Apparently I love a flat audio curve, am I a freak?

[joesuburb]

I have a couple highish end home audio systems at home and have never been an IEM fan. Marantz SR7002 Receiver with DynAudio Contour 5.4's downstairs and Marantz SR8002 Receiver with B&W Nautalis 805's in my mancave upstairs.

I've always just disliked every IEM I've owned compared to my home systems. I'd go as far as saying that IEMs were at best a bad compromise for mobility. I've owned a bunch of different $200-$500 sets over the years.

Well, I actually LOVE my UE in-ear Reference Monitors. I had a chance to listen to music in my mancave last night and actually adjusted my sub a bit to be less pronounced because I noticed it was a bit too much after getting used to the UE custons.

The UE customs have a flat sound signature. Why do IEM manufacturers feel the need to , "color sound"? It seems like it's that simple. Sound is played the way it is recorded and it sounds great. Who would have thunk?!?

[CrowdAds]

[IDvsEGO]

yep....freak.

kidding, everyone is entitled to their opinions and tastes. there are plenty of people in your camp.

[lestatar]

Yep, agree. One of my fave sayings: 6 billion people on the planet - bound to be varying opinions.

[Brett_val]

Originally Posted by joesuburb

The UE customs have a flat sound signature. Why do IEM manufacturers feel the need to , "color sound"?

I actually thought it was the other way around; that it's quite hard to manufacture a speaker that has a flat response curve across the spectrum? Made sense to me that it's special to have every frequency reproduced equally and that cheap products have some sort of "signature" sound because they are produced with less care.

[joesuburb]

Well, I agree with you to a point at the low end. But, I've owned Monster Coppers, UE TF10s, Sennheiser IE8s, even owned some Etys for like an hour. They all seem to have too much mid-bass and just sound ugly to me. Even the UE18's, and JH13 and JH16s have a mid-bass hump. The set I have now is perfectly capable of thumping hard, but it only thumps if the bass was recorded.

Just seemed odd to me, that manufacturers are doing that. What got me thinking were the reviews I read on pcmag.com. They publish measured curves. They all have a hump.

[meetooman]

$1000 phones, your freak is chic indeed! I figure what kind of freak you are: a Head-fi runaway!

Seriously very few people can access the quality you seems accustomed to. All our audio stuff is made of compromises. So the best thing we could have could be a kind reference database where experienced people like you could try to share the best equalization settings to put our less-than-monitor-grade audio stuff in line with a flat frequency response.

[Brett_val]

I'm not sure if I should trust pcmag, it bothers me that they are enthusiastic about POS phones like Beats by Dre, skullcandy, and call Bose IEMs "Excellent value for price"..

And it's nice that they publish test results, but when they post different results for the same IEMs, I don't know what I should believe from them anymore:
http://common6.ziffdavisinternet.com...22&sz=1,00.jpg
http://common9.ziffdavisinternet.com...63&sz=1,00.jpg
Or am I missing something??

[WalkGood]

Originally Posted by Brett_val

I'm not sure if I should trust pcmag ...

I'm sure I don't trust them

[Marvin the Martian]

Originally Posted by WalkGood

I'm sure I don't trust them

Me either, after seeing how they rated various DAP's a while back.

[WalkGood]

OP if you are talking about companies that make iem’s focusing their products output in and around 300–5000 hertz, midrange frequency, then my guess is that they focus in this area because it’s the most familiar to human hearing. Vocals & instruments seem to shine here and inconsistencies are easier to detect. I can live with that if they don't neglect bass and subtle highs but what really drives me crazy is the cheaper stuff that just distorts reality ...