How to equalize monitor headphones for a neutral sound?

[MetalSir]

Maybe I’m the strange one here but I believe that by knowing how to equalize a headphone model based on the data that are freely available and having an eq, it all boils down to putting a plugin on the master bus. Honestly, I don’t see the point of spending money unless for a good eq, like a fabfilter pro Q3. I repeat, I’m sure I’m mistaken and that I talk out of sheer ignorance but if I got it right here we are talking about putting an eq on a bus. That’s it.

These plugins add spatialization, which I personally find very helpful. Of course, there are probably other ways to add it without using a paid plugin.

can you define "spatialization" for me? I'm here for learning many tks

[Uncle E]

Look up binaural acoustics. Basically makes it sound like you're sitting in front of speakers and not having isolated speakers strapped to each ear.

[MetalSir]

Look up binaural acoustics. Basically makes it sound like you're sitting in front of speakers and not having isolated speakers strapped to each ear.

I know it. I also use a completely free plugin from Sennheiser: ambeo orbit.
Very interesting, at least it was free when I downloaded it a couple of years ago.

[kmonkey]

598 is not an advantage because you own 598b headphones, it is just an advantage because you have more chance to have your current headphones supported as well as the next ones you will buy.

No one is fighting. Common sense is ok. If you intend to purchase a plugin with the idea of testing 598 headphones later on then you must be an idiot. "Next one you will buy"...Yeah ok. As if people are changing their headphones like socks. Look there are hundreds of models out there. Out of that maybe 15% is aimed at studio use. Well below 50 models. There is a reason for that. If you are expecting that you can get a studio sound in Bluetooth nonsense headphones then you must be deluded as well. A perfect VSX user I guess

Anyway, I didn't know that EQ corrections could be "vastly different" and that one could tell for sure that one correction is closer to the absolute flat curve than another (knowing that your ears are not perfect at all).
But let's not fight on that . If the products have a demo, the best is maybe for the person to try.

You seem to not know many things. That is ok.

1. Tell me is it really hard for you to grasp the concept that a company like Realphones which has existed for 15 years, actively researching and developing a product in this specific area,is focused on that one thing - could be a bit better - in this one thing - than the company which is making compressors, tape machine emus, synths, reverbs, gates and whatnot + supporting all of that.

Use your brain and try to understand who could be better and more experienced in this area. Not exclusively but as a statistic rule?

2. Did it ever occur to you that the company may have different measurement studies, different measurement gear, and techniques that will result in different outcomes? Do you really think Toneboosters and Realhlphones all got the same measuring gear from say Amazon and they decided to go into this specific market but Toneeboosters beated them with a number of supported phones?

3. Lastly your Einsten-approved remarks on flat curve is nonsense. If you are in a headphone mixing area you wouldn't even say it. Flat what? People even say that curve perfect to Harman is "flat" but this is not flat? Let me guess you think if an FR is flat all headphones will sound the same? Genius. Perfect VSX user.

What is only important in this is not "flat". It is how well your mixes translate. I don't have a problem understanding a guess that Realphones had a much better experience in this, so they measure differently, they probably have adaptation and approximation rules so their end result works better across the deviation between the models. Not only in theory, I tried it myself. My silly music translates perfectly and in a much better way than with Morphit. With Morphit almost nothing translates. For me.

But let's not fight on that . If the products have a demo, the best is maybe for the person to try.

[Jac459]

598 is not an advantage because you own 598b headphones, it is just an advantage because you have more chance to have your current headphones supported as well as the next ones you will buy.

No one is fighting. Common sense is ok. If you intend to purchase a plugin with the idea of testing 598 headphones later on then you must be an idiot. "Next one you will buy"...Yeah ok. As if people are changing their headphones like socks. Look there are hundreds of models out there. Out of that maybe 15% is aimed at studio use. Well below 50 models. There is a reason for that. If you are expecting that you can get a studio sound in Bluetooth nonsense headphones then you must be deluded as well. A perfect VSX user I guess

Anyway, I didn't know that EQ corrections could be "vastly different" and that one could tell for sure that one correction is closer to the absolute flat curve than another (knowing that your ears are not perfect at all).
But let's not fight on that . If the products have a demo, the best is maybe for the person to try.

You seem to not know many things. That is ok.

1. Tell me is it really hard for you to grasp the concept that a company like Realphones which has existed for 15 years, actively researching and developing a product in this specific area,is focused on that one thing - could be a bit better - in this one thing - than the company which is making compressors, tape machine emus, synths, reverbs, gates and whatnot + supporting all of that.

Use your brain and try to understand who could be better and more experienced in this area. Not exclusively but as a statistic rule?

2. Did it ever occur to you that the company may have different measurement studies, different measurement gear, and techniques that will result in different outcomes? Do you really think Toneboosters and Realhlphones all got the same measuring gear from say Amazon and they decided to go into this specific market but Toneeboosters beated them with a number of supported phones?

