The homework that I copied from Resolve: ua-cam.com/video/LrIoNMeo_GI/v-deo.html The homework that I copied from myself: crinacle.com/2020/04/08/graphs-101-how-to-read-headphone-measurements/ Also addendum at 9:51 (and various other parts): Rtings uses a Head Acoustics HMSII.3 and NOT a B&K Type 4128. However my point still stands; you can't compare graphs from a 4128 with ones from a 5128.
Thanks for this video. There are so many audiophile videos on youtube, but so few good newbie videos. I really had a hard time getting into the hobby and i'm still at the beginning of my journey! Would love to see more of this newbie content sometime!
As much fun as it is to learn info and the magic behind the scenes on how any new hobby works, do this above all else in audio: trust your own ears. Things don't have to make sense if it sounds good. 👌
I may be a sound engineer with a degree but I'm still watching because I'm quite interested to see how you'd explain this to a layperson, because that's not how it's usually taught
@@katethegoat7507 These can be largely attributed to the physical design, with the distance and angle of the drivers relative to your ears, as well as ventilation (bass ports or open back)
Take a shot every time Crin says "Kind of". It's valentines day, and we are audio nerds. Lets be honest we have nothing better to do today than to do some day drinking.
A Bald fade without any product in it (I wear a version of this too) is the most practical and useful haircut for an audiophile who loves circumaural headphones. Great seals, less possibility of getting scalp sweaty with larger leather-clad headphones, etc
As an electrical engineer and a relative newbie in the hobby, I find a lot of weird non-technical terms in the hobby. Appreciate the technical explaination.
The only equipment from B&K and Head Acoustics I could ever hope to own and use are the pens they give out at trade shows Head Acoustics pens are some of the best in the business of freebie pens.
Teacher: "There are five senses. Touch, sight, hearing, smell, and taste." Me: "I can see how headphones sound." Teacher: "You can't see how headphones sound, silly." Me: *Opens In-Ear Fidelity frequency response graph*
Total newbie here! Thank you so much for sharing this information! I've been following your content for a couple of days now and your videos really make understanding a lot of the audiophile stuff a lot easier. Really glad I found your channel.
the problem with graphs is that a very few small difference with the target curve at some frequency area (mostly the mids) are very audible and more and higher difference in other places don't matter that much so these visual difference of distances with the target curve should be ponderated by their perceived audible effects. for example pulling down 3db on 1khz for fh3 improves human voice a lot (small adjustment, big impact) . but a pulling down 10db at 8k on crn does not make the artifical ear piercing trebble go away (big adjustment, small impact), both corrections brings these curves closer to target but the resulting audible difference varies a lot depending on the location on the target curve. other problem i have with these fr graph is that our ear kind of balances the gloal perception over all freq , for example boosting bass on heart mirror made the perceived trebble less hot and peaky to my ear+brain system but make no difference on the trebble part to a microphone (this is what the graph is showing us, graph is showing us what a microphone perceives but not what a human earing system is perceiving)
This! And this is why I don't understand graphs. A squiggly here doesn't seem to matter to anyone, while a squiggly there makes the bass muddy or the highs piercing. But I cannot figure out which areas are okay to be squiggly and which aren't, even after reading thorough reviews which use measurements. So what do I resort to? Subjective reviews...
@@amanieux I'd say because it does not have pre amplification settings, and did your headphones became quiteter when applied eq? I use neutron audio player, and applying eq lowers the output volume to compensate for eq. On my computer I use eq apo and it does miracles for headphones.
This is quite informative! I've been taking RTA measurements for years now (disclaimer: my experience is with calibrating speakers) but have never seen and considered a "target" graph. It makes sense since a flat flat is really boring, while a compensated flat makes it easier to see how "flat" it is in relation to human ears. Relating that to what I do, calibrating speaker, it's quite analogous since once we achieve a flat flat response, we still continue tuning it i.e., playing some sample tracks, listening to the room and tweaking it -- the last part is basically equivalent to the "sample track" since we compensated the flat flat response we originally achieve PS: Take this with a grain of salt guys, I know i know its more complicated than this, but i'm not getting into that nor is my goal to get into that.
Wish you talked about why treble in the graph always has a mountain shape instead of flat. Wish you talked about higher frequencies being thousand hertz apart but being the same distance away as low frequencies having 100-200 being far apart.
dunno about the mountain shape on treble, but the distance (scale) u were asking because it was a log (logarithmic) scale (which is a power of 10) of frequency from 20 hz - 200 hz - 2k hz - 20k hz and not a linear scale (which is... linear, 1-2-3-4-5 etc)
You could go through different FR patterns (like 150Hz bump) and tell why it is there and how it sounds like (it is usually because of leather pads and it sounds boomy). There are other patterns, and it would be interesting to listen for your experience.
As a newbie everything crin said made total perfect sense, you could see exactly what he meant and was trying to say without confusing the crap out of us and just letting us figure it out ourselves.
