audio-tech

[shadow stag]

and other directional mics?

[silk python]

How directional does it need to be

[shadow stag]

enough to not have speakers bleeding into it

[silk python]

From how far away?

[shadow stag]

1m or less

in-desktop distance basically

[silk python]

Then I’d really say you should save up for an interface and a mic then

Then I’d say do some more research on mics that are good for music production, cause shotguns are usually for films

And are condenser but I think a dynamic mic is better music (correct me if I’m wrong here not sure)

[shadow stag]

ah interesting

so it wouldn't really cut it for like streaming/chatting?

[shadow stag]

i can try, thanks for the response

[silk python]

Ofc good luck 🤞

[shadow stag]

wouldn't shotguns/something for film work fine for vox/vocals anyway?

[mystic yarrow]

I'm looking for some good Monitors to fill my audiophile needs (I need monitors for listening to music making music and video editing) I'm upgrading from my 16in M5 MacBook Pro speakers at one point I tried Bose Companion 20’s but the mac has better speakers than those

[left plinth]

does anyone know where I can find information on making a Delta Sigma DAC I want to check if what I have so far designed is going to work before I commit to making it

[warm scarab]

the username goes really hard btw

id check the sonic visions discord server for engineering advice, they have the most diy nerds there

[warm scarab]

budget?

[left plinth]

thanks

[tawdry gale]

A pair of 8361a and 7040a

[sleek lily]

You might be best off asking in an ee discord for that tbh

I could probably help you with some simple questions

If you're using a chip, it'll likely be a lot of reading into the information for that chip and designing firmware to interface it

[craggy hinge]

@lean grove yo wsp idk if u remember but u recommended me the topping e2x2 i bought it bro

[buoyant vale]

That's crazy

[craggy hinge]

I just have some problems idk if u had the e2x2 but my software doesn’t recognise the interface

[lean grove]

I have not and idk about the software. See if there's drivers or contact tech support.

[left plinth]

I was going to make it from scratch using a FPGA and some LPF made from Resistors and capacitors as well as some op amps (both as buffers and amplifiers), I know it will likely sound awful for my first attempt but as long as it works, I'll be happy

[craggy hinge]

Yeah its by email and emailing to china takes hella long

Till they respond

[lean grove]

Does it work with other stuff? Discord and windows?

[craggy hinge]

I have found the problem

[craggy hinge]

Now my mic input etc doesnt work

I need to fix that to

[sleek lily]

It actually sounds like a fun project. Test it in lt spice or Multisim first though. I will say though, Multisim sucks at simulating opamps if you decide to use it.

[left plinth]

Lt spice doesn't have logic operators by default so I'll either need to find add-ons or make them myself but that was the plan

[sleek lily]

Sounds like you've got a good idea on what you're doing. Definitely add that project onto your resume if you have room after. It's gonna be a fun project, but it'll also show that you know how to manage a project 👍

[left plinth]

That's a good idea thanks

[astral urchin]

im searching for new in ear (true wireless) earbuds with a budget of around 200 bucks at max, theyd need to have ANC , any recommendations? Im using them for listening to music and workouts

[trail solar]

I don’t know wich phone ecosystem you are on. But if you are on IOS AirPods are one of the most used for a reason. Especially the AirPods Pro 2 are really great. I like their sound better than the sound of the Pro 3. And Sound ist obviously different for everyone, so you would need to have a look wich you like better. The Heartrate Monitor in the Pro 3 is obviously nice for workouts. I’m not sure if you can get them for 200 though. But that shouldn’t be a problem for the Pro 2. At least it isn’t in Germany.

[astral urchin]

im on samsung sooo i wouldnt have most tof the featutres of the airpods

[trail solar]

Yeah, that’s sadly true.

[lean grove]

Airpod pro 2

Regardless of you being on Android

Go to a display iPad at Walmart or target, set it up once, and then use them as normal

The only thing you're missing would be battery read out but that's not a dealbreaker imo🤷

[viscid tangle]

The pro 3s usually drop to $200 at walmart or amazon even best buy, although a lot of people prefer the sound of the pro 2 to the pro 3. I haven't tried the pro 3 yet. However the pro 2 are amazing and the pro 3 pretty much improves on everything apart from sound, which is subjective.

That's if you're in the US

Only a few places have the airpods pro 2 new but they're at $200 and close to the price of getting airpods pro 3. AIrpods pro 3 are overall superior it's just sound that people have mixed opinions on.

You can get renewed airpods pro 2 though.

[oak torrent]

bro my headset has dolby atmos included but dont show on my windows but xbox it work

[tired crown]

whats a good $100 xlr mic

[viscid tangle]

You need the Dolby app.

[oak torrent]

i do

[haughty girder]

What are you using it for

[tired crown]

discord mainly

i have a minifuse interface already

[haughty girder]

My default reccs are Se V7, SM58, and XM8500 - Q9U if you want the broadcast style microphone, the closest shotgun microphone to 100 is still like 200 ish in the AT875R. USB mics would be Elgato Wave 1/3

Do you have a deeper or higher pitched voice

[tired crown]

id say inbetween

[haughty girder]

Do you have a microphone arm?

[tired crown]

yeah

[haughty girder]

If in-between then SE V7

[winged valve]

is a yas-107 overkill for desktop speakers

[buoyant vale]

Looks more like underkill

[vapid plank]

No such thing as Overkill

[livid ruin]

awg 1 copper wrapped in gold audio cable

[vapid plank]

I just use BlueJeans and Wireworld

[cold cove]

Tried to repair my flip5 today, this thing is the least serviceable piece of tech i've come across, wtf. There are different version of the same model (mine doesn't fit the ifixit guides for example).

Won't buy jbl again. (I know for audiophile jbl is not good anyway apparently)

[brisk topaz]

so i got some truthear gates

but they didnt come with a pouch

[restive sigil]

i meanm JBL is mostly for ppl who just want something that plays music, that they can pick up at their local tech shop. i'd never take them serious on any level. in the same league as Bose

[lean grove]

JBL has a decent consumer audio division

[zenith pawn]

They're supposed to, right? Are you able to get them to send you one

[brisk topaz]

maybe

i sent them a support ticket

[haughty girder]

@restive sigil JBL Consumer is meh for the most part, JBL Professional Series and Studio Series (LSR308, Studio 530, etc.) are really really good

and the issue with bluetooth speakers is you have to realize

you're asking for upwards of 100db spl @ 1m from drivers that are absolutely tiny for the task

add on water resistance and all the fancy bluetooth features, you end up with a device that's hard to open and repair and must be tightly integrated

it's not a JBL thing, it's just a bluetooth speaker thing

if you watch LTT video showing them building a bluetooth speaker you'd realize how difficult it is to get big sound from a small chassis

Also region specific or even revision changes is not a bad thing.

If a product is produced from 2022 - 2024, but in 2023 they made the device last longer through a board revision, that's overall better even if you then have 2 different (but not concurrent) revisions of the same model

[vapid plank]

Jbl is mostly junk but loud

[lean grove]

@vapid plank
If the JBL speakers are junk I'm curious what you consider to be good

[vapid plank]

Lots
Monitor Audio
PMC
Sonus Faber
Focal

[lean grove]

Buddy

We're talking Bluetooth speakers here

Not audiophile stuff. And even then, JBL still has pretty good stuff.

[vapid plank]

If you just want a Loud BT Speaker there fine

There loud

[lean grove]

They're*

[vapid plank]

JbL doesn’t have a home Product worth the cost

Least to me

There not my sound profile

I don’t only want boom

[lean grove]

Saying you're not a fan is one thing. Saying they're junk is another.

[vapid plank]

I’ve heard there best offerings

For the cost there just junky

If your a fan that’s fine

[lean grove]

And like. I'm still not sure if you're still comparing JBL Bluetooth speakers to Sonos Faber towers

You never clarified that

[vapid plank]

I’m not

Jbl Makes home Products

[lean grove]

They make many things

Studio, hifi, consumer

Professional

[chrome imp]

sometimes you just need a bluetooth speaker for the lake or a campfire, JBL is more than adequate for that

[vapid plank]

Why does my opinion bother you so much

[lean grove]

It's one of the better options.
UE is still my preferred brand but the JBLs are still pretty competent

[vapid plank]

I can think whatever I want is junk

You don’t have to agree

[lean grove]

Why does my opinion of your opinion bother you so much?

[chrome imp]

I like the JBL stuff, for most people it's great. I've got some LG bluetooth speaker rn, but that's because I got it for free

[lean grove]

If it's free and you like it that's infinite value

[compact shale]

Anyone know of any good bookshelf speaker stands that could sit on a desk to raise around 20-30 centimeters that arnt like these spring like ones that are kinda shaped like this <

[chrome imp]

it's a loud bluetooth battery speaker that's ip67 rated, mint

[vapid plank]

How big is the speaker

[lean grove]

I use Rockville speaker stands but they're pretty chunky.

If you can tolerate the size, they're a good option

[vapid plank]

Your local metal shop could likely fab up something for you with scrap pieces

Costs likely aren’t crazy and you get exactly what you want

[chrome imp]

https://www.crutchfield.com/p_310SP9B/Kanto-SP9-Black.html?tp=1386 idk anything about this brand but fits the requirements

[lean grove]

Oh yeah I completely forgot about those

Those are nice. I had a pair before my speakers stopped fitting on them

[chrome imp]

cheap enough too

but yeah the base plates seem a little small

[lean grove]

If you have a flat bottom speaker, they should be fine

Unfortunately for me my speakers have ports on the bottom

[chrome imp]

rip

[lean grove]

Indeed

Limits my choices dramatically

[zenith pawn]

because it's presented as universal advice when it doesn't seem to actually hold true
Plus stereotyping by brand name isn't really the greatest buying strategy

[livid ruin]

i like they sound, i hate their pads

too small goddamn

oh speakers

^ ignore then

[neat quartz]

can i get half decent pc speakers for around 50$?

[lean grove]

Creative pebbles are what you want

[tired crown]

whats yalls opinion on at2040

[versed lake]

should i get edifier mr4 speakers and are they good

[warm scarab]

yeah pretty good

i think mr5 may be better

according to grey

[wheat moss]

Bigger number better? More common than you'd think

[livid ruin]

i’ll wait for the mr6 pro maxes then!

