Headphones

There have been two principal initiatives in recent years towards revising the targets for an 'ideal' headphone frequency response. In terms of philosophy and outcome they have similarities, but in other respects they are miles apart. Think of the late Sir John Sulston's 'open source' human genome mapping versus Craig Ventor's 'Microsoft/Apple' version. Harman has published its results openly in the scientific literature while those behind the RoomFeel initiative – Lenbrook Inc (PSB, NAD) and Canada's NRC – have not. So it's difficult to be precise about how the RoomFeel and Harman target responses differ, except to say that both began by supposing headphone tonal balance should mimic that of loudspeakers in a well-behaved room, and hence both involve a bass lift that echoes LF room gain. We can infer from our measurements that RoomFeel involves less LF boost than the latest Harman target responses – but it would be nice to know for sure. KH