How Does Sonic Sense Record Headphones for Online Audition And Reviews?

hi there brian from Sonic fans Pro Audio while the original Sonic sense head phone library has set the standard by which many people can audition and compare headphones online we wanted to divide the same quality results for headphones that we do for our studio monitor loudspeaker and other product comparisons to meet this need we spent nearly two months testing and developing a process to enable listeners to hear just how close a pair of headphones sound to a source track now we'd like to share this process with you. To address varying concerns of breaking in new headphones they all go through a hundred hour burning process before any testing or recording begins. To do this we play music in a wide range of styles for the headphones 85 decibels a weighted slow the music plays an eight hour increments followed by one hour of silence for 100 hours to achieve the most accurate recording possible used EPA 4006 omni-directional microphone which have been fitted into a customized Neumann Dummy head tub to help easily position the headphones to achieve proper headphone placement Amano sources played through the headphones for a Benchmark Dac-1 85 decibels a weighted slower the microphones are then routed into a sound devices USB pre 2 to run a transfer function and rational acoustics smart 7 when headphone placement is the same for each driver we see in nearly straight line in the bass response the placement is then checked by ear to verify the response occurs we are seeing and to assure the most accurate response to the headphones under test is being represented this process is repeated until the best placement is achieved Once we have optimal head phone placement it's time to record the microphones are routed to a great design Lunatec V2 mike pre into a benchmark ADC1 analog to digital converter ADC 1 has been calibrated so that 85 decibels from the headphones translates into -2dBfs next an idea montage consisting a variety of musical genres displayed to the headphones and the signal is recorded at 96 kHz 24 bit into Cubase software. When it's time to deliver the recordings to you the audio levels are matched with the source track using loudness normalization rather than peak normalization. This ensures consistency and overall listening levels so you can more easily compare the sonic characteristics up each pair of headphones as dynamics and frequency responses have the headphones very significantly you may still observe audible differences in transient peak levels and the visual appearance above the waveforms in order to hear the full resolution files make sure to download them from our Resource Center at sonicsense.com we hope you find this a useful tool in determining the relative differences of headphones happy listening Sonic sense old-school service in a modern marketplace