This is excellent! I have a client who complained about "buzzing" noises on his Sennheiser HD 280 PRO headphones. I saw the 250 has a serious bump above 11k so I guess that will be a problem area to look at. He will bring in the cans tonight for some test listening.
Level 79: 2nd & 3rd order harmonic distortion sounds GREAT ! It’s why people dislike solid state and choose tubes ! Level 99: the need and want for MORE 2nd & 3rd order harmonic distortion is why we audio professionals use beautiful devices like Empirical Labs EL-7 F.A.T.S.O. On almost every individual isolated instrument track in the mix….. and then AGAIN on the entire summed mix. Level 99.1 FATSO stands for (Full analogue tape saturation optimizer)
@@GlitzPixie on many instruments or genres indeed they are, but my point was, they introduce relatively high very audible levels of 2nd & 3rd order harmonic distortion to any signal they process. They are the antithesis of “clean, uncolored sound” and tubes are champions when it comes to adding pleasing, “natural” “full” sounding harmonic distortion to much modern music recorded far too close and dry to the source signal, and stupidly trying to eliminate the air and re-create the air later in the box. So in many cases, engineers, mastering engineers, and increasingly even consumers are deciding to utilize things like the fatso, ampex plug-in emulators, or tube amps to introduce their beloved harmonic distortion. To clarify for those who don’t understand my overarching point, I LOVE 2nd and 3rd order harmonic distortion on almost everything, and think that many headphone reviewers who critique consumer audiophile cans for having very small levels of it, don’t realize how ridiculous they’re being lol.
Assume a cheap no name IEM and the Senn Orpheus 2 with the same frequency response. What makes the Orpheus better? I ask this because you can get similar FR on many headphones using EQ, but that doesn't make them sound the same. Can you measure soundstage? Detail, resolution?
Shape and fit, weight, venting pressure, ease of use (EQ isn't available everywhere), status symbol. Also, THD typical scale with SPL, so if you have extremely low bass response and you EQ the bass way up you will get more THD. If it reaches the audible threshold then it will sound bad.
There's no way of knowing about soundstage, tightness(fast/slow bass) unless you actually try them out. The only thing you'd know from looking at a graph is the frequency response.
Exactly. "Sound signature" is WAY WAY overvalued. My mind. The most important thing are the soundstage, how natural the instruments sound (frequency response isnt it). Imaging in the soundstage and the instrument separation. How the "room" sound natural and believable. Is in holographic and 3D. Frequency response you can pretty much fix on every headphone with EQ. I dont care at all the sound signature cos all instruments sound differently in the differend space anyway in real life. How does the headphone make YOU feel the music, are you "there with the players" or are you listening the music "from 1985 boombox in the another room". That is the whole point in my mind. I do have STAX 6000€ systems. LCD-X/2C, hifiman anandas/5XX etc. You name it.
rtings is probably the most prominent site that measures certain things (prtf, openness, acoustic space excitation) to try and quantify soundstage, but not everyone agrees on the value of what they're measuring in the first place, nor how rtings's reviews interpret them they have some articles on their site to read if you want
Cheap noname IEM will likely have disastrous frequency imbalance, so not fixable with EQ. The difference between headphones with the same FR (which is not possible by design) will be in PRTF (different headphones change the FR differently depending on fit/pinna shape). Otherwise they should be equal. There is no evidence that things like resolution, detail, speed, etc. objectively exist independently of FR. Headphone driver is too small to have a significant inertia (check out group delay and waterfall measurements). Also due to relatively high OI headphone driver does not have issues with "underdampening" from an amp. Thus two headphones with the same FR and same PRTF in the same enclosure without standing out resonances and distortions will sound practically the same.
my guess is that most speakers have good enough dynamic range especially with mast majority of music using compression other than classical piano or something also its quite hard to recognize small differences in volume with ears alone the speed volume change is probably more important maybe
tbh the only reason I want a (mostly) flat sound signature, is 'cause my ears are super sensitive to high end (mostly sensitive to anything above 3khz), and I don't like headphones/IEMs with a big sub bass boost, 'cause then my brain perceives that as jarring/fatiguing, so my only middle ground is flat, maybe with a bit of warmth in the lower mids.
Crin sounds like he has ran out of people in his life to physically "erm actually" to, give a mini lecture, and has decided to take it to the internet. Not that I'm complaining, I love it, really appreciate it. Just wondering.
@@excalibro8365 I live near equator and set the AC to 26C at noon and Dry Mode at night. It's comfortable enough and the humidity doesn't exceed 60%. Actually, my skin can't handle humidity lower than 50%.
It gets even more complicated when you consider _potential_ of a headset. Portapros are a prime example - very warm and dark by default both on a graph and by sound signature. But hiding under that thick warm blanket is *fantastic* bass/mid/treble detail and clarity with just reduction of say 125-250hz range. Even better with simple physical mods to the grille.
