blorg t1_it741zh wrote on October 21, 2022 at 12:38 PM

Reply to comment by ThelceWarrior in My 1 and a half year experience with the Arias (and other headphones) - A slight letdown by TomasJ74

> statistically speaking the majority of listeners will generally prefer the Chus (At least according to the Harman research) over pretty much Moondrop's entire midrange lineup (KATOs, Arias, Arias Snow, etc.)

Except that just isn't the case, I don't think there are many who would. I certainly would rank the Kato, Starfield, Aria above the Chu. And many of the other IEMs they have below it, like, I don't know... the Monarch Mk2.

I'm not convinced by Harman's in-ear target. Over-ear, yes, I EQ my over-ears to Harman. But in-ear, no, it's too shouty, the bass boost is too far down, and it has that dip below in the mid-bass which makes it sound unnatural with many genres.

It's close, but it's not quite right. Many others also don't think Harman IE is quite there. And it's not as if there's only one, either, Harman themselves pretty radically changed it. So the first one was "wrong". I prefer either Oratory1990's USound IEM target, or IEF neutral+bass. And the reality I think is most people prefer this over Harman, too, and a lot more IEMs are tuned in that direction.

I'm also somewhat unconvinced with AutoEQ's rankings. Even if we are ranking Harman target compliance, should the Chu be higher than the Variations? Chu doesn't follow Harman in the bass at all, while the Variations nails it. The Variations is also a much better IEM.

ThelceWarrior t1_it76jsv wrote on October 21, 2022 at 12:59 PM

>Except that just isn't the case, I don't think there are many who would. I certainly would rank the Kato, Starfield, Aria above the Chu. And many of the other IEMs they have below it, like, I don't know... the Monarch Mk2.

Well I mean you have two people who would rank the Chus above the Arias right here so eh we clearly exist lol, the Arias just sound a bit too "laid back" for me (Expecially at the volume levels I usually listen too) while I can only complain abou t the bass a bit when it comes to the Chus.

There is a difference between subjective sound preference and saying "I don't think there are many who would" though expecially when you add inherent biases to the discussion like "the Arias are more expensive than the Chus so they are better" and so on, you would need to do a proper blind test in order to determine which one sounds better for most people and the Harman research suggests it would indeed be the Chus.

>It's close, but it's not quite right. Many others also don't think Harman IE is quite there. And it's not as if there's only one either

The Harman target isn't really something that 100% of people will like though, just that the majority would prefer it (For the AE/OE target it was 64%, not sure if that is applicable to the IE target too).

>Harman themselves pretty radically changed it. So the first one was "wrong".

The differences are very minor between each revision really, as oratory1990 pointed out too.

>I prefer either Oratory1990's USound IEM target, or IEF neutral+bass. And the reality I think is most people prefer this over Harman, too, and a lot more IEMs are tuned in that direction.

Again, mostly a matter of preference in this case and i'm not hating on those targets at all since I do own pairs tuned to it too, I just personally prefer the Harman target for example.

There is data that points out to the Harman target being the preferred one by a significant margin of the population and in order to contest that further scientific research would be needed.

blorg t1_it77qwd wrote on October 21, 2022 at 1:09 PM

There is remarkably wide acceptance of the over-ear target as good sound among reviewers.

There is next to no acceptance of the in-ear target, I can't offhand think of anyone who thinks it is optimal. Most lean far closer to some variant of IEF neutral + bass, or Oratory 1990's USound, i.e. less shouty ear gain, slightly more mid-bass, and a flat rather than dipping transition through the mid-bass to the sub-bass.

Oratory I believe is talking about the over-ear targets there. I'm not talking about them, and they are widely accepted. There is actually a big difference with the in-ear target, the original one of that was super out there, it went WAY up and then dropped absolutely off a cliff. They revised that in 2019 to something far more sane.

2017
2019

It's still too much ear gain, IMO, but it's at least more sane a shape than it used to be.

Also, if you are saying you like the Chu, you don't like Harman in the bass then. The Chu is nowhere near Harman bass. I actually do like Harman bass- the Variations, the Galaxy Buds 2 Pro, these are great.

I just take issue with this idea that Harman IE is a broadly preferred target. I don't think it is, there is a very consistent trend of people who have issues with it, far more than the over-ear curve, and I can't think of a single reviewer who takes Harman IE as their ideal IEM target.

ThelceWarrior t1_it7dhzm wrote on October 21, 2022 at 1:53 PM

>There is next to no acceptance of the in-ear target, I can't offhand think of anyone who thinks it is optimal. Most lean far closer to some variant of IEF neutral + bass, or Oratory 1990's USound, i.e. less shouty ear gain, slightly more mid-bass, and a flat rather than dipping transition through the mid-bass to the sub-bass.

Any data to back that statement? Because just saying something doesn't really make it true expecially when the research itself has shown similar predicted preference results in laboratory settings and in practice you see plenty of mainstream TWS adopting the Harman IE target too.

Excellent examples being the (Well acclaimed among audiophiles) Samsung Buds lineup in general as well as many of JBL's offerings and even a few companies that aren't sub companies of Harman international like Sony and Beats.

>Oratory I believe is talking about the over-ear targets there. I'm not talking about them, and they are widely accepted. There is actually a big difference with the in-ear target, the original one of that was super out there, it went WAY up and then dropped absolutely off a cliff. They revised that in 2019 to something far more sane.

Should apply to the IE target as well and those differences are due to different (And larger) sample population for the most part.

>Also, if you are saying you like the Chu, you don't like Harman in the bass then. The Chu is nowhere near Harman bass. I actually do like Harman bass- the Variations, the Galaxy Buds 2 Pro, these are great.

well "nowhere near Harman bass" is a bit of a stretch lol, it is relatively close (Which is why they get quite high scores to begin with, low deviation from the target itself) and I did mention that I don't love the bass specifically when it comes to them and I do agree with you that the ones you mentioned are generally better in that regard.

>I just take issue with this idea that Harman IE is a broadly preferred target. I don't think it is, there is a very consistent trend of people who have issues with it, far more than the over-ear curve, and I can't think of a single reviewer who takes Harman IE as their ideal IEM target.

Again 64% (Assuming that number is probably within range for the IE target as well) does imply there is a good 36% of people that wouldn't like it and that's still a significant number of people complaining in a community like r/headphones with 1 million active members, let alone the audiophile community at large.

And it's perfectly fine to prefer oratory's IE target (Which in itself is a variation of the Harman target to begin with) over Harman IE and in fact I actually do personally find it is the better one when it comes to using IEMs in nosy enviroments (Which is the premise of that target actually) but eh you are talking about the individual vs the overall population in this case, you shouldn't make assumptions on the latter based on the former since that would be considered an error in statistics.