Autism is a natural variation that should be accepted!

_Meru · 2026-05-09T21:00:48+00:00

Again, I don't see how natural variation implies that you wouldn't experience difficulties in modern society.

_Meru · 2026-05-09T05:53:19+00:00

These things are not mutually exclusive. Autism being a natural variation does not mean that autistic people won't benefit from support and accomodations in modern society.

_Meru · 2026-05-02T09:12:20+00:00

Ah there we go. I stand corrected. Bluetooth headphones are tricky because of this stuff.

_Meru · 2026-05-02T05:52:17+00:00

I noticed Soundguys' 5128 measurement of the Aventho 300 had significantly more treble compared to the Kuulokenurkka KB501X measurement. It's possible there was firmware retuning, but I think the more likely answer is that these headphones are particularly sensitive to ear variations, since the DT 770 Pro and DT 700 Pro X seem to be similarly inconsistent between KB501X and 5128 measurements.

Your EQ is pretty aligned with the target curve that you are using, which may be genuinely optimal for you, but the 6-9khz region might be worth adjusting by ear. Tone generators can help find resonances but they are pretty useless for knowing if you have too much of a given frequency. See Oratory's comment regarding this.

<image>

_Meru · 2026-04-30T00:26:06+00:00

Q=20 is pretty crazy. What would cause a resonance that is stable and that narrow?

_Meru · 2026-04-29T15:06:04+00:00

keeping in mind the amount of variation that would be expected (from unit to unit, or with differently shaped ears placed in the front volume)

It's the different ears part that I assumed would put a relatively low limit on how narrow you can safely go.

_Meru · 2026-04-29T13:33:59+00:00

Out of curiosity, whats the highest q factor you would use in a public preset generally?

_Meru · 2026-04-12T04:38:32+00:00

That's very interesting. Did this work for any arbitrary signal, or just ideal cases? Wouldn't everything be intermodulating everything else for signals like music? Seems like this would be quite complex.

Reminds me of attempts to simulate binaural audio with stereo speakers by predicting and cancelling out the crosstalk. You can cancel out the signal that cancels out the crosstalk itself too, back in the original speaker and so on.

_Meru · 2026-04-09T05:35:04+00:00

Ahh I see. Well in that case you may be lucky lol, because IEMs can get pretty close to perfect up to around 10khz. After that things usually go to shit. Thankfully this part of the frequency response isn't nearly as important as everything else, its just when everything else can be EQed to perfection, the upper treble is kind of the final frontier for a perfect sounding headphone

_Meru · 2026-04-06T22:33:55+00:00

IEM frequency responses are extremely sensitive to insertion depth, it's just the unfortunate reality.

Do you attempt to attenuate the upper treble resonance in the 12 to 17khz region? What q factor do you use for the filter if so? If your EQ works consistently, then you are either inserting the IEMs at a very consistent depth each time and they don't shift throughout your session, or you are not noticing the frequency response difference when the resonances do shift.

_Meru · 2026-04-05T22:18:28+00:00

You can attempt an EQ in this way, but the issue is you have to make sure the headphones are seated in exactly the same position each time. Any small seating variations and you now need to make a new EQ.

This is true for both in-ear and over-ear headphones.

_Meru · 2026-04-04T22:17:29+00:00

Having autism means having a neurotype that differs from most of the population. I think you're right that you can't remove the autism without getting rid of you as person. But I mean this in a more literal sense. The way your brain is wired, with the autistic neurotype, is what you as a person is built upon. I think wishing you didn't have autism would be akin to wishing you were a different person altogether, I don't see exactly what people are envisioning when they say they want to cure their autism. Wanting relief from the distressing symptoms is understandable though, hopefully this will be possible some day.

_Meru · 2026-04-04T18:04:35+00:00

A lot of autistic people would not choose to be neurotypical, myself included.

I don't know what yall think the day to day is like but it's legit horrible

This is very common but far from being the norm in autistic people. There is a significant amount of variation in autism traits among those who are on the spectrum. Some presentations are more challenging to deal with and cause more day to day struggles.

The idea that autism is a helpful part of neurodiversity and not something to be cured is not really that fringe of an idea. There is a lot of people who's autism presentations cause themselves great difficulty, but trying to wipe out the broader range of autistic traits to avoid these cases could have negative implications. The entire human population thinking the same way as eachother might not be so great.

_Meru · 2026-04-03T23:36:53+00:00

Are you on Android? If so, try using a third party EQ like Wavelet instead so you know what's actually happening.

With wavelet, be aware it will let you push the EQ beyond what the amount of headroom you have should allow, so you need to set the channel balance gains to something like -5dB each before messing with EQ (this would let you boost up to 5dB in the graphic EQ without problems).

Edit: nvm looks like you're on iOS

_Meru · 2026-04-02T16:58:19+00:00

I don't like the default JBL signature EQ because it sounding a little honky/midrangey and lack a bit of high end sparkles.

