Summary of Contents for miniDSP EARS
- Page 1 DSP EARS MINI EADPHONE EASUREMENT User Manual miniDSP Ltd, Hong Kong / www.minidsp.com / Features and specifications subject to change without prior notice...
- Page 2 Preliminary version, OK for public release 17 Dec 2017 First official version 20 Dec 2017 Added RAW and HEQ compensation, simplified SPL calibration 16 April 2018 miniDSP Ltd, Hong Kong / www.minidsp.com / Features and specifications subject to change without prior notice...
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Page 3: Table Of Contents
Product Overview ........................... 6 Getting Started with EARS ........................7 A note on measurement conditions ........................... 7 Check the EARS gain setting ............................7 Download the calibration files ........................... 8 Connect for measurement ............................8 Check computer settings ............................9 Step-by-step: Room EQ Wizard .......................... -
Page 4: Important Information
ARRANTY ERMS miniDSP Ltd warrants this product to be free from defects in materials and workmanship for a period of one year from the invoice date. Our warranty does not cover failure of the product due to incorrect connection or installation, improper or undocumented use, unauthorized servicing, modification or alteration of the unit in any way, or any usage outside of that recommended in this manual. - Page 5 CE M TATEMENT The MINIDSP EARS has passed the test performed according to European Standard EN 55022 Class B. OTE ON THIS ANUAL This User Manual is designed for reading in both print and on the computer. If printing the manual, please print double-sided.
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Page 6: Product Overview
Please note that EARS is not an industry-standard measurement head. Even expensive (i.e. tens of thousands of dollars) heads can produce measurements that are different to each other. Our goal with the EARS is to produce something that is affordable and fun to use! miniDSP Ltd, Hong Kong / www.minidsp.com... -
Page 7: Getting Started With Ears
ETTING TARTED WITH In a nutshell, you mount your headphones on the EARS jig (or put your IEMs in the “ear canal”) and run a measurement sweep using your headphone amp and favorite measurement program. To get a useful measurement, you will need to first load a suitable calibration/compensation file (which we provide) into the measurement program. -
Page 8: Download The Calibration Files
2.4 C ONNECT FOR MEASUREMENT Figure 1 shows a typical connection scheme for headphone measurement. The diagram shows a miniDSP HA- DSP but you can use any other headphone amplifier. If your headphone amplifier doesn’t have a USB input, then you will need to adjust accordingly i.e. -
Page 9: Check Computer Settings
• The input gain of the EARS is set to 0 dB. On the Mac, use Audio MIDI Setup. On Windows, use the Sound control panel and open its Properties dialog. On the Levels tab, right-