oluvsgadgets

Oluv’s audiophile collection #78

My music mix for this week:

https://music.apple.com/at/playlist/oluvs-audiophile-collection-78/pl.u-JPAZoXZIDaKj71

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/360J2pChLEbLMS41EHr75h?si=IA7RcC8PTki8I3Yigjgdgw

2023-05-03 21:20:31 +0000 UTC View Post

Sennheiser HD58X - V0N EQ

I was busy setting up the KH80 at my desk. The acoustics is pretty bad here, but I will keep them permanently at this location and need to equalise them to get something usable. The DSP has 8 PEQs included, together with a low and highshelf filter which you can only adjust in gain:

I will measure and equalise left and right speaker separately, the Neumann app is really decent in this regard and...

Restart

I ordered a new UMIK measuring microphone as mine could have become less precise over time. I got suspicious seeing the measurement of the KH80 which is claimed to be dead flat above 1khz, but I definitely see a bump towards treble:

I want my results to be as precise as possible. Choosing the Nubert X3000 as "neutral" reference was obvioiusly not the greatest idea, but at least you have a tunin...

Oluv’s audiophile collection #77

Some new music for this week:

https://music.apple.com/at/playlist/oluvs-audiophile-collection-77/pl.u-mJy8Zj4uzp4q8R

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3c4P1vuo1BY2pk7P5oeOTN?si=ZuBHWioWQ6akGyAkYttaJw

2023-04-26 22:52:38 +0000 UTC View Post

Nubert X3000 to Neumann KH80 transformer EQ

Sorry about that, but yeah the X3000 are way too bright in reality especially at nearfield. I was quite shocked when I tried the KH80 today which are way darker, therefore I will definitely need to readjust my target and get a way more precise approximation. 

I did some very quick measurements of both speakers outside and created a simple correction filter-set based on these measurements, X3000 in blue, KH80 in red:

2023-04-26 22:15:16 +0000 UTC View Post

Which headphones do you own?

I created a list of the main headphones which I would like to cover with an own sound profile. I have some more but they are probably not that popular. These here are well established models which should also offer decent quality control and little sample variation. I also added the Superlux HD672 as budget unit, although all 3 units I own differ from each other quite a bit, thus it will be hard to create a valid profile for them. 

 After completing the HD600, HD58X and HD6XX,...

Sennheiser HD58X - Oluv's natural target V1X EQ

I decided to leave the HD600 aside for now instead of starting to swap pads back and forth, as even unmounting and re-mounting the same pads can change the response significantly. So far I managed a usable sound for the HD600 with my current settings, which I don't want to mess up now, therefore I started to work on the HD58X instead. This is a brand new unit which I ordered from Drop, thus pads and everything is completely fresh, keep that in mind. If your unit is older or the pads more worn...

Sennheiser HD600 - natural target V4X EQ

The neverending story has finally come to an end to get some final graph which for my own ear sounds close to perfect. With V4X I finally achieved my goal at least with my HD600 unit and my current pads. I will need to transform this curve onto further pads and other headphones from now on.

I adjusted mids a bit as I have discovered that my own recordings sound more real if I boost the range around 2.3khz, while lowering it  at 1.5khz and instead of applying those corrections to my...

Pink noise

I remember having posted some pink noise files a while back, but cannot find them now. Therefore I wanted to do a dedicated post and thank my Patron who created these additional files which sound definitely more natural over headphones than simple correlated pink noise. 

"Binaural pink noise" is supposed to sound more speaker like ovver headphones, it's a mix of correlated pink noise for bass and uncorrelated pink noise for the upper frequencies with some crossfeed, while "surround...

Oluv’s audiophile collection #76

I often forget other stuff when I am deeply into something and I didn’t post any music this week yet therefore now some weekend music for you to enjoy:

https://music.apple.com/at/playlist/oluvs-audiophile-collection-76/pl.u-V9D7oekTBmbgoL

2023-04-22 21:36:13 +0000 UTC View Post

Earfun UBOOM L - still worth in 2023?

