Mitchco (Accurate Sound) Has Headphone Filters!

JStewart

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Happy Sunday morning everyone! Yes, it’s the last day of the weekend :( and there‘s a good chance you’ve had an hour stolen from your day with a time change, but fret not, good music always awaits!:jump:

This morning’s session is with a headphone rig and a set of HifiMan HE6se V2 pictured on the left …

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I know, not terribly exciting. But, what improves this situation considerably are some new convolution filters from @Mitchco .
Quite by accident I came across an article where Mitch had developed some filters for a couple of Audeze headphones


The end of the article links back to Mitch’s site where I learned he’s branched into headphone DSP EQ i.e. high resolution convolution filters. Better yet, he’s in the process of building his catalog of filter sets, so you may still be able to arrange to have yours “calibrated“.


As good fortune would have it, Mitch had a set of filters for the HE6se V2 and based on his reputation for DSP mastery, plunking down $50 in the furtherance of music enjoyment was an easy decision.

(Warning: personal subjective opinion follows.)

Left to their own devices these cans sound a bit bright and sometimes harsh. They do have good adherence in the midrange, reasonable bass extension and if they follow the H6se measured by Amir at ASR, low distortion.

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Using Harman tuning from the likes of Oratory and Crinnacle helps quite bit, but the low end can be a touch boomy or muddy at times, and reducing the low end with a shelf filter doesn’t help as much as I’d like.

By the way, there’s an excellent repository of free headphone EQs to be found here:

I have the same impression of Harman target curves with the theater rig and have always preferred a sloped straight line target with Dirac (although a bit steeper than Dirac’s 1/2dB/Octave default target curve) than the Harman target with boosted bass starting near 105Hz.

Mitch says he‘s aiming for a neutral sound and describes it this way:
For me, it’s all about neutral sound. When I say neutral, I mean no one frequency or range of frequencies stand out compared to other frequencies. Technically, there should be a ruler flat frequency response, just like we expect from our digital music players, DACs, preamps, amps and loudspeakers (with no room). What’s on the recording is arriving at my ears with no frequency response unevenness and within the same tight tolerance as our music players, DACs and amplification. Almost all headphones I have listened to (and measured) are not neutral and some far from it.

Not only does the frequency response affect the tonal characteristic, it also affects the balance of the mix from a front to back “depth of field” perspective. It also affects the top and bottom of the soundstage from a height perspective.

For example, if the headphone has a midrange peak, not only are the lead vocals/instruments “colored” in tonal quality, they also appear too far forward in the mix, sometimes to the point of sounding disembodied from the rest of the mix, and adding height to the soundstage.”

Filters locked and loaded. Let the listening begin.

We need some bass for this and a bit of complexity in the mix. Mr. Rick Beato of YouTube fame likes this, so we’ll start there.

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Listened to the complete album. Good choice, Sir.


Roon Radio knows what to do from there…

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The kick on Black Hole Sun is punchy and well defined. The bass and guitars rich and pure. Harmonies clear and the planar highs no longer sound harsh. Thanks Mitch! :banana:

And have a great day everyone!
 
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