HydrogenAudio

CD-R and Audio Hardware => Audio Hardware => Topic started by: Hifisound on 2013-07-08 08:35:04

Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Hifisound on 2013-07-08 08:35:04
Hi,

I currently have Senn HD600 which I like it a lot.
But I am unable to use them many a times (office , baby sleeping etc) since they are open back and leak sound.

I am keen to know which closed back headphone will be similar in sound to HD600 or even AKG 702 (found it a bit more neutral than HD600) and yet be comfortable as well as portable ?

Would like your suggestions here.
I see one good option which is Senn HD380 pro which is portable as well.
( recommended in some older posts here )
Planning to buy Fiio E07K USB DAC+Amp as well.

Thanks in advance,
Hifisound
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: LithosZA on 2013-07-08 15:41:07
I don't have much experience with too many closed models.
I have a Sennheiser HD-280 PRO, Ultrasone HFI-680 and an open Sennheiser HD-650. If you like the sound of the Sennheiser HD-650 then I would go with the Ultrasone HFI-680. My favorite is the Sennheiser HD-280.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: mzil on 2013-07-08 16:12:17
Sony MDR-7506 (/MDR-V6). I actually prefer them to the HD600 and conveniently they are a fraction of the price, especially when on sale.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: RonaldDumsfeld on 2013-07-08 17:00:48
Don't have much experience with open backed headphones. Prefer to listen on speakers whenever possible.
Anyhow it's possible no closed backs sound identical to any open backs - else why bother? 

However if you like the Sennheiser brand I can recommend the closed back HD25-1 II (75 Ohms). These are classic studio tracking, outside broadcast and DJ tools. Sturdy, easy to drive, comfortable over long periods and providing excellent isolation. If they are good enough for pro use they are good enough for me.

I use them on the train all the time and have never noticed any sour looks from nearby passengers. Not considered a headphone attenuator/amplifier as they are dangerously loud on 30% max via a line level output.

HD25-1 II (http://en-uk.sennheiser.com/dj-headphones-noise-reduction-hifi-stereo-hd-25-1-ii)
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: lunkhead on 2013-07-08 21:03:15
I have read that the Beyerdynamic DT250 (250 ohms version) sounds similar to the Sennheiser HD 600.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Hifisound on 2013-07-09 06:57:58
Thanks for replies upto now.

Anybody had a a chance to compare HD380pro with HD600 ?
Or any feedback on AKG K550 ?

(I will be purchasing from Amazon US and I am from India, so will not get a chance to compare myself before buying)
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: mzil on 2013-07-09 15:37:50
I personally find the verbal comparisons at the main headphone review sites to be filled with audio woo, mythology, and heavily influenced by expectation bias based on things like price and brand reputation, however I do like to use the raw data generated by their headphone couplers and dummy heads, to compare frequency response curves myself.  Here's an example:
HD600 vs MDR7506 vs K550 (http://graphs.headphone.com/graphCompare.php?graphType=0&graphID%5b%5d=573&graphID%5b%5d=2361&graphID%5b%5d=3571&scale=20)

Several sites publish such curves, but I don't recommend comparing them across different sites because differences in their methodologies, dummy heads, microphones, and correction curves may make such comparisons unreliable.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: saratoga on 2013-07-09 17:07:49
One should be careful with those frequency response plots however.  I suspect that they're relatively accurate, so that you can compare to headphones on the same test and see how flat they are compared to one another.  I doubt they're absolutely accurate though.  My experience EQing some of the headphones I've bought from headphone.com often gives me very different "neutral" curves for my head then those tests suggest.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Hifisound on 2013-07-10 14:42:23
One should be careful with those frequency response plots however.  I suspect that they're relatively accurate, so that you can compare to headphones on the same test and see how flat they are compared to one another.  I doubt they're absolutely accurate though.  My experience EQing some of the headphones I've bought from headphone.com often gives me very different "neutral" curves for my head then those tests suggest.


Btw, is it how "pro" folks use headphones for critical listening usually ? i.e something like MDR7506 or hd280pro with appropriate EQing rather than hunting for inherently more accurate headphone ?

Just curious.....
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2013-07-10 15:01:11
One should be careful with those frequency response plots however.  I suspect that they're relatively accurate, so that you can compare to headphones on the same test and see how flat they are compared to one another.  I doubt they're absolutely accurate though.  My experience EQing some of the headphones I've bought from headphone.com often gives me very different "neutral" curves for my head then those tests suggest.


Btw, is it how "pro" folks use headphones for critical listening usually ? i.e something like MDR7506 or hd280pro with appropriate EQing rather than hunting for inherently more accurate headphone ?

Just curious.....


IME Working pros learn how to translate results from what they have at hand to some kind of conceptual ideal. If they can use the headphones they are most familiar with, then that gives the best results, but if they have a range of known alternatives at hand, then they can get the job done.

On a given day I wander around between ATH M50s, HD 280s, HD 380s, Superlux 688Bs, and a heavily-equalized pair of RS-170s.  In the field I mostly find HD 280s mainly because I induced the relevant parties to use them. MDR 7506 remain the most commonly used in professional contexts and I have a pair of them as well.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Hifisound on 2013-07-10 15:53:21
Quote
IME Working pros learn how to translate results from what they have at hand to some kind of conceptual ideal. If they can use the headphones they are most familiar with, then that gives the best results, but if they have a range of known alternatives at hand, then they can get the job done.

On a given day I wander around between ATH M50s, HD 280s, HD 380s, Superlux 688Bs, and a heavily-equalized pair of RS-170s. In the field I mostly find HD 280s mainly because I induced the relevant parties to use them. MDR 7506 remain the most commonly used in professional contexts and I have a pair of them as well.


Hmm, I guess then working on music needn't have the same requirements as enjoying it , unless  its all snake oil above some of the models you mentioned.

Btw you mentioned HD380s. Did you have a chance to compare then with HD600 ? Are they similar in sound ?
HD600, due to open design,  will be comfortable for sure but have usage restrictions like I mentioned in the first post.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2013-07-10 17:48:51
Quote
IME Working pros learn how to translate results from what they have at hand to some kind of conceptual ideal. If they can use the headphones they are most familiar with, then that gives the best results, but if they have a range of known alternatives at hand, then they can get the job done.

On a given day I wander around between ATH M50s, HD 280s, HD 380s, Superlux 688Bs, and a heavily-equalized pair of RS-170s. In the field I mostly find HD 280s mainly because I induced the relevant parties to use them. MDR 7506 remain the most commonly used in professional contexts and I have a pair of them as well.


Hmm, I guess then working on music needn't have the same requirements as enjoying it ,


True, no joke.

Quote
Btw you mentioned HD380s. Did you have a chance to compare then with HD600 ? Are they similar in sound ?


No.  My methodology for auditioning headphones is typically to own them. HD 680s are a little salty for me.  I owned 580s for many years.

Quote
HD600, due to open design,  will be comfortable for sure but have usage restrictions like I mentioned in the first post.


Open back can't be very effective for monitoring live recording, but closed back headphones such as the HD 280s and even IEMs IME don't have enough isolation.

Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: DVDdoug on 2013-07-10 18:24:33
Quote
Btw, is it how "pro" folks use headphones for critical listening usually ? i.e something like MDR7506 or hd280pro with appropriate EQing rather than hunting for inherently more accurate headphone ?
In general, pros don't use headphones for mixing or otherwise processing/adjusting sound...  Sound quality & accuracy are important, but not necessarily the most important thing..

From Recording Magazine:
Quote
As those of you who have followed this column for any length of time can attest, headphone mixing is one of the big no-no's around these parts.  In our humble opinion, headphone mixes do not translate well in the real world, period, end of story.  Other than checking for balance issues and the occasional hunting down of little details, they are tools best left for the tracking process.


I'd say most pros consider:
- Reliability & ruggedness
- Comfort
- Sound Quality
- Isolation (where appropriate)
- Tradition/standardization (What we usually buy, or what most others in our industry use)
- Cost

A recording/mixing/mastering engineer buying personal-use headphones might not be too concerned with cost, but for a manager buying headphones for "the studio", or for a radio/TV station, etc., cost is going to be a big consideration.    So, you are not going to find too many super-expensive "audiophile" headphones in "pro use".   

Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: LithosZA on 2013-07-10 18:31:23
Quote
In general, pros don't use headphones for mixing or otherwise processing/adjusting sound... Sound quality & accuracy are important, but not necessarily the most important thing..

Maybe if they also start using headphones for mixing it might end the loudness war...
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Hifisound on 2013-07-10 18:48:02
Quote
IME Working pros learn how to translate results from what they have at hand to some kind of conceptual ideal. If they can use the headphones they are most familiar with, then that gives the best results, but if they have a range of known alternatives at hand, then they can get the job done.

On a given day I wander around between ATH M50s, HD 280s, HD 380s, Superlux 688Bs, and a heavily-equalized pair of RS-170s. In the field I mostly find HD 280s mainly because I induced the relevant parties to use them. MDR 7506 remain the most commonly used in professional contexts and I have a pair of them as well.


Hmm, I guess then working on music needn't have the same requirements as enjoying it ,


True, no joke.

Quote
Btw you mentioned HD380s. Did you have a chance to compare then with HD600 ? Are they similar in sound ?


No.  My methodology for auditioning headphones is typically to own them. HD 680s are a little salty for me.  I owned 580s for many years.

Quote
HD600, due to open design,  will be comfortable for sure but have usage restrictions like I mentioned in the first post.


Open back can't be very effective for monitoring live recording, but closed back headphones such as the HD 280s and even IEMs IME don't have enough isolation.


Looks like I will just go for Senn HD380pro / AKG K551 once the price is good.... and see how it goes

Thanks everybody for inputs.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Martel on 2013-07-11 10:07:13
I have (had) 380s and they are very heavy on the lowest base (especially with equipment able to properly drive the base). It's impressive and enjoyable... for a while, then it gets tiresome (further "augmented" by their clamp force). I couldn't use them for more than an hour so I gave them to my father.

