Sonarworks on/off to see what curve is actually applied?

 

Hunh. HPs that measure like this usually sound recessed in the upper mids to me - but that does not seem to be the case w/NightHawk from what I remember about people's impressions. Is that true?

 

Here is what I would do if I were you: take any decently smooth sounding headphone (to your own ears) and equalize it to flat using the following link as a baseline http://newt.phys.unsw.edu.au/jw/hearing.html
Good luck.

Edit: Try starting with something inexpensive of open back planar-magnetic nature without known ringing issues.

 

Ok, thanks for confirming.

 

The hump is the ear-canalrelated gain, and any soundwave of a suitable frequency will have some gain in this area after interacting with your ears. A flat FR in an uncompensated plot produced using a HATS rig is most definitely wrong, it means there's actually a dip there that cancels the ear-related gain. It will sound dark and muffled.

Flat-measuring will be flat only to that specific test rig. That said, the closest you will get to 'flat' sound is probably by modding a pair with the help of a solid plate measurement rig like Purrin's (Stratocaster tunes some of his pairs like this, maybe he can sell you one?), keep in mind that depending on the wavefront angle this can approximate a set of stereo speakers pointing straight into your earholes, which isn't the way people listen to speakers.

That said, I had a pair of modded T50RP measuring like this with my solid plate rig:


It was not horrible or unbearably bright sounding by any stretch, in fact it seemed somehow 'correct' sounding, but did get to be fatiguing with prolongued listening for me.

I think a downward-sloping FR is the way to go (solid plate), something like -10 dB @ 20 KHz.

 

It's really more the concha bowl gain. Ear canal resonances are a series of peaks, typically at 5.5kHz, 9kHz, and 15kHz.

 

Corrected.

 

Sony MDR 7506