[haughty girder]

ancient, personally I don't like it.

I'm not saying age is a problem in audio equipment, but it wasn't good when it first game out and it hasn't aged well either

Unless you're dead-set on broadcast-style mics, I'd take the SeV7 over it any day

[tired crown]

I’m not dead set but I hate handheld look

[cold spindle]

What would you use it for even. And do you have a interface already.

Tho yeah the SeV7 is good for just basic use for voice calling it's goated and sound not bad Vs even higher end mikes like the dpa dfacto

Ofc higher end stuff is better tho yeah all depends on what you would use it for for just discord calls the SeV7 is good. They do have some more broadcast looking mics that are also dynamic mics like the dcm6 and dcm3 with the 6 having a phantom powered preamp

[blazing cipher]

hey guys, im tryin 2 buy some in ear wired earphones that have a start/stop button on them, but im looking to spend £15-£20 max on them, is there enough of a quality increase from £10 pairs and £20 pairs? and does anyone have any suggestions, i just started scrollin amazon and saw these https://amzn.eu/d/03MGP6Pb ive heard of sennheiser before, are these any good?

[warm obsidian]

hello i have a problem with beats fit pro, one earbud is not connecting with phone idk what to do

[vital wigeon]

What would be a better headphone? Edifier WH950NB or Sennheiser ACCENTUM

[vapid plank]

Chinese IEMS

Are best in Price to Perf

[brisk topaz]

truthear gate

like £15 with a mic/buttons

[restive sigil]

Anyone here have a Teenage Engineering Synthesizer?

[blazing cipher]

brilliant tysm, i assumed thered be some iem's that were better i just had no idea which ones so ill get him these 👍

[lilac creek]

Hi guys, need recommendation for budget headphone for <$150

anyway I have been rocking akg n700 for 5 years from this channel recommendation haha, still as good as day 1, just the frame start cracking

[thin birch]

Do the pocket calculators count?

Anyone have a good solution for sharing an audio signal between 3 different amplifiers in 3 rooms without running wires?

[restive sigil]

wait they make pocket calculators also ?

[thin birch]

The PO series, they look like calculators

[restive sigil]

im a millenial, my pocket calculator was either a texas instrument or a mobile phone

well, i had a friend in class who had a sick casio calculator watch

[thin birch]

Pocket operators, is what they call 'em

[restive sigil]

https://tenor.com/view/have-you-singing-gif-15306510891366453666

[thin birch]

https://teenage.engineering/products/po?srsltid=AfmBOoqfU20UYK7kt0vKPPDguIb3kRD2nPNzXk0g0wLRsEU2MBd-n72W

[restive sigil]

oh wow !

thoes look super awesome !

how is it ?

[thin birch]

They are super neat. I have 3 of them, but haven't really given them the time of day. That's more on me than it is on them tho.

They all seem to operate in relatively the same way, tho, so I think once you get pretty comfortable with one, you can work pretty well with the other models also.

[restive sigil]

sick !!!

[thin birch]

Also they link up in series so you can combine them

[restive sigil]

can't wait to get the OP-XY

ive been eyeing that since i came across it like 2 years ago? xD

[thin birch]

Wow that is a hefty price tag

[stark cedar]

Henlo, I'm looking into getting my first desktop dac. Currently I'm running ATH-M50X and KZ ZSN Pro and want to maybe get HD600 down the line. Currently looking into the FiiO K11 R2R. Any advice would be appreciated

[lean grove]

the k11 is a good one to start with

[stark cedar]

Like K11 non-R2R?

[lean grove]

Either. Some people prefer the r2r. But it's more expensive.

[sweet moon]

Not sure if it fits here.. can i ask questions about acoustic guitars? They arent tech per say..

[shadow stag]

the creative pebble pro arrived!

[shadow stag]

hey, how im supposed to use usb audio with the pebble pro?

i connected it via usb c to a to my display which should passthrough to the computer but windows 7 reports nothing connected to it

oh got it

it took a moment to detect it

is it normal for the pebble pro to distort with usb audio at higher volumes?

had settled on like ~50 for normal listening

[haughty girder]

yes

[haughty girder]

Pebble pro just has a more powerful amp than its predecessors but uses the same 2.5" driver as the previos pebbles

most amps can over-drive their drivers

[shadow stag]

ah i see

couldn't get it in firmware update mode at all tho :/

its just too hard to keep holding

[shadow stag]

why such choice?

at least it has the passive bass reflex thing

im feeling slight buyer remorse because of some of the features

[elder thistle]

does it need to be wireless

[haughty girder]

because bigger drivers necessitate a bigger internal volume to prevent sound buffeting

a 2.5" driver already needs ~300cc (if not more) of space within an enclosure

a 4" would be approaching 1000cc (1 Litre) of internal space

at which point your speaker needs to be much bigger, with a much more powerful amp, and they're much harder to tune

the choice to keep a 2.5" was for the size and cost, because they're cheap and sound good enough

[shadow stag]

why the switch to more amp power is my question

[shadow stag]

in some pages of creative support it says 2.25"

also it seems like the final color was going to be alpine green but that never materialized

[haughty girder]

oh sorry 2.25"

math comes out to basically the same

[haughty girder]

This is a really common question dw

It's the exact same reason people buy guitar or bass amps at like 500w

[shadow stag]

wtf

[haughty girder]

and recommend 100w for just "small room"

not even ha venue

[shadow stag]

specs say: Colors Alpine Green and White

[haughty girder]

most amps will distort well before the amp reaches max wattage

but that's what you want

[shadow stag]

interesting

[haughty girder]

because it means the amp will never be the source of distortion, the driver is

[shadow stag]

why not have matching driver and amp?

[haughty girder]

which also means as long as you're under the limits of the driver, you're getting the most out of that driver + it's cleaner because the amp is running well below its limits

[shadow stag]

considering the desktop space i think i seem to be good with the 2.0 pebble

[haughty girder]

you went from pebble 2.0 to pebble pro?

[shadow stag]

no, from genius speakers to pebble pro

[haughty girder]

oh

t30?

t20?

[shadow stag]

genius sp-u150x

much older

[haughty girder]

wait wrong brand kek

jesus

3.5 watts

which means distortion likely closer to 2

[haughty girder]

anyways pebble pro's big selling point is built in DSP

on top of a cleaner amp

[shadow stag]

cant access its tuning cuz windows 7

[haughty girder]

why are you running windows 7

[shadow stag]

as i said many times, grandfathered all hdd system

[haughty girder]

is that an M27Q?

[shadow stag]

the monitor? og g24f

[haughty girder]

damn

[shadow stag]

i should probably have bought the g24f 2

[haughty girder]

but why not just run a debloated W10 build instead?

[shadow stag]

no space and it has its own slew of issues and dont want to break the customized installation and software. i have installed w10 but its at the end of the drive leading to it being slower than w7

[haughty girder]

.

I've been using ssd for so long now I forgot short-stroking was a thing

i get it tho

with that said

I do question the thought of getting speakers before a new pc

[shadow stag]

im not into ssds because of their life issues/shortcomings compared to hdds

idk, easier choice than picking pc parts

[haughty girder]

Wdym life issues/shortcomings?

the only shortcoming is price

[shadow stag]

things like dying after a year of no use, tbws, paging torture saturating write cache

[haughty girder]

in fact I've had more HDDs fail on my than SSDs in the past 14 years or so

[shadow stag]

surprisingly in the less than 10 but more than 5 years of this set of hdds none has failed

[haughty girder]

dying after a year of no use is very situational - if you live in the sahara desert then just power it on once in a while and it'll be fine. Paging torture saturating write cache makes no sense

[shadow stag]

yeah, i had low writing speeds on win10 with 8gb of ram and hyper-v enabled

[haughty girder]

I've had 1 SSD fail and it was a controller failure on a Kingston A2000, which they replaced for me for free

[haughty girder]

what ssd was that?

[shadow stag]

was low on space and also partitioned

its a Kingston SUV400S37480G

[haughty girder]

Jesus

you bought the cheapest dramless sata ssd

and then said that SSD is an issue

[shadow stag]

not me, dad back then

[haughty girder]

dramless is not a big deal now too with nvme since HMB exist

[shadow stag]

¯_(ツ)_/¯

[haughty girder]

but with sata you NEED dram and you need something with a good controller.

[shadow stag]

too late

with dram its not as cheap or idk

[haughty girder]

but my point still stands - using a general statement saying SSD is bad because you had the cheapest worst ssd is dishonest at best

I had a Patriot Blast 240gb (Sata 3 with dram) and that thing has long outlived several of my WD Greens from that same era

[shadow stag]

you also could question my purchase of a m4 pro mbp, a $600 music keyboard

[haughty girder]

why are you running windows 7 when you have a new macbook

esp one with hdmi

just toss your HDDs into a ZFS or RAID 5 as a storage server and use your macbook damnit

[shadow stag]

cuz its on macos, i also have a mac mini late 2014 with 6 installations of major macos versions in a 1tb poor cheap kingston ssd, the hdd on sierra is a snail and ends up freezing

[haughty girder]

then why did you buy a macos laptop if you don't like macos

[shadow stag]

sighs

im a multi-os user but still maining windows due to its ecosystem

i'll see if vxkex can get me going for using creative app

[haughty girder]

wnidows... ecosystem...

windows doesn't have an ecosystem...

in fact windows is probably the most fragmented of any operating system

[shadow stag]

referring to software ecosystem

[thin birch]

Anyone have a good solution for sharing an audio signal between 3 different amplifiers in 3 rooms without running wires? I just want to play music throughout my whole house

[civic beacon]

https://www.wiimhome.com/wiimmini/overview

I'm sure there are other similar products out there (including rolling your own from a Raspberry Pi) - this is just the one **non **SONOS / Bose / Apple one I'm familiar with.

[thin birch]

Hmm

Thanks for that
I don't think it's quite what I'm after, but I appreciate it

[lean grove]

If you don't want wires, you want multi room streaming and wiim is one of the cheapest options.