One of the other things that hardly gets explained for newbies like me is the sensitivity and impedance of headphones. Some people tend to exaggerate headphones requirements so they could recommend some crazily expensive amps. I would love a clarification that sheds light on this subject.
Haven't got a haircut for a year now, but seeing your new one just convinced me to get myself a new one, you need to tell us about your hairdresser asap
I was in a signals & systems class and the teacher was basically showing us a very complex equation/ problem. He said once you convert this to a frequency domain instead of time domain, this well becomes a lot simpler. Hence he is right... I think.
a fair reminder for everyone trying to get into this hobby, this is only ONE part of your audio listening device. there is the technicality side, comfort, and many more which you can't measure from the graph.
Comfort is not talked about enough in some audiophile spaces. What good are my SR80i’s if they are painful to wear after 30 minutes? Where as my DT-990s can be on my head for seven hours before I notice them so I tolerate a sound curve I don’t really like that much.
As some have mentioned, it's definitely true that Tonality (response, like we see in the graphs) can only get you so far, and like Crin said it depends on your preference. Technicality is very important too, again as Crin said on the website, both are needed for good sound, Tonality and Technicality. I will give examples from my own (poor man's) collection. I hate DT770's because of the bad tonality, but I am also very disappointed with the Shure SRH440 despite it's tonality being amazing, extremely close to Harman infact. The reason: the resolution is awful. If the AKG K240 sounds like a nice detailed oil painting, the SRH440 sounds like you threw the painting on the floor face down, smeared it around a little, and looked at it again. It's not the tuning, the K240s sound amazing when EQ'd to Harman, but it's just the Technicals like resolution and transients. Also, the K240 is definitely not an amazing headphone objectively, tuning-wise especially, but I love how they sound and fit; they aren't fatiguing to me. But dont worry, im saving up for some HD600's, will probably shun the 240's after that, hehe.
I'm not really sure but I think "Technicality" is based on "Tonality". (probably a bad thing to comment on a crinacle video since his ratings have tone grade + technical grade so it's seen as two things separate from each other.) and while "being close to Harman", SRH440 Tonality is far from amazing. (my opinion of course as I'm still not sure about this)
Nice vid. I generally agree with the opinions. However, I personally found CSD charts can tell more about the high-end headphone features like airiness, micro dynamics than the FR.
I just have to trust the judgement of the outlet doing the review to present a graph that reflects the listening experience. It's very trust-based and that's just how reviewing works I suppose.
If you ever wanna get your mind blown in the same way but in a different industry, have a cannabis lab expert tell you exactly how the cannabis will smell and taste at what layered amounts just by reading the terp profile. Never even seen it, one of his employees did the test and complimenting the results he said mostly earthy with skunky being the less dominant flavor with a hint of kush. Nailed it right on the head and blew me away that somebody could just read the taste like crin can read sound.
If FR is the only thing that matters, why do you get the See Audio Yume with S- tuning and C+ technicalities while the Stax SR 009S has bad tuning and S+ technicalities?
My only question in regards to your data and reviews is: What do you mean in technical terms when you say something has a "resolving" sound? This is a term I never heard outside questionable audiophile publications and it has a different musical meaning unrelated to sound quality in other music fields.
Reminds me of that channel who judges iems/headphones solely based on the graph, then proceeds to tell everyone how the KZ CRN is bad just because GRAPH
Thank you so much. Im trying to convince my manager at work that we need to be more technical when testing earbuds & headsets to try and validate whether they're performing at an acceptable level amd also whether oje is better than another. His response, which you also mention 😅, "at the end if the day people (customer) will choose the one they deel sounds better 😂 ☠️. Yeah but at least we should try to do it more technical, sight. We an electronic lab focus on power accessories and headphones is not our forte so we source the items
@@Rezzzn0r Yes. Although it is pretty important to look for high-peaks, or when bass is lacking. If you know what sound you like, they can guide you in the right direction.
@@Rezzzn0r in before some dude tries to argue frequency response is the only measurement that matters and everything else is placebo. It's like some people have only heard one headphone
@@GlitzPixie Once it gets to your ear drum, frequency response is all that matters, but it's a whole lot more complicated than that in the real world. Your personal HRTF relates to how imaging and frequency response matters to you. Intermodulation distortion can make things muddy in complicated passages, high order (clipping) harmonic distortion sounds terrible, dynamic range compression from drivers, comb filtering, room acoustics, crossover network phase shifts, etc.
I don't know how I found myself on this side of youtube but its wild to see how intricate it is. I know this is a reductive question but I'm trying to learn to read these graphs from comparing different headphones. What model would be a "good" headphone graph? What would be a "bad" one?
