Please share Your thoughts on headphone calibration and room simulation plugins.

Do they have a noticeable effect on the mix or is it unnecessary to use them?

Could it be true that certain calibration plugins work well for some headphones but not for others?

Which one do you prefer?

Pros and cons of each.

 

As a researcher in acoustics and virtual monitoring solutions :

Headphones calibration :

- Based on generic profiles ? Kinda okay
- Based on an individual measurement made on a head simulator ? Pretty good
- Based on personnalized measurements made with microphones inside your ear canals ? Perfect

Room simulation plugins :

- Did you import a SOFA file containing your own personal HRTFs ?
> Yes ? Very good
> No ? Fucking useless

- Is it a Binaural Room Impulse Response recorded with mics in your ear canals ?
> Yes ? Very good
> No ? Fucking useless

With that in mind :

- Flux Ircam SPAT, APL Virtuoso (when loaded with custom SOFA file) and custom BRIRs : Very good, especially with calibrated headphones/IEMs

- Waves NX, Acustica Sienna, Slate VSX : Just a gimmick. It could help you for a quick check, but the actual sound quality is bad.

 

Last edited: Feb 9, 2024

Really thank you, I didn't use any of those, I just used sonarworks and It wasn't particularly remarkable.

 

@Fowly

Since you are knowledgeable about this subject:

I heard about a pretty much mannequin head being used instead of a real human head. This was a long time ago, but they were able to stuff mics in it. This was a feat, because the sub-miniature mics today weren't available then. Is this practice still in use today, or are they literally using human heads and ears to put mics in?

 

How about Genelec Aural ID?
It seems interesting

 

Not the biggest expert on that as I don't really need them in what I work on, but I know that both are used, however mannequin heads are more common (B&K and GRAS are the two big names in this field, although I often see in-house made head simulators around). The thing with in-ear mics is that they're only really accurate if they're really close to your eardrums AND if they don't alter the acoustics inside your ears. For HRTF measurements, as you don't need to measure low frequencies, probe mics can be used. They're not the most accurate in the low-end, so if you want to do something like capturing a Binaural Room Impulse Response, you need the membrane inside your ear canal. The real deal. To my knowledge, only the mad men at Sony managed to make one, and uses it for their customized 360RA virtual monitoring program. Other commercial solutions such as this one : https://www.earfish.eu/ are simply not accurate enough.

Regarding existing solutions, it's probably the best compromise between how easy it is to setup and how good it sounds. However, even if it uses a customized HRTF file, it still uses generic profiles to correct your headphones.

The best thing to do today, is to create your own SOFA file using Mesh2HRTF, import it something like Flux Ircam SPAT or APL Virtuoso, and use calibrated IEMs. Headphones are much more complicated to properly calibrate as they create their own little acoustics around the ear. IEMs are so close to your eardrums that there are no reflections, so calibrating using an external ear simulator leads to good results. So kind of a tedious process...

 

I read one of your posts about recommending headphones, Unfortunately, before that time I bought a BD DT990 pro 250ohm(based on reviews i read) and it's not that good(except details), Which model/brand of IEMs do you recommend in the $200 price range?
Sorry for taking your time.
Thank you in advance

 

Last edited: Feb 9, 2024

Truthear Nova without a doubt, especially with the foam eartips.

 

I just take a seat

 

What a lovely thing(Detachable cable, Different tips, Its frequency response)
The cheaper products of the Truthear also look interesting
Thank you so much