Otherwise you'll need to invest in a roon system

Or do something difficult with LMS

[thin birch]

LMS?

[lean grove]

Lyrion music server

If you're tech smart it's gonna be your best option

Free and open source and very powerful

But you still need streamer boxes which you can make out of raspberry pi's

[thin birch]

Oh. I generally play music via YouTube music, either from my TV or my PC. I guess I don't understand how that Wiim streams to devices?

Also my phone is Android, so won't get any use out of Apple stuff

[lean grove]

There's an app where you set up the wiim streamers as devices and you can link them together as a single "device" and when you stream music, it should show up in the cast setting

[thin birch]

All I really want is a bridge between my existing devices

[lean grove]

What are you picturing in your head? You said wireless so I'm confused as to how you think this should work

[thin birch]

I dunno, are there raw 2.4ghz tx/rx devices I could just feed audio, or something like the powerline adapters?

Also I do have ethernet wired already, could there be an IP device that fits this role?

Having run the ethernet in the first place is how I know I would rather avoid more wiring

[warm scarab]

im unsure how windows is anymore limiting than mac tbh

[lean grove]

Nothing comes to mind. Though this is kind of something that home theaters have to deal with, and Ethernet is often pretty commonly used.

In theory you should be able to just use the Ethernet as a regular old cable. Cat6 has four pairs of wires, so you could probably convert XLR -> cat6 -> XLR.

[warm scarab]

in my opinion windows os is superior to xlr connectors

4 lin xlr included

pin

i also think we should set the home of dumbass who decided to call 4 channel powering of headphones or speakers balanced

[lean grove]

Well you're from a third world country that eats bugs as a national dish so idk what your opinion is worth other than the mud your people track into other people's homes.

🙊

[warm scarab]

i aint reading allat

something something mud something im fat and dumb something something

ok bro cool flex

im going to make a gun and an ecm machine

[lean grove]

Check out this flex:

Saw some ducks at the river

[warm scarab]

yooo what the fuck

ducks

i made a wheelbase

it knocked off my 15kg speakers its terrifying

[lean grove]

Damn it's got RGB and a clamp

[warm scarab]

rigs are overrated

xir thats a rpm meter do not misgender my wheel toy

[lean grove]

Why do you need an rpm meter doesn't it show it on the screen

[warm scarab]

it kind of flashbangs you and you realize oh fuck i need to shift

works only at like 85-95% rpm so once you have a hard time looking at the screen you realoze you need to push a button

[thin birch]

How many turns?

[warm scarab]

its direct drive at 17nm peak torque

its whatever I set it to be

if you spun a g29 at 17nm at wheelstops you'd break the wheelstop lol

[thin birch]

So contacts on a disc for the stuff on the wheel?

[warm scarab]

nah

the motor itself is literally so powerful

I use software to determine max turn degree

end stops are whatever I set it in the software to be

you can use 1330 degree 1975 rally cars or 540 degree gt3 cars

[lean grove]

Can you get 4 of these steering wheels and use them to make a gocart

[warm scarab]

well the motors are from an actual vehicle meant to carry like a 50-100kg load so yes

but electricity is homosexual and i would prefer to not have it in my car

not due to the fact its homosexual that is a completely unrelated to the subject

cant say shit in tbis server bro automod got me for the 4th time in 5 mins

[lean grove]

What? You getting auto mod'd? That doesn't sound right.

[warm scarab]

this is crazy

[warm scarab]

with 2 wheels so predictably 4 could do a lot more

[warm scarab]

bro i accidentally ate like 100 grams of cigarette ash

[buoyant vale]

How much did you mean to eat?

[warm scarab]

i was trying to eat beer

the bar administratuon i think. to avoid cops arresting them for indoors deinking swapped out ashtrays for beer bottles

and i drank an ashtray

[buoyant vale]

Oh man

[warm scarab]

shits fucjed

[warm scarab]

indoor smoking sorry

[buoyant vale]

I don't miss the every can might be an ashtray days

[warm scarab]

how old were you at that time

[tired crown]

rip my wallet at2040 is ordered

[buoyant vale]

like 20?

[warm scarab]

im 23

[buoyant vale]

How dare you

[warm scarab]

old

you are my grandpas age

need help crossing the crosswalk?

[warm scarab]

rob a 711 bro next question

[vapid plank]

Sometimes music is all you got the mental for

[warm scarab]

i had an insane kebab just now

adana durum

1/10th of my income gone

[warm scarab]

man i got an exam in 3 hours

[zenith pawn]

windows, macos, and linux definitely have their own 3 ecosystems as someone who uses all 3

[unique wind]

microsoft offers an ecosystem but i decline it

my windows computers are isolated systems

i dont use a microsoft account, or any microsoft cloud service, or any phone integration

[unique wind]

i could go for a kebab rn

am buzz

[warm scarab]

it went notably hard

ive been intoxicated for the last 9 hours

[unique wind]

[zenith pawn]

even just from the perspective of what programs you can run, if you switch between the OSes then you have to find a ton of new software

[unique wind]

for me not really it's only a couple of things

the only two remaining banes of linux are the lack of support for some OBS plugins, and nvidia gpu performance

[zenith pawn]

what about all your various hardware monitoring tools and stuff for overclocking

i guess if i had a list of all the windows programs i used it would be easier

[unique wind]

cpu is all done in bios, and for gpu i could just run stock

[zenith pawn]

it's just tons of tiny little utilities like notepad++

[unique wind]

all that's really keeping me in windows are some obs microphone processing plugins, nvidia gpu performance, and valorant

[zenith pawn]

I wish I remembered, when i switched to linux the first time it was like throwing everything away

but maybe windows had less stuff built in at the time

[unique wind]

windows 10 21h2 is still the most plug and play bugfree experience that ive ever had with an OS

ive been on W11 24H2 again for two weeks and im already itching to go back

ive been trying to accept W11 since 2024 on and off because it performs better in cpu limited gaming, and the UI is prettier, but it's just buggy

namely with chromium based programs with hwaccel enabled

[zenith pawn]

sounds like you're getting what's normally supposed to be the linux experience

[unique wind]

microsoft made some window manager changes in 24H2 that have caused some visual artifacts in chromium apps with hwaccel enabled for some users

it's widely documented

w11 23h2 theoretically works fine, but it loses security update support in a few months

[warm scarab]

cool if you dont need productivity tools

fusion 360, adobe software, davinci resolve, tinkercad, solidworks

all gone

I could spend two hours trying to install davinci resolve onto linux or i could spend 20 minutes debloating win11 and disabling updates

whenever you do productivity work you want the productivity to become the outcome rather than trying to troubleshoot your os because vst plugins decided to not work due to some schizoid reason

[winged valve]

anything but audio

great

[warm scarab]

if you like audio so much why dont you listen to muskc

or construction noisrd

[winged valve]

I did not say anything about liking audio

[zenith pawn]

what do you want then

[unique wind]

yeah i dont use any of this

im still on windows because i dont want to give up gpu performance or obs plugins

[warm scarab]

could go amd

[unique wind]

then id really be giving up performance xD

i have a 9800x3d and 5090

[warm scarab]

fair enough

what do you need a 5090s performance for anyways

even a 15% fps hit should run anything on silly high fps

if you had a 3060 and didnt want to lose id get it but what could you possibly be doing with a 5090 where that perf hit is an issue

[zenith pawn]

trick question the performance hit is by using windows instead of cachyos the proclaimed god of performance

[warm scarab]

its a linux driver issue not an os issue

cant fix it without nvidia wanting to fix it

[zenith pawn]

(cachyos is a Linux distro that constantly gets pushed on people for having performance patches)

[warm scarab]

i know what it is

its not that deep its just spiced up steamos based on arch

they still need the drivers from nvidia

as any other os does

and the drivers are shit

how can you optimize a os for the gpu to calculate better when all you give it is the graphics task from a game and nothing else

answer is nothing

anyhow you can just google these results we dont need to be discussing this its all public

[zenith pawn]

that was the joke...

[warm scarab]

there is no joke i owm a gun

[zenith pawn]

i'm moving you to a country where thats illegal

[warm scarab]

im afraid it won't be anymore illegal there

[lone flame]

europe?

[warm scarab]

that is not a country

[tight dew]

Hey guys, I'm in the need for some gaming headphones recommendations in the $100-$150 USD price range. I mention gaming specifically because I would like to have a wireless headset with an inbuilt mic. Many people in forums are recommending some turtle beach headsets and steelseries arctis nova series for this price range.

I am skeptical about the steel series, because I used to have a Arctis 7+ and the left side stopped working completely in a little over 2 years of regular use. They were comfortable to wear but didn't fit my head as well so the audio sounded a little off and I wasn't impressed with their overall sound quality either. So I am not sure if a different Arctis is the right choice.

Any suggestions are appreciated :)

[sleek lily]

@steel escarp I remember you asked me before here for an example of a claim that requires we understand how far the definition of minimum phase is being stretched.

I recently came across a perfect example, to which I actually made a great analogy for, which I feel makes the issue more understandable.

I had a discussion about how magnitude response is not the same as frequency response. The opposing view made the assumption that we don't need phase because headphones are minimum phase. I made the point that they are not actually minimum phase, and even if they were, phase is still part of frequency response, as minimum phase does not mean ignore phase.

The part where I felt the definition as to how far we stretch it being set becomes important came after. Someone made a very reasonable sounding assumption that we can ignore phase because by a hilbert transform, we can derive phase of a minimum phase system from magnitude response. For a perfect minimum phase system, this is actually true. For the stretched definition, we actually can't. This is why it's important to distinguish "close enough for some simplification" from "actually is so we can mathematically treat it as the rigorous definition".

The example I gave: if I throw a ball and want to know how far it'll fly, it's reasonable enough to assume no friction for simplicity. However, it's not okay for me to assume from my no friction assumption that this means I'm in empty space, so the ball will go forever and there must be no gravity.

[steel escarp]

For headphones its good enough to assume they operate as minimum phase. And if its minimum phase, you can solve any phase issues by adjusting the magnitude response. Since they are tied.

[sleek lily]

It's useful for eq

The issue is when you apply that assumption outside that like it's not a simplification, which is very common in audio spaces.