You should definitely try them before buying.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: mzil on 2013-07-11 17:43:32
^An emphasized bass is very common in many headphones, if not the norm, but it makes no sense to me from the perspective of wanting to hear a faithful, accurate, high fidelity rendition of the recording. Some (not all) of the headphone review sites even specifically state that an elevated bass is the standard, target curve which all should strive for. I think that's baloney.

Sure, one could concoct some bogus explanation like "Modern day recordings are intentionally made too bright, to compensate for the greater loss in the highs, which occurs from listening to speakers at a distance, but doesn't occur with headphones (or with near field monitors)", or some similar contrivance, but in the end I think the real reason so many headphones are made this way is quite simple: market taste for elevated bass.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Hifisound on 2013-07-11 17:52:49
Anybody listened to AKG K551 ?
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: mzil on 2013-07-11 18:49:11
My understanding is the K551 is exactly the same, sonically, as the K550, so reviews and graphs [such as the one I posted earlier] should be nearly identical. The difference is the added price of the K551 gets you an inline iOS device remote control with built-in mic (for phone calls). The cord is shorter (1.1m vs. 3m), thinner gauge, non-detachable, may come in different colors, and does not come with a 1/4 inch adaptor for full-size stereos, screw on or otherwise.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Hifisound on 2013-07-19 17:28:50
Another model which looks interesting is Beyer DT770 pro
The 250 ohm is cheapest (compared to other impedances) and I guess it will work just fine with Fiio E07K

One basic question I get here though, is why are not source components always designed to one standard output impedance so that the headphones also can be one standard impedance ?
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: saratoga on 2013-07-19 19:49:22
One basic question I get here though, is why are not source components always designed to one standard output impedance so that the headphones also can be one standard impedance ?


Because the people selling this stuff have no incentive to do so.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: ExUser on 2013-07-20 00:15:33
One basic question I get here though, is why are not source components always designed to one standard output impedance so that the headphones also can be one standard impedance ?

Quote from: Andrew S. Tanenbaum link=msg=0 date=
The nice thing about standards is that you have so many to choose from.

Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: skamp on 2013-07-20 06:46:55
Quote
IS THERE A STANDARD FOR OUTPUT IMPEDANCE? The only standard I’m aware of is IEC 61938 from 1996. It specifies an output impedance of 120 ohms. There are numerous reasons why this is standard is way out of data and a really bad idea. In a Stereophile article about headphones, they said of the 120 ohm standard:

“Whoever wrote that must live in a fantasy world.”

I have to agree with Stereophile. The 120 ohm standard might have been (barely!) tolerable before the iPod and other portable music sources became immensely popular, but it’s not any more. Most headphones are designed very differently today.


http://nwavguy.blogspot.fr/2011/02/headpho...-impedance.html (http://nwavguy.blogspot.fr/2011/02/headphone-amp-impedance.html)
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Hifisound on 2013-07-25 03:15:19
One general complaint I read about closed headphones (including dt770) is the recessed mids.
Is it so ? As that would be pretty big difference wrt HD600 and a real concern...
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Martel on 2013-07-25 07:21:44
Sony MDR-V6 (a closed headphone) seems to have bass-mid balance similar to HD 600. My HD 215 does not have recessed mids either. I don't think that closed headphones implicitly need to have a V-shaped FR curve.

comparison (http://graphs.headphone.com/graphCompare.php?graphType=0&graphID%5b%5d=573&graphID%5b%5d=713&graphID%5b%5d=1513&scale=20)
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Hifisound on 2013-07-25 18:36:46
If were to compare HD600, AKG550, DT770, ATH-M50

http://graphs.headphone.com/graphCompare.p...e=0&graphID (http://graphs.headphone.com/graphCompare.php?graphType=0&graphID)[]=573&graphID[]=3571&graphID[]=713&graphID[]=2941&scale=30

I see that all 3 closed ones have higher bass response and they all dip faster after 2K only to rise much higher at 8-9K.
And HD600 is known to be a very neutral headphone so does it mean other 3 are bassy, sparkly treble , etc ?

Or are the graphs ok for the latter 3 considering they are closed phones ? And the differences really minor ?
Is 50db range a better scale to use ?

Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Rollin on 2013-07-25 20:18:12
I have ATH-M50, and it really has sparkly treble and also emphasis on upper bass.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2013-07-26 09:38:20
If were to compare HD600, AKG550, DT770, ATH-M50

http://graphs.headphone.com/graphCompare.p...e=0&graphID (http://graphs.headphone.com/graphCompare.php?graphType=0&graphID)[]=573&graphID[]=3571&graphID[]=713&graphID[]=2941&scale=30


The link doesn't work for me.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: skamp on 2013-07-26 10:12:50
The link doesn't work for me.


Fixed link (http://goo.gl/Et9AW7)
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Hifisound on 2013-07-26 11:00:32
The link doesn't work for me.


Fixed link (http://goo.gl/Et9AW7)


Thanks Skamp
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2013-07-26 13:29:21
If were to compare HD600, AKG550, DT770, ATH-M50

http://graphs.headphone.com/graphCompare.p...e=0&graphID (http://graphs.headphone.com/graphCompare.php?graphType=0&graphID)[]=573&graphID[]=3571&graphID[]=713&graphID[]=2941&scale=30

I see that all 3 closed ones have higher bass response and they all dip faster after 2K only to rise much higher at 8-9K.
And HD600 is known to be a very neutral headphone so does it mean other 3 are bassy, sparkly treble , etc ?

Or are the graphs ok for the latter 3 considering they are closed phones ? And the differences really minor ?
Is 50db range a better scale to use ?


I think you are comparing apples and oranges.

In my book the HD 600 is an open back phone no matter what the thread title may or may not be implying. It's tougher to build an open back headphone with accurate bass simply because the open back lets the back wave escape.

I suspect that the HD 600 is prized because of the smoother high end and perhaps in spite of the unimpressive bottom end.  I apply electronic equalization to the bottom end of my open back Sennheisers because based on A/Bing of microphone feeds at live performances that I'm recording with excellent and flat microphones, that's what it takes for natural sound.

There are a lot of non-intuitive things about human perception of smoothness and balance. One is that improvements at one end of the audible spectrum can make the other end of the spectrum sound better. One common example of this is that providing smooth extended bass often makes the treble sound smoother and less harsh.

Also some reviewers are well known to become biased by big price tags and favorable reviews by others. These are all AFAIK sighted evaluations, so who knows everything that influences them? 

Good DBTs of headphones would be tough because they include tactile influences that would be hard to hold constant without actually changing the UUTs.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Hifisound on 2013-07-26 13:59:11
What I meant to say by this title is "searching for closed back headphones which sound like HD600" (which I currently have and like)
But what you are saying is some closed back headphones maybe infact more accurate than HD600.
So I can expect a more neutral/natural sounding headphone in a good closed back
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2013-07-26 14:59:10
What I meant to say by this title is "searching for closed back headphones which sound like HD600" (which I currently have and like)


Which I was trying to answer but leave the door open for that meaning.

Quote
But what you are saying is some closed back headphones maybe infact more accurate than HD600.


That is possible, and it is more possible that some closed back headphones are in fact more accurate at just the bass end.

The HD600 may be among the best for high frequencies, but my experience and the data that has been referenced asks some tough questions about their bass.

IME many people are more accepting of what turns out to be somewhat attenuated bass than rough treble. Besides the HD 600 measure flat down to 40 Hz, and only a few dB down at 30 Hz and in the cosmic scheme of things, that's really very good.


Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Hifisound on 2013-07-26 15:53:57
So based on graph, will it be correct to say the other 3 have more but uneven treble and hence inaccurate treble ?
The bass output is surely more for the other 3 but can one conclude from graph that its accurate ?
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2013-07-26 18:09:46
So based on graph, will it be correct to say the other 3 have more but uneven treble and hence inaccurate treble ?



Yes.  The HD600 seems to have the most accurate treble response. It's smoother and has less of a dip in the midrange than the rest.

It does have less bass response but if I weigh that by the decreasing sensitivity of the ear to variations at lower frequencies, that should not be a big issue.

Quote
The bass output is surely more for the other 3 but can one conclude from graph that its accurate ?


I wouldn't call any of these accurate, but the HD 600 is probably the best sounding and most accurate of the bunch based simply on the measurements. 

I own and routinely use a pair of ATH-M50s, and owned and very happily used HD 580s for years before they got stolen.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Hifisound on 2013-07-27 01:25:54
Any other closed headphone which you can recommend which is more accurate than these 3 or known to be most accurate in closed category (max $300)
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Hifisound on 2013-07-27 09:21:27
The MDR-7506 does not drop above 2K like DT770/AKG K550 but it rolls off much faster after 10K. Look interesting at just $77
Sadly there is no HD380pro freq graph on headphone.com for comparison with 7506,DT770 and K550
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Hifisound on 2013-07-27 11:44:49
Looks like Shure SRH940 could be the closest to HD600

HD600 vs SRH940 vs MDR-7506 (http://graphs.headphone.com/graphCompare.php?graphType=0&graphID%5b%5d=573&graphID%5b%5d=3101&graphID%5b%5d=2361&scale=50)
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2013-07-27 14:36:32
Looks like Shure SRH940 could be the closest to HD600

HD600 vs SRH940 vs MDR-7506 (http://graphs.headphone.com/graphCompare.php?graphType=0&graphID%5b%5d=573&graphID%5b%5d=3101&graphID%5b%5d=2361&scale=50)


I see an approx 7 dB difference around 8 KHz which should be pretty darn audible and potentially irritating.

Piece of mastering lore - peaks in the 8-9 KHz range are extra irritating to most people, and putting a strategic dip there can make a system or a recording more euphonic.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Hifisound on 2013-07-27 17:07:08
Well, it looked closest as compared to other many closed headphone graphs

Btw, how good are the Sony MDR-7510, MDR-7520 ?
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Hifisound on 2013-07-27 19:52:18
Just realized that Martel had suggested the similar for MDR-V6 (almost same as MDR-7506)

2 questions about V6/7506

1) Are they dark sounding due to roll off after 10K ?
2) How are they comfortwise (say in comparison to DT770) ?

Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: pisymbol on 2013-07-28 02:38:04
Any other closed headphone which you can recommend which is more accurate than these 3 or known to be most accurate in closed category (max $300)


If you are willing to spend a little extra, LFF's T50p modded Paradox (http://referencesounds.com/paradox.html#!/~/product/category=3559791&id=15116949) are known for having a fairly neutral FR curve (http://www.innerfidelity.com/images/FostexT50RPDIYModifiedLFFwithsocks.pdf).

Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2013-07-28 15:43:30
Just realized that Martel had suggested the similar for MDR-V6 (almost same as MDR-7506)

2 questions about V6/7506

1) Are they dark sounding due to roll off after 10K ?
2) How are they comfortwise (say in comparison to DT770) ?


Usually people complain about  thin low bass, boomy upper bass, and slightly tizzy high end.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: mzil on 2013-07-28 17:13:45
^What "people"? Headphone forum members? Advertisement funded, "High-end" magazine reviewers? Might such people suffer from expectation bias and "group think (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink)" in regards to their sighted evaluations of what they undoubtedly might dismiss as being "cheap headphones" by their standards?

Sighted reviews are just as scientifically worthless with headphones as they are with anything else in audio. It's no different. The argument, "But it is nearly impossible to conduct a truly double blind test of headphones, as one might do, say with amplifiers!" doesn't suddenly mean sighted evaluations somehow miraculously become scientifically valid and are "exempt" from the exact same problems we carefully protect against, say in a good (scientifically controlled) amplifier comparison test. Namely, they are dubious for the same following reasons they are for typical (uncontrolled) amplifier comparisons:

- no level matching using instrumentation
- no way to preclude expectation bias due to both sight [and in the case of headphones, also "feel", against one's head/ears]

This is an inconvenient truth, for sure, but it is still the truth.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Martel on 2013-07-28 18:29:15
I suspect that the HD 600 is prized because of the smoother high end and perhaps in spite of the unimpressive bottom end.  I apply electronic equalization to the bottom end of my open back Sennheisers because based on A/Bing of microphone feeds at live performances that I'm recording with excellent and flat microphones, that's what it takes for natural sound.
Your microphones go down to 20 Hz within, say, -1dB?
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: copperblue on 2013-07-28 21:22:45
^What "people"? Headphone forum members? Advertisement funded, "High-end" magazine reviewers? Might such people suffer from expectation bias and "group think (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink)" in regards to their sighted evaluations of what they undoubtedly might dismiss as being "cheap headphones" by their standards?

Sighted reviews are just as scientifically worthless with headphones as they are with anything else in audio. It's no different. The argument, "But it is nearly impossible to conduct a truly double blind test of headphones, as one might do, say with amplifiers!" doesn't suddenly mean sighted evaluations somehow miraculously become scientifically valid and are "exempt" from the exact same problems we carefully protect against, say in a good (scientifically controlled) amplifier comparison test. Namely, they are dubious for the same following reasons they are for typical (uncontrolled) amplifier comparisons:

- no level matching using instrumentation
- no way to preclude expectation bias due to both sight [and in the case of headphones, also "feel", against one's head/ears]

This is an inconvenient truth, for sure, but it is still the truth.

Bias is bias, but - for what it's worth - the poster you are replying to "invented" Double Blind Testing. Appeal to Authority noted...
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: db1989 on 2013-07-28 21:27:32
ABX, not double-blind testing. The former is just one subset of the latter, which has been a concept for much longer.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: mzil on 2013-07-28 22:08:03
Bias is bias, but - for what it's worth - the poster you are replying to "invented" Double Blind Testing. Appeal to Authority noted...


Yes indeed, I am well aware of that [well, ABX that is, not "double-blind"], in fact I thanked him for it in an unrelated thread (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=97365&st=75&p=811962&#entry811962):

P.S.

[Arny] ... And just to set the record straight, I'm not attempting to help anyone's "cause" except for science. [And thanks for inventing ABX, by the way. That was a huge contribution, unlike this relatively trivial matter!]
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Hifisound on 2013-07-29 01:46:39
Usually people complain about  thin low bass, boomy upper bass, and slightly tizzy high end.


All the other known and respected headphones (DT770, HD280, ATH-M50 etc ) should exhibit more of this (esp boomy bass) and similar treble issues as MDR-7506/V6 based on the FR, shouldn't it ?

ATH-M50 vs DT770 vs HD280pro vs MDR-7506 (http://graphs.headphone.com/graphCompare.php?graphType=0&graphID%5b%5d=2941&graphID%5b%5d=713&graphID%5b%5d=533&graphID%5b%5d=2361&scale=30)

On a general note : The more I look at lot of FR graphs of different headphones the more I think that none of the manufacturers are really attempting a "neutral" or natural sound but their own version of EQed or "signature" sound based on the target price range of the product.
But I still wonder why the FR graphs are not as flat as possible for the above 3 headphones known to be used for applications requiring accuracy, and leave the EQing to users if required.
(unless I am missing something basic here, kindly correct me if so )
Strangely, even the Sony MDR-Z1000, MDR-ZX700 (which seem to be same as 7520 and 7510) have deviated from flatter response of 7506...

Like the headphone.com, goldenears or innerfidelity I wish there was similar repository (of measurements) for speakers , atleast from the big manufacturers....
(I guess current way is to go through various reviews at stereophile etc)

At the end of it I am as confused as I was in the first post
Though one thing I did realize is that I will not attempt to replace my HD600s with a closed one, but just buy one more  to be used when and wherever required
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Martel on 2013-07-29 07:31:18
They have monitor loudspeakers in recording studios for a reason.

Apart from that, flat ("boring") sound would not sell many units to non-professionals, meaning less profit for the company.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2013-07-29 12:27:37
^What "people"? Headphone forum members? Advertisement funded, "High-end" magazine reviewers? Might such people suffer from expectation bias and "group think (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink)" in regards to their sighted evaluations of what they undoubtedly might dismiss as being "cheap headphones" by their standards?

Sighted reviews are just as scientifically worthless with headphones as they are with anything else in audio. It's no different.


There is a relevant difference.

Whether or not there are audible differences between amplifiers, DACs, high bitrate codecs, etc. has a fairly consistent null outcome. Definitely true for the ones we consider to be good. Measurements and what we know about psychoacoustics confirm this.

Whether or not there are audible differences between loudspeakers, headphones, earphones etc. has a fairly consistent positive outcome.  Measurements and what we know about psychoacoustics confirm this.

Audio is not the "It all sounds the same" world portrayed above. Some things matter, and some things don't. Welcome to the real world! ;-)

Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: db1989 on 2013-07-29 13:03:48
Apart from that, flat ("boring") sound would not sell many units to non-professionals, meaning less profit for the company.
And so the smile curve ever tightens its grip, and its victims need ever more extreme quantities just to get the same buzz.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Martel on 2013-07-29 17:24:14
Well, isn't it a vicious cycle? Producing a non-mainstream (read balanced) headphone means that the producer has to sell it for a higher price to offset the lower sales (and still pay off the R&D costs of the particular model). But this could also drive the headphone's price out of the mainstream and normal people would not consider buying it.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: TomasPin on 2013-07-29 17:34:30
So I guess if you really need or like flat reproduction you either go for speakers or use something like Accudio (http://accudio.goldenears.net/), and I'm finding hard to believe what this one promises to do (or how it achieves it).

If more people knew (or cared to know) about equalization and how to properly use it this wouldn't be much of a problem.

Edit: added link.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: mzil on 2013-07-29 17:40:59
^What "people"? Headphone forum members? Advertisement funded, "High-end" magazine reviewers? Might such people suffer from expectation bias and "group think (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink)" in regards to their sighted evaluations of what they undoubtedly might dismiss as being "cheap headphones" by their standards?

Sighted reviews are just as scientifically worthless with headphones as they are with anything else in audio. It's no different.


There is a relevant difference.

Whether or not there are audible differences between amplifiers, DACs, high bitrate codecs, etc. has a fairly consistent null outcome. Definitely true for the ones we consider to be good. Measurements and what we know about psychoacoustics confirm this.

Whether or not there are audible differences between loudspeakers, headphones, earphones etc. has a fairly consistent positive outcome.  Measurements and what we know about psychoacoustics confirm this.

Audio is not the "It all sounds the same" world portrayed above. Some things matter, and some things don't. Welcome to the real world! ;-)


Huh? "Audio is not the 'It all sounds the same' world portrayed above."  Yikes, I hope you don't think I was portraying that in the world of Audio, "it all sounds the same" ! You'd be seriously reading into things if that's what you took away from what I wrote. I wasn't trying to say anything even remotely close to that. My point was that expectation bias can potentially influence any sighted test, even ones where we would all generally agree that there should be audible differences between the various gear, such as with different headphones or loudspeakers.

[Take Flyod Toole and Sean Olive's AES published papers on loudspeaker listening tests, for example. They are blind, not sighted evaluations.]:
(http://cdn.pocket-lint.com/r/s/728x700/images/dynamic/NEWS-34090-312582f28bd0c4af69d7f43724ac9e06.jpg)

Quote
There is a relevant difference.

Nope, this difference you cite is not relevant to the actual question I pose, "Can expectation bias possibly sway listeners in sighted test comparisons of things such as headphones?" The correct answer is: "Yes, it potentially can, even in instances where we might expect the inherent sonic differences, such as frequency response deviations, to be easily discernible to most listeners."

Expectation bias doesn't magically evaporate into thin air just because there are other known differences present which we are confident most certainly should be audible to most listeners [such as with speakers and headphones].

Consider this.  In the McGurk effect tests, we are confident people can easily discern an audible difference between the sound utterances of "Bah" and "Fah", beforehand, going into the test, yet if the test is not conducted in a blind manner, then the test listener is indeed swayed, biased, into perceiving sounds that are merely false illusions of the actual sounds, due to a bias caused by a visual stimulus (lip motion).

