The most common audio connector is the headphone jack. Let’s first discuss the types of headphone jacks before we differentiate the single and dual jacks. This results in measurements that dont match the headphones performance on humans.įor more information, check out our article and video on headphone frequency response consistency.įor loudspeakers, it is widely accepted that the ideal response is a flat frequency response measured with a measurement microphone, on-axis, in an anechoic environment.Headphones with Microphone with One or Two Jacks We decided to measure the bass of over-ear and on-ear headphones on human subjects since most dummy heads available today have ears that are larger and stiffer than the average human ear, and therefore, a lot of headphones (especially closed-back ones) fail to achieve a proper and an air-tight seal on them 5. In-earsearbuds are measured 5 times only on the HMS (Head Measurement System), but overon-ear headphones are measuredre-seated 5 times on our dummy head (HMS) for the mid and treble ranges, and 5 times on 5 human subjects for the bass range. The final frequency response plot is the average of these multiple measurements. The reason for this is that some factors, like the position of the headphone on the head or wearing glasses, can cause variations in the measured frequency response. The resulting sound pressure level is measured and calibrated with the SPL meter in Room EQ Wizard (REW), which is set to C-weighting and Slow. The measurements are performed at two different intensity levels 90dB SPL and 100dB SPL. The headphones are placed on a Head Acoustics HMS (Head Measurement System), which is connected to an RME UFX audio interface.įor passive headphones, the headphones are driven by a Schiit Ragnarok amplifier, and for active headphones, the headphones own amplifier is used. This will be especially useful to them if they have their own headphone compensationtarget curve, which may differ from our target response. That is, prior to being flattened by applying the targetcompensation curve to it. However, the role of sound quality is more crucial for some use cases such as critical listening and gaming, compared to sportsfitness or commutetravel where stability or noise isolation may be more important. That is, if the music was mixed to sound bass-heavy, a good headphone will reproduce it as bass-heavy.Ĭonversely, if the content is supposed to sound bright, a headphone with a neutral frequency response will reproduce it as bright. In other words, it describes how accurately a system reproduces each frequency of an audio content, in terms of amplitude.įor example, for an input signal that has three frequencies of equal amplitude (say, 100Hz, 1kHz, and 10kHz, all at -6dB FS), a headphone with a neutral frequency response would output a signal that, just like the input, has equal amplitudes at 100Hz, 1kHz, and 10kHz.Įach headphone is measuredre-seated multiple times, and the final frequency response plot is the average of those multiple measurements.Ī good headphone has a neutral frequency response and reproduces the audio content (music), as it was intended by the producerengineer. This will be especially useful to them if they have their own headphone compensationtarget curve, which may differ from the compensation curvetarget response used by. However, headphones, due to their design, cant be measured with a measurement microphone and therefore a dummy head must be used.įor in-ears and earbuds, this corresponds to the average of five measurementsre-seats on the dummy head (HMS).įor overon-ear headphones, this corresponds to the average of five measurementsre-seats on the HMS (Head Measurement System) for the mid and treble ranges, and five measurementsre-seats on five human subjects for the bass range. Dual Headphone Jack Target By skinutopis1973 Follow | Public