Remember the Quad philosophy: ‘The closest approach to the original sound’? It convinced me then (1960s, 70s) and it convinces me now - maybe just for ‘classical’ (I hate the term, as it really applies to music from Haydn to Beethoven, so say 1780 to 1830) music; here the performers and recording engineers have spent decades perfecting a very subtle art, and know how to convey it to us - so let’s trust them and leave well alone
Could it be that EQ is an example of the determination to do something (that is, change an audio profile) merely because you can? The spurious exercise of power?!
Could it be that EQ can at times be a legitimate way to overcome recording shortcomings, say of historic recordings… boxy acoustic, ‘temporary premises’, tininess or boom, improperly-placed miking between, say, singer and accompanist?
In my case, I know too little about the science of acoustics not to want to at least experiment.
But, I agree, I shall try what OPRA can do - to satisfy myself that I may have learnt the basics of changing sound. This would, I can see, apply in the case of - as you say - specific instrumentation (like the harpsichord, or maybe instruments where you want to tame their overtones!) I feel I owe it to myself to do that. But I suspect that, like you I think, I shall end up being happy with what the composers > performers > recording engineers > Roon and finally my hardware environment have offered.
Sean Olive, Ph.D. and Senior Research Fellow at Harman, conducting research into the perception and measurement of sound quality in sound reproduction, posted an interesting link to truly affordable equipment, in order to properly calibrate your headphones to your ears in AudioScienceReview, stating …
As we all know, outer ear anatomy causes deviations of up to 20 dB!!! in the perceived frequency response when listening with headphones. The target curve established by Harman and Sean Olive is an “average” curve based on a large population. That curve is meaningless for the individual case due to significant inter-individual variations.
Over ear headphone aficionados should seriously consider to properly calibrate just one proven low distortion headphone to their anatomy and be done with it, no more FOMO, instead of amassing vast collections of cans for every genre , none of which will ever reproduce the music as intended.
EDIT:
The calibration file can just be used with Roon’s Muse DSP, and additional gentle shelving of bass and treble will adjust for personal preference, voila!
Just so. I have OPRA/Oratory1990 as a base for my HD650s, add a touch of extra sub-bass in the lowest octave, then layer on a right-ear-only EQ rising to 12dB starting from 500Hz based on measurements and custom AutoEQ-derived compensation (a middle-ear injury). My anatomy would really miss Roon/MUSE…
I use OPRA with my HD660S. But what I really I wish I still had is an amp with bass and treble knobs that I could twiddle.
Rather than on-screen graphs, that take a few seconds to take effect, with a silence gap, for any change.
Then again, my 1990s Quad 34 was the first pre-amp I had without tone controls, other than one which you got the impression was there to “fix” problems elsewhere, and was better left alone.
Exactly my problem with the KEF LS60 , set it up once according to your room then leave it . BUT I could just boost this or cut that . Simply because it was there I couldn’t stop myself twiddling
That said I think there is a place to correct for individual recording as opposed to a blank headphone EQ’ed to sound like “headphone X”
My confession, I retired 13 yrs ago, my wife bought me a pair of headphones and banished me to a corner and told me not to sing along . By that stage we were considering zero speakers. Those were the HD800. I used them exclusively for 10 yrs before I got the itch. Black Friday was my downfall. Even more so I bough 2 new pairs at the same time and had the constant question of which of the 3 should I use.
Then if I didn’t do it again. I found a dealer who had demo pairs of 2 I was interested in. They were both great so I bought both. Yes I am a glutton for punishment. I often wish I stayed put. The Meze Elite is really looking like a one headphone solution at the moment.
I am currently setting up a “summer rig” to be located in an Air Conditioned room as my main rig is in a room without air con. SA houses are notoriously open plan. So the Hd800 will be back in play along with a HDV820 amp I picked up cheap
Accounting for hearing loss within certain constraints is good practice, of course.
But
If one wants to do it the proper way and get out of the circle of confusion, as Dr. Floyd E. Toole coined the term, the only meaningful sequence would be
to calibrate the headphone to your anatomy with above mentioned tooling,
then “tilt” the resulting correction spectrum in a gentle Quad-like style to satisfy your tastes, and even adapt for some poorly mastered but cherished recordings …
I agree, a better DAC and preferably a “real” headphone amp would make a worlds of difference. As to the cans, HE1000 unveiled at the 1K price point is a winner
I live in South Africa , we see dramatic swings in prices if I Google HD800s I can see a range between R 24,795 and R 37,940 (the Rand is around 22 to the pound) 1127 to 1724 UKP
The low price is the Sennheiser agent , and I asked why and was told Sennheiser were being nice so it may spread globally.
Ironically I was looking for the HDV820 amp , which I found on Amazon 30% off !!
WHY ,I am setting up my summer setup in an air conditioned room worked out perfectly
Compared to other brands flagships the HD800s at UKP 1200 is a steal, many others Meze, HiFiMan etc are double that or more. Now $6000 or above for top of range.
, none of which will ever reproduce the music as intended.
. By that stage we were considering zero speakers. Those were the HD800. I used them exclusively for 10 yrs before I got the itch. Black Friday was my downfall. Even more so I bough 2 new pairs at the same time and had the constant question of which of the 3 should I use.