[ It also doesn't get eliminated simply by being a world renowned expert on how bias can influence a sighted test. Just ask Dr. Lawrence Rosenblum, who says he himself is still easily susceptible to the McGurk effect, a form of bias, even though he (having studied it for over 20 years), is well aware of this bias and tries his best not to be swayed by it!]

This link I've prepared should take people directly to 2m03s into the video, where he discusses how his advanced knowledge of this bias still doesn't protect him from its influence:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-lN8vWm3m0#t=123s" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-lN8vWm3m0#t=123s (http://Understanding%20that%20there%20is%20bias%20doesn't%20make%20one%20immune%20to%20it,%20even%20for%20experts)</a>.

Here is the same video, but from the start, for other readers who might not already be familiar with this form of bias, which influences our perception of sound more strongly than the actual sound itself[/i]:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-lN8vWm3m (http://The%20full%20McGurk%20Effect%20video%20from%20the%20start).0
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: mzil on 2013-07-29 17:51:58
Producing a non-mainstream (read balanced) headphone means that the producer has to sell it for a higher price to offset the lower sales (and still pay off the R&D costs of the particular model). But this could also drive the headphone's price out of the mainstream and normal people would not consider buying it.

The Sony MDR-V6/7506 is one of, if not the best selling circumaural headphones of all time [ been in continuous production for several decades], sold both on the consumer market as well as the professional market, yet they don't cost very much and have a fairly balanced, accurate response.

I've used both them, as well as other neutral response headphones (some costing $400 USD), for many years, and wouldn't consider buying anything but a neutral headphone. I want to hear the actual recording and not an adulterated, skewed version of it. [On the rare occasion I need/want EQ, I judiciously apply it electronically, tweaking it to my precise tastes and loving that I can easily reverse it at the touch of a button.]
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2013-07-29 18:43:10
My point was that expectation bias can potentially influence any sighted test, even ones where we would all generally agree that there should be audible differences between the various gear, such as with different headphones or loudspeakers.


No where in the post I was replying to (post #44) was the above said.

Furthermore, expectation bias can potentially influence any blind test. Listeners who who are highly biased to not hear differences will not hear differences, even if in the same test normal listeners do hear a difference.  Examples of this kind of bias include listeners who can't hear the difference due to ear damage, lazy listeners, tests done in a poor environment, or poor listener training.  Sometimes we don't know why our test is biased this way, and we are in the land of "You can't know what you don't know".

So if your rule is "Throw out the tests where expectation bias can influence the test", then we have very little.

Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: mzil on 2013-07-29 20:24:18
My point was that expectation bias can potentially influence any sighted test, even ones where we would all generally agree that there should be audible differences between the various gear, such as with different headphones or loudspeakers.


No where in the post I was replying to (post #44) was the above said.

What part? I never did explicitly say in that post that I indeed agree with the general consensus that there are audible differences between headphones/speakers, did I? You got me there. [I had just assumed that would be implicitly obvious.] Regarding the other part of that sentence ["My point was that expectation bias can potentially influence any sighted test"], I would think that would be pretty clear from my flat out dismissal of sighted tests as being "scientifically worthless" [due to their bias], when I wrote:

Quote
"Sighted reviews are just as scientifically worthless with headphones as they are with anything else in audio. It's no different....Namely, they are dubious for the same following reasons they are for typical (uncontrolled) amplifier comparisons:

- no level matching using instrumentation
- no way to preclude expectation bias due to both sight [and in the case of headphones, also "feel", against one's head/ears]".


If you feel you get something out of using such sighted headphone reviews, then by all means, feel free to use them. Most people do, I guess. I consider them a waste of my time.

Quote
So if your rule is "Throw out the tests where expectation bias can influence the test", then we have very little.

There's plenty for my needs out there without using sighted forum/magazine reviews. I've made dozens of audio purchases, including many headphones, over the past several decades and in over 90% of them I have relied solely on raw, objective data from independent test facilities and never by subjective reviews, unless they are blind and use precise level matching, utilizing external instrumentation [so, pretty much, never].
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Hifisound on 2013-07-30 06:50:10
Thanks all for the responses

I think I will mostly go for V6 or 7506  (as I am planning to keep my HD600 so price of v6/7506 is also good)
Except in a rare case where I may go for AKGK550/551 for better comfort and isolation.
One last question, do V6 and 7506 have any audible differences? Their FR graphs on headphone.com are slightly different
I will also then buy the Beyer EDT250 velour pads which fit v6/7506 too.

Thanks again everybody.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: LithosZA on 2013-07-30 11:57:00
Quote
One last question, do V6 and 7506 have any audible differences? Their FR graphs on headphone.com are slightly different

Strange, they should be the same. Maybe there is someone here with both who can tell us if there is an audible difference.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: db1989 on 2013-07-30 12:07:13
Well, isn't it a vicious cycle? Producing a non-mainstream (read balanced) headphone means that the producer has to sell it for a higher price to offset the lower sales (and still pay off the R&D costs of the particular model). But this could also drive the headphone's price out of the mainstream and normal people would not consider buying it.
My point was that intrinsic EQing of headphones/speakers can become a vicious cycle, yes. As TomasPin said, if people realised that flat response is a good thing and there are EQs for personal preference, that would make a lot more sense. Also, if music were mastered properly, people might not feel a need to EQ it all over the place. I suspect a lot of the bias against flat response is just due to entrainment with popular music that is deliberately mastered to punch the listener in the face, rather than to have any kind of fidelity. Related to how so much music now just consists of people incessantly shouting, perhaps?
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: mzil on 2013-07-30 20:42:52
I think I will mostly go for V6 or 7506  (as I am planning to keep my HD600 so price of v6/7506 is also good)

I keep both around as well. The two aren't identical but the Sony tracks the Sennheiser quite closely, within an impressively tight 2 to 3 dB window, all the way from the lowest bass up until the upper treble where they then diverge:
(http://i.imgur.com/qwXQSgL.png)
Besides being a fraction of the price, the Sony are just a tad more comfortable, at least to my head [less clamp force, not that I find that to be annoying with the HD600], easy to drive [straight to my cellphone it will play deafeningly loud with no amp needed], they collapse into a tidy ball for coat pocket or backpack pouch storage [great for travel or location monitoring], and I prefer their screw on 1/4 inch adapter they come fitted with over the HD600's plug in type [it seems to stay on better in my experience]. The isolation is better on the Sonys, but not by a lot, and don't expect them to provide "airplane noise" sort of isolation. You'll need other 'phones for that.

I admit I use the Beyer EDT250 pads as well, both for comfort and better longevity [albeit with a much greater replacement cost when they do finally go] but keep in mind you are then listening to a modified V6/7506. They sit farther from the ear and produce a different sized air cavity. You can easily hear how changing this distance to the ear by just a few millimeters will alter the FR by pressing your existing headphones inward, by say 2 mm per side, while listening to pink noise:

Pink Noise (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJ9Go1PnAVA)

My point is: do try the stock pads before switching to the Beyer, to evaluate if the change is acceptable, and certainly don't throw the originals away!

Quote
One last question, do V6 and 7506 have any audible differences? Their FR graphs on headphone.com are slightly different

Keep in mind the two have been in production over several decades (completely unheard of in anything else Sony has ever made, not just headphones). Over that time there have been Sony spec sheets that claim they use different magnets, and others that state they use the same! The stated frequency response of the two has almost always been different, but without any stated level deviation [e.g. " +/- 5dB"] they are meaningless anyways and should be ignored, [True of most headphone makers, by the way].

A problem with dummy head headphone measurements is that their exact placement position is done by sight, not feel, which is what us humans actually use when positioning headphones precisely on our own heads. This causes some problems, which indeed alters the sound from one measurement session to the next, even when measuring the exact same headphone pair. Most testers attempt to reduce this error by taking a series of several measurements and slightly nudging the headphones a bit up/down/forwards/backwards/centered, between takes, and then using an average of these (say five) measured curves. This is not ideal, but better than nothing.

There will be some slight variations in sequential runs even with no position tweaking. It's just the nature of microphone measurements even when using top-flight gear.

Besides the gold plated headphone tip, which doesn't matter, I'd advise you to think of them as the same and buy whichever is less expensive at the time.

P.S. There is a rumor that there are counterfeit versions out there which of course should be avoided, if true. It may just be a paranoid rumor some dude planted in the forums that then snowballed, who knows, when he noticed his new pair wasn't made in Japan, like his original 1990's pair was. I would stick with only well-known, long time authorized Sony Dealers [ex. B&H in NY] as a safeguard.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: rexit2 on 2013-08-01 14:43:08
I used to own a pair of Sony V6 headphones. The band wore out, as well as the ear pads, after 5 years of use. I replaced them with Sennheiser HD280s, which were promptly stolen along with my laptop soon after my arrival in Shanghai.

Soon after, I bought a pair of px200s, that fell apart after a year of use. Garbage product, poor isolation, weak low end response, especially in noisy places.

Compared to the V6 my original HD280s had better isolation, strong low end response, and more detail.
 
After that, I bought a replacement pair of HD280s in HK in 2008 that were made in Ireland.

My current HD280s seem to have the honky mids that some people complain about, more so than what I "remember" from my original HD280s.

Wanting something more portable, I made an impulse purchase, the TDK WR700, the "Kleer" wireless transmission was great until the transmitter suffered an untimely death.

I now use a pair of MX580 ear buds that are quite good (for the price), mostly because of the foam pads, amazing the difference that makes.

Anyway, In my experience there is far more to the sound of headphones than just frequency response, other factors such as coloration, transient response, detail, and amplifier compatibility can have considerable influence.