[steel escarp]

Oh yeah... its like not even optional to also fix non minimum phase issues in your room

Its more important than DSP

Well depends on the frequency tbh

[sleek lily]

Yea, it's a simplification that can be very useful for some applications, but it can't be used to derive things as if it's a rigorous definition

[steel escarp]

Get the HyperX Cloud III S, very solid overall

Its funny how shifting the phase alters the frequency response a bit. I haven't been able to make my system sound better with it tho.

Talking about my speakers

[sleek lily]

Another example I gave was with BJT's. It's fair to say Ic=Ie when performing calculations around them. It'd be absurd to assume that because of this assumption, that's actually just a wire with the same current so vce must be 0, so it's now magically not a bjt and we don't have an amplifier.

[steel escarp]

One day I'll have a room big enough to house all the acoustic treatment I want. A room is only as good as the amount of treatment it can hold. No other limiting factor.

[elder thistle]

like how I can charge my EV with AA batteries if I have enough batteries

[haughty girder]

not really

you'll run into internal resistance issues long anything else happens

but I'm just being pedantic.

[sleek lily]

This paper actually does a great job at demonstrating why we shouldn't conflate the assumption that headphones close enough to minimum phase for some purposes with "headphones are minimum phase". The existence of all pass phase alone inherently means they are not minimum phase, and results in some pretty big issues if we try to ignore phase by stretching that simplification to a physical rule.

[astral urchin]

Should I get the XM5 earbuds now or wait for the Xm6 to release?

[lean grove]

No harm in waiting.

Generally audio quality doesn't improve much from generation to generation.

The features might like better ANC or passthrough so if that's important to you, it might be worth it. But if expect mild gains unless they do something crazy.

At the very least, the price of last gen stuff will go down.

[astral urchin]

they did say its gonna cost like 300 bucks no?
what about the bose qc ultra gen 2? Should i pick them over the XM5? theyre about the same price
I heard the anc of the bose are top tier but the sound might be worse than on the sony´s

[lean grove]

Idk I don't keep up with most mainstream consumer audio stuff. A lot of it is overpriced and not that exciting.

Apple are the only ones releasing cool audio tech these days.

If you're worried about price, there are really good non-mainstream stuff for like $50

Tws earbuds are a money making machine for most brands because they can charge $300 for a pair and not worry about customers really knowing why they're so expensive because the cheaper stuff isn't sold at Walmart or Best buy.

Low information market = bad competition

[astral urchin]

I paid like 50 bucks for my soundcore liberty 4 NC and theyve been good for a year but im sick of always having bad ANC and now the bass is just horrible so now I kinda want to just spend a little more up to like 200 just to have something thatll last

I dont know how good the airpods will be on an android

[lean grove]

Generally pretty good if you set it up using a display iPad at a big box store.

The only thing you're missing is battery life indicators.

But otherwise you don't need to spend $200 to get good bass from an earbud.

I would encourage you to look at the moondrop space travel 2's

The ANC is not gonna compete with apple. But they're gonna be much better value.

[steel escarp]

in sony's case audio quality increases backwards

[livid ruin]

xm6 were fine upgrade over the meh xm5

altough they increased the price

[steel escarp]

bruh tf am I even looking at

[zenith pawn]

magnitude frequency response chart

[unique wind]

if that xm5 measurement isnt super smoothed then it looks great

no major dips so itd be easy to eq

[steel escarp]

Its pretty bad considering the presence region where most detail is perceived is lacking quite some treble

[sharp bay]

For pc setup (7.1) would you recommend the center ca
Hannel above or under monitor?

(27")

[restive sigil]

under

[sharp bay]

Okay👌

[steel escarp]

I think you should reconsider doing a 7.1 setup for nearfield listening

[lone flame]

Proper 7.1 setups do cost quite alot

I would pick a good stereo setup above any shit surround imo

[left verge]

I'm looking to get a USB dongle to both use on the go and on PCs
Mainly been looking at Fiios, since i've heard great things about them, and they are priced pretty well
But i also looked at the Jcally AP6 as well
https://hangout.audio/products/jcally-x-crinacle-ap6
https://www.fiio.com/melody
https://www.fiio.com/ka13
https://www.jadeaudio.com/XC2?product_id=71&_l=en

[vapid plank]

I have a Moondrop
It’s pretty good

Works well good sound

[dull trout]

anything would work just fine

if you need more power then option would shrink alittle bit

headphone or iem?

[left verge]

Headphone

[sharp bay]

I got it for free Euro 30, 30€ for my old setup that i used for the left right and for the power of the sub, the 5.1 we bought 10 years ago from samsung and the samsung receiver broke and i got my uncles old onkyo tx-nr686 for my birthday day

[thin void]

Fiio KA11

[left verge]

What makes it better (or worse) than the others?

[thin void]

realistically you wont hear a difference between any of these. The KA11 has plenty of power for listening at reasonable levels and measures better than a person will hear.

if an apple type-C dongle gets loud enough for you I would even recommend that

[left verge]

Normally i'm at like 40-45%

[thin void]

but depending on what headphones you plan to run the KA11 may be more suitable power-wise

[thin void]

what headphones?

[left verge]

FT1

[thin void]

nice

yeah KA11 would be plenty and you should have headroom

FT1 is a great headphone

[elder thistle]

I don't like the ft1 personally

[left verge]

Got an open box for $130
I think the KA11 is like 550mv i think

[thin void]

high acoustic-Z so hPtf effects mean itll vary a fair bit from person to person

the downside of closed backs

[elder thistle]

I don't mean tonally but yes

I do get a bit of a rollercoaster tonality anyways though

uhh

this was a quick draft

[thin void]

that price range is pretty scattershot for closed backs, depends on what you prefer. I feel like for most people they'll land on either FR1, K371, H200, or DT 270 pro.

[thin void]

based on manual sweeps?

[elder thistle]

ye

[thin void]

nice

I really hope we can find a way to get MIRE systems in the hands of more people in the coming years. Would be great for stuff like this

[elder thistle]

these seemed to have a lot in common with the 400se

they really surpress the louder end of dynamics while also dropping off some of the quietest details

strange timbre that's mostly in the techs instead of fr

[thin void]

so! funny enough the techs really are the FR. With a MIRE and your DF-HRTF you can match pretty much any headphone and its all there

some other reviewers recently got MIRE setups (with their DF-HRTFs) and are starting to experience this

the great news of this is that you really can get there with EQ

[elder thistle]

I don't think that's supported by research in any concrete form, and it's not what I or some other people have experienced

[thin void]

to be fair there's only a handful of people on the planet currently with open-canal MIRE setups, but the research is in progress!

its thrilling

[elder thistle]

IMO claims of FR being everything has caused a lot of damage in terms of what people purchase or think they can get away with

[thin void]

when misunderstood I strongly agree

[elder thistle]

but we don't understand it ourselves

[thin void]

There's growing examples of how far measurement fixtures tend to stray from in-situ

[thin void]

from a physics perspective we do, really the thing that's debated is average listener preference and the more fine-grain elements of FR that contribute to it

But the ability to match one headphone to another with in-situ measurements shouldn't be surprising

now, weather or not those headphones land on a "good" target range is a whole different question

and seperate evaluation

[elder thistle]

isn't there research studying peripheral sensory phenomenon and how that can cause different perceived sound regardless of fr?

[thin void]

well there's plenty to show that its affected by mood, comfort, external factors

but nothing suggested "acoustically" for things close to minimum phase like headphones besides FR

[elder thistle]

yes but I mean there's more to what gets into our senses than sound pressure at the eardrum

and it's not like we have neuralink technology to study what we actually hear versus what's at the eardrum

[thin void]

whats at the ear drum is what we're hearing is the thing. Realistically the ear drum has less dynamic range than the drivers/mics used.

[elder thistle]

it seems like it will be too soon to claim FR causes certain things for a very, very long time, even if we solve in-situ fr

[thin void]

I personally say it with confidence but I think that skepticism is extremely fair given this is research that's in early stages. I very much look forward to when more is publicly available and the discussions it will bring.

[elder thistle]

what studies were able to reduce experienced human hearing's possible causes down to solely sound at the eardrum?

I will buy an AES subscription if there's really reductive and complete studies like that

[thin void]

we don't have other sensory organs for experiencing sound. I mean to some extent obviously we can feel waves of pressure on fine nerves in the skin but that's at pretty significant SPL and lower in freq.

to some extent I suppose you could argue that significant displacement of pressure can have effects on various organs or the sinus, but that would be a considerable reach to try and correlate it with how we experience sound.

[elder thistle]

what if the nature of isolation, vibrations, or hf reflections/angles causes our brains to forcibly add a 1.3khz boost

or some other effect

[thin void]

so, that's getting into the nature of average listener preference rather than the acoustics. We don't "hear" the natural curve of our HRTF generally in daily life correct?

A good example of what reaches our ear drums vs other sensory organs and their ability to perceive them would be like someone shining a small LED at a person while they're sunbathing

Now that said, the brain is a huge player for sure

its highly debated for in-ears

specifically around the notion that the brain "expects" the person's HRTF

which seems like a reasonable assumption, and some data suggest it, but is not yet "proven"

[elder thistle]

I didn't mean it like that, I meant that there are more chaotic interactions the sound and the way the sound was injected has inside the ear

like the pressure sensation

[thin void]

Like interaction of the middle ear?

[elder thistle]

but possibly much more

ye probably middle and internal

I'm no audiologist

but the ear is made up of so many parts, and the way it sends stuff to the brain is basically a black box as far as we can see, yes?

so I think it's awefully dangerous for serious research to be built on the idea that a microphone and pressure simulator/pinnas is a truthful analogy to human hearing

it has value, but good science can only happen with a clearly defined scope and knowing the limits of the tools

we don't really know the limits of the tools

[thin void]

I literally had a hardware failure during this conversation 💀 had to switch to my laptop

pain

[elder thistle]

rip

[thin void]

this part very much so!

[thin void]

I'm cursed

10 years of measuring things and I pissed off a witch somewhere in the world. Only explination for why CPUs explode in my presence.

