I need some help to see if I need to tune EQ a bit better, or what else could I be doing wrong.

My car has a Fender audio system, which doesn’t seem to be in the super high end, but still is great, because it seems tuned to reproduce best the type of music I listen to (Rock, Metal, Classic, some Latin, etc.) It sounds REALLY good. I’ve setup the EQ to +2 bass, 0 mid, +3 treble. I listen using Bluetooth from my iPhone. Now, my home theater system is a Sony 5.1 surround system (don’t remember the model), tuned to the room is on and set to reproduce at whatever DTS or Dolby sound is being sent to it without modification. I listen from my Apple TV, or from Audio DVDs (yes, DVDs recorded with DTS or Dolby Sound from recording masters). The home theater makes a very good job at producing a rich sound and sound similar to my car setup (a bit better, actually). Now, onto my problem: I can’t get my Sennheiser Momentum 3 to reproduce sound anywhere close to what I get from my car audio or HT! Yes, I know that you move quite a lot more air with large speakers, BUT my Apple AirPods Pro do a much better job of reproducing the GENERAL feeling of the sound I like than the Sennheisers do. I definitely can hear some details much better in the Sennheisers than in my EarPods, BUT at the same time, I loose a whole other range… is crazy. I’ve tried several EQ settings. The same ones I have in my car, other, recommended ones, the “smart EQ” from Sennheiser, which turned out to be absolute crap… Also tried leaving them with no EQ, but they sound horrible like that, as if you were hearing music through a muffling cloth. Somehow they seem to lack A LOT of response across different frequencies. My Sony MDR-V6s do suffer from a similar lack of power, but have a lot better response. In general is not just the lack of power and response, is as if the Sennheisers were tuned to frequencies that are horrible for my music. (I listen to lossless files, btw) Now I’m thinking maybe I should try the Apple AirPods Max, or the B&W PX8, but I know they have their own limitations and I’m afraid that they will also have a very poor sound… Some other data: I leave the iTunes EQ in neutral, stream or play at the highest available quality and codec, and have also compared the sound to my B&O speakers, my HK Speakers, and even Sony WH1000XM3 headphones to get a wide range of comparison.

Any recommendations on how to fix the Sennheiser’s sound, or what to replace them with?

  • dongas420@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Find a parametric equalizer for more fine-grained control and try adding a 5 dB peak at 4 kHz, Q 2.0. Make sure to set the preamp to -5 dB as well. Connect your earphones to your PC and set up Equalizer APO/Peace GUI if you need to. If doing that makes the Momentum sound better, the issue is that you don’t like its tuning.

    • morgoth_lord@alien.top
      OPBEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      So I gave up trying to have a “universal” setting at the computer, and control the EQ in the headphones. Instead, I’ve now set the headphones to no EQ, and I’m using the PEQ in iTunes with some settings I found for “clear and balanced sound”, along with the recommendation to boost the 4K range for the Momentum 3, and I still miss the dynamics of other headphones, but the sound is MUCH better and faithful to the recording. Also, seems to fit several genres without much tinkering. Named it “Sennheiser”, and called it a day…

  • Coel_Hen@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    The Fender premium audio, at least in Volkswagens a dizen years or so ago, is actually Panasonic, which is pretty good. Source: I sold Volkswagens when they switched from Dynaudio to “Fender,” and Panasonic made Technics, and also the cool little portable cassette player I had when I was 13, lol.