The only way to know for sure is to compare many models side by side, sometimes even the same model can sound different because of inconsistent production standards.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2013-08-01 16:09:19
I think I will mostly go for V6 or 7506  (as I am planning to keep my HD600 so price of v6/7506 is also good)

I keep both around as well. The two aren't identical but the Sony tracks the Sennheiser quite closely, within an impressively tight 2 to 3 dB window, all the way from the lowest bass up until the upper treble where they then diverge:
(http://i.imgur.com/qwXQSgL.png)
Besides being a fraction of the price, the Sony are just a tad more comfortable, at least to my head [less clamp force, not that I find that to be annoying with the HD600], easy to drive [straight to my cellphone it will play deafeningly loud with no amp needed], they collapse into a tidy ball for coat pocket or backpack pouch storage [great for travel or location monitoring], and I prefer their screw on 1/4 inch adapter they come fitted with over the HD600's plug in type [it seems to stay on better in my experience]. The isolation is better on the Sonys, but not by a lot, and don't expect them to provide "airplane noise" sort of isolation. You'll need other 'phones for that.



The 7506/V6  is arguably one of the most widely used headphones in the world, especially by professionals. I bought my first pair of V6 back in the early 80s, and wore out about 2 pair of them before I started buying 7506's that seem to be a tad more robust. I'm on my second pair of 7506 and the current pair may last forever because I don't listen to them very much any more.

The 7506/V6 is therefore about a 30 year old design, and while it may have taken 20 years or so, technology seems to have moved past them at least in my experiences, because I prefer other headphones to them on the grounds of accuracy.

The frequency response curve above must be pretty close to the current reputation of 7506s because it shows  rolled off bass and a fairly large peak in the treble around 9 KHz.  The 7506 bass is very dependent on how tightly you clamp them against your head, and the curve shown suggests to me that someone was *helping* the 7506s during measurements.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2013-08-01 16:14:35
Quote
One last question, do V6 and 7506 have any audible differences? Their FR graphs on headphone.com are slightly different

Strange, they should be the same. Maybe there is someone here with both who can tell us if there is an audible difference.


You should look at them. When he says slightly different emphasize the word slightly.

http://www.headphone.com/headphones/sony-mdr-7506.php (http://www.headphone.com/headphones/sony-mdr-7506.php)

http://www.headphone.com/headphones/sony-mdr-v6.php (http://www.headphone.com/headphones/sony-mdr-v6.php)

I'd like to see 10 successive tests of either set of headphones started from scratch to see how the barely observable differences between the two models compare to the results of different tests of the same model headphones.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: mzil on 2013-08-01 16:17:05
To me the frequency response dictates not just the tonality, it also determines the "sheen", "aggressiveness", "detail", "warmth", "brilliance", "murkiness", "tubbiness", "thump", "boominess", "clarity", "sparkle", "honkiness", "grittiness", "muddiness", bass extension, etc. Most of the other measurable performance specs of full-size headphones, such as distortion, often make hundred dollar headphones look like thousand dollar speakers. Is there room for improvement? Sure, but if you nail the frequency response down, or at least find one which is easily tolerable, then you've conquered the biggest hurdle [after comfort].*

*Although sound quality is very important in an affordable headphone, it comes second to a even more important aspect: comfort. Why would one want to own a great sounding pair of phones if they are too uncomfortable to wear for an extended period of time? Also, people with specific needs, like airplane noise suppression, sometimes have to prioritize sound isolation over sound quality, especially if they are trying to stay within a certain budget.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: dhromed on 2013-08-01 16:23:39
Quote
Why would one want to own a great sounding pair of phones if they are too uncomfortable to wear for an extended period of time?


Few things I agree with so vehemently.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2013-08-01 16:26:50
To me the frequency response dictates not just the tonality, it also determines the "sheen", "aggressiveness", "detail", "warmth", "brilliance", "murkiness", "tubbiness", "thump", "boominess", "clarity", "sparkle", "honkiness", "grittiness", "muddiness", bass extension, etc.


Just to clarify "sheen", "aggressiveness", "detail", "warmth", "brilliance", "murkiness", "tubbiness", "thump", "boominess", "clarity", "sparkle", "honkiness", "grittiness", "muddiness", bass extension,  are descriptive words and phrases for different kinds of frequency response variations.  They relate to different kinds of tonality. They all lack a precise definition, but there are closely related kinds of frequency response curve segments that many people will use the same word to describe, or vice versa.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: mzil on 2013-08-01 16:27:46
The 7506 bass is very dependent on how tightly you clamp them against your head, and the curve shown suggests to me that someone was *helping* the 7506s during measurements.

"Helping"? I don't understand. Please elaborate as to specifically what you are suggesting someone was doing. Thanks.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2013-08-01 16:30:32
Why would one want to own a great sounding pair of phones if they are too uncomfortable to wear for an extended period of time?


Because one is desperate for good sound.

Because all they need to do is listen to good sound for a little while so how they feel after an extended period of time doesn't matter.

I've been both those guys!

Bet you thought that was a rhetorical question. ;-)
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Hifisound on 2013-08-01 18:45:47
I'd like to see 10 successive tests of either set of headphones started from scratch to see how the barely observable differences between the two models compare to the results of different tests of the same model headphones.


I guess it would be great to have averaged FR graphs 
Anyways, I think what you mean is the difference in graphs is well within the error margin of a particular test and hence the graphs are practically equivalent , right ?
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Hifisound on 2013-08-01 19:02:37
The frequency response curve above must be pretty close to the current reputation of 7506s because it shows  rolled off bass and a fairly large peak in the treble around 9 KHz.  The 7506 bass is very dependent on how tightly you clamp them against your head, and the curve shown suggests to me that someone was *helping* the 7506s during measurements.


But isn't that large peak at 9 khz quite common for many of the closed headphones ( eg ATH-M50, HD280pro, DT770, AKG 550 ) ?

Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: mzil on 2013-08-01 21:33:03
^Yup. Good eye, Hifi! 

Indeed, not only that, but most of the other headphones he mentioned owning have a similar peak there too, compared to their average level in the adjacent octaves:
(http://i.imgur.com/Oo3Yuym.png)

I'll comment more on the bass once he answers my question in my last post regarding what he meant by the 7506/V6 being "helped" by (if I understood correctly) the measurement taker.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: mzil on 2013-08-02 18:42:10
One last question, do V6 and 7506 have any audible differences? Their FR graphs on headphone.com are slightly different

They don't present any actual evidence-based science to back their claims, other than sighted, anecdotal testimony which is prone to expectation bias, but cnet mentions they are "similar but slightly different", if it means anything. Their audio "guru" he mentions in the video, Guttenberg [formerly an audio store salesman and movie theater projectionist]  "prefers" the V6 in his undoubtedly sighted comparison of the two, but I know him (from his articles) to be an audio woo, subjectivist, mythology spreader, in my opinion, so certainly not exactly the kind of person I would trust on audio matters. [Not that I trust ANY sighted evaluations, not even my own.]

cnet video on MDR-V6 vs MDR-7506 (http://cnettv.cnet.com/sony-mdr-v6-sony-mdr-7506-headphones-oldies/9742-1_53-50151259.html)


...On a side note, I think I will self anoint myself as a "mega guru" and therefor my opinions on such matters will trump all other run-of-the-mill gurus.

P.S. Keep in mind , even if they had two of the exact same headphones, there will be tiny differences from serial number to serial number, and what if one of the two they tested were a few years older than the other? [having been used over that time] BAM! There's a huge difference right there! The head band clamp force would be expected to be weakened over time [especially for people who foolishly store their phones on a dummy head stand], which does change the sound (usually reducing the bass), but this is true of most circumaural, sealed headphones. There's nothing magically special about the V6/7506 which makes it especially susceptible to this sound alteration due to varying pressure, compared to other 'phones. [It's why you see so many people push their headphones inward, even when new. People just love their bass boost! Here's an image example. (http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2010/02/02/stars-record-world-haiti/)]

Foam pad deformation over time can also cause issues, especially in preventing a good head seal, critically important to bass reproduction. [And boy do they deteriorate over time, only lasting a few years in my experience [5-7 years, maybe] . Luckily, at around $10/pr ,the cost to fix the problem is quite affordable.]
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2013-08-02 19:42:51
The 7506 bass is very dependent on how tightly you clamp them against your head, and the curve shown suggests to me that someone was *helping* the 7506s during measurements.

"Helping"? I don't understand. Please elaborate as to specifically what you are suggesting someone was doing. Thanks.


Holding the headphones tighter to the measurement device to improve the bass response.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: mzil on 2013-08-02 20:12:31
Considering they sell dozens of other brands of headphones, many costing hundreds of dollars more (and I suspect generally with higher profit margins), even one that's nearly $2000, and the Sony's being widely distributed (unprotected market) means they have a lot of price competition to worry about, I don't see why they'd want to "push" the Sonys.  What would be their incentive to cheat and embellish its actual performance artificially? Or did I misunderstand you, and you are suggesting they fudge the response curves of all the headphones they test, for some unknown (to me) reason?
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2013-08-03 15:37:59
Considering they sell dozens of other brands of headphones, many costing hundreds of dollars more (and I suspect generally with higher profit margins), even one that's nearly $2000, and the Sony's being widely distributed (unprotected market) means they have a lot of price competition to worry about, I don't see why they'd want to "push" the Sonys.  What would be their incentive to cheat and embellish its actual performance artificially? Or did I misunderstand you, and you are suggesting they fudge the response curves of all the headphones they test, for some unknown (to me) reason?


The above calls for pure speculation, and I don't feel compelled to play that game right now.

I'm working from an evidentiary basis being that it is my perception that 7506's don't have as good bass as HD600s.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: mzil on 2013-08-05 03:31:50
^ Do you own a pair of HD600s, Arnold?
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2013-08-05 12:24:56
^ Do you own a pair of HD600s, Arnold?