[elder thistle]

uh I worded this badly

[thin void]

I noticed you're friends with Golden. If this subject interests you ask him about his recent experience with MIRE.

[thin void]

I think I get what you mean. I've got the 4128 and 5128 here and compared to in-situ measurements its clear how much work is yet to be done on test fixtures and how they relate to humans.

[elder thistle]

we don't really know how limited our tools are as a functional model of human hearing

yes

[thin void]

This I think will likely become more public in the coming weeks and definitely months now that the headphone show also has MIRE setups

and I think a spotlight on that will be beneficial to the industry

[elder thistle]

I guess from an FR standpoint there's a lot to be improved with accuracy too

the odds that FR at the eardrum controls all or most of what someone hears from a headphone is not 0

but I'm hoping that conquering frequency response will lead research to study hearing in new ways to really figure out how it all works

[thin void]

imo some of the in-progress studies are going to unlock or at least lay the ground work for many of these questions

[elder thistle]

I've done a lot of experiments to the capacity that I'm able to, and there's just no way I can currently comprehend that I could have the consistency in my eq's, measurements, blind tests etc. if frequency response was everything

but there's also lots of signs in various music production and gaming spaces that hint at patterns much better described by techs than fr

[thin void]

The hard part there is that you still have three invisible factors to contend with. Acosutic-Z, HRTF, and hPtf

[elder thistle]

the tests basically need to test themselves lol

like trying to find two unknown angles of a triangle

[lean grove]

Listening to the juanphones?

[elder thistle]

but for example, I've been able to determine some kind of metric for accuracy with how I eq a headphone

and that's based on me trying to solve for hidden test eq curves applied in front of a sweep

[thin void]

Not today!

but they linger

and watch

from above

[lean grove]

They demand a blood sacrifice soon

[thin void]

Theres a beyer on my wall too, I live in fear

[thin void]

ayeee

[lean grove]

Rightfully so.

[thin void]

DT270 pro actually isnt bad

its still "bright" but not by normal beyer standards

more like audio technica kinda bright

but really compelling bass and mids

[lean grove]

Come to canjam dallas. The Beyer booth guys are fun to drink with.

[thin void]

last time i had a LONG chat with them lol but it was really productive!

[lean grove]

The other audio bigwigs weren't there 2025.

[thin void]

Im prob not gonna make dallas but def gonna do NY

[lean grove]

Boo 👎

[thin void]

too much going on this year

[lean grove]

Downright the main guy, I think his name was rich or Rick or something, cut in front of me at the airport. And then later said he remembered me from 2024 as not liking any of his stuff.

[elder thistle]

then I can see how my accuracy changes when the headphones I'm wearing are pre-eq'd to be more accurate or less accurate.
then I can use a measurement rig to try and weigh broader eq inaccuracies (since I don't have a baseline sweep to compare the headphones to), but this gets reinforced by doing these eq's on different days and different headphones, where I can look at the repeatability

some things with phase and waterfalls

[thin void]

EQ by ear can definitely be a challenge. I wouldnt pay mind to phase/waterfalls because often phase is just measuring the phase of the fixture and the filter

[elder thistle]

then there's practical tests for trying to judge if the techs I'm hearing are real, which includes things like dying in games

[thin void]

they kepy in touch and seem genuinely interested in improving things

[thin void]

jokes on me, I die in games no matter what

[lean grove]

See I'm still not convinced that poor performance in games is anything but brain burn-in.

[elder thistle]

phase is a good way to look for how off-target two eq curves are from eachother. or what time/phase issues I could be creating if I produce the same error when eqing headphones to my ears

[thin void]

my performance in games is: I'm in my 30s and getting older every day

[lean grove]

Couldn't be me.

[elder thistle]

this also helped me adjust the shape of the eq's I now create

there are a few kinds

[thin void]

I lack the energy/brain cells for the phase rabbit hole today, but it is something I would love to discuss and dive into one fo these days.

[thin void]

32 this month (help)

[lean grove]

https://tenor.com/view/supertroopers-leo-police-cops-cop-gif-11153907

[thin void]

how many years before I cant hear 10khz anymore

[elder thistle]

the point of it was to improve and verify how accurately I can eq by-ear

what I've determined so far is that it's very odd that I'm not experiencing the changes in techs that I see mentioned once in a while (in relation to stage width, bass tightness, instrument separation, timbre) compared to the eq's used in their examples to apparently achieve these changes

[thin void]

The hard part is these things really seem to lie in the fine-grain FR and its REALLY hard to land on some of those features by ear alone. Even with the MIRE setup its not easy.

[elder thistle]

I don't think it's likely for me to hear changes in these effects no matter where I'm told to focus the eq

[thin void]

the hard part here being its not exactly about where to focus the EQ and more about that combined with how things response in your ear with your HRTF

[elder thistle]

I've placed so many eq nodes at this point that I would have fixed a section of fine-grained treble fr by random chance

or perhaps more interestingly, I would've been able to destroy great hrtf compliance with intentionally incorrect eq changes

but the changes don't show up. not on the 70 or so headphones and IEMs I've been able to test that on

there are only 2 exceptions: timbre, which seems part-fr and part-tech (as crinacle once wisely said), and extreme cases of masking

I know that my testing for how accurately I can eq isn't some professional scientific study, and the accuracy of my eq's therefore remains unproven

but not hearing a single change in techs, of any magnitude outside of those two rules, of all the headphones and iems, and all the calibration work involved?

it'd be wishful thinking for me to think fr could cause that change

[glad creek]

Can I plug two speakers on one amplifier output?

[supple sand]

is this a good deal

[lean grove]

In theory yes. You can do it in series or in parallel. In practice if you do parallel you can easily overload the amplifier if you push too hard.

Generally not recommended but at modest volumes it's probably fine.

[glad creek]

Yeah I see thanks, so in series it should be fine ? @lean grove

It's for a local small bar that doesn't have any money, he wants 3 speakers and the cheapest stuff possible while not being horrible

[lean grove]

Generally yeah. It'll be a lot quieter though the more speakers you add in series.

[glad creek]

Yeah so with 3 speakers, one alone and 2 on the same output the level won't match

And i guess amplifiers with 3 outputs don't really exist or are super expensive

[lean grove]

They do. They're made for exactly what your friend needs. Look for multi room amplifiers. Generally they're kinda expensive, but pretty much every restaurant with music will be using one so you can find them used for a lot cheaper.

Ebay, Facebook marketplace, any restaurant that's closing down, craigslist, consignment stores

[glad creek]

Yeah ok, thanks, i'll try to take a look

That'd be perfect yes

But the thing would need to have bluetooth or smth, or he would need to buy a bluetooth adapter ...

[lean grove]

Probably the latter

They're not expensive

[glad creek]

https://www.audiophonics.fr/en/integrated-amplifiers/aiyima-a09-p-19815.html

Something like that would be cool;, it proably supports multichannel stereo

Though multi-mono would be better i guess

[lean grove]

¯_(ツ)_/¯

Should work

Might be janky

[glad creek]

yeah

[patent jolt]

anyone got any suggestions for 1/4" to 3.5mm (female end on the 3.5mm) that's about 1m long? trying to connect up my momentum 4's to my audio interface. the momentum 4 comes with a 2.5 to 3.5, so atp using a 3.5 female to 1/4" male seems like the way to go. something high quality without being the price of gold. and preferably not an direct adapter than a 3.5mm extention, but if thats all im gonna get for a reasonable price then it works

[jade flint]

Does anyone know about the Venture brand speakers?

where would i be able to find those?

[heady idol]

Guys what is the earbuds with the best transparency mode other than airpods

[sleek lily]

I've mentioned it before, but there are aspects that eq and frequency response won't affectively tell you. This isn't just an idea, but a mathematical fact, especially with the amplitude related transfer and the more commonly discussed intermodulation distortion.

How much these matter is up to further research to determine, but our brains do interpret very small changes to determine the things people would usually describe as "technicalities". I think it's fair to assume these usually small nonlinearities could possibly fall within that incredibly small delta our brains use for perceiving the world already.

There is also the fact that most people just use magnitude response, but in reality, headphones are devices that have a non zero all pass phase, so magnitude response alone isn't capable of deriving our full frequency response. This leaves issues even if we assume frequency response to be all encompassing and assume all other axis are imperceptible.

I'm linking an interesting paper that ties to that last detail.

Tldr, don't fully discredit what you're hearing, as it's still well within the explicable realm.

[elder thistle]

the inexplicable realm also deserves full credit

the argument could be made that what we don't know or understand is a larger part of the equation for how people hear than the existing established research and the variables it's not considering

and I would agree with that argument

hearing is incredibly complex, and settling for a microphone as it's analogy is awefully daring

but there also seems to be very little research into things like techs and if they're distinct from frequency response

it all reads like an adjacent self-validating experiment

like watching cavemen fill a car's gas tank with water, then never trying to turn the car on, assuming they were successful in nourishing the car

and doing it again and again

[lone flame]

The reason is just easy...
You are not good in EQing

i know people that had their HRTF measured

and used special equipment to measure headphones on their ear

and they were able to make a HD600 sound EXACTLY like an HD800s

with the stage, seperation etc

[elder thistle]

observation is a hard-earned skill

as for the accuracy thing, read above.

[lone flame]

"tech"

i know 3 people that measured their HRTF and where able to EQ Match headphones to sound identical

so what tech u talking about

[elder thistle]

across discord servers I have seen very little evidence that people experience changes in techs as-described when using eq. Techs as an unchangeable phenomenon appears to be so common that it functions as a repeatable way to diagnose needs and preferences

[lone flame]

like i already mentioned

EQing is just fcking hard to do

[elder thistle]

that is irrelevant

[lone flame]

and if you don't have you HRTF measured, you will never hit it

im also able to increase stage etc with EQ

[elder thistle]

That is also irrelevant

as I had explained

Nevertheless there are no invalid experiences

brb

[lone flame]

we need more people to get their HRTF measured

and different headphones with in ear mics too

to EQ Match them and make a study about it

[sleek lily]

Tbf, that could also come down to confirmation bias. They concluded the result they wanted. It could be true, but I wouldn't take it at face value alone.