I hope Crinacle gets the recognition he deserves, soon. A newbie & a dumbwit like me could understand everything he explains here and apply them to “read” headphone graphs around the internet after less than 20 mins. This should be what UA-cam is about not some stupid JPaul’s videos doing some stupid shit with mil views, no offense.
Much appreciated video. Regarding level 2, I watched it multiple times but I still don't understand why you or anyone else would compensate the graph. I'm just getting into this but I as an observer wants to know how a headset performs on various frequencies. Why would I mess with the measured objective data? I really don't get it. The graphs look pretty different when compensated. Can you maybe do another video on this topic alone?
You should address Sony IEM weirdness, the microphone goes wonky when doing most voice call services like Whatsapp, Skype, etc. I only have wf-xm3 but I saw someone posted it still happens in xm4 as well
4:06 hi i dont understand at the trebel part, between 8khz to 15khz why is it randomly going down and up so drastically for no reason? It hates trebel between 8k to 15k but its fine with trebel at 15k to 20k? Does this design make songs sound better or something?
From my understanding, the region from about 7khz-10 khz incorporates a resonance peak, often described as an artifact of the 711 coupler. This causes the regions above 10 khz to be less accurately represented on a graph. Meaning, that peak may not actually be perceivable. That large dip centered at around 12khz is very likely a result of the actual IEM driver technology. If you compare it to some other graphs on his website, that region will vary.
The first step should be to have your ears checked and have their frequency response or frequency sensitivity measured. And if you know how your ears work, you can check for headphone frequency responses, especially when it comes to age-related hearing loss. Luckily, most healthy human ears follow a rather common sensitivity curve which makes it easier for headphone manufacturers in terms of having a reference for tuning their product.
The homework that I copied from Resolve: ua-cam.com/video/LrIoNMeo_GI/v-deo.html
The homework that I copied from myself: crinacle.com/2020/04/08/graphs-101-how-to-read-headphone-measurements/
Also addendum at 9:51 (and various other parts): Rtings uses a Head Acoustics HMSII.3 and NOT a B&K Type 4128. However my point still stands; you can't compare graphs from a 4128 with ones from a 5128.
nailed it..
Dankpods make it easy
Need comparison between Oppo Enco X2 vs Galaxy Buds 2 Pro. ⚡
Thanks for this video. There are so many audiophile videos on youtube, but so few good newbie videos. I really had a hard time getting into the hobby and i'm still at the beginning of my journey! Would love to see more of this newbie content sometime!
As much fun as it is to learn info and the magic behind the scenes on how any new hobby works, do this above all else in audio: trust your own ears.
Things don't have to make sense if it sounds good. 👌
I may be a sound engineer with a degree but I'm still watching because I'm quite interested to see how you'd explain this to a layperson, because that's not how it's usually taught
how does he do?
@@gizmotis quite well honestly, he covered all the bases in a concise way and left out the bs
@@tofu.delivery. I wanna ask then, what does influence the imaging and soundstage?
@@katethegoat7507 These can be largely attributed to the physical design, with the distance and angle of the drivers relative to your ears, as well as ventilation (bass ports or open back)
@@tofu.delivery. does the rtings thing tell the truth with recording on a rig with pinna, without pinna and subtracting one from another?
Take a shot every time Crin says "Kind of". It's valentines day, and we are audio nerds. Lets be honest we have nothing better to do today than to do some day drinking.
It's night here my man and I don't consume alcohol. But lemme get my Mountain Dew and glass anyway.
@@lfa1908 "I'm all jacked up on Mountain Dew!"
@@skrounst
@@lfa1908 where did you got that emoji from? Btw, also got myself some Mountain Dew, cheers!
@@lfa1908 I do like alcohol, but I'm too smoothbrain to understand Crin half the time anyway, so I don't think it's a good idea.
THE BEST haircut in the audiophile / seeing sound in headphone business, bar none.
Best cut in the game
Because most audiophiles are balding middle-aged men.
NGL I love seeing crin with a fresh cut LOL
A Bald fade without any product in it (I wear a version of this too) is the most practical and useful haircut for an audiophile who loves circumaural headphones. Great seals, less possibility of getting scalp sweaty with larger leather-clad headphones, etc
Low-cut.
As an electrical engineer and a relative newbie in the hobby, I find a lot of weird non-technical terms in the hobby. Appreciate the technical explaination.
this video might help a bit
ua-cam.com/video/O6E_daaRCl0/v-deo.html
The only equipment from B&K and Head Acoustics I could ever hope to own and use are the pens they give out at trade shows
Head Acoustics pens are some of the best in the business of freebie pens.
In summary: How to read graphs? Crin: 'Kind of'
Teacher: "There are five senses. Touch, sight, hearing, smell, and taste."
Me: "I can see how headphones sound."
Teacher: "You can't see how headphones sound, silly."
Me: *Opens In-Ear Fidelity frequency response graph*
"Flat is good" that can be interpreted many ways XD
Person: “You can’t hear images.”
