Seeking as neutral as possible headphones, what would you recommend

So I just did this. T50RP vs T60RPs.
Not worth it, IMHO… :confused:

Graphs with volume adjusted:

Obviously there’s also soundtage and you can run them balanced etc. But if neutrality is your only goal (i.e.: home studio, etc…), I’ll go for the T50RPs.

Well, finally I got T50RPs, and… I feel like there’s something missing from 2-to-5khz. Especially if I compare with my HD58X. So, correcting myself, for studio use, I’d grab the T60RPs. But they were too pricey for me.

Also, hello @Marzipan, and why the hell isn’t the NAD HP50 in the list. :stuck_out_tongue:
Forgot who created this thread and wanted to add the K371s.

Annnd the NAD HP50 then.

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Has the Shure SRH840 been mentioned? For under $200 USD Zeos said they are one of the most neutral headphones ever.

They are pretty good, but I don’t think they are the most neutral, but are pretty flat for sure (also again what is neutral varies from person to person)

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Indeed what does neutral sound like?..oh and no copy and paste piccies lol.

Can we make that a rule just to make things difficult lol

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Like this:


Don’t you know that??

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You can get the Elegias for $700 new from a seller on Amazon, if that matters. Fantastic cans, and totally detail monsters.

Big peak at 10khz.

Neutral means, in theory, as if you were there. Nothing boosted, nothing hidden. I say “in theory” because, oddly enough, “perfect”, faithful reproduction of real-life sounds is damn hard to do.
Or, “perfect” reproduction of what the guy who mastered the CD wanted you to hear.

But, that’s not all obviously, because all of this doesn’t include how much detail headphones (or speakers) have. Don’t buy 10$ Panasonic HJE-120s thinking “this is hi-fi endgame”.

P.S.: We could say “high fidelity” is, by definition, neutrality. Be certain if you’re recommended a DAC here, in a “high fidelity” forum, it will be neutral. I would stick a yellow “high fidelity 20hz-20khz” square sticker on all the headphones mentioned here (instead of the useless hi-res audio ones).

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I think this definition applies to Natural rather then Neutral. Neutral in my mind is just a flat line response, or as close as you can get it. Neutral does not sound natural, nor does it have to

if headphones were neutral…would that mean the drivers themselves wouldn’t need to move to make sound?

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wait neutral isn’t flat? I thought thats what this thread was all about was fiding the flattest p;ossible response. which to me isn’t natural sounding just boring.

Lol yeah, I also see neutral as meaning flat, but others don’t

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I agree with that definition M0N…a neutral RF chart would show a flat line. dunno how it can be interpreted any other way.

I must be misinterpreting your words. A flat line response for a headphone is a just plain wrong response. That’s why all raw headphone frequency responce graphs show some degree of rise peaking at roughly 3 kHz.

Headphones are acoustically coupled to the ear. So they have to re-create the acoustic response of sound waves traveling through an intervening space before reaching the ear. Then they have to re-create the natural amplification the outer ear plus ear canal are there to provide. So a flat line response would be very unpleasantly diminished everywhere but in the bass with the worst part being in the upper mids. I don’t see how that can be called neutral in any meaningful way.

Of course, in the case of a loudspeaker flatness = neutral makes a lot more sense.

I’m sure you know all this better than I do, so please explain what I’m misunderstanding.

So I suck at explain things as you have pointed out lol, as I mean that when on your head, the response should measure flat as can be, and this is what I am for during studio work. It doesn’t sound that nice, but I’m using it more as a tool. But that’s an agreeable way of calling something neutral, as it technically doesn’t emphasize anything

Meaning should measure flat at the eardrums?

I guess to a measurement rig, because people’s ears are different. Not really into the science of it. I just eq so it would measure as a pretty much flat line. Not really super technical or anything like that

have you tried the reddit eq presets form r/ headphones? curious about what you think I found a lot of them messing with my gear to be pretty damn flat and rather impressive that they got my 990’s ot such neutrality especially on the treble. maybe something to look into

I really don’t eq my headphones at all, only for when it comes to music production, and I just use sonarworks reference 4 and some more manual tweaks. Or audeze reveal with the mx4 if I feel like it, but it’s not aiming for flat (at least it sounds like it isn’t)