How to Read Frequency Response Graphs for Headphones

[TheHEADPHONEShow]

Note: The term 'pinna gain' has become common in a number of communities, but what this actually describes should more properly be described as "ear-related gain factors". The pinna flange itself is only responsible for one portion of the gain that the ear imparts.

[jkhmonkey_kfp_pentium_ii_cpu]

Videos like this and the other one you did regarding what Timbre means are pretty useful especially for people who's not particularly familiar with all the audio jargon imo. Keep up the good work!

[happyforestgump]

A video on tinnitus and hearing damage, and how it may affect eq’ing and headphone choices, would be cool.

[krisrudecki]

Your measurements and the actual technical detail you put in your reviews make theme extremely valuable and really precise. For me you are the go to source. So many other reviewers talk about their experience only, which is romantic and entertaining ... to an extent ... but not informative at all. I recently got into headphones (coming from studio monitoring world) with a bit of a budget and I bought a few pairs based on your reviews, and you are spot on. I could easily EQ the deficiencies and get exactly what I was aiming for. I also disagreed with you on occasion only to realise that you had a point a week or two later.

So all in all, thank you! You are leagues ahead of any other reviewer I've seen. I've seen some reviews by Tyll from InnerFidelity, and even his reviews were sometimes romantic ;P where as yours are spot on, no bs, pure info, and I appreciate that greatly!

[tianqi]

WOW this is the best video I've watched explaining things so well!!! Thank you so so much

[Narayan]

Great video, useful, informative and to the point, best headphone reviewer out there right now.

[RC-qcnz]

Good work guys.
I bought the focal clear professional because of you and I am very happy about that. It's the perfect upgrade of my hd 660s. I paid new 960 for the complete clear pro set and for that money it's worth every penny 🍻
Greetings from Germany

[changhwalee]

Love this kind of educational video. Really learns a lot, almost making me wish that I could go back to college and take classes about acoustic engineering. You really do have a great talent in explaining complicated things in a digestible way. I appreciate this a lot. I personally find Harman target to be very interesting. I am a Ph.D. nerd who studies something that has nothing to do with acoustics and speakers/headphones, but observing how scientific research matches how people have been experiencing to be good sound and provides a reference point to which even non-scientists can associate with and discuss sound is such an exciting experience that you rarely get in the actual scientific research field.

[klaushaunstrupchristensen]

Excellent!!! I believe I know a fair bit about loudspeakers and listening rooms but sadly to little in regard to headphones.
Because my listing room after moving from one apartment to the other have deteriorated acoustically I have turned my attention towards headphones. Another reason I am moving towards headphones are the numerous excellent podcasts which seems to rise exponentially. Nothing beats headphones when one tries to listen in a concentrated but still relaxed atmosphere.
So thanks for the wonderfully interesting and informative videos.
One thing I think might be missing in the Harman curve is that it doesn’t take driver size into consideration, to my logic (which might be flawed) a very big driver will give a different pinnae interaction/transformation compared to a small driver. This could be compared to the difficulty of equalizing a small point source loudspeaker to have the same timbre as a big line source loudspeakers.
Another very small thing I instinctively find slightly dubious with the Harman curve, is that even though the general trend is gently curved and look logical, there is a reduction of roughly 1dB between 150-300 Hz. Which doesn’t follow the general curve shape. I speculate that this has come about because most people compare listening to headphones with listening to loudspeakers, rather than listening to the real thing. Almost all loudspeakers set up in a listening room have a reduction in the room response in exactly this region. This reduction is caused by interaction with the nearby room boundaries and called the Allison Effect (after the late great speaker designer Roy Allison). So could it be that this preferred dip has crept into the Harman Curve because headphone listeners by previous experience from loudspeaker listening, believe a depression in this region to be natural?
Keep up the good work your videos are excellent.

Greetings from Denmark

Klaus

[Togaholic]

I'm hyped you got an industry standard rig now, keep up the great work!

[christophers.mosson]

Thank you! I've been looking for a decent video on audio graphs for a long time. This has cleared up so many questions for me! 😁👌

[truth-.]

You're channel is a gem to YouTube. Thank you so much ❤️

[ama-tu-an-ki]

Good video, thanks! Some additional info:
Flat measuring loudspeakers (in anechoic chamber) do NOT sound neutral/natural nor is the ideal loudspeaker raw frequency graph "flat". What is more useful, closer to ideal and in most cases (rooms) sounds more neutral, is a linearly downward sloping power graph (i.e . summatio of all frequency graphs from various measurement axes). A flat power graph would just sound horribly bright AND a flat frequency graph (0 degrees off-axis) could sound anything in real life, because the off-axis measurements (and thus the total power frequency) could be all over the place, resulting in unnatural sound.

The LCD 4-5K dip is clearly audible, due to the Q of that dip. A sharp rise/drop at a tighter bandwidth is usually more audible (unless band is really extremely narrow). And yes, I could hear them on my old LCDs.

Yet, I fully agree with you that (some level of) smoothing overall helps to make the raw measurement more useful for a wider audience (because not everybody will hear each narrow band dip/emphasis/resonance).

[renatobdc]

Nice! I would like to know the difference from a IEM? Should we expect different responses compares to a headphone?

[bitterbuffalo]

Thanks for this, actually helped my understanding of FR.

[thedarkknight]

As for improving the sound of any headphones (even phone/Tablet connected to Amp and speakers), consider this...
There is an media player app (sadly only for Android) that IS indeed a VERY powerful, customisable and usable, and that's 'PowerAmp'. There's MANY things you can do with it including customising the EQ from 5 bands (frequencies) to 32, this alone gives MUCH MORE control of setting the sound output to your headphones how YOU want it (PLUS you can save an EQ and sound stage setting to each individual device - headphone/speaker output), or, to set your headphones more to known set graphs/charts. Not only that, 'PowerAmp' has many features, handling streaming, Crossfade, Sound Stages, Pre-Amp, visualisations, MANY media formats, many skins are available to customise its look, the list goes on with many other features... 'PowerAmp' has consistently for years been pretty much THE best audio player even compared to VLC. I've used it for many years now and I haven't found anything that comes close, even though my LG phone with built in Quad DAC boosted the quality of the music I was listening to, 'PowerAmp' REALLY made a difference... Try it (it's free for a while) but even then when you need to pay to unlock it, it's only what? $5?, See what it can do with your music, it WILL certainly help improve your music listening pleasure.
So £/$5.. To give you MUCH MORE control of your sound? Sounds like a bargain... NOT much money at all... 😏👍
Anyway, all the best to you fellow 'Audiophiles'... 👍 😎🇬🇧

[Keinz]

Awesome video
Would like you to talk more about the different graphs that people refer to
Ie. W shape, L shape, etc

Maybe even a video about audiophile terms would be great as well just reference for new comers to the hobby

[santibergallo]

"They are not mutually exclusive" as read in many r/audiophile memes. Nicely done

[SliDCE]

i am new and would love to know what "hearing" the dip talked about around 7:50 - what are you listening for in music?

[Denieru]

Thanks for all the videos. Understand you all always do recommend some sort of eq. It will be nice and appreciated if you could come out with a video to help guide people in using equaliser APO.. cheers mate.. :)