No. Last time I personally listened to them was at a high end high fi show.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Hifisound on 2013-08-05 14:43:08
To Arnold, mzil and other experts,

Just out of curiosity, which would be the best headphone and speaker based on measurements alone. irrespective of type/price
(if there are multiple candidates, the cheapest can be mentioned)

And on general note, is there something which measurements can't tell (esp for speakers and headphones) and one has to listen to decide (for that factor)
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Hifisound on 2013-08-05 15:36:22
Btw, I had hinted about AKG K702 sounding a bit more neutral to me than HD600 in the first post, based on brief listening earlier.
A day back I did get a chance to borrow them from my friend and compare both again for a long duration (I used Fiio E17 for both)

I have begun to like 702 more than HD600s. Its FR graph is also pretty flat (kindly correct if that's wrong)
They also seem much similar in tonality to my speakers (Dynaudio Contour 1.8mkii)
HD600s sound more like some B&Ws which I heard long back.
Similar difference in treble (soft dome vs metal). Could be a coincidence , but metal dome speakers I heard always sounded harsher to me.

Well the current search is for closed ones so back to it....
But its now more like "closed back headphones like K702s"
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: mzil on 2013-08-05 23:18:17
No. Last time I personally listened to them was at a high end high fi show.

Did you also have a pair of V6/7506 at hand when you listened to the HD600, for direct comparison, or are your observations as to the differences based on different listening sessions?
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2013-08-06 09:15:57
No. Last time I personally listened to them was at a high end high fi show.

Did you also have a pair of V6/7506 at hand when you listened to the HD600, for direct comparison, or are your observations as to the differences based on different listening sessions?


Didn't bring my 7506s to the show.

But at the time I owned HD 580s (later stolen or I'd still have them) so I was going back and fort between the 580s (which are similar to 600s) and the 7506s all the time. I used the 580s for listening for pleasure and the 7506s for editing.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: mzil on 2013-08-06 18:35:45
To Arnold, mzil and other experts,

Just out of curiosity, which would be the best headphone and speaker based on measurements alone. irrespective of type/price

["Speakers" is off-topic and really should be another thread. Start one if you wish.]

There is no "best" headphone because different things are important to different people. Some people [arguably most, hence the long standing trend of what's actually on the market] think elevated bass is "correct". I don't agree, but I fully understand why it sells so well, hence its popularity. [Equalizers and/or tone controls are the correct place to make such alterations, when needed, where they can be tweaked and removed at the flick of a switch. Building in a fixed, intentionally skewed FR (that obviously can't be flicked off at will) in one's headphones is just as silly as building one into one's amplifier, if you ask me!]

Keep in mind, most people seek out "most pleasing to the ear" in a response curve (unfortunately) and not "most faithful to the recording and general sound reproduction", aka "fidelity (truthfulness/accuracy) which is the highest that can be achieved", or simply "hi-fi". They aren't the same thing and I even see some world renowned, JAES published, audio researchers make this exact mistake!

Some people think ultimate bass and treble extension, to the very reaches of human hearing (say from 20 to 20kHz) regardless of the level of the deviations up and down incurred to get there , is "most" important. This is a very bad approach, in my book, but I suspect it is common with people new to reading frequency response curves, trying to understand what is and isn't audibly significant. I'm much more concerned with there being  as little level deviation within the musically significant 30 - 13kHz (or so) range, at the expense of overall bandwidth. This is why the MDR-V6 scores so highly in my book, despite being the least expensive pair of circumaural headphones I've ever owned!

Perhaps I'm blessed with an HRTF which closely tracks the averaged one used by these various measurement sites , when applying either a diffuse field, or more recently an Independent Direction (ID) correction curve, but all I know is the MDR-V6 don't have any blaring inaccuracies to my ears; they just sound pretty neutral. [And they are very amenable to applying bass boost, for example when I want to "rock out" or add some "equal loudness compensation" for lower level listening, on my own, for that listening session only.]

Quote
And on general note, is there something which measurements can't tell (esp for ... headphones) and one has to listen to decide (for that factor)


Probably the most important one to me is "comfort". There are others though.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Martel on 2013-08-06 19:22:22
... I'm much more concerned with there being  as little level deviation within the musically significant 30 - 13kHz (or so) range, at the expense of overall bandwidth...
From my experience, 13kHz is not going to reproduce hi-hats and cymbals (snare, acoustic guitar and other metallic instruments) faithfully.
All these produce noise-like sound spread across a fairly wide frequency range (well beyond human hearing ability). This is very sensitive to both frequency range and ripple (FR spikes or dips screw up the "color" of the "noise").
For me, rolled-off/imbalanced treble is a trait of a low-end/mainstream product.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: mzil on 2013-08-06 19:42:35
... I'm much more concerned with there being  as little level deviation within the musically significant 30 - 13kHz (or so) range, at the expense of overall bandwidth...
From my experience, 13kHz is not going to reproduce hi-hats and cymbals (snare, acoustic guitar and other metallic instruments) faithfully.
All these produce noise-like sound spread across a fairly wide frequency range (well beyond human hearing ability). This is very sensitive to both frequency range and ripple (FR spikes or dips screw up the "color" of the "noise").
For me, rolled-off/imbalanced treble is a trait of a low-end/mainstream product.

The Sony's aren't perfect, for sure, but I personally consider the flaws in the top octave of sound reproduction, 10kHz-20kHz,  to be the least important in audio in general [especially since I'm not under 30, he-he]. That's just me though and I can respect others might feel differently.

In most music (which even has good power in that top octave, its not always there), it is usually perceptually masked by the much more powerful adjacent (lower) octave's content. Don't be swayed by your knowledge that you can successfully hear, 15kHz, 16kHz, 17kHz, heck even 20 KHz if you are very young, as an isolated tone. That's one thing, but with music [or any wideband signal], it's another.

Out of curiosity, for example,  have you ever taken the high frequency cut off (aka "low pass filtered", LPF) audio blind test here?
http://www.audiocheck.net/blindtests_frequency.php (http://www.audiocheck.net/blindtests_frequency.php)

I find (in other tests) the highest frequency I can hear as an isolated tone, a sine wave, is much better than what I can actually reliably hear in that test, l linked to above,  using bands of filtered noise below the frequency selected [which would better resemble actual music, including such things as high hats and cymbals]. This is because of masking. Give it a go.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: ChronoSphere on 2013-08-06 20:37:04
Gave it a go... I'm capping out at 15kHz (8/10), 16kHz is already nearly impossible to guess (3/10). This is kinda disappointing 

edit: that site is interesting, like the 8 vs 16 bit test
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: mzil on 2013-08-06 22:03:24
Well look a the bright side, now you know that for music listening, you need not worry about having to buy headphones which exceed 15kHz, and you can instead focus on the accuracy of the much more important frequencies below that, so you may actually end up getting better, more accurate sound, for your ears, and you'll save money!

---

edit to add: In the real world, with regard to music, not isolated sine waves, instead of a life-long pursuit of "20 - 20kHz" gear, all people would do much better to pursue " +/-1dB" gear; that's way more important to an overall faithful tonality, even if the gear's bandwidth isn't quite the ideal 20-20kHz.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2013-08-07 00:23:45
... I'm much more concerned with there being  as little level deviation within the musically significant 30 - 13kHz (or so) range, at the expense of overall bandwidth...
From my experience, 13kHz is not going to reproduce hi-hats and cymbals (snare, acoustic guitar and other metallic instruments) faithfully.


In my investigations I've found that the peak output of hi hats and cymbals is in the 7-9 KHz range.

As others have pointed out while many people can hear pure tones @ say 16 or 18 KHz, clean brick wall filters as low as 16 KHz can slip right by you. It's all about masking of > 16 KHz by sounds < 16 KHz.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Martel on 2013-08-07 07:23:26
The above test would be way better (more representative) if it used some real instruments instead of white noise. I find it harder to spot low pass filtering in white noise compared to some real stuff. I will try putting some samples together to illustrate my point as soon as I have some spare time.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: ChronoSphere on 2013-08-07 10:50:40
Well look a the bright side, now you know that for music listening, you need not worry about having to buy headphones which exceed 15kHz, and you can instead focus on the accuracy of the much more important frequencies below that, so you may actually end up getting better, more accurate sound, for your ears, and you'll save money!
Would that mean "looking at spectrogramms with mostly linear function in that range" (final decision being of course a listening test)?

Quote
edit to add: In the real world, with regard to music, not isolated sine waves, instead of a life-long pursuit of "20 - 20kHz" gear, all people would do much better to pursue " +/-1dB" gear; that's way more important to an overall faithful tonality, even if the gear's bandwidth isn't quite the ideal 20-20kHz.
What do you mean by "+/-1dB gear"?

The above test would be way better (more representative) if it used some real instruments instead of white noise. I find it harder to spot low pass filtering in white noise compared to some real stuff.
I'd have to agree real instruments/music would have been a better test, but white noise is already much closer to it than pure tones (I can go up to 18kHz with pure tones), since you don't really have pure tones in music.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2013-08-07 13:12:02
The above test would be way better (more representative) if it used some real instruments instead of white noise. I find it harder to spot low pass filtering in white noise compared to some real stuff. I will try putting some samples together to illustrate my point as soon as I have some spare time.


My experience is the opposite. White noise tests are generally the more sensitive test, probably because it has a flatter spectrum that most musical instruments. It is nasty to listen to which may put some people off.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: mzil on 2013-08-07 16:29:20
The above test would be way better (more representative) if it used some real instruments instead of white noise. I find it harder to spot low pass filtering in white noise compared to some real stuff. I will try putting some samples together to illustrate my point as soon as I have some spare time.

That sounds like a good idea. Perhaps you should split it off as another thread that you link to from here, to try to gain a larger audience of listeners in the main forum, rather than only getting the exposure of the small list of people who are still actively reading this thread?

I would also recommend using short, 30 second (or so) passages from cymbal and high hat recordings where we hear those instruments by themselves, without the accompaniment of lower frequency instruments, to give listeners the best shot of hearing small differences in the highs, thanks to the greater sensitivity and lack of distractions. [Unless I misunderstood you and you feel hearing the full ensemble has importance. It is your test after all!]
---

Quote
My experience is the opposite
Same here. I've often used noise, usually pink, which I find to be easier on my ears (although I could see how white might provide greater sensitivity to picking up on small differences), with great success.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: mzil on 2013-08-07 17:46:49
Well look a the bright side, now you know that for music listening, you need not worry about having to buy headphones which exceed 15kHz, and you can instead focus on the accuracy of the much more important frequencies below that, so you may actually end up getting better, more accurate sound, for your ears, and you'll save money!
Would that mean "looking at spectrogramms with mostly linear function in that range" (final decision being of course a listening test)?

