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Comment by Xen9 | Hacker News Reader

Idea: Scientific headphone studies

Double-blind / blind headphone testing where price and manufacturer / model are not revealed. Possibly additional methods; multiple tests in a long timespan, multiple people testing, different locations (studio, sports etc.) and so on.

The reviewers are allowed to use any and all digital measuring tools in addition to listening by ear.

A rigorous version of this would integrate above in rtings.com headphone testing method.

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People in Audio Science Review forums do scientific studies of headphones: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?forums/he...

A problem with this is that our ears are very different in shape and size from one person to the next. This can have a non-trivial impact[1] on what a person hears, especially for in-ears.

Thus a pair that might measure great might not sound good with your ears.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y41oQTfDWiI

There's a great lecture by Floyd Toole on exactly that for speakers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrpUDuUtxPM.

Linus Sebastian from Linus Tech Tips is doing just that, but better.

He got some professional testing equipment and he's building a proper testing environment for headphones and other stuff.

Additional details in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwPLhyUgm-g

disclaimer: i'm not affiliated with LTT in any way

You don't need human test subjects. You can very accurately measure frequency response.

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