How to equalize monitor headphones for a neutral sound?

[kmonkey]

So you see it is a bit extreme expression but so was my experience with it. Your mileage may vary. I suggest you invest in good headphones, open back, and see for yourself. In Realphones ensure you try Studio 21A, set the ambiance to 50%, tweak the correction percentage, and just ...WTF

Thanks. This is good. I own 5 headphones and not one of them is supported. However, my Airpods are. Not ideal and obviously not remotely close to what you experienced but still a huge improvement, anyway. Also, their system-wide app allows the Airpods to work with Studio One, which isn't possible otherwise due to a sample rate issue.

Their software (Realphones) is 100% compatible with Oratory profiles so you can dial your own curve. And tweak independently for left or right year - if you are confident enough or if you tested your hearing professionally and have one ear hearing less high freq (like I do).

[_al_]

That's indeed an interesting experience, but you raise here another question. Should we also correct our hear frequency response ?
Because by doing as you did with your DAW, you are in fact measuring in one go both your headphones and your ears (I assume you are passed your early 20s and thus your ears are not perfect).

Hmm, I guess that's true. What I did was a bit more thorough than just a headphone calibration, yeah.
And I guess that's why Realphones offer a service where you can send them your headphones and they calibrate your specific pair (as even different pairs of the same model will have a slightly different curve)

So I suppose, when I calibrated myself, using sine semitones, I was not only calibrating to my individual headphones, but also calibrating to my ear shape and hearing ability lol.

But with that said... my custom EQ settings were so close to the Realphones preset, that I'm happy to fully trust Realphones with this now, and if I changed headphone model, I would probably just use Realphones and not worry about the sinewave calibration.
They really did impress me that much.

And yeah, I'm well over twenty and have been to countless loud and bass-heavy London clubs (and warehouses lol), and I do notice the high frequency in my left ear is a little lower than the right, but as I make techno and the likes, hard panning isn't something that interests me, so I'm ok with that.
Just means I have to put my faith in referencing, to make sure my highs are ok.

So to sum up my experience, I would say that something like Realphones is fine for most people, as it should be close enough to avoid any major freq problems, but if you're mastering commercially, you should probably get your specific pair calibrated, just to be safe.
(Or calibrating yourself with a sinewave, if you trust your ability)

And honestly, I would advise against looking at a headphone EQ chart on the net, and copying that to your Pro Q, or whatever. You will never truly know how close you are to flattening your headphones, unless you follow that with a sinewave test.
Different EQs have different curves etc, so only a personal sine test can get around that one, I think.

[Jac459]

Different EQs have different curves etc, so only a personal sine test can get around that one, I think.

Well I am using morphit and I really really like the results it gives.
I have a pair of focal elegulia. They are great but sound way better when equalised.
Morphit also allows to "transform" your EQ. You first set the response to be flat and then you reverse apply to another headset to simulate it.
It sounds total bullshit but actually it works surprisingly well. When I am testing with headsets I own I am very surprised.

Then I really like your idea of sine wave but I am not sure I trust myself enough

[Uncle E]

Obviously, in a perfect world, we wouldn’t be using any of these things. We’d have perfectly tuned studios where we could listen at any volume we want 24 hours a day. But I know many people who’ve become tremendously successful using monitoring systems much worse than these, so unless you’re trying to become a mastering engineer, I say just use whatever works.

[inkwarp]

I much appreciated this video, many tks! I casually discovered that fabfilter pro Q3 does ta similar thing: let's suppose that you loaded the Q3 on 7 tracks, you can see a graphic recap of all these tracks separately on every instance.

That's good to know.
I have been using DDMF IIEQPro for this purpose.

[_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.

[inkwarp]

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 : )

[burkek]

Realphones 2

[inkwarp]

ok. Will check it out.

