First of all... do you mean the entire Harman curve. Or just the bass shelf?

The Harman curve is more focused on the mids, which is why headphones like the Sennheiser HD600 are considered as close to the Harman curve, despite having a lot of bass roll off.

Harman isn't just about the bass, and even the Harman research says to adjust bass and treble to your preference.

The whole thing.

But especially the treble roll-off.

So you're looking for something with less mids and more treble?

What about the dt 900 Pro X?

Yes

Iems or headphones? I love headphone Harman, but hate the upper mids emphasis on the iem Harman.

Headphone. The whole notion of pouring audio science into a non-representative sample of people for what is most subjectively "pleasing" is something I could rant about for way too long.

Flat. I want it flat. +/-3db. Flat.

Ok what is it

The Harman curve is literally bass boosted and is a V shape

I wouldn't really call it v shaped. More of a downward tilt with an optional bass shelf.

You mean flat raw? Like a straight line without any compensation?

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It’s a target curve, nothing is optional. It has boosted bass. It it nowhere near flat and the HD600 is nowhere near the Harman target

Not quite. I'd like compensation as long as it makes it as close to flat as possible in the ear, not "pleasing".

The Harman research says to adjust bass to your liking. The bass shelf was originally there because that's what room acoustics do when you take flat speakers and put them in a normal room, which was the basis for the target. From that there was some adjustments based on different user groups for the amount of bass, and the current shelf is what 60% of listeners preferred, but the research also says that more "trained listeners" prefer less bass, and again you are supposed to adjust that to your preference.

People hyper focus on the bass, but the upper mids and treble is a big part of the Harman target. If you put the HD600 response on the Harman target and compensate it to the target, the HD600 looks very consistent with the target above the bass.

That not the target though is it? That’s them telling you to EQ because their target is a bag of shit.

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I think the whole point of the Harman curve is that they tested the preferences of a bunch of people and came up with an average preference.

I don't understand why you have a problem a line on the graph thats basically arbitrary. You can still use it to find headphones that you like. If you like less bass, find sets that fall under the harman curve in the bass region on an FR graph. Like more treble? Find one thats above the curve in the treble region.

I don't think there is such a thing. The only way to find this out is to basically un-compensate graphs and revert them to raw.

You could get yourself some test equipment and just purely measure the dB across a sine sweep on various headphones until you find one with no dips or peaks anywhere, but I doubt you'd find any set thats truly flat.

The problem is its dominating the market and everything is getting tuned around it. New product? Harman curve. Boo!

So find headphones that aren't tuned around it. What are your preferences?

Flat.

And what is your context for flat? How do you quantify flat? Is Crinacle's IEF target "flat" to you? Do you want to look at a graph with a harman target and just see a flat line that ignores the target? Because thats technically flat if you don't consider the raw data.

Compensated, comes in flat to the majority of ears.

The problem is one of imaging. IEMs can be perfectly flat but sacrifice Soundstage. You can get your floorstanding speakers fairly flat either out of the box or via EQ or both.

But headphones? Everyone is targeting this same curve because they want that mass market appeal, despite the fact that the mass market doesn't care as much about critical listening as it does about comfort. It's frustrating. I'm big mad about it.

Ok so you just want a rant and not a solution. Best of luck with that.

Yes this is why I flared it with drama.

Technically EQ is a solution. Fine. But then why even bother? It's all the same tuning.

It would be like having every car drive about the same. What would be the point of that?

I don't get what you are searching for. Harman is basically just a bit of extra bass and a bit of extra treble. Want it flat? Just reduce the bass and treble shelfs. Use Crinacles graph tool to visually test it out.

What headphones do you have? I'll make you an EQ profile you can import into Peace.

Thank you for the offer, however unfortunately I'm in the process of dramatic customization for my daily drivers and will get back to you after the project is complete.

It's just infuriating that this is even necessary, though. I mean yes, everyone should know their way around EQ. Cool, I get that. But the thing is the goal shouldn't be so homogenous. It's been getting worse and worse as the years have gone by and it's like, dude, for higher end products can we please just leave that kind of tuning up to the listener? If you're buying an amp and balanced cables you probably know your way around an EQ.

Have you ever considered that headphones in general just aren't fir you? You seem to be wanting a sound that doesn't really exist. Harman isn't a million miles away from flat. I've played with EQ with the aim of making stuff "flat" before and you just end up with an ass load of mids and not much else.

No.

You should.

Planar Soundstage tho