KVR Audio

2xW · Post by **2xW** » Sun Jan 08, 2017 12:38 pm

Sonarworks and Morphit sound really different on dt770 (on flat setting), wtf not sure which one should i trust

Also which model of headphones is Morphit using? Sonarworks has 250ohm preset (the model of headphones which i have), no mention of it on Morphit.

bmanic · Post by **bmanic** » Sun Jan 08, 2017 3:15 pm

You should NOT use the "flat" setting on Morphit. It isn't actually truly "flat" at all, as explained by the developer in this very thread. You should stick to the default compensation curve (the generic studio preset) or use the generic hi-fi setting (which is closer to the sonarworks one here on my AKG K701).

That being said, the tolerances for these headphones seems to be very much "off" from production. As much as +/-3dB all over the place so no wonder these types of plugins sound different. The only way to get a truly accurate representation is for you to send your own personal headphones to Sonarworks and have them individually measured and get a personal calibration file for them.

What's more important though is that you get a sound you like and that you can work with. The best way to use these plugins in my opinion is to simply listen to known good mixes.. listen to a lot of high quality mixes for a few days, tweaking Morphit or Sonarworks response with an EQ until you are 100% happy with what you are hearing. Once you are happy, use these mixes as reference for your own mixes. Now you are "calibrated" to a sort of standard. Doesn't matter at all if it's flat or not.

3ee · Post by **3ee** » Sun Jan 08, 2017 3:42 pm

bmanic wrote:The only way to get a truly accurate representation is for you to send your own personal headphones to Sonarworks and have them individually measured and get a personal calibration file for them.

are you sure about that?

almost finished (final) fine-tune... can't believe the seemingly "flat" sound!
... I have the best headphones in the world now?!

since the L/R differences were almost non-existent with my unit, I decided to simply apply same eq for both channels.

here's how it currently looks:

AKG K612 Pro manual correction.jpg

after that, I looked at this image and it confirmed (smoothed but still) that I was heading in the right direction.

again, I can't believe the "clarity" ... it's really like when I disable the correction I hear the plastic, the materials that the headphones were made from + their design side-effects or whatever...

mewthree · Post by **mewthree** » Sun Jan 08, 2017 6:34 pm

What exactly are you doing here? Is this on top of Morphit Studio Reference preset?

And is it possible to add Takstar Pro 80 / Gemini HSR 1000. These little pals don't get any love but they're pretty useful anyhow.

EDIT:

Do you have any long term plans to make it available as a stand alone plugin which we can play in Windows/casual use?

bmanic · Post by **bmanic** » Sun Jan 08, 2017 9:32 pm

3ee wrote:
bmanic wrote:The only way to get a truly accurate representation is for you to send your own personal headphones to Sonarworks and have them individually measured and get a personal calibration file for them.
are you sure about that?

almost finished (final) fine-tune... can't believe the seemingly "flat" sound!
... I have the best headphones in the world now?!
since the L/R differences were almost non-existent with my unit, I decided to simply apply same eq for both channels.

here's how it currently looks:
AKG K612 Pro manual correction.jpg
after that, I looked at this image and it confirmed (smoothed but still) that I was heading in the right direction.

again, I can't believe the "clarity" ... it's really like when I disable the correction I hear the plastic, the materials that the headphones were made from + their design side-effects or whatever...

Eh? Not sure what you are trying to say.. I'm not doubting the technology or the benefit of EQing headphones. I've been doing manual EQing of headphones many years already.. almost a decade ago the first time (going by a tiny picture of a frequency plot in a hi-fi magazine of the original AKG k240

).

What I was talking about was the exact measured response to the accuracy of +/- 1dB (probably 1/12 octave smoothed I'd guess), the way Sonarworks does it. This is the most accurate you can get at the moment as far as I know. Unless you have a Neumann KU 100 and some advanced knowledge in ear boundary and inner ear acoustics. Then you can go do it yourself.

Really.. I have no idea why you quoted me or what you are trying to say.

3ee · Post by **3ee** » Mon Jan 09, 2017 3:05 pm

bmanic wrote:Really.. I have no idea why you quoted me or what you are trying to say.

you said that "the only way to get accurate representation..."
so I quoted that with some examples of my reasons for (partial) disagreement

I truly believe (without any "real" proof since I don't have measurement gear other than my ears) that I got my headphones within the +|- 1 dB range by manually adjusting/fine-tuning eq bands with sine-sweeps until it sounds almost totally and completely flat to my ears.

3ee · Post by **3ee** » Mon Jan 09, 2017 3:23 pm

mewthree wrote:What exactly are you doing here? Is this on top of Morphit Studio Reference preset?

I started on top of Morphit correction (I think was the standard hi-fi)... but then I wanted a more flexible eq and realized that with my particular unit, there were some miss or over-corrections in the high-end so I took the challenge of patiently making my own from scratch!

..it's not an easy thing at all... especially if you're a perfectionist!

bmanic · Post by **bmanic** » Tue Jan 10, 2017 3:05 am

3ee wrote:
bmanic wrote:Really.. I have no idea why you quoted me or what you are trying to say.
you said that "the only way to get accurate representation..."
so I quoted that with some examples of my reasons for (partial) disagreement

I truly believe (without any "real" proof since I don't have measurement gear other than my ears) that I got my headphones within the +|- 1 dB range by manually adjusting/fine-tuning eq bands with sine-sweeps until it sounds almost totally and completely flat to my ears.

