Can’t go wrong with the harman curve, IMHO. 
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Unless you prefer diffuse field lol
Hmm. Diffuse field might actually be my preference, according to this at least.
It’s not that different though.
what is free field? is that the harmon curve?
Yup. (or almost – tiny differences I think). Rtings even use their own curve, which is based on the harman curve…
Just a bit of background. Free field is perhaps the earliest attempt at a target for headphone tuning. It was followed by diffuse field years ago. The Harman target is more recent than either. Compared to free field and diffuse field, the Harman adds a bass boost and reduces the high frequencies.
In practice few headphones that claim to be tuned to diffuse field – like the HD 600 and 650 – actually are. Thankfully. Instead, they too have a significant upper mids and treble reduction, just like the Harman curve does.
The HP50, OTOH, is tuned similarly to the Harman target. Not because the designer was trying to do that. The designer (Paul Barton) is one of the original researchers in this field. He arrived at (roughly) the same place as the Harman people did – but did so by working on his own and independently.
If anyone receives an HP50 before the Oct 3 sale deadline please post any initial impressions. I’m tempted to buy it but it’s not clear just how reduced its highs are.
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Isn’t the HD800 also DF Neutral (at least senn says it is, but in practice who knows)?
Haven’t heard it myself. But the measurements are consistent – and based on them it’s roughly in that ballpark but departs more than the 6 series does.
Looks like they went all out to reduce the sub-bass fall-off but as a trade-off they introduced a bit of downslope instead of an upslope in the middle mids. (And of course that’s ignoring Mount Six Kilohertz.)
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isnt the harman target kinda dark sounding?
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I would say it’s more bassy then dark imo
Dark compared to what? Surely, that’s the big question. The Harman target curve is proposing to be the standard by which things like dark and bright are determined. So if it’s “actually" dark, then it fails as a standard. IAC, that’s the best sense I can make of the matter.
But the HP50 is based on an independent line of research and one that hasn’t been published. We have measurements for the headphone from the three main sources of quality measurements, InnerFidelity, Rtings and Oratory1990. My problem is that they differ so much that I haven’t a clue what the HP50 actually sounds like.
But which of the three versions of the Harman are you referring to?
The bass of the 2013 original started at 4 dB in the subs then tapered down to 0 at 160 Hz. The 2017 Harman started at 6 dB then tapered down to 0. But apparently this was quickly replaced by a 2018 version that starts at 3.8 dB then tapers down to 0 at 160. Each was based on testing a greater number of people.
Also I think nad was trying to recreate a speaker like presentation as well with these headphones
The 2017 version if I’m remembering correctly
Absolutely. Same with the Harman research. Same with the changes to DF that Sennheiser did with the HD 600 and 650 then the 800 and 800 S. And I would love to know what Paul Barton did with the HP50.
And that version peaked at 11 dB, the 2013 at 12.4 and the 2018 peaks at 10.4. Are they done now? And does it matter given that everyone has a different size and shape of ears and listens at a different preferred loudness?
Yeah I wasn’t a fan of the 2013 tbh. I am pretty interested in the akg k371, as it has pretty much the newest harman tuning. Seems like something fun to own
and affordable to boot, M0N!
Yeah, I would also trust they get the response right too because of the actual connections to the harman response lol (for the price at least)
they’re on my list.
Surely they won’t get the response right because there are still far too many physical compromises inherent in headphone design. Instead what you’ll get is what they felt was the least egregious butchery of the Harman target.
OTOH, I can tell you exactly how to EQ your DT 770/250s to match the Harman 2018 target using your choice of Rtings or Oratory data. But of course that would be totally contrary to the spirit of the whole headphone endeavour, lol.