Imagine it like this. If a an imaginary person named Bob says that they know cables mad of gold change sound by doubling the soundstage, and one day they buy a gold cable and plugged it in and say "wow, soundstage doubled", I'd be sceptical. Maybe it did by some unexplained phenomenon, but more likely, they actually heard what they wanted to hear. They probably aren't lying, but the mind is complex. I'd wait in this case for further testing, and I'd personally wait for it to be a fully explained phenomenon.

I'd at the very least wait until more people can confirm the same phenomenon to a point where I can say there might be a phenomenon that shouldn't be confirmation bias.

[lone flame]

i don't think these 3 guys to hit with placebo

maybe but i don't think

[sleek lily]

Maybe they aren't

But concluding either way is as meaningless of a speculation as it would be before they had their experience. More data unfortunately is necessary.

Another thing I want to be clear on, because I see this misrepresented a lot: even the rigorous HRTF + frequency response explanation is not just “EQ skill issue.”

Matching what actually reaches the eardrum is not only about shaping magnitude. In practice the headphone plus ear system is not strictly minimum phase, so you can’t fully derive or recreate everything from magnitude response alone. There can be excess phase and time domain behavior like group delay differences or ringing that don’t map cleanly to a simple EQ curve.

On top of that, the effective transfer function at the ear depends on fit, seal, angle, and how the driver interacts with your pinna and ear canal. Those can change the response in ways that a static EQ made on a coupler or even another person’s ear won’t fully capture.

Then there are nonlinear and level dependent effects. Things like intermodulation distortion, compression, and general level dependent behavior create components that linear EQ cannot reproduce at all.

So even within a framework that emphasizes HRTF and the binaural transfer function, reproducing one headphone with another is not guaranteed to reduce to a single EQ curve. HRTF and FR are clearly important, but when people still hear differences after careful matching, that is not automatically explained away as user error. It can just mean we are not capturing the full system with magnitude response alone.

Tldr: even in that framework, magnitude response won't be enough, so it won't be as simple as measuring your hrtf and adding it as a curve to your eq.

[elder thistle]

it's also possible you and potentially these other people are not quantifying these techs the same way

at any rate, as I mentioned previously the notion that an eq needs to be perfectly matched to change techs is nonsense

I am not aware of a single variable on this earth where the behavior only changes when it reaches an exact state

it wouldn't be a variable

[sleek lily]

I'd at the very least say it's far from conclusive, with a lot of just as under explored aspects that are just as likely to change those same aspects.

[elder thistle]

what would the headphone change to? how could headphones ever be different? why are there differences in techs that are not 0% and 100%?

it's not logical

[sleek lily]

If not more likely, because they tie more directly to known mechanisms that influence these human level interpretations.

I'm not going to take a hard stance on this, but I'd say it's disingenuous at best to say all of it must be an "eq skill issue".

[elder thistle]

techs being separate from fr is just my and most people's experiences

the actual point is that we don't know as much as we think we know with audio research, and it needs to be addressed

I should not be using my experiences and research to give factual explanations on how human hearing works

and neither should audio engineers with their experiences and research

we haven't reached these facts

[sleek lily]

Audio engineering usually isn't too related to signal analysis

[white gate]

It's 100% FR

I've done the "EQ a headphone to sound like another" thing this week

But also, headphones are minimum phase systems, so we've kinda known this would be the case forever.

It's just that actually being able to measure or characterize the in-situ response of two headphones on your head precisely is really hard

So it's always been a "In theory you can, in practice not really" thing

[elder thistle]

agree to disagree, but that's interesting you heard it that way

[white gate]

pretty sure @thin void has done this too

[thin void]

I have indeed

[white gate]

But yeah, since headphones are minimum phase, adjusting FR (and therefore phase) to both match, it sounds exactly the same

You just unfortunately need a good MIRE setup to do it precisely

[elder thistle]

it doesn't work for me and a lot of other people

[white gate]

But you haven't done this though

I wish it were more accessible, but the number of people that have actually done this can probably be counted on two hands

[thin void]

Accessibility is really the hard part yeah

[white gate]

hurry the hell up Apple

scan my noggin and run the numbers damn it

[elder thistle]

perfect accuracy is only relevant if you're trying to make two things sound identical, or rather if that's what you're testing

[white gate]

I thought that's what we were discussing

[thin void]

right... and we're talking about making things sound identical. "techs" and all

[elder thistle]

perfect accuracy couldn't be mandatory for simply changing techs

in some arbitrary direction and amount

[thin void]

if not for the knowledge of what needs to be matched and how it responds on your head, how else could it be done?

[white gate]

It's blunt, but in the words of Oratory1990 to Resolve:
"Skill issue"

[elder thistle]

random peaks and dips added in would be a good start

[white gate]

I think that's likely to just mess things up

peaks =/= detail

[elder thistle]

exactly

[thin void]

I dont think any of us are saying peaks = detail

[elder thistle]

however, adding peaks and dips doesn't change the way I perceive the techs

[white gate]

Hell when I was doing development on the Aperio GSE I found that nearly 100% of the test participants reported "better detail" unprompted by just pulling down lower mids/midbass

[thin void]

^

If we can use a MIRE to EQ one headphone to sound exactly like another, techs and all, then would it not makes sense that those techs are a part of the FR?

[white gate]

^^

[elder thistle]

we may be partially on the same page then

[thin void]

the claim isnt "peaks = detail" but that FR certainly is over-all

detail is perception of FR

[elder thistle]

so obviously the thing I can speak the most about is my own observations and testing and such

[thin void]

of course

[white gate]

We don't necessarily understand exactly how to EQ something to just straight up sound more detailed.
We don't know an answer in the sense of "oh yeah make 5-7khz slope like this then have a 2dB 8khz bump and boom there's your detail"

But the very fact you CAN EQ one headphone to sound IDENTICAL to another, techs, staging etc and all, shows you absolutely can do it.

(And again, minimum phase systems, it'd be difficult to explain why we WOULDN'T get this result barring some intrusive level of distortion)

We don't know how anaesthesia works but hey you try saying "I refuse to fall asleep, we don't know this works"

[elder thistle]

in the case of ducking the lower mids and hearing more detail from it, this could be interpreted as either hearing more treble / less masking, or it could be an actual change in resolution

[white gate]

Just remove that 2nd part

people DO hear brighter headphones as "more detailed"

[elder thistle]

if we assume (though I assume the opposite) that lowering the low mids actually creates a change in resolution, then techs are being changed by fr and it's a relatively simple thing I could do on my end to make the techs change there too

when I do this, I only hear the results of conventional masking

[thin void]

you can certainly change how you're perceiving the sound

but you're not changing resolution because resolution straight up doesnt exist

your range is "20khz". If a driver can produce 20khz, then it can move fast enough to produce 20khz

[white gate]

"Resolution", "Soundstage", "Timbre" etc are all just subjective terms used to describe our perception of the FR

[thin void]

^^^

[elder thistle]

hold on

[thin void]

its a language for making sense of it

[elder thistle]

I get that that's your experiences, but it definitely isn't mine. trying to explain

[white gate]

There are edge cases where distortion might becoming a dominant factor, but very rarely and in those cases you've got bigger concerns tbh

[thin void]

Certainly, but the experience we're describing is a process that happens in a lab with specialized equipment to replicate this effect

hence why accessability is the barrier

[elder thistle]

I don't see how that makes the effect more real

[thin void]

because you need supporting data/equipment to replicate it

[elder thistle]

so when I listen to a new headphone, I hear a whole lot of things on the first song. the tone is the immediately obvious thing. a few seconds later, I start hearing things that I've recognized in the past as belonging to techs. the more music I play, the more I pin down these techs as well as the frequency response

from there, changes to the tone, even fine-grained, even with horrible phase disturbances, are not able to change the distinction between tech and tonality

[thin void]

You are describing a very different experiment with very different equipment

It is not surprising you would land on different results

[elder thistle]

not really an experiment, just how I hear and assess a headphone

[thin void]

fair, but im sure you can see how that would have no bearing on the results of this research?

[elder thistle]

when you personally make eq adjustments to a headphone, do you experiences changes in techs?

[thin void]

Absolutely, but the way im making those EQ changes is with measurements from a MIRE system from one headphone to another.

when im doing it randomly or by ear? nope

but doing it randomly or by ear is like trying to snipe a 700 yard target blindfolded and spun in circles

[elder thistle]

so if you eq down 300hz, you don't experience better resolution like the other people did?

you see where I'm trying to go with this

[thin void]

totally depends on the headphone, it definitely can sound "tighter" if its a headphone that's already elevated in that range, like the one Golden described.

[white gate]

Perhaps put it the other way. Cause it'll depend on the starting reference.

If you ADD a bunch of midbass, do you not find it makes the headphone muddy and less detailed?

[thin void]

I do of course, and it ignores all of the key points

[elder thistle]

it gets complicated... but for example I find the shure srh440a to have really tight bass despite audibly having way too much 200hz

the hd280 pro however has this same boost but sounds super muddy

for that one it helps a lot when 200hz is reduced

[thin void]

the fun part here is we dont know how those measure on your head

[elder thistle]

I presume it's masking the ugliness of whatever unknown nature

and that the 440a doesn't have this ugliness, so boosting the region is of little consequence

[thin void]

see here^

[elder thistle]

technically we don't, but that's not a good explanation

that range is rather consistent across people. I have the ability to perform level matching, and the microphone required to see things happening in the bass doesn't need to be so advanced

[thin void]

its quite literally everything

[thin void]

nay, its not consistent. MIRE results are quite literally the opposite of consistent from person to person

[zenith pawn]

i'm still getting up to date on the context but there are things such as that (not that I think that's what's happening here, but) which change suddenly at a very specific state-- not every function in application is "smooth"
I think like Borwein integrals https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=851U557j6HE would be an example?

[white gate]

Hell nevermind person to person, sometimes just one ear to the other can vary a lot

[thin void]

^

[zenith pawn]

But this is a contrived example

[elder thistle]

if we want to assume I cannot level match or anything, then can we at least assume that I'm capable of adjusting an eq slider and boosting/lowering 200hz on these things

[thin void]

sure.. but that doesnt change the entire core of the discussion and its effects...