.. and this is exactly why I don't understand your point. The only thing you've achieved is an improvement. You haven't actually measured anything. That was my whole point.

If you send your PERSONAL headphones, the ones you use right now, to Sonarworks, THEY will measure them with professional equipment, compile an exact plot of their frequency response (left and right speakers separately) and actually make a truly accurate filter to compensate them. Hence my statement above and the confusion to your quote which makes no sense.

What YOU have done is VISUALLY create a filter based on a 3rd party measurement (one that is not even all that accurate to begin with and done on a pair of headphones that mostly differs from your own by quite an order of magnitude) and thus noticed a clear improvement. Keep in mind though that a clear improvement does NOT equal accurate.. it's just that, a clear improvement. This is exactly what I did a long long time ago looking at a tiny picture of the measurement of AKG 240 in a Finnish hi-fi magazine.. and the results are amazing, of course. It's a HUGE improvement when you do this EQing but you've got to be quite deluded if you think it's "accurate". It's not. It's just a major improvement.

So to recap: Sonarworks, Morphit and visually matching a 3rd party picture of a measurement to "neutralize" a headphone does indeed work wonders.. but to TRULY get something accurate you'll need to send in your own personal headphones to a laboratory to get them individually measured due to tolerances in manufacturing (on lower end headphones these can be DRASTIC). I happen to have 3 pairs of Bose QC15 headphones (don't ask why..

) and they are not even remotely closely matched. All over the place. I also recently thought about purchasing another pair of AKG K701 to replace my ageing pair but while testing them in a store and directly comparing them to my pair it was obvious that the response was drastically different.. so I didn't bother. I'll use these until they break down.

This is also why there is a clear difference between Morphit and Sonarworks basic versions compared to individually measured heaphones + custom filter curve from Sonarworks.

Having said all that, I'm NOT implying nor trying to say that this is the only way to get accurate or good mixing results. Not at all, so before anybody thinks this, let's clear that up. I'm a firm believer in practicing your brain/ear by listening to reference material. Any decent pair of headphones can be used to create amazing mixes if you are familiar enough with their sound and keep comparing to known good references.

MogwaiBoy · Post by **MogwaiBoy** » Tue Jan 10, 2017 4:30 am

Anyone tested this with AKG K702s?

kmonkey · Post by **kmonkey** » Tue Jan 10, 2017 6:31 am

-My headphones sounds different with this plugin then with Sonarworks.

After some extensive testing i am calling both "correction" plugins a batshit in my book and i will simply continue to use headphones as they are and when time pass by i will try to test and buy more accurate headphones - that simple

I call these plugin batshit because when i think twice they essentially try to tell me that i don't know i can get Event Opal sound from my Alesis M1 monitors something like that just with headphones. Spare me "monitor are not the same as headphones" i know that...

Like some goddamn EQ on top of them will change speaker physical characteristic. Gimme a break. If it was that simple then possibly all vendors would create same sounding headphones with built in EQ.

Meh it was a nice adventure, i like Tonebooster company but this one is just not for me.

kbaccki · Post by **kbaccki** » Tue Jan 10, 2017 6:50 am

bmanic wrote:If you send your PERSONAL headphones [...] to Sonarworks

I have a pair of MDR-7506's that I would be happy to send to Sonarworks. And ask that they not be returned. Freaking things boring a hole right into my cranial cavity.

3ee · Post by **3ee** » Tue Jan 10, 2017 8:18 am

bmanic wrote:What YOU have done is VISUALLY create a filter based on a 3rd party measurement

I did no such thing!
I did my correction by ear only. The golden ears graph was found after I did the correction and I simply mentioned it as broad resemblance to what I did...

Burillo · Post by **Burillo** » Tue Jan 10, 2017 8:48 am

3ee wrote:
bmanic wrote:What YOU have done is VISUALLY create a filter based on a 3rd party measurement
I did no such thing!
I did my correction by ear only. The golden ears graph was found after I did the correction and I simply mentioned it as broad resemblance to what I did...

which still doesn't negate the fact that it's not measured and hence not ideally flat, which is the point bmanic is making.

3ee · Post by **3ee** » Tue Jan 10, 2017 9:45 am

^ I understood what bmanic was trying to tell and I can't really prove to you guys if it's ideal or not.... I find it ideal to the point that I can confidently work with the correction. anyway, that's my conclusion.

My experience with room measurement tools such as REW + Behringer ECM8000 (played with them many times before) makes me likely to believe that I have a good sense of what needs to be corrected and to what point... there's no perfection here, it's only a matter of "good enough"

I'm so confident in my manual eq headphone correction that I'm thinking to try creating one for my main monitors as well and compare it against what the measurement systems tells.

fluffy_little_something · Tue Jan 10, 2017 11:54 am

Does that plugin also compensate for Tinnitus and hearing aids?

Toneboosters Morphit - NEW headphones improvement, simulation and customization plugin