3. Lastly your Einsten-approved remarks on flat curve is nonsense. If you are in a headphone mixing area you wouldn't even say it. Flat what? People even say that curve perfect to Harman is "flat" but this is not flat? Let me guess you think if an FR is flat all headphones will sound the same? Genius. Perfect VSX user.

What is only important in this is not "flat". It is how well your mixes translate. I don't have a problem understanding a guess that Realphones had a much better experience in this, so they measure differently, they probably have adaptation and approximation rules so their end result works better across the deviation between the models. Not only in theory, I tried it myself. My silly music translates perfectly and in a much better way than with Morphit. With Morphit almost nothing translates. For me.

Sorry man, even if you tried to make your message interesting by adding a lot of insults, at the end, your points are empty and your logic broken.
I have taken the good 2024 resolution to only argue with interesting people in KVR.

You are not even close to pass the bar.

Have a good day and congratulations, you won the argument.

[kmonkey]

Look up binaural acoustics. Basically makes it sound like you're sitting in front of speakers and not having isolated speakers strapped to each ear.

Realphones have you covered in that area as well. Previously I had good results with DearReality. Sienna was convincing but the transient response was blurred. I am speaking here about the "realism" of taking the sound from the center of our head (a common thing headphones do) and placing it in front of you without weird shit like comb filtering,phasing (VSX) etc.

I tried numerous crossfeed techniques and whatnot but Realphones (Studio21 A and other studios) with their HRTF tweaks is really really good at it. It can retain the sound of drums. It almost sounds like a good reverb IR, something hard to describe. Try it.

[Uncle E]

dSONIQ has a 10% coupon code ending today: VALENTINES

Also, the price of upgrades is the price difference between the versions, so there's basically no risk in buying the lower versions. I bought the Standard since I don't enjoy fussing with things like this.

[_leras]

This list of Oratory Headphone correction curves is really great.

https://www.reddit.com/r/oratory1990/wi ... f_presets/

I use this with my beyerdynamic dt1990 to really great effect. For me it works very very well.

I use Crave EQ as it has enough bands to dial in the correction, and is generally a very very good EQ.

Sorry, but, how do you use this info? Do you load it up in something like an eq? Seems impenetrable to me : )

I used Crave EQ where you can define enough bands. Just set each to match the curves. Pretty sure each one had a table e.g. 200hz, +4 db with Q 0.5

It's fairly simple.

When I use it sounds slightly odd at first compared to raw headphone sound, but after a few minutes it'll sound more natural and it's a really correct curve for me on my dt1990.

I actually trust it more than my monitors for final tweaks in mixing, and my room is pretty good.

[osiris]

https://reference-audio-analyzer.pro/en ... #gsc.tab=0

Cut at 80, 4000 & 12,000.

[jonljacobi]

Not arguing against analyzing or EQ'ing your stuff, but you can use just about anything as long as you know how it sounds when it hits other equipment. Hence, after your first mix on anything, take it around and listen to it on as many different systems as you can to see what's up. This includes after you've altered anything with your existing equipment.

[MetalSir]

Not arguing against analyzing or EQ'ing your stuff, but you can use just about anything as long as you know how it sounds when it hits other equipment. Hence, after your first mix on anything, take it around and listen to it on as many different systems as you can to see what's up. This includes after you've altered anything with your existing equipment.

I completely agree. This said, training your ears with something mostly linear is better than trading the same ears with a random branded curve. IMHO.

- Can you achieve the same results? Absolutely yes.
- Is one way most cost effective than the other? Maybe yes.

Peace

[_leras]

Not arguing against analyzing or EQ'ing your stuff, but you can use just about anything as long as you know how it sounds when it hits other equipment. Hence, after your first mix on anything, take it around and listen to it on as many different systems as you can to see what's up. This includes after you've altered anything with your existing equipment.

You can listen to a track on many systems, and then go back and tweak from your notes. Probably just a few sounds need to be +/- a certain amount, different things stand out on different playbacks.

The big problem with this though, is that every track is different, and you might think you know how your tracks translate, but can still get caught out as different sounds might have different translation problems. This is the main reason that if you can get a 'perfect' room curve by correcting headphones, that it is beneficial - you'll just get caught out less.

And you never know what type of problem you might have. e.g. my monitors are so detailed that sometimes I can hear a sound clearly when mixing, but the same sound will get lost when I listen on smaller lower quality speakers.

If on headphones I will often just use the dt1990 uncorrected really great vibe for starting a mix and getting the main things right - but with some peaks, but when it gets to the final stages of mixing, I will add in the EQ correction and do a final round of tweaking to pick out anything that wasn't quite right. The headphone EQ correction detracts a little bit from the pure un EQ'd sound, but after a few mins it just sounds right and translates much better.

[Uncle E]

Binaural helps a lot with reverb and panning. Without it, I tend to put in too much reverb and too little extreme panning.

btw, I switched over to using 7506's with Realphones. Much better than the AirPod Pros. Fun fact is Realphones supports both standard 7506's and 7506's with modified ear pads, so I got some Beyer Dynamic fuzzy ear pads for them that are way more comfortable.