For me that would certainly seem to be a good plan because I have good reason to believe that both the ID (independent direction) and slightly different DF (diffuse field) correction curves which these objective headphone reviewers apply before they post their frequency response (http://www.ecoustics.com/articles/understanding-speaker-frequency-response/) curves [used to compensate for differences in how we hear headphones differently than speakers], pretty closely matches my own ear/head design [my "HRTF (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head-related_transfer_function)", as they call it], but that should not be assumed by all.

Conversely, the advice I often see posted in this and other forums of, to paraphrase, "Everyone hears differently, so you shouldn't worry about the measured response curves and instead should simply keep trying on different pairs until you happen to stumble upon a pair that matches your particular hearing" is even worse advice. People will inevitably seek out pleasing-to-the-ear designs [for example, a mild "smiley face EQ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smiley_face_curve)" response curve is one of the well known ones], but this has nothing to do with obtaining actual accuracy and high fidelity.

Quote
What do you mean by "+/-1dB gear"?


I mean the amplitude tolerance window that we should seek out when buying audio gear [equipment], at least in a perfect world, or the allowed deviation from a truly accurate, flat response, straying up and down from the neutral 0 dB "X-axis" by no more than a maximum of one dB, over the entire stated frequency range, or "bandwidth". [Not that I'm implying typical, commercial music recording engineers make EQ decisions based on the belief that our entire audio chain, start to finish, has a truly flat response. They don't.]

You know how we might describe a loudspeaker as having a frequency response of "20 to 20kHz, +/- 3dB"? [Usually one infers that also means "on-axis, at 1 meter, in an anechoic chamber"] I'm talking about the allowable range of deviation from perfectly neutral in that expression, or the "plus or minus" part stated at the end of the term.

A tolerance window of +/- 1dB, over the typical 20 - 20kHz bandwidth of human hearing, with low distortion throughout, is pretty easy to achieve with affordable amplifiers and CD players [which is why they all pretty much sound the same, at least usually] but it is much more difficult to achieve with affordable headphone and speaker designs [which is why they all pretty much sound different from each other].

edit: I've inserted a few links to definitions of some of the terms used, only so future readers of this thread who might not have the same background as us might better understand what I'm talking about.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Hifisound on 2013-08-08 16:05:25
Headphone.com has mentioned how the FR graph of a "natural sounding" headphone should be (see How to interpret the line )

http://www.headphone.com/learning-center/a...easurements.php (http://www.headphone.com/learning-center/about-headphone-measurements.php)

Experts can comment if thats accurate...
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Martel on 2013-08-08 18:17:33
I would also recommend using short, 30 second (or so) passages from cymbal and high hat recordings where we hear those instruments by themselves, without the accompaniment of lower frequency instruments, to give listeners the best shot of hearing small differences in the highs, thanks to the greater sensitivity and lack of distractions.
Yes, I wanted exactly that but unfortunately I own neither a drum-kit nor a full-range microphone to record it. I will try searching for some free samples on the internet. If I don't find anything, I will just cut it out of some CD.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: mzil on 2013-08-08 18:45:26
Quote
Headphone.com has mentioned how the FR graph of a "natural sounding" headphone should be (see How to interpret the line )

http://www.headphone.com/learning-center/a...easurements.php (http://www.headphone.com/learning-center/a...easurements.php)

Experts can comment if thats accurate...

Much of what is expressed is correct, however much of what is discussed regarding why "a truly dead-flat, horizontal line response is undesirable" is more personal opinion, than fact. I agree with some of what they say, but it would be wrong to think they have the definitive word on the matter. [Also keep in mind they SELL headphones, so for them to insult what an expensive, profitable brand they sell claims, makes no financial sense.]

Although the basic mechanism of how we measure headphones [using these standardized dummy heads and comparing the response to how a perfect speaker would be perceived at the DRP, the eardrum], instead of a simpler headphone coupler method alone, is pretty well established stuff in the science community and agreed upon from studies that go back to the 1960s, where even the top scientists sometimes disagree is what exact curve we should be shooting for! [The "target curve".]

Should we look at the raw curve alone, looking for a smooth octave to octave balance, mostly? Should we worry more about where we know the ear to be most sensitive to inaccuracies of response, say near 3-4 kHz?
Should we use a free-field correction curve? One based on the speaker being 30 degrees off axis to the listener much like in most home stereos, instead? How about the speaker to the side of the ear, which is the same direction headphones actually radiate sound at you from? A diffuse field curve? An independent direction curve? Even once we pick say an FF, DF, or ID curve, who's exact curve should we use? Should we build in small room x-curve compensation? Do we need to account for no bass conduction in headphone use, compared to speakers? Does pumping up the bass to the cochlea truly replicate the bone conduction sensation lost in the body, or is that at least the cover story we go with (since we know headphones with bass boost sell better and we want to stay in business)?
Do we want the sound to be accurate and faithful, in a best case scenario "transparent" and truly indistinguishable to actual, real life sound? Or do we go by listener responses to the question "What do you like best and find most pleasing?" Do we assume most recordings have a skewed FR and if so do we want to correct that or replicate that?


As I see it, one of basic problems is that humans seek out "pleasing to the ear" or "natural to them", not "accurate to the incoming source, as the music artist intended you to hear it" and SONY and all the other companies are well aware of this and how to make their money. GIVE THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT! People just love bass. Think of how many headphones on the market even flaunt tonal inaccuracy in their very name, for example Sony's "XB" series which stands for "extra bass"! Me? I want the correct level of bass, that Yo-Yo Ma intended me to hear, no more no less. 

I generally can't stand Sony headphones. The 7506/V6 is an anomaly from every other headphone they have ever made (including ones with rather similar model numbers starting with MDR-75xx or MDR-V6xx). I think it might have just been dumb luck , since they have never duplicated such an accurate (diffuse field) response ever since! If anyone has mistakenly pegged me as a "Sony fan" you should dismiss that from your mind immediately. Most of their headphones are junk.

Are you old enough to know what a "loudness" button is, found on many basic stereo systems in the 1960s through 1990s? In theory it was to "apply an equal loudness contour curve to the music to compensate for a perception of a diminished (mostly) bass, when listening at lower levels, as first measured by Fletcher and Munson in the 1930s ". And is that how most people used it? Absolutely not! People pressed it in, liked what they heard, and left it pressed in for all playback, not just lower volume sessions. Some sort of "bass kick" and/or "smiley face EQ" button I would assume still lives on in most mini systems on the market to this very day. [I haven't looked at one in decades though so I don't know for sure.]

If you ask people why they like the sound of such "enhancement" buttons [which you know to actually be just an elevated bass or perhaps instead a smiley face EQ curve] they will unabashedly respond "Because it sounds better and more natural that way." Key word: "natural" [at least in their mind]. The problem is for many compact, basic stereo systems, where a truly flat response with really good, accurate extension all the down to 20 Hz is very difficult to achieve, bumping up the bass in the octave or two above that can indeed create the illusion of deeper bass extension, flat to 20Hz, at least to a simple listener. The masses, having grown up listening to these modest, compact stereo systems with these buttons engaged, have unfortunately come to expect this sound as being "natural".
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: mzil on 2013-08-08 19:24:48
Martel, EBU SQAM (Sound Quality Assessment Material) solo cymbals and musical triangles (also very rich in high frequency sound) can be downloaded for free here:
http://tech.ebu.ch/news/ebu-cds-now-online-31oct08 (http://tech.ebu.ch/news/ebu-cds-now-online-31oct08)
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: ChronoSphere on 2013-08-08 19:29:21
I have the possibility to get the ATH-A900X for almost half of the EU price (~180€ vs 399€) or the ATH-M50 (~100€ vs 159€). I've been reading some reviews about the a900x and they seem positive, question is, is the ATH-A900X worth it over the M50 one? How do they compare to other headphones in the same price region? (Maybe I'm better off with, say, a German brand at the same price (100~180€) vs. the hassle of having to import the headphones?)

As for the loudness button, I'm guilty of using it myself. I don't know why, but it seems impossible to achieve the same sound by fiddling with the treble/bass knobs, and without loudness EQ I don't hear almost any low frequencies. This is only on this (cheap) Sony receiver though, I have an old Soviet made receiver and even at all treble/mid/bass knobs on neutral positions the bass is beautiful, not booming and/or covering other frequencies. So I guess you are right that the whole fascination with "smiley face" EQ sounding headphones comes from people being used to cheap receivers.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: mzil on 2013-08-09 00:42:38
I have begun to like 702 more than HD600s. Its FR graph is also pretty flat (kindly correct if that's wrong)

edit to add:
Yes, flat means exactly what it seems to mean: "A straight linear line that stays right at 0 dB, or very close to it, all the way from 20 Hz (not 10Hz where the graph starts) to 20kHz" [The best case frequency range of a young person's hearing, who has never attended any loud rock concerts or dance clubs]. You don't need us to "read it" for you.    Whether flat is the goal is another matter (which I discussed in my rambling, earlier post), but flat does indeed mean flat.


You originally said the whole reason you were looking for headphones was because you needed it to not wake the baby and for office use. The AKG 701/702 are perforated on at least some of the back, no? [I've never seen them up close] Their isolation plots don't look like they'd keep sound from escaping any better than the 600's you already are complaining leak too much:
isolation plots (http://graphs.headphone.com/graphCompare.php?graphType=6&graphID%5b%5d=703&graphID%5b%5d=2621&graphID%5b%5d=573&graphID%5b%5d=1513&scale=30)

Isolation from sound escaping vs sound coming in aren't exactly the same, but they should be in the same ballpark.

