What’s your opinion on this list?
What does this list NOT cover?
I own a Focal Elegia and it’s somewhere down the bottom, which worries me a little bit.
So I decided to buy the AKG K371 which should arrive in the next 5 days and see if this list also applies to my preferences. (I prefer closed back due to the circumstances I live in)
About Harman Curve, I can’t believe how better my HD58X sounds after applying Harman, and for 1khz and below I turned the frequency response to of Focal Utopia.
So Harman + Utopia (1khz and below).
Harman researches actually say that people’s preferences differ for bass response. The list doesn’t tell anything about 1k and below imo since the dip in 100hz-1khz and the raise in the subbass is too much for some people (including me).
I was even talking with oratory1990 himself (which I trust his eq more than AutoEQ because AutoEQ is totally automated but oratory1990 measures and listens to the headphones himself) and he offered me a different graph with 1khz and below totally flat.
Still, I prefer Utopia’s frequency response.
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You shouldn’t let the Elegia ranking bother you unless you know you really want headphones close to Harman. Also keep in mind their is a large amount of variability and potential error when doing headphone measurements. So a score of 60 may not be all that accurate in terms how close the Elegia actually sounds relative to Harman.
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A disclaimer, I HATE the Harman target. It is basically the antithesis of what I like in headphones/IEMs and I’m also not a huge fan of the methodology used to generate it (at least as I understand it).
With that out of the way, maybe try to find some other raw FR graphs to compare since some of those seem really wonky. I looked at the TR-X00 ebony graph and it seems to be really wrong. I own the purple hearts and even if I take the extra bass into consideration, the graph of the ebony looks like a bass less treble monster compared to what I hear from my PH.
Even if all the graphs are generally accurate, this is still just a ranking of Harman compliance and nothing else. It’s only helpful if you KNOW you want a Harman tuned headphone/IEM. If thats not the case then it is safe to ignore it.
As a side note, to me, frequency responce graphs are really only to check if a headphone has any obvious characteristics that I know I don’t want, like a massive treble spike (like some beyers) or a 10-15dB difference between the mids and the upper mids (like the Harman target). Other than that it’s usually not supper helpful to look at a FR graph because it can’t actually tell you how the headphone sounds in reality.
Also, nothing against you @Hamed_Shahrzad but you ONLY copied aspects of the frequency response of the Utopia, not the dynamics, timber, transient responce, sound stage, imaging, layering, etc. My point is a $5 headphone could coincidentally have the same FR as the HE-1 Orphius, but no one would ever be able to make that comparison with a strait face. Like I said FR isn’t the whole story. I am glad that you enjoy your music and gear though.
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Yes I’m aware of that. I actually copied the frequency response of HE1 for my HD58X and the mids were recessed and treble was just too much. It wasn’t good at all.
If the drivers’ capabilities of the two headphones are similar, I think we get the best result. Like turning HD650 to HD600 with EQ doesn’t seem impossible to me. Both have the same driver, housing, pads, etc.
Or someone copies HE1’s frequency response for L700. They’re both high-end electrostatic headphones. I’m sure they get better results than me.
The best thing is it’s free and reversible. You can try and if you don’t like it, you can always go back. That’s better than paying +$1000 for a pair of headphones that doesn’t sound like you want.
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^^^ X2…
Harman, tuners of headphones to the Brave New World, has shown Soma tuning to be the perfect audio drug for the people of the Whole World State…I think not lol.
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An ironic thing is that the PSB M4U 8 is at the top of the list with 97. While the AKG K371, which was tuned to match the Harman target, is fifth on the list at 89. The PSB was designed and tuned according to the research of Paul Barton along the same theoretical lines as the Sean Olive followed (aim for the sound of loudspeakers in a well-treated room).
Does synergy come it to this?.. because surely matching Dac’s, Amps, HP’s/IEM’s, along with cables, pads/tips etc are what makes for an enjoyable listen, do the work and no EQ should be needed 
Clearly you prefer the Huxley curve
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