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If you want flat response but your music has lows that go down to around 20hz, the relative power required to make the 20hz audible to an equivalent volume is e

If you want flat response but your music has lows that go down to around 20hz, the relative power required to make the 20hz audible to an equivalent volume is exponentially higher than to make 200hz audible. And drums will always sound better if you can hear 20hz, regardless of the genre. I find even with "western consumer grade headphones", I need to add about +3db to 20hz, 0db to 200hz, -3db at 2khz, and 0db at 20khz, to be able to turn up the volume and hear all the instruments without any single freq range dominating. This makes such an improvement on every pair of headphones I've tried it on, that I wonder who came up with the "standard" frequency response curve of human hearing that the manufacturers are using as reference. I setup an EQ with that shape on my girlfriend's headphones, and she was surprised how much more comfortable it sounded. Then she got new headphones, tried them out, and immediately said "ew, can you change the sound the way you did before?" I set the EQ in the new headphones' software and "much better."

brookst 2y ago
Note that human hearing frequency response changes with age: https://journalotohns.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40463-021-00534-w https://journalotohns.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40... So headphone makers also have to target an age group, or at least average things out so it’s not right for anyone.
- berikv 2y ago
  Except that the argument here was about bass, and the paper shows that age dependent hearing frequency response varies mostly in the mid-high range.
  - puzzlingcaptcha 2y ago
    This is true, I sometimes refer to my Grados headphones as "my first hearing aid"
  - brookst 2y ago
    Eh, I was responding to someone wondering why the singular curve used was wrong. My point was that there is no universal answer that works for every individual, even if you are opinionated about how things should sound.
jackstraw14 2y ago
Just tried your tweaks in Spotify. Can't adjust at those exact frequencies, but after one A-B test, flat is simply unlistenable now. What the heck!
ssl-3 2y ago
> If you want flat response but your music has lows that go down to around 20hz, the relative power required to make the 20hz audible to an equivalent volume is exponentially higher than to make 200hz audible. That can often be the case, but it isn't necessarily always the case. There is nothing in particular that absolutely prevents a transducer from having reasonably-flat (in an amplitude-vs-power sense) response in the bass region -- including all the way down to 20Hz or below.
ttshaw1 2y ago
Sean Olive. It's motivated by the fact that engineers are mixing audio on (actually-) flat-response monitors in studios with a slight echo, and a "flat" headphone response is the best way to emulate that. This curve is something they measured and published a paper on. If your headphones sound better with your EQ then they probably aren't meeting the Harman/"flat" target, or you're deviating from the norm in your preferences. https://headphonesaddict.com/harman-curve/ https://headphonesaddict.com/harman-curve/
fluoridation 2y ago
Flat response is flat response. If the drums are barely audible in the mix at a comfortable listening volume, they would've been barely audible live at a comfortable listening volume.
lukas099 2y ago
People have been shown to enjoy different eq levels, and they are generally consistent in their preferences
magicov3 2y ago
My music lover friend. I get it. We all have preferences. "How much more comfortable it sounded" ???? Musical instruments, live concerts, studio sessions, acoustic sessions? There is nothing warm and fuzzy comfortable about the above 4 things I mentioned. I wish the stereo review industry would be honest and stop saying it's all about preference. It is,,,,but,,,some speakers/headphones are indeed better than others. If speaker A's output signal is closer to it's input signal than speaker B, it is a better product, period.

brookst 2y ago

Note that human hearing frequency response changes with age: https://journalotohns.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40463-021-00534-w https://journalotohns.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40... So headphone makers also have to target an age group, or at least average things out so it’s not right for anyone.

berikv 2y ago
Except that the argument here was about bass, and the paper shows that age dependent hearing frequency response varies mostly in the mid-high range.
- puzzlingcaptcha 2y ago
  This is true, I sometimes refer to my Grados headphones as "my first hearing aid"
- brookst 2y ago
  Eh, I was responding to someone wondering why the singular curve used was wrong. My point was that there is no universal answer that works for every individual, even if you are opinionated about how things should sound.

jackstraw14 2y ago

Just tried your tweaks in Spotify. Can't adjust at those exact frequencies, but after one A-B test, flat is simply unlistenable now. What the heck!

ssl-3 2y ago

> If you want flat response but your music has lows that go down to around 20hz, the relative power required to make the 20hz audible to an equivalent volume is exponentially higher than to make 200hz audible. That can often be the case, but it isn't necessarily always the case. There is nothing in particular that absolutely prevents a transducer from having reasonably-flat (in an amplitude-vs-power sense) response in the bass region -- including all the way down to 20Hz or below.

ttshaw1 2y ago

Sean Olive. It's motivated by the fact that engineers are mixing audio on (actually-) flat-response monitors in studios with a slight echo, and a "flat" headphone response is the best way to emulate that. This curve is something they measured and published a paper on. If your headphones sound better with your EQ then they probably aren't meeting the Harman/"flat" target, or you're deviating from the norm in your preferences. https://headphonesaddict.com/harman-curve/ https://headphonesaddict.com/harman-curve/

fluoridation 2y ago

Flat response is flat response. If the drums are barely audible in the mix at a comfortable listening volume, they would've been barely audible live at a comfortable listening volume.

lukas099 2y ago

People have been shown to enjoy different eq levels, and they are generally consistent in their preferences

magicov3 2y ago

My music lover friend. I get it. We all have preferences. "How much more comfortable it sounded" ???? Musical instruments, live concerts, studio sessions, acoustic sessions? There is nothing warm and fuzzy comfortable about the above 4 things I mentioned. I wish the stereo review industry would be honest and stop saying it's all about preference. It is,,,,but,,,some speakers/headphones are indeed better than others. If speaker A's output signal is closer to it's input signal than speaker B, it is a better product, period.