Crinacle: “Hold my beer.”
"Hold my ear"
after level 2 or 3 everything sounds very alien to me. I love it! thanks crin!
Total newbie here! Thank you so much for sharing this information! I've been following your content for a couple of days now and your videos really make understanding a lot of the audiophile stuff a lot easier. Really glad I found your channel.
the problem with graphs is that a very few small difference with the target curve at some frequency area (mostly the mids) are very audible and more and higher difference in other places don't matter that much so these visual difference of distances with the target curve should be ponderated by their perceived audible effects. for example pulling down 3db on 1khz for fh3 improves human voice a lot (small adjustment, big impact) . but a pulling down 10db at 8k on crn does not make the artifical ear piercing trebble go away (big adjustment, small impact), both corrections brings these curves closer to target but the resulting audible difference varies a lot depending on the location on the target curve.
other problem i have with these fr graph is that our ear kind of balances the gloal perception over all freq , for example boosting bass on heart mirror made the perceived trebble less hot and peaky to my ear+brain system but make no difference on the trebble part to a microphone (this is what the graph is showing us, graph is showing us what a microphone perceives but not what a human earing system is perceiving)
This! And this is why I don't understand graphs. A squiggly here doesn't seem to matter to anyone, while a squiggly there makes the bass muddy or the highs piercing. But I cannot figure out which areas are okay to be squiggly and which aren't, even after reading thorough reviews which use measurements. So what do I resort to? Subjective reviews...
It depends what eq you are using. I recommend trying auto eq project website. And not all headphones can be fixed by equalising.
@@dagnisnierlins188 i tried wavelet autoeq but it always sounded worse than without eq, i never understood
@@amanieux I'd say because it does not have pre amplification settings, and did your headphones became quiteter when applied eq? I use neutron audio player, and applying eq lowers the output volume to compensate for eq.
On my computer I use eq apo and it does miracles for headphones.
@@dagnisnierlins188 no not quieter just different, i only use iems
Well done and thanks for explaining the science so accessibly, Crin. That's what it's all about.
This is quite informative! I've been taking RTA measurements for years now (disclaimer: my experience is with calibrating speakers) but have never seen and considered a "target" graph. It makes sense since a flat flat is really boring, while a compensated flat makes it easier to see how "flat" it is in relation to human ears. Relating that to what I do, calibrating speaker, it's quite analogous since once we achieve a flat flat response, we still continue tuning it i.e., playing some sample tracks, listening to the room and tweaking it -- the last part is basically equivalent to the "sample track" since we compensated the flat flat response we originally achieve
PS: Take this with a grain of salt guys, I know i know its more complicated than this, but i'm not getting into that nor is my goal to get into that.
"How many "kind of" you want in your video?"
Crinacle: Kind of
Great timing, literally just read the article, wondering about your graphs - then this vid came out
Releasing a technical video like this one on valentine's day .. thanks for the geeks ! 😁
Wish you talked about why treble in the graph always has a mountain shape instead of flat. Wish you talked about higher frequencies being thousand hertz apart but being the same distance away as low frequencies having 100-200 being far apart.
dunno about the mountain shape on treble, but the distance (scale) u were asking because it was a log (logarithmic) scale (which is a power of 10) of frequency from 20 hz - 200 hz - 2k hz - 20k hz and not a linear scale (which is... linear, 1-2-3-4-5 etc)
You could go through different FR patterns (like 150Hz bump) and tell why it is there and how it sounds like (it is usually because of leather pads and it sounds boomy). There are other patterns, and it would be interesting to listen for your experience.
As a newbie everything crin said made total perfect sense, you could see exactly what he meant and was trying to say without confusing the crap out of us and just letting us figure it out ourselves.
This is excellent! I have a client who complained about "buzzing" noises on his Sennheiser HD 280 PRO headphones. I saw the 250 has a serious bump above 11k so I guess that will be a problem area to look at. He will bring in the cans tonight for some test listening.
Level 79:
2nd & 3rd order harmonic distortion sounds GREAT ! It’s why people dislike solid state and choose tubes !
Level 99: the need and want for MORE 2nd & 3rd order harmonic distortion is why we audio professionals use beautiful devices like Empirical Labs EL-7 F.A.T.S.O. On almost every individual isolated instrument track in the mix….. and then AGAIN on the entire summed mix.
Level 99.1 FATSO stands for
(Full analogue tape saturation optimizer)
level 100. lol mp3 128kbps
@@alphariusomegon8507 our favorite LOL
tubes are dope
@@GlitzPixie on many instruments or genres indeed they are, but my point was, they introduce relatively high very audible levels of 2nd & 3rd order harmonic distortion to any signal they process. They are the antithesis of “clean, uncolored sound” and tubes are champions when it comes to adding pleasing, “natural” “full” sounding harmonic distortion to much modern music recorded far too close and dry to the source signal, and stupidly trying to eliminate the air and re-create the air later in the box.
