Its not that the axial modes of the entire room as a whole were the root cause as to minor oblique modes in the nearby area. I dont think @takka360 was referring specifically to sub bass frequencies. It is however possible that the response was comb filtered before ( near the walls ) and in the middle of the room it simply wasnt. So the perception changed. Mystery could be as simple as its better to mix further away from the walls in an open back headphone.
What you are describing is a combination of high frequency absorption( from the acoustic foam) and minor comb filtering caused in the low mids from the boundaries from the open back sounds being reflected with minor delays.
Did a short test. This is a response from the Audeze Open back headphones, recorded at about 2 feet distance from the wearer, playing at a moderately but tolerably loud volume. As you can tell they are pretty loud and the spread is quite wide. Enough to trigger minor room responses along the lines of comb filtering and absorption if not the full axial mode response. Since the open back work both ways, the wet sounds would trickle back into the ear of the listener as well.
@takka360 this is a good song to reference to fyi. My go to rock reference.
Thanks for making this test, I appreciate your dedication to this debate!
Unfortunately your graph doesnât have any caption so Iâm not sure what it really means. Which mic did you use to record? If youâre going to run this test, you need to use an omnidirectional microphone (ideally a measurement microphone) otherwise it doesnât constitute a faithful picture of what is really happening in the room since the sound waves are spreading in all directions from the headset.
Not sure what Audeze model youâre using but Audezeâs generally have huge drivers and power compared to their competitors. For instance, the LCD-X have 106mm drivers while the AKG K701 have 50mm drivers, thatâs not even half the size. In all cases, assuming your graph width is the usual 20-20k Hz scale it doesnât seem to match what Iâm hearing in your audio: I can barely hear the bass guitar or the body of the kick while I can clearly hear the guitars, vocals and cymbals.
Also, frequency analyzers show a completely different graph depending on their curve weighting settings so the test is far from providing a reliable scientific output, but itâs interesting nonetheless. As a matter of fact I did it myself as well (and discovered in the process that my measurement mic had a really poor signal-to-noise ratio).
Anyway, we probably spent to much time debating this already and weâre not in the incriminated room so we wonât ever know for sure. We probably should go back to making music now
Side question though: what did you use before your Audeze and are you happy with their value for the price? Is it the Thereâs a lot of hype around these but we donât see them around where I live so Iâm curious. I use BeyerDyamic DT 1990 pros myself and theyâre ok but if I can get something significantly better for critical listening Iâm always interested.
Its the Audeze LCD X, even though its great I am actually only borrowing them from a friend to compare to the Slate VSX that I own. I prefer the Slate VSX closed back for pretty much the same reason as this thread. Too much outside interference. I am definitely a closed back headphone person.
Ok good to know. I never found there was such a big difference between closed and open back headphones myself, I started using open back headphones because everyone said it was more natural sounding but I canât say I mix better because of them.