Here you should hear the difference in sound with different units also explaining my ideas regarding the tuning of the UBoom L and comparing it to the Vifa Helsinki and Soundcore X600 again.

I had to adjust my binaural compensation a bit for an even more realistic sound. I should have mids more neutral now than with my previous attempts but I need to investigate on this a bit more.

Please let me know if you notice any improvement in audio quality compared to my older recordings. L...

Anker Soundcore X600 - first impressions

Sorry it took me so long to finish this video but I wanted to optimise my compensation towards my 3X tuning first and I think I managed an even more realistic result when listened over the HD600 with the right EQ. I can still hear some slight grainyness with treble from my recordings but it’s actually very hard to achieve this perfectly.

Let me know what you think about the X600.

Sennheiser HD600 - natural target V3x

I was trying hard to finalise my EQ for the HD600 and make it sound as close to the speakers I was hearing and named it "x" standing for the Nubert X3000 speakers I was using as reference. As the sound of the speakers is not perfectly flat especially in my room I cannot guarantee that this EQ is perfectly flat either, but I think at least I managed to make it sound as close to the sound I was hearing from the X3000 as possible. In reality the area around 1500Hz is perceived way softer through...

X600 coming up

It just arrived in the morning and I had a first quick listen. It’s definitely not as great as some are trying to make it. I only tried it with default settings, with and without BassUp and with/ without that spatial audio feature and it never sounded really good. The spatial audio broadens and opens up the sound a bit but nothing spectacular and it makes the reaponse a bit weird. Without spatial audio it sounds even worse. It can be probably improved with some user EQ but I was expecting ...

Oluv’s audiophile collection #75

Sorry that I am a bit late with this post but I actually hardly managed to listen to any music the last days or maybe even weeks as I was concentrating on bringing on my final headphone target to an end. Having also managed a usable Qudelix 5K setting just yesterday I finally started listening to music again and am rediscovering all this music as if I was hearing it for the first time, it’s so amazing. Listening to this playlist now with my HD600 which is slowly falling apart due to the hea...

Sennheiser HD600 - natural target V2

I settled on V1a as base for my further adjustments and came up with V2, in reality this is already V8 as I have spent the last 2 days to optimise eveything. I thought I had a great improvement and wanted to post something already yesterday while finally discovering that the overall balance was simply not right. That's if one tries to stick too much to graphs instead of listening. This version should finally have the overall balance way more correct than all previous versions. It may not appe...

Sennheiser HD600 - natural target V1

Since my return from holidays I have spent all recent days optimising my target, as I was not satisfied with the previous result (V0) especially when directly compared to speakers and also when listening to my own recordings. I thought my "universal" target was actually somehow closer, but not smooth enough. That's why I tried to get both variants a bit closer to each other and come up with an all-in-one all embracing "natural" target. It took me several approaches to get the sound closer to ...

Oluv’s audiophile collection #74

A mix of various jazz-related genres:

https://music.apple.com/at/playlist/oluvs-audiophile-collection-74/pl.u-JPAZ06mFDaKj71

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/16aCpH1UZ6qoiwLLWI6Di7?si=3o4Fx8hBR1KEwCL_tr_zaQ&dd=1

2023-04-05 16:21:44 +0000 UTC View Post

To do list…

Just wanted to let you know that we took some time off for easter holidays. Although I can hardly afford it it’s only a cheap all inclusive hotel in Croatia and I simply owe this to my wife after all the time I neglected here recently. I also need some rest after the busy days lately and long late night listening sessions which finally made my ears ring. It’s not healthy listening to pink noise for hours but the only way to really hear the smallest nuances and adjust the sound accordingly...

Sennheiser HD600 - Oluv's “natural” target EQ V0

Here you can find my "final" flat EQ for the HD600 as EqualizerAPO file and with adjusted settings for the Qudelix 5K to get more or less the same result from both.

The EqualizerAPO file has 2 optional filters at the very end which you may want to activate if you still hear well past 18khz, as they reduce the 19khz peak of the HD600 and should make the overall treble sound smoother.