[_al_]

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 : )

It's basically showing you the output curve of different headphone brands.
All headphones, even the most expensive, are not truly flat response, and these graphs are showing you just how imbalanced they really are (quite shocking, actually)

So to try and flatten your headphones, you will need to reverse the peaks and dips in those graphs, using either an EQ or an app like Realphones / Sonarworks etc

Can't find the comparison charts I was using (think was headphones.com), but this one seems pretty good:
https://crinacle.com/graphs/headphones/graphtool

Scroll down. It lets you zoom in on bass, mid, treble.
Not sure how much deviation there is between pairs though

[Jac459]

ok. Will check it out.

Realphone 2 doesn't do only that. Realphone 2 is mainly there to simulate various environments (like, cars, clubs, studios, cheap mono speakers, ...).
It also along this offers you a feature to equalise your headphones.

That being said, an alternative you have is MorphIT (or carve EQ if you want to do it manually).
Morphit has an advantage over Realphone 2 is that it has a bigger database of EQ, and also it allows to simulate other headsets (quite successfully I must say).

Then the good thing is that you can still by Realphone 2 WITHOUT buying the EQ part.
The money saved allows to buy morphit.
To me it is the best of both world but it is a question of preference...

[kmonkey]

Morphit has an advantage over Realphone 2 is that it has a bigger database of EQ, and also it allows to simulate other headsets (quite successfully I must say).

Then the good thing is that you can still by Realphone 2 WITHOUT buying the EQ part.
The money saved allows to buy morphit.
To me it is the best of both world but it is a question of preference...

Nohe shouldn't buy Morphit for that. Yes, it has 598 models of headphones but:

A: do you think anyone has more than two sets of headphones? So it is not an advantage. Quantity over quality is not and should not be an advantage
B: I closely listened correction curve through Morphit and then through Realphones. I don't know what measurement type and gear Toneboosters is using but Realphones was far more realistic and mixes done with Realphones translate better than the ones made through Morphit. Tested with DT1770, 770,1990, MDV-1, and NDH 30 - I don't think that this is a pure guess or result of coincidence coming from Reralphones. And when I say it was better I mean specifically correction curves work better in Realphones and they are vastly different than those in Morphit. The measurement works better and is more applicable - in my experience with working with both tools and comparing them. Mind you I am a huge Tonebooster fan (have all their plugins) and wanted Morphit to work better but it didn't.
C: Realphones are 100% compatible with ORatory or ANY curve you can obtain because you can create your own based on some other or personal measurement.

He should purchase the Pro version and call it a day. Studio21A, custom tweaks, and tests and he/she is good to go.

But if you want to live with a plugin that has 598 supported headphones in the list then ok. If that is your thing then having 598 phones with questionable curves is fine.

[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.

PS: the IR works majestic too..and you don't even need the pro q3

[Jac459]

Morphit has an advantage over Realphone 2 is that it has a bigger database of EQ, and also it allows to simulate other headsets (quite successfully I must say).

Then the good thing is that you can still by Realphone 2 WITHOUT buying the EQ part.
The money saved allows to buy morphit.
To me it is the best of both world but it is a question of preference...

Nohe shouldn't buy Morphit for that. Yes, it has 598 models of headphones but:

A: do you think anyone has more than two sets of headphones? So it is not an advantage. Quantity over quality is not and should not be an advantage
B: I closely listened correction curve through Morphit and then through Realphones. I don't know what measurement type and gear Toneboosters is using but Realphones was far more realistic and mixes done with Realphones translate better than the ones made through Morphit. Tested with DT1770, 770,1990, MDV-1, and NDH 30 - I don't think that this is a pure guess or result of coincidence coming from Reralphones. And when I say it was better I mean specifically correction curves work better in Realphones and they are vastly different than those in Morphit. The measurement works better and is more applicable - in my experience with working with both tools and comparing them. Mind you I am a huge Tonebooster fan (have all their plugins) and wanted Morphit to work better but it didn't.
C: Realphones are 100% compatible with ORatory or ANY curve you can obtain because you can create your own based on some other or personal measurement.

He should purchase the Pro version and call it a day. Studio21A, custom tweaks, and tests and he/she is good to go.

But if you want to live with a plugin that has 598 supported headphones in the list then ok. If that is your thing then having 598 phones with questionable curves is fine.

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.

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.

[Uncle E]

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.