Light gray: Samsung EO-IG955, sample1 and sample 3 I found that an absorbent foam tip brings the response closer to what I like, and makes it easier to fix with a graphic equalizer: They’ve announced that a parametric EQ is planned for a future firmware update, but that was at least eight months ago it’s still vaporware as of this writing. The Radsone ES100’s 10-band graphic EQ can’t make these fine adjustments.
Unfortunately, a system-wide parametric EQ still isn’t available for my mobile devices unless it’s built into the earphones themselves, like on Jaybird IEMs. Subtle change as it is, the treble now sounds more natural, with the realism restored. But the sine sweep sounds a lot smoother afterwards, and it makes all the difference. Using a parametric EQ to flatten it and smoothen the treble response makes a subtle difference, even though the adjustment is several dB. The 6.3 kHz peak that I’m hearing doesn’t sound as severe as it looks in the graph. I doubt most adults can get it deep enough in their ears for the heard response to match those measurements. This can be seen in zerodecibel’s and The Ear-fi Blog’s measurements, which show the peak at 9k. Any deeper, and we get a dip in the response at 7 kHz. That’s almost 6 mm deeper that what’s possible with my ears. The smoothest response comes when the insertion depth causes an 8 kHz peak. I'm actually hearing the peak lower, so 7 kHz sounds a lot softer to me than 6 kHz. There's a big slide in the response after 7 kHz. Light gray: deeper insertion, left channel The following is the closest I got to what I feel I actually hear:įrequency response with shallow insertion I later made a few more measurements, this time with shallow insertion. (To verify this, I used a program like Sinegen, or a finer version of this online tone generator: ). The EO-IG955’s housing and strain relief make deeper insertion impossible. I don’t necessarily listen to these artists, but Harman’s research had indicated that their listeners, novice and trained alike, were more discriminating when they evaluated headphones with these tracks, compared to others on their play list.)Īfter investigating with a sine sweep, I found that I hear the peak at 6.3 kHz instead of 8 kHz when I inserted it in my ears as deep as I could. (Not that it matters much, but among the tracks that I used were Bird on a Wire and Cousin Dupree. Very often, IEMs overdo the sparkle, sometimes annoyingly so. Shakers sounded somewhat withdrawn, and they took on the same scratchy and hollow sound. At the same time cymbals and hi hats sounded suppressed. Snare drums sounded a bit too sharp with their attack, perhaps with too much snap, and they took on a hollow character, as if listening through a tube. Vocals had a slightly scratchy character, as if the singers were straining. Some sounds were emphasized, and some sounds were withdrawn. If I were being picky, I’d say that the treble sounds a bit off. When I listened to sample 1, I thought it sounded fine. It's getting close to the Harman IE target, so I should like this smoother response, right? Not so fast… Frequency response with Comply TX400 foam tip
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