expiredsr71 posted Jan 10, 2025 05:07 AM
Item 1 of 2
Item 1 of 2
expiredsr71 posted Jan 10, 2025 05:07 AM
Soundcore by Anker Q20i Hybrid Active Noise Cancelling Headphones $40
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https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C3HCD34R
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C3HCD34R
SQ details: I normally listen first with ANC off. In this case, the sound signature with NC off is excessively bassy. I thought that the bass boost feature was turned on already. These headphones are unacceptable without equalization. I did some work via parametric equalization and was able to get them to the point where I do not mind the sound, but I'm too lazy to maintain EQ settings.
EDIT: Just to be clear, by excessively bassy, I mean there's so much low end boom that it muddies the entire mid-range. Vocals sounds drowned out, muffled, unclear. This actually improves somewhat with ANC on.
SQ details: I normally listen first with ANC off. In this case, the sound signature with NC off is excessively bassy. I thought that the bass boost feature was turned on already. These headphones are unacceptable without equalization. I did some work via parametric equalization and was able to get them to the point where I do not mind the sound, but I'm too lazy to maintain EQ settings.
EDIT: Just to be clear, by excessively bassy, I mean there's so much low end boom that it muddies the entire mid-range. Vocals sounds drowned out, muffled, unclear. This actually improves somewhat with ANC on.
SQ details: I normally listen first with ANC off. In this case, the sound signature with NC off is excessively bassy. I thought that the bass boost feature was turned on already. These headphones are unacceptable without equalization. I did some work via parametric equalization and was able to get them to the point where I do not mind the sound, but I'm too lazy to maintain EQ settings.
EDIT: Just to be clear, by excessively bassy, I mean there's so much low end boom that it muddies the entire mid-range. Vocals sounds drowned out, muffled, unclear. This actually improves somewhat with ANC on.
In this case, I tested 3 pairs of headphones. I always test headphones against a consistent set of test tracks that are selected specifically to reveal some of the flaws I mentioned above. For those who maybe don't have a library full of flac files, one way to work around source limitations is to do comparisons against a pair you already own.
- Contenders: Q20i, Space Q45 (both new to me at the time), and the old stand-by MDR-7506.
- Sources: Both on my mobile device with Spotify and my PC with flac sources from Foobar2k.
- Note that I was able to make them sound acceptable with decent EQ, but there were huge lumps in the signature response curve. For more details on how to EQ headphones, see https://www.head-fi.org/threads/h...al.413900/ . In fact, if these were headphones that I intended to primarily use at my PC, I might have kept them after EQ because they sounded fine, if not great. But keeping a parametric EQ on Android is something of a pain and I didn't want to do that for these.
On the other hand, for a BT headset, I want the test conditions to match how I will actually listen to them on the go. For me that's going to be Spotify from a mobile phone.
Finally, everyone has different ears, different sound signature preferences, and different tastes in music. Different genres of music reveal very different aspects of a speaker system. Follow your own taste and choose the ones you like. I prefer a very flat response curve (like the MDR-7506) because that's almost always the best performance across a wide range of genres and probably also because I've trained my own preferences. Follow what you like and happy listening. 🎶🎧🥰
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In this case, I tested 3 pairs of headphones. I always test headphones against a consistent set of test tracks that are selected specifically to reveal some of the flaws I mentioned above. For those who maybe don't have a library full of flac files, one way to work around source limitations is to do comparisons against a pair you already own.
- Contenders: Q20i, Space Q45 (both new to me at the time), and the old stand-by MDR-7506.
- Sources: Both on my mobile device with Spotify and my PC with flac sources from Foobar2k.
- Note that I was able to make them sound acceptable with decent EQ, but there were huge lumps in the signature response curve. For more details on how to EQ headphones, see https://www.head-fi.org/threads/h...al.413900/ . In fact, if these were headphones that I intended to primarily use at my PC, I might have kept them after EQ because they sounded fine, if not great. But keeping a parametric EQ on Android is something of a pain and I didn't want to do that for these.
On the other hand, for a BT headset, I want the test conditions to match how I will actually listen to them on the go. For me that's going to be Spotify from a mobile phone.
Finally, everyone has different ears, different sound signature preferences, and different tastes in music. Different genres of music reveal very different aspects of a speaker system. Follow your own taste and choose the ones you like. I prefer a very flat response curve (like the MDR-7506) because that's almost always the best performance across a wide range of genres and probably also because I've trained my own preferences. Follow what you like and happy listening. 🎶🎧🥰
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