[white gate]

I guess what I'm saying is if you added say a +4dB 200hz Q1.0 boost and the headphone didn't sound "less detailed" I'd be VERY surprised

[thin void]

(I would say that heavily depends on the headphone and how it measures on their head)

[elder thistle]

I've done exactly that

[white gate]

true

[elder thistle]

I've done +12 but it gets kind of ridiculous

it's actually something I do in some games in order to enhance the volume of footsteps

[thin void]

another facet of this that is equally important is that terms like "detail" are perceptual and non-standard. 5 people could say "detail" and be describing different percieved aspects of the FR without knowing it

[elder thistle]

it does not compromise the technical nature of the bass

at least not for me

[white gate]

I'm not even talking about the bass

Just detail in a general sense

But yeah

[white gate]

this

Works Cited: Literally any head-fi thread

[elder thistle]

"resolution" seems to be more universal

of course, not universal enough

[thin void]

this research is VERY much on the leading edge. It will take time and I lot of people will be skeptical, but you will be pleasantly surprised in time.

[thin void]

certainly

[elder thistle]

I cannot change the resolution of a headphone by boosting 200hz

[thin void]

okay?

[elder thistle]

that's not the same though as how many details I may hear due to masking

[white gate]

So it's not less detailed, but you're hearing less detail?

[elder thistle]

resolution: the ability for overlapping details to not destructively interfere with eachother in an increasing amount with increased instruments. it could be described as smearyness

detail: a perceivable and distinct component in a sound or music

[white gate]

Therein lays a huge part of the problem. Everyone has different definitions of those words (and not everyone would differentiate those particular two in the first place).

And then even if two people DO have the same text definition they don't often have the same actual true meaning or application to particular audible effects/presentations

[elder thistle]

it's not a lost cause but yes

tangzu wa'ner s.g

[warm scarab]

would be cool if audio terms were actual terms and not whatever bullshit the other party feels like it means at the time

[warm scarab]

its lost as shit

its better than the boomer era but if thats your bar then we are 6 foot under

[elder thistle]

these are earbuds I tried for about 20 minutes (which was difficult) and I was immediately convinced that they were horrificaly unresolving as well as dark

at some point long after that, I gave them another listen and heard some details being resolved clearly in a particular song

this was a clear sign I screwed up

the issue was that the music I was listening to previously had percussion and effects spanning many regions of the treble simultaneously

and I had a -11db dip between 8-11khz in my perceived response(estimate)

this meant I changed my findings of the resolution of the wa'ners

[thin void]

and based on the frequency response of the music you were listening to at that!

[elder thistle]

when something is very dark or there's just a big dip in the fr in some location, it's a lot like trying to hear someone speaking in a room filled with white noise or maybe a test tone

but the voice is still clear, just quiet

[lean grove]

Klaus log off please. You're ruining the conversation.

[elder thistle]

and at some point it's just broadly too quiet and rapidly goes from recognizable to gone

[warm scarab]

jackson is the counterparty bro id rather talk to my cats about meaning of audio

[lean grove]

Jackson is David fighting Goliath and I'm bored at work. Your entrance is ruining my front row seats.

[elder thistle]

so there is a distinction between details being quiet and details being jumbled together

[thin void]

brother im doing like 200 measurements today. Just killing time between tests and more coffee

[lean grove]

I'm doing ten measurements.

[elder thistle]

the music happened to play a few things heavy in that 8-10k region

[thin void]

real

[elder thistle]

now this is where it gets interesting

the reason I initially thought the instrument separation was low was because instruments that mainly existed below 8-11k no longer had trace amounts of those frequencies in an audible amount

[lean grove]

When you're measuring with the rig do you have an ongoing verification to make sure things are still calibrated

[elder thistle]

there was no longer enough information in each instrument to preserve their identities when they overlapped

[thin void]

somewhat. theres sanity checks on SPL cal and whatnot but the DF-HRTF calibration process involves a whole spherical array. So its not really practical. That said, the DF-HRTF shouldn't change or "fall out" of spec as lone as the pinnae/mics arent damaged.

keeping in mind all OE tests are done with 2 different HATS and a MIRE

[elder thistle]

it is a rare example of a situation where frequency response feigned the behavior of resolution through masking

[white gate]

https://tenor.com/view/the-matrix-laurence-fishburne-morpheus-trinity-he's-beginning-to-believe-gif-18413151103009905935

[elder thistle]

or at least my ability to hear them as separate things

no no, I mean I'm aware of how that explanation could be spiraled up to high frequencies being obscured by adjacent dips and peaks, creating the same effect for finer details

frequency response was always a logical explanation for resolution on a surface level

and it's heavily used that way in music production

but in reality it doesn't work that way for me and lots of other people

the consequences frequency response can create are basically traceable and learnable/removed with brain burn-in

there are other effects on top of this

I accept that a few of you have been able to make headphones change their techs via eq

there are some explanations I start to think of, but the important part is that I don't know

[lean grove]

I have to recalibrate my stuff pretty often. Usually daily or monthly. I'm always curious how other industries handle their quality control.

How do you use the hats and mire measurements in conjunction?

And how long until the manufacturer recommends you send it in for recalibration/recertification

[thin void]

like you have to make a new DF-HRTF?

[lean grove]

No I do chemical analysis.

[elder thistle]

progress towards truth can only happen if we accept that other people's experiences are real

[lean grove]

So I analyze known standards and correct what the instrument outputs based on that

[elder thistle]

or worth considering

[thin void]

well realistically the one DF-HRTF for a B&K 5128 applies to all the B&K 5128s in the field. The tolerances are very tight and it takes a lot to make them fall out of that tolerance for example

[thin void]

ahh gotcha!

the HATS calibration process is a longer subject than I can elaborate on at the moment but I would love to explain it in more detail another time

its quite interesting

[lean grove]

Convince Linus to make a nerdy video.

[thin void]

tek tip

[white gate]

MIRE and HATS measurements are effectively "separate".

You can't directly compare a 5128 measurement to a MIRE measurement for the same reasons you can't directly compare 5128 to GRAS. Different heads so even after HRTF compensation headphones will behave differently.

What you can do, and what is beneficial, is showing how the same headphone, compensated to the HRTF of each head/rig, then behaves. As the variation is something that is woefully under-represented in current media/publications

A headphone might look 'perfect' on 5128 then be screwed on most real heads

[elder thistle]

on that train of thought, I'm hoping to see you guys abstain from broadly saying fr=everything is a factual reality for all people

these studies are useful, and your experiences are too. but if only a few people have experienced one headphone turning into another with EQ, it is not yet scientific law

[white gate]

The science was a thing before we did this

again

minimum phase systems

This isn't a new discovery

it's just cool hearing it in practice

[elder thistle]

human hearing reading as a pure reaction to minimum phase behavior would be a new discovery

[lean grove]

See that's the kind of stuff I want.

In my business, when the thing that we're analyzing is actively interfering with the measurement we call it matrix interference. Think of some oil coating a sensor, or something interfering with the chemistry.

We have techniques to know how the signal is being affected by something unusual and could compensate for that signal depression.

So in theory, someone could make a dogshit headphone that is engineered to perfectly couple with a dummy rig head and look good, but falls apart when it's put on someone with a more atypical head shape.

Testing that variance could be fun if it didn't involve finding people with different shaped heads and spending hours getting a single measurement.

[thin void]

it really wouldnt be

[white gate]

The DCA stuff is probably the most drastic example atm.
Most headphones behave MOSTLY consistently across heads once you compensate the HRTF contributions away. Closed-backs less so.

But the DCA stuff has those 'meta' filters that do an excellent job of getting a very exact FR in a particular positional range on a particular rig/head, but on real people the results vary a LOT

[thin void]

people trying to sell $10K cables might panic for a moment before they come up with another BS excuse though

[lean grove]

Sean olive mentioned that in his slide show. Though I think the DCA electrostatics (Corina? Corinthia?) was also the most consistent headphone across different heads.

[thin void]

maybe compared to some other higher acoustic-Z headphones?

[lean grove]

I don't recall which he had in his talk. It was 10 or so different headphones.

[elder thistle]

a new scientific validation*

not discovery

[lean grove]

But yeah he attributed it to low acoustic impedance

[white gate]

"Theodore Walton Denney the 3rd is rapidly approaching your location"

[elder thistle]

it's pretty easy to find evidence of human hearing behaving as minimum phase

proving it's the sole mechanism for everything going into the brain from the ear, in a way that has zero exceptions and no chance of being disproven in the next 1000 years, is a different story

[white gate]

We also don't know for sure we won't disprove the current understanding of atoms in the next 1000 years.
Science is our current best understanding of things, not 102% guarantees with a 2% margin of error.

But that doesn't mean we should say "Well we don't REALLY know that humans need oxygen it could be something else we just haven't explained yet"

[elder thistle]

hm

the only answer I could have to that is that biology and medical studies have a very high degree of uncertainty compared to something like mathematical proofs

both are science

[thin void]

and audio is physics

[elder thistle]

audio is biology too

at least in this capacity

[thin void]

to some extent sure, but whats actually reaching our biology is physics

[lean grove]

Psychology too.

The biology is constructing a reality based on stimuli.

[elder thistle]

if it's microphones and speakers/headphones and pressure simulators etc., yes I have very little reason to believe that sound is not following the existing rules of physics

I don't believe headphones are literally faster than eachother, and things like measurement rigs can read two different headphones and get a nearly identical signal after eq

[white gate]

What do you mean by the last bit?

[elder thistle]

uh I may have a recording somewhere

well here's this at least

[white gate]

I'm not sure what you're saying though, and whether you're saying you do or don't believe X

[elder thistle]

I am a man of science

we probably have the same ideas up until the physical ear

[white gate]

I still don't know what you're meaning by the last bit of this 😅

[elder thistle]

well the microphone when reading a frequency sweep from a headphone at 1 point (where the eardrum would be) is dominantly reading frequency response

when eq is applied to that data, it can almost become a copy of a different headphone's frequency sweep data

and,

this eq can be done to the recorded data OR the input signal of the headphone. only thd and noise concerns

[sleek lily]

I did some more research into the minimum phase assumption in headphone applications, and I don’t think it’s correct to say headphones are minimum phase.