So in many cases, engineers, mastering engineers, and increasingly even consumers are deciding to utilize things like the fatso, ampex plug-in emulators, or tube amps to introduce their beloved harmonic distortion.
To clarify for those who don’t understand my overarching point, I LOVE 2nd and 3rd order harmonic distortion on almost everything, and think that many headphone reviewers who critique consumer audiophile cans for having very small levels of it, don’t realize how ridiculous they’re being lol.
Assume a cheap no name IEM and the Senn Orpheus 2 with the same frequency response. What makes the Orpheus better? I ask this because you can get similar FR on many headphones using EQ, but that doesn't make them sound the same.
Can you measure soundstage? Detail, resolution?
Shape and fit, weight, venting pressure, ease of use (EQ isn't available everywhere), status symbol.
Also, THD typical scale with SPL, so if you have extremely low bass response and you EQ the bass way up you will get more THD. If it reaches the audible threshold then it will sound bad.
There's no way of knowing about soundstage, tightness(fast/slow bass) unless you actually try them out. The only thing you'd know from looking at a graph is the frequency response.
Exactly. "Sound signature" is WAY WAY overvalued. My mind. The most important thing are the soundstage, how natural the instruments sound (frequency response isnt it). Imaging in the soundstage and the instrument separation. How the "room" sound natural and believable. Is in holographic and 3D. Frequency response you can pretty much fix on every headphone with EQ. I dont care at all the sound signature cos all instruments sound differently in the differend space anyway in real life. How does the headphone make YOU feel the music, are you "there with the players" or are you listening the music "from 1985 boombox in the another room". That is the whole point in my mind. I do have STAX 6000€ systems. LCD-X/2C, hifiman anandas/5XX etc. You name it.
rtings is probably the most prominent site that measures certain things (prtf, openness, acoustic space excitation) to try and quantify soundstage, but not everyone agrees on the value of what they're measuring in the first place, nor how rtings's reviews interpret them
they have some articles on their site to read if you want
Cheap noname IEM will likely have disastrous frequency imbalance, so not fixable with EQ. The difference between headphones with the same FR (which is not possible by design) will be in PRTF (different headphones change the FR differently depending on fit/pinna shape). Otherwise they should be equal. There is no evidence that things like resolution, detail, speed, etc. objectively exist independently of FR. Headphone driver is too small to have a significant inertia (check out group delay and waterfall measurements). Also due to relatively high OI headphone driver does not have issues with "underdampening" from an amp. Thus two headphones with the same FR and same PRTF in the same enclosure without standing out resonances and distortions will sound practically the same.
Doesn't Dynamic Range matter, like, A LOT? I'd argue it's basically the primary factor that allows greater detail retrieval...
my guess is that most speakers have good enough dynamic range especially with mast majority of music using compression other than classical piano or something
also its quite hard to recognize small differences in volume with ears alone
the speed volume change is probably more important maybe
I would say that's more dependent on the signal then the gear
Finally. I've been meaning to read your article for a long time
tbh the only reason I want a (mostly) flat sound signature, is 'cause my ears are super sensitive to high end (mostly sensitive to anything above 3khz), and I don't like headphones/IEMs with a big sub bass boost, 'cause then my brain perceives that as jarring/fatiguing, so my only middle ground is flat, maybe with a bit of warmth in the lower mids.
Was expecting this video sometime, great one Crin
This clarified a lot for me - kind of.
Crin sounds like he has ran out of people in his life to physically "erm actually" to, give a mini lecture, and has decided to take it to the internet.
Not that I'm complaining, I love it, really appreciate it. Just wondering.
Shoutout to everyone having to restrain themselves from making weeb jokes every time crin says flat is good.
oh they were wildin' on twitter tho LMAO
such pain 😭
Flat's justice
Uohhhhhhhhhhh
@@MTheoOA Medium is premium!
"this is me trying to explain graphs to someone with room temperature IQ"
r/rareinsult would be very proud 🤣
This is even funnier for me who uses celsius bc that would mean like 25 IQ
@@lemon0801 oof that’s an uncomfortably warm room
@@excalibro8365 I live near equator and set the AC to 26C at noon and Dry Mode at night. It's comfortable enough and the humidity doesn't exceed 60%. Actually, my skin can't handle humidity lower than 50%.
It gets even more complicated when you consider _potential_ of a headset. Portapros are a prime example - very warm and dark by default both on a graph and by sound signature.
But hiding under that thick warm blanket is *fantastic* bass/mid/treble detail and clarity with just reduction of say 125-250hz range. Even better with simple physical mods to the grille.
Any links to examples of this? Am not a portapro owner but have heard of this potential too
LOL.. editing on this video is on another level! highly entertaining!!