You can get a good feel for how much leakage they have by playing them at the level you'd use them at, removing them from your head without turning down the volume, and then pressing the two ear cups against each other {ideally with a thick, dense object in between them  like a large book}. The noise you are then hearing escape should be quite similar to what others around you hear when you actually use them.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Hifisound on 2013-08-09 05:18:49
You originally said the whole reason you were looking for headphones was because you needed it to not wake the baby and for office use.


Yes. I just brought up K702 as I got to compare them few days back with my HD600s again.

In the same post (which was quite before some of your other detailed and excellent posts) I had also mentioned that the search is still for a closed headphone.

Since I already like 2 headphones with flat FR graphs (HD600, K702) I think I should like 7506 
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: RonaldDumsfeld on 2013-08-09 14:17:45
Also very interested in the outcome of this thread.

Since I first plonked a pair of ADAM A3X on my desktop open backed headphones have become redundant.

Any advance on Sony 7506?
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2013-08-12 01:32:13
Also very interested in the outcome of this thread.

Since I first plonked a pair of ADAM A3X on my desktop open backed headphones have become redundant.

Any advance on Sony 7506?


There are a number of headphones I'd rather have and do have and use in preference to the 7506s that I have.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: TomasPin on 2013-08-12 04:56:30
This thread made me realize I could try aiming a bit higher than what I currently have, if my budget allowed... The 7506 are quite affordable in reality, but if I'm lucky enough to find a pair here they will be way off in price. Living in the third world is not easy, ladies and gentlemen...
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: mzil on 2013-08-12 10:19:53
There are a number of headphones I'd rather have and do have and use in preference to the 7506s that I have.

They have changed their production plant from the original facility in Japan. Only very old ones are from there but I'm not sure what the cut off date was or if there was a time where they had production from more than one country. On the inside left ear band there is a "Made in..." stamp. Where were yours made, out of curiosity?
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: mzil on 2013-08-13 05:19:46
Any advance on Sony 7506?

Has there been any advancement over the V6/7506 design, in Sony headphones, you mean? Nope. Assuming you want as flat and neutral a response as possible, like your Adam speakers, then there are no better circumaural headphones based on diffuse field corrected dummy head measurements, that they have ever made, at any price. Keep in mind this completely flat sound they have wont sit well with people expecting the bass boost (and often also treble reduced) sound which is quite common in so many headphones these days though. Also, it is said by some that most recording engineers don't expect average folk to have such admirably flat systems, so they EQ their mixes accordingly, and when such recordings get played back on truly flat systems they can sound too bright. Research funded by the NRC a couple of decades back noted this problem. I think Sean Olive (and Toole?) may have a paper on it, if you want to learn more. [I find my V6 to be quite friendly to simple tone controls on the rare occasion I need to tweak them, though, thanks to their flat-from-the-get-go response.  ]

There have been a few offshoot models, quite similar to the V6/7506, that came and went over the past decades. There was an MDR-V7, for example, which IIRC had a straight cord, not coiled, and they might not have collapsed into a ball (no hinged ear cups). Also in Japan they have (had?) versions which have slight cosmetic differences (http://bbs.kakaku.com/bbs/-/SortID=8049492/ImageID=82492/) and are not made for export, for example MDR-CD700, MDR-CD900, and MDR-CD900ST. Sony has claimed different specs on these (just like they do the V6 and the 7506, even though they are the same thing) and some supposedly had "vaporized sapphire coated diaphragms" (for example) instead of just plastic, OOPS, I mean, "polyethylene terephthalate" [*COUGH*, soda bottle plastic]. Mostly marketing fluff, I suspect, not that I can say I've seen curves run on these variations.

P.S. Don't be confused into thinking other similar sounding model numbers are also clones of (or at least are very close to) the V6/7506. Here's a short list of those: MDR-V600, MDR-V900, MDR-V900HD, MDR-7505, MDR-7502, MDR-7520, MDR-V700DJ . None are even remotely close in terms of overall flat response.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2013-08-13 15:51:06
There are a number of headphones I'd rather have and do have and use in preference to the 7506s that I have.

They have changed their production plant from the original facility in Japan. Only very old ones are from there but I'm not sure what the cut off date was or if there was a time where they had production from more than one country. On the inside left ear band there is a "Made in..." stamp. Where were yours made, out of curiosity?


My 7506s  might be more than 10 years old, and guess what, I can't find them quickly. I seem to recall that they were made in Japan.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Hifisound on 2013-08-16 10:56:56
After going through

http://nwavguy.blogspot.in/2011/09/more-power.html (http://nwavguy.blogspot.in/2011/09/more-power.html)

I am wondering if I should drop the plan to buy E07K and instead buy Fiio E5/E6 (I know Arnold and others have also been advising nothing more above that  )
I guess 103.8 peak dB SPL for HD600 by E5 should be more than enough ...
(if I replace HD600s with AKG K702 later it would be an even easier load)
For Sony MDR-7506 it should be even more than enough.....

But if the output from laptop is still not good after using E5, I will need to buy something like Creative X-Fi Go USB
(I plan to borrow my friends E17 and use it as an amp only with my laptop to find that out first)
In that case other options like Fiio E10 (and maybe others due to price drop) also are not much costlier as its two in one functionality.

Only one quick question though is :
The headphone impedance itself varies by freq (http://graphs.headphone.com/graphCompare.php?graphType=7&graphID%5b%5d=2361&graphID%5b%5d=2621&graphID%5b%5d=573&scale=30)

So is it necessary to keep some more headroom to account for that ?
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: mzil on 2013-08-16 19:12:56
Do we already know you need to use a headphone amp, in the first place? We don't even know for sure which headphones you are going to get, but of all the headphones you've been discussing as contenders, you already own the ones which would be the most problematic to power directly from a portable device, like your laptop, namely the HD600s. You are also in a much better position to judge what kind of music you listen to, how loudly it is recorded or varies per recording, how loudly it plays from your existing device into said headphones, and if this level meets your individual needs or not. Does it?

You should completely disregard any "rule of thumb charts" which have to guess at all these variabilities, which you can actually test for, simply by trying them out!

Granted, there are other things you might secondarily worry about beyond "Is it loud enough?", such as hiss level and/or an impedance mismatch which causes some mild distortion and frequency response errors, often fairly mild on circumaural headphones compared to balanced armature IEMs, but we really should nail down which headphones are best for you before we can start talking about what's the best amp (if any) to get for them. [Plus that really should be a separate thread, if you ask me]


Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Hifisound on 2013-08-16 19:28:22
I have decided on MDR-7506 for closed. And for now would be keeping the HD600s (maybe later I will replace the 600s with K702s)
So for now amp will be for MDR-7506 and HD600s.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: TomasPin on 2013-08-16 23:47:36
how loudly it is recorded or varies per recording

Which is, if I may add, not relevant if you use ReplayGain when playing them back. It could end up not being loud enough for you afterwards, though most players that support the standard allow you to pre-amplify.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: markanini on 2013-08-17 00:38:41
Any of you guys follows Rins blog? http://rinchoi.blogspot.com/ (http://rinchoi.blogspot.com/)
Lately he's measured the HD650, HD280, K702 and publishes an additional graph on each headphone he tests conforming to the new Olive-Welti target, from the same people that published "The Relationship between Perception and Measurement of Headphone Sound Quality" a while back.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Martel on 2013-08-19 10:34:35
Martel, EBU SQAM (Sound Quality Assessment Material) solo cymbals and musical triangles (also very rich in high frequency sound) can be downloaded for free here:
http://tech.ebu.ch/news/ebu-cds-now-online-31oct08 (http://tech.ebu.ch/news/ebu-cds-now-online-31oct08)

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....howtopic=102310 (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=102310)
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: mzil on 2013-08-19 23:31:41
^Thanks, Martel.

Arnold, please report in with your 7506's country of origin stamp, if they do show up. Thanks.

Hifisound,  regarding amps, for my HD600, MDR-V6, and other various headphones, I personally use (should you care) a Behringer UCA-202 USB corded DAC {but I don't use its headphone jack}, its line level out feeds a Behringer 802 mixer, and I haven't bothered to buy a Fiio E6/E11 (or similar) for the mixer's line out yet, because its internal headphone jack seems just fine to me. Also I am waiting for a Fiio product that fits my particular portable needs, and they don't have one yet.

The Sony's V6s are so easy to drive, even my cell phone does it adequately (it serves as my portable DAP), at least for my own particular volume needs, YMMV.

ThomasPin, Replaygain doesn't work for hardware devices though, like for example live TV broadcast, where he may have varying source levels to contend with or may need to temporarily turn up the gain more during quiet passages, within a program with a large dynamic range: "ridning the gain" as they call it.

Markanini, I avoid head-fi  like forums/blogs, like the plague, (subjective based and typically using no level matching or blinding) but a cursory examination of udauda's posts, plus his blog, seems to indicate he is well read, however just a hobbyist (same as me) who winged building his own, crude dummy-head, but has no actual science credentials to speak of, [degrees in audiology, psychoacoustics, etc.] Unlike the aliases tonemeister or meatusmaximus, for example, who post there occasionally. Did I get that right?

[I have many major problems with the methodology of the 2012  paper you mentioned, Welti/Olive, but I guess that would be for another thread.]
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Pastormarc67 on 2013-09-20 13:44:35
If you like the Sennheiser HD 600, then you'll probably like the Sennheiser Momentum, which some suggest sounds
like a closed back version of the 600s.
Title: Closed Back Headphones like Senn HD600
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2013-09-20 17:56:51
If you like the Sennheiser HD 600, then you'll probably like the Sennheiser Momentum, which some suggest sounds
like a closed back version of the 600s.



Check this review out:

http://en.goldenears.net/19104 (http://en.goldenears.net/19104)

Compare it to this:

http://en.goldenears.net/index.php?mid=GR_...ument_srl=22602 (http://en.goldenears.net/index.php?mid=GR_Headphones&category=275&document_srl=22602)