From what I can tell, that idea mostly comes from treating them as close enough to minimum phase for EQ purposes, meaning they don’t have extreme excess phase. But that’s just an approximation, and it seems to have been stretched into the stronger claim that they are actually minimum phase systems.

In reality the headphone and headphone ear system has measurable non minimum phase components, so you can’t assume phase is fully determined by magnitude via a Hilbert transform. So saying “headphones are minimum phase, therefore matching FR also matches phase and they will sound identical” is stronger than what that original EQ assumption actually supports.

[thin void]

in the words of mad: "if HRTFs have allpass components, you can't say 'headphones aren't min phase' because you measured allpass at the eardrum"

[sleek lily]

I gave an analogy for this in another server: if I want to find the distance a ball flies after I throw it and I don't care much for precision, I can make the knowingly false assumption that I have 0 friction. That's actually very normal, but it's not fair for me to make assumptions or derive details off my knowingly false assumption I made for ease of calculation. If I say that because I have 0 resistance I must be in free space, so I have 0 gravity, so the ball goes on forever, I'm wrong, not just off.

[sleek lily]

They aren't minimum phase because a large number of the mechanisms to their function are inherently non minimum phase. It's not related to hrtf alone.

[thin void]

we're talking about very small changes at high freq, and often this is misinterpreted because people are seeing the filter

[sleek lily]

But really there is no field of study that would make the serious claim that they are minimum phase. It was derived from a misinterpretation of a knowingly wrong assumption made for ease of calculation, much like my no friction example.

[thin void]

... this is just factually untrue

[sleek lily]

This paper actually touches on this exact topic. It's a very measurable component.

[thin void]

ive read this lol

did you not?

WAIT

Arent you banned from several audio science servers?

😬 I'm going to disengage here. Have fun!

[sleek lily]

I don't think there are any audio science servers on discord? But if you're giving an irrelevant red herring. I did infact read the paper though

Either that or poisoning the well. Either way, that kind of response isn’t a constructive or scientific way to address the argument or paper.

That’s unfortunate, because it’s an interesting topic that’s frequently misunderstood and deserves a more rigorous, scientific discussion

[lone flame]

actually. i do that.
idk how but im able to increase the Soundstage and imaging etc by ALOT of most of my headphones (and IEMs).
on some headphones it's easier (like my HD800s) and some are more dofficult (HD600).
i have done a EQ Match in the past with my HD600 and Hexa by ear. it wasn't perfect but it was atleast from what i heard in that time like 95% the same

idk if i do something wrong or different
But for me it isn't that hard to increase soundstage and imaging per EQ

[lone flame]

If you guys review a headphone (on The Headphone Show channel) Just use someone as rig
Resolve or someone else. so you guys can show 5128 measurements and "how it is on that persons head"

[lone flame]

oh. there are SOME Audio Scienece servers on Discord

im on some, and i know that there are more. WAY more

[sleek lily]

If you could send me a link, I would actually appreciate that. I didnt know there were servers dedicated to that.

[lone flame]

uh.
idk if im allowed to invite people.

[sleek lily]

if not, no worries. Private servers are private servers 👍

[lone flame]

ye

im happy with what Golden and the other archieved by getting their HRTF measured + EQ matching headphones with MIRE systems

finally a "proof" that so far (very few bcs nearly noone done it yet lol) people can EQ match headphones with those data

and ye. Apple CAN DO THIS SHIT! they just have to. please

[sleek lily]

I will also leave this here, because I don't like the suggestion that I didn't read the paper, but I know most people wont actually open it. For those interested, a minimum phase system would show us our minimum phase component through a Hilbert transform, which is why its suggested that we only need magnitude response to interpret a "true" minimum phase system. For a true minimum phase system, we would not see any all pass phase. These are measurements of the phase makeup of different headphones, all of which exhibit all pass phase. The paper accepts this and goes on to say "Lastly, we found all-pass phase in the headphone transfer functions; as this is typically left out in headphone equalization, it has consequences for the temporal performance of equalized headphones" and "In closing, the acoustic influence of the headphone can only be removed if the equalization is based on individual measurement of its transfer function". This all suggests that headphones are not minimum phase (which they aren't considered by any rigorous means), and we need a lot of data to even guarantee behavior for eq. I’ll give the benefit of the doubt and assume the signal-analysis portion of the paper was missed and more focus was given to the conclusion, but that conclusion appears to have been interpreted as meaning the all-pass phase observed at the eardrum is only an HRTF artifact and therefore doesn’t contradict the minimum-phase assumption for headphones, which is not what the actual conclusion, the data or analysis in the paper supports.

TLDR for those who dont want to read all of that, but are interested:the paper shows headphone transfer functions at the eardrum contain all-pass (excess) phase, meaning they’re not strictly minimum phase. Because of that, you can’t assume magnitude alone fully describes the system or that EQ matching guarantees identical behavior.

If my wording seemed blunt, it’s because I was responding to dismissals and claims about the paper that didn’t engage with its signal-analysis or data. My goal here is to keep the discussion centered on the evidence and reasoning presented in the paper itself. I hope from this point on the discussion can remain more factually driven and scientific 👍

I’m open to discussing any specific part of the paper or analysis in detail if there’s disagreement on the interpretation.

[elder thistle]

I think minimum phase here is just used as a generalization

headphones exist in the physical realm (so do ears) and can't be 100% one kind of sound component

pretty sure linear or semi-linear phase changes show up in group delay

[sleek lily]

I’m also going to leave this paper here. It’s not directly related to the previous discussion, but it’s interesting, and for those who are more math-inclined it offers a useful way to interpret the data and connect it to one aspect of what people describe as “technicalities.”
For example, the paper notes that “the just noticeable difference (JND) in ITD is nearly constant at 10 μsec as a function of ITD.” For those thinking in signal-processing terms, that gives a concrete way to translate time sensitivity into phase: you can convert that 10 µs into cycles at a given frequency to estimate how much all-pass (excess phase) would need to amount to, per frequency, to be perceptible, assuming no other mechanisms are at play.

[sleek lily]

It seems that “minimum phase” in headphone discussions started as a practical EQ simplification, meaning they behave close enough that you can adjust magnitude without running into large phase problems. That’s a reasonable approximation.
But over time that seems to have turned into the stronger claim that headphones are literally minimum phase and that we can derive full phase from magnitude alone. From what I’ve been reading, headphone plus ear systems do show non minimum phase components, so treating them as strictly minimum phase is an approximation, not a physical property.

[white gate]

That's the idea 👌

[white gate]

This is exactly why you check excess group delay, and what I've pointed to various times

[sleek lily]

Here is another interesting paper I found. I haven’t had a chance to fully read it yet, but it seems to suggest there may be an amplitude-related component to phase. If that holds up, it would support the idea that we may need to look more closely at amplitude-dependent transfer behavior in these systems.

[lone flame]

for me it simply makes totally sense that headphones are minimum phase

it imo very easy to unserstand

transducer moves, energy lands directly hits your ear.
nothing in between that disturbs this

not like with speakers

[sleek lily]

A lot goes on between those points

[lone flame]

but not on headphones compared to speakers on a larger distance

we are talking of SO LITTLE things that doesn't fully matter

[sleek lily]

Yep, and this is why we can get away with not worrying about phase for eq purposes

It's not that they are minimum phase

But it's more accurate to say our non minimum phase system's phase makeup is close enough for a simple eq purpose

But treating it as a law, and then using that false law as a way to derive things against physics is bluntly wrong.

[sleek lily]

For eq purposes this is fair. However, for describing the system, physics, signal analysis, etc, it's just wrong.

@lone flame If you're interested in this topic though, I do suggest reading the papers I linked. I also included summaries for the first two, but I still recommend reading the whole papers

[white gate]

"A lot" that contributes basically nothing as shown by the above graph.

We're not talking binary absolutes here. If you want to talk about behaviour down the planck second then cables aren't minimum phase. But that's not how the term is used.

The primary reason and contributing factor to headphones behaving non-minimum phase is nothing to do with acoustics, but simply harmonic distortion. Thankfully that in most headphones is extremely low

[sleek lily]

Harmonic distortion isn’t what determines minimum vs non-minimum phase. Distortion is nonlinear; minimum-phase vs all-pass is about the linear transfer function. You can have negligible distortion and still have measurable excess (all-pass) phase in the headphone + ear system due to acoustics and geometry. So “they’re minimum phase” is at best an EQ approximation, not a strict property.

Please look at the phase-decomposition paper I posted. It shows non-minimum-phase components directly. And try the ITD math I shared: a ~10 µs JND translates to only ~0.01–0.1 cycles depending on frequency, which is far below the cycle-scale excess phase seen in measurements. That doesn’t prove audibility in every case, but it does show there are real axes beyond magnitude that can matter.

If you’re claiming it’s inaudible, please provide controlled evidence or cite studies showing those phase/time differences are below known perceptual thresholds. There may be mechanisms I’m missing, as I mentioned earlier, but simply asserting that measurable, calculable differences don’t matter without evidence isn’t sufficient for a scientific discussion.

[white gate]

Please read into this further, especially that first part

Even if you just ask Gemini or something

[sleek lily]

Saying “ask Gemini” or just asserting it’s negligible isn’t an argument. If you disagree, please explain where the reasoning is wrong or provide evidence or a model showing those phase/time differences are below perceptual thresholds.

Right now I’ve cited measurements, a phase decomposition analysis, and psychophysical ITD sensitivity. If those are incorrect or not applicable here, I’m open to that, but it needs to be addressed directly rather than dismissed.

If you’re speaking from personal experience or preference, that’s totally fine. Just let’s not present that as a scientific conclusion. 👍

[white gate]

I've spent more than enough time engaging with you in the past and it's repeatedly become clear little good will come of doing so further

You've been unwilling to accept evidence presented in the past, and frequently present evidence you don't fully understand yourself, as well as pushing presumptions or questions as evidence of factual innacuracy

I'm just going to leave it at that

[sleek lily]

No problem. If you change your mind, I’m always open to discussing the data and reasoning. 👍