Keep in mind that I tried to stay as faithful to "neutral" as possible throughout the entire freque...

Mission impossible: finding a neutral sounding headphone!

My original goal was to create a flat sounding compensation for my binaural sound samples which turned out to become a nightmare, as no  headphone could render those precisely equalised samples correctly. I  had to find a headphone target which would allow for my sound samples to  be rendered as faithfully as possible and at the same time sound  neutral on it's own, which became some kind of mission impossible. A  properly equalised headphone to render my flat equalis...

Nubert SP-500 & X3000 quick sound comparison

I recorded this a while back but forgot about it when I got sick and then got quite busy trying to optimise my target, but now you can listen to both speakers side by side with all their glory. To my surprise I seemed to like the SP-500 more especially in terms of bass, it sounded somehow more real to me, more kicking, on the other hand mids sound slightly hollow, which you can hear towards the end when I played some pink noise. Also imaging seems again a bit different, therefore next time I ...

Oluv's "neutral" & "universal" headphone targets

When I am deep into something, I can hardly concentrate on other things, therefore please apologize my recent silence but I have been struggling lately to finally settle my own headphone target and come up with a sound profile that should render my own sound samples correctly and appear to some degree enjoyable for usual music listening. It would seem as if many audio enthusiasts weren't that satisfied with the common targets from Harman research and are trying to develop their own like seen ...

Oluv’s audiophile collection #73

Finest Jazz & Funk as usual:

https://music.apple.com/at/playlist/oluvs-audiophile-collection-73/pl.u-76oNJ1pCWB1Jab

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1Vsv3iYd3iygNduKfXPGlq?si=DJXTm18oR4O9weQ_GZlbfw

2023-03-29 11:17:19 +0000 UTC View Post

Oluv’s audiophile collection #71 & 72

I forgot to post anything last week as I was sick laying in bed, therefore I would like to post 2 playlists today. This time I wanted to include some easier and more common stuff again as we had lots of weird jazz lately. Some songs may be missing from Deezer or Spotify though. Also “Southwest Passage” by Lee Ritenour is encoded badly on Apple Music, there is some weird vibrato throughout the entire album. Once there was some alternate version available which was clean, but it disappeared...

Marshall Middleton - the real outdoor test

Sorry guys, I feel quite sick since last week and wasn't very active and although I had returned the Middleton in the meantime I still found this video which I had shot the same day I did the other public video, but this time with some "real" music and my latest compensation applied, thus ...

Nubert X3000 vs SP200

I tried sitting exactly the same in both cases, but nevertheless the differences in imaging are quite huge, the SP200 seem to play a bit more spacious but also with a stronger right bias. 

This is my last video with the SP200, as I decided to keep the X3000 due to the more advanced sound adjustment options, although I haven't managed to make them play over HDMI yet. 

Nubert XS-3000 RC vs original recording

This was intended as direct comparison against the SP-200 with both speakers placed exactly the same, unfortunately I forgot to plug in my mics again after swapping the speakers, thus will need to record it another time. 

Meanwhile I wanted to use this footage somehow instead of dumping it and thought it may be interesting to demonstrate how the Nuberts set up in my room will compare against the original recording. This way you should get a better idea about what the speakers insid...

Wind symphony

I recorded this yesterday as we had quite a windy day again and I wanted to check the realism of my current recording setup. Please keep in mind that the video is not in sync with the audio and I was looking to another direction than the camera, otherwise I would have been hit by the wind too much. I was sitting on top of a hunting stand leaning against its wall with my back to be protected from wind as I didn't wear any wind protection to ensure the most realistic recording. Therefore you ge...

My future on Patreon

With the current situation, increasing prices everywhere, continuously dropping off supporters on Patreon, close to no income from Youtube, no affilate shares etc, my future on Patreon is quite unsure right now as I can hardly maintain my financial autonomy relying solely on the support I am getting from you on Patreon. Therefore I need to ask myself if it makes any sense to continue and if yes in which way I should continue to still remain interesting for you as everyone will be interested i...