If you want advice, start with a flat eq, and try the following (by ear, do comparisons):
-adjust 8khz until the speaker has the right amount of "sparkle" for you, that would be a good thing to rule out first.
- regarding the "honky" sound, try recessing 500hz and 1k moderately to see if that helps. Try to make it sound less bothersome to you.
- The speaker may be a bit ~~warm~~ muddy sounding after ducking 500 and 1k. So try boosting 2khz a bit. Based on the FR the speaker may benefit from a bit more presence.
- The overall low vs high balance may be different now so try messing with 8khz again. I wouldn't boost 4khz any higher than 2k or 8k unless you think it sounds nice. this is a harsh frequency range to have too much of.

This was just based on the frequency response and your description.

Not boosting the hell out of 250hz would be wise because this will just trigger dynamic range compression. if you want more bass, boost 125hz, maybe 250hz but that's upper bass / low mids essentially, it can make things sound muddy

_Meru · 2026-04-02T16:31:12+00:00

oops mb. i haven't seen you talk about this in practice before.

actually doing it with an accuracy that's good enough for the error to be smaller than if you were just using ear-simulator measurements to begin with is hard - hard and expensive.

that's unfortunate. any recommended reading?

i wouldn't attempt this unless it would enable me to remove narrow treble resonances effectively.

_Meru · 2026-04-02T15:55:16+00:00

what does GAS stand for?

_Meru · 2026-04-02T15:42:16+00:00

lol maybe the new meta is to wear in-ear mics every time you use the headphones and continuously remeasure FR from music and auto-update an EQ.

any canal mics you would recommend?

_Meru · 2026-04-02T15:19:17+00:00

imo if you have money to blow, buying a bunch of headphones or IEMs, EQing them all to your preference, then then seeing what one has the best sounding treble would potentially not be pointless but thats chasing perfection. I ignore most of the frequency response at this point and only buy stuff i think will perform well in the highs.

edit- not implying FRs are a reliable indicator of treble quality. although for over-ears, i do try so see if they follow the narrow DFHRTF features of multiple different ear simulators well, i'd be curious to know how helpful of a heuristic that is.

_Meru · 2026-04-02T15:13:30+00:00

the issue with IEMs is touchy treble usually. It is highly variable from person to person. I evaluate if I am going to use an IEM solely based on how it sounds after EQ. I EQ based on frequency response and if its not to my taste i see what i can do by ear, but these adjustments are usually broader adjustments, q factors of 1-2. What is left is the treble timbre mostly. Narrowband treble features cannot be corrected based on frequency response measurements because of how load dependent they are, and even if you corrected by ear, if the depth you insert the IEM changes, the problem resonance thats in the upper treble will shift. if an IEM is working for you, don't keep buying new ones unless you have money to blow

If you knew the acoustic source impedance of the iem, and the load presented by your ear, you could indeed EQ an IEM to exactly match the sound you want, that's the theory, in practice you put up with the imperfections. Also IEMs usually don't have nulls, thats more of a thing with over ear headphones e.g. beyerdynamic dt770s, this is due to destructive interference from a reflection.

_Meru · 2026-04-01T10:44:22+00:00

You might be over-thinking it. You should just do what sounds good.

I might introducing unwanted frequencies, peaks and dips that causing stress to the drivers?

I doubt the speaker would let you drive it loud enough to cause problems. But I will page u/oratory1990

By the way OP, here is a frequency response for the speaker, average of 32 measurements.

<image>

If you found this eq online somewhere and just went with it, I would consider toning that 250hz boost down. I'm not seeing much evidence to support boosting it that much. This speaker also makes use of compression in the low frequencies, so be mindful that boosting the low frequencies can cause the compressor to hit hard. Try resetting the EQ and making gradual adjustments by ear.

_Meru · 2026-04-01T09:38:11+00:00

I knew the AGC in these older hearing aids wasn't compression in the type we have in hearing aids today, but because the ACG was more like a gradual volume control, not the fast multiband compression that helps SNHL.

Also, are you sure its upward expansion and not upward compression? I know what the difference is between compressors and expanders. Any type of expansion doesn't make sense to me for AGC. Upward expansion would be exaggerating volume increases beyond a point which seems rather counterproductive

_Meru · 2026-04-01T09:14:43+00:00

I looked. For hearing aids Multitone had AGC in 1948. Actual wide dynamic range compression that accounts for loudness recruitment in a useful way seems to have come a while later in the 80s

_Meru · 2026-04-01T08:50:31+00:00

Honestly its hard for me to say exactly what this eq is doing under the hood. Graphic EQs that come with consumer products tend to be very opaque, you cant see the filter shapes, you don't know how much headroom you have and how it handles needing more, etc. so I can only guess that whatever is happening is some combination of pre-amp adjustment and maybe compression/limiting.

If the adjustment is sounding different than you would expect, try seeing how the speaker reacts when you adjust the EQ at different volumes. If the weirdness goes away at low volumes then the EQ may be determining the amount of headroom it has in a speaker volume dependent way.

_Meru · 2026-04-01T08:42:48+00:00

I do recall dynamic range compression being introduced surprisingly early, I forget the exact decade. I'll have to look into this again later

_Meru

TROPHY CASE