You should make a video making examples of sound signatures using effects in post (ie. explain what sounds muddy or shout or whatever using filters)
One of the other things that hardly gets explained for newbies like me is the sensitivity and impedance of headphones. Some people tend to exaggerate headphones requirements so they could recommend some crazily expensive amps. I would love a clarification that sheds light on this subject.
Haven't got a haircut for a year now, but seeing your new one just convinced me to get myself a new one, you need to tell us about your hairdresser asap
I was in a signals & systems class and the teacher was basically showing us a very complex equation/ problem. He said once you convert this to a frequency domain instead of time domain, this well becomes a lot simpler. Hence he is right... I think.
You should make a video on what we can't see in headphones :)
a fair reminder for everyone trying to get into this hobby, this is only ONE part of your audio listening device. there is the technicality side, comfort, and many more which you can't measure from the graph.
Comfort is not talked about enough in some audiophile spaces. What good are my SR80i’s if they are painful to wear after 30 minutes? Where as my DT-990s can be on my head for seven hours before I notice them so I tolerate a sound curve I don’t really like that much.
@@HydratedBeans ikr, build is also rlly important as what good are ksc75s if i run thru 4 of them in a year. It's not a budget device then is it?
Amazing video !
*Theoretically*
Intelligent, funny, good video and need more videos like this one
I finally understand these graphs now... Kind of
The nerd stuff was most interesting as always. Keep up the good work!
Thanks crinacle. Cya next week and don't die aswell.
id say for level 0 it should be: does it follow the dotted line? okay good
Thank you! I just took notes the entire time!
As some have mentioned, it's definitely true that Tonality (response, like we see in the graphs) can only get you so far, and like Crin said it depends on your preference. Technicality is very important too, again as Crin said on the website, both are needed for good sound, Tonality and Technicality. I will give examples from my own (poor man's) collection. I hate DT770's because of the bad tonality, but I am also very disappointed with the Shure SRH440 despite it's tonality being amazing, extremely close to Harman infact. The reason: the resolution is awful. If the AKG K240 sounds like a nice detailed oil painting, the SRH440 sounds like you threw the painting on the floor face down, smeared it around a little, and looked at it again. It's not the tuning, the K240s sound amazing when EQ'd to Harman, but it's just the Technicals like resolution and transients. Also, the K240 is definitely not an amazing headphone objectively, tuning-wise especially, but I love how they sound and fit; they aren't fatiguing to me. But dont worry, im saving up for some HD600's, will probably shun the 240's after that, hehe.
Might as well go with HD800 and EQ it or use Sonarworks DSP.
I'm not really sure but I think "Technicality" is based on "Tonality". (probably a bad thing to comment on a crinacle video since his ratings have tone grade + technical grade so it's seen as two things separate from each other.) and while "being close to Harman", SRH440 Tonality is far from amazing. (my opinion of course as I'm still not sure about this)
I got a pair of you kz iems. There insane. I compared them with my wife’s airpod pros. There so similar to me. I love them.
Crin deciding " Do I eat now? Kind of, but not really "
"Do go to sleep right now? Kind of, but not really"
thanks for the knowledge passed upon! Love to hear Hertsens name one more time
You know it's good when:
1. You leave the video with more questions than answers;
2. You're insulted but you still like THE WAY you were insulted.
the ''room temperature IQ'' is probably one of the smartest insults i've heard ahahaha
@@ArielGonzalez1 one of the most common insults on the internet
This video is pretty explanatory, KIND OF
You'll be back over 100k in no time. 加油～
Thanks Crin. This really helped! Kind of.
Thanks for sharing your wisdom
Nice vid. I generally agree with the opinions. However, I personally found CSD charts can tell more about the high-end headphone features like airiness, micro dynamics than the FR.
I just have to trust the judgement of the outlet doing the review to present a graph that reflects the listening experience. It's very trust-based and that's just how reviewing works I suppose.
Eyyy! The silver play button 🤘🏽
“Not everything that matters can be measured, and not everything that can be measured matters.”
Einstein
Hey, do a vid testing an earphones! All the process
watch crin hit 100k TWICE under 6 months kekw
Thank you so much for improving my audio experience. ❤️
Bro all I’m gonna say is you are amazing
this crinacle+ thumbnail OMG ~!!
You are a very good Teacher yourself Crin. 👍
Too long didn't watch: sends to a super long website article
If you ever wanna get your mind blown in the same way but in a different industry, have a cannabis lab expert tell you exactly how the cannabis will smell and taste at what layered amounts just by reading the terp profile. Never even seen it, one of his employees did the test and complimenting the results he said mostly earthy with skunky being the less dominant flavor with a hint of kush. Nailed it right on the head and blew me away that somebody could just read the taste like crin can read sound.
thumbnail is top tier
The thumbnail for this video is fantastic. I laugh every time xD
If FR is the only thing that matters, why do you get the See Audio Yume with S- tuning and C+ technicalities while the Stax SR 009S has bad tuning and S+ technicalities?
Finally, someone finally made a vid about my long questioned audio crap
Wow! this explained a lot for a complete newbie like me.
Kind of.
So this is that Crinacle Bass Theory I keep hearing about?
My only question in regards to your data and reviews is:
What do you mean in technical terms when you say something has a "resolving" sound? This is a term I never heard outside questionable audiophile publications and it has a different musical meaning unrelated to sound quality in other music fields.
ua-cam.com/video/O6E_daaRCl0/v-deo.html
You've read my mind, some hours ago I thought "I need to learn how to read these grafics"
Flat is good. Flat is justice.
Open up! The partyvan has come for you!
Reminds me of that channel who judges iems/headphones solely based on the graph, then proceeds to tell everyone how the KZ CRN is bad just because GRAPH
Got the Midnight..they need ⚡️..so I run them balanced of my IFI go blue 👍
Excellent ! 😎 Thanks for this video ! (at 3'18 : "MIDRANGE-Y" 😂👍)
A large portion of ASR just had a stroke when you talked about distortion
Isn't Rtings still using an HMS? Didn't think they switched to the 5128 yet
Yeah added an addendum; they be using a HMS II.3
Thank you so much. Im trying to convince my manager at work that we need to be more technical when testing earbuds & headsets to try and validate whether they're performing at an acceptable level amd also whether oje is better than another. His response, which you also mention 😅, "at the end if the day people (customer) will choose the one they deel sounds better 😂 ☠️. Yeah but at least we should try to do it more technical, sight. We an electronic lab focus on power accessories and headphones is not our forte so we source the items
What about soundstage, holographics, speed of bass for example? I know IEMs that have strong bass but it's fast at the same time.
There's no way of knowing unless you actually try them out.
@@guybuddy1 exactly, this is why I don't care about graphs TOO MUCH. They can show you something, but definitely not the whole picture.
@@Rezzzn0r Yes. Although it is pretty important to look for high-peaks, or when bass is lacking. If you know what sound you like, they can guide you in the right direction.
@@Rezzzn0r in before some dude tries to argue frequency response is the only measurement that matters and everything else is placebo. It's like some people have only heard one headphone
@@GlitzPixie Once it gets to your ear drum, frequency response is all that matters, but it's a whole lot more complicated than that in the real world.
Your personal HRTF relates to how imaging and frequency response matters to you. Intermodulation distortion can make things muddy in complicated passages, high order (clipping) harmonic distortion sounds terrible, dynamic range compression from drivers, comb filtering, room acoustics, crossover network phase shifts, etc.
I don't know how I found myself on this side of youtube but its wild to see how intricate it is. I know this is a reductive question but I'm trying to learn to read these graphs from comparing different headphones. What model would be a "good" headphone graph? What would be a "bad" one?
I hope Crinacle gets the recognition he deserves, soon. A newbie & a dumbwit like me could understand everything he explains here and apply them to “read” headphone graphs around the internet after less than 20 mins. This should be what UA-cam is about not some stupid JPaul’s videos doing some stupid shit with mil views, no offense.
"Flat is good" -crin, 2022
You're damn right.
Thanks
Now I understand everything
...kind of.
Much appreciated video. Regarding level 2, I watched it multiple times but I still don't understand why you or anyone else would compensate the graph. I'm just getting into this but I as an observer wants to know how a headset performs on various frequencies. Why would I mess with the measured objective data? I really don't get it. The graphs look pretty different when compensated. Can you maybe do another video on this topic alone?
You should address Sony IEM weirdness, the microphone goes wonky when doing most voice call services like Whatsapp, Skype, etc.
I only have wf-xm3 but I saw someone posted it still happens in xm4 as well
7:07 Loved the accent here! :P
4:06 hi i dont understand at the trebel part, between 8khz to 15khz why is it randomly going down and up so drastically for no reason? It hates trebel between 8k to 15k but its fine with trebel at 15k to 20k? Does this design make songs sound better or something?
From my understanding, the region from about 7khz-10 khz incorporates a resonance peak, often described as an artifact of the 711 coupler.
This causes the regions above 10 khz to be less accurately represented on a graph. Meaning, that peak may not actually be perceivable.
That large dip centered at around 12khz is very likely a result of the actual IEM driver technology.
If you compare it to some other graphs on his website, that region will vary.
this helps. thank
This all made total sense.... kind of.
Well now my Valentine's day plans are sorted out, romantic dinner followed by showing this video to my significant other.
The first step should be to have your ears checked and have their frequency response or frequency sensitivity measured. And if you know how your ears work, you can check for headphone frequency responses, especially when it comes to age-related hearing loss.
Luckily, most healthy human ears follow a rather common sensitivity curve which makes it easier for headphone manufacturers in terms of having a reference for tuning their product.
Thank you for the informative video!!❤️❤️❤️
phoko at the end or sum shit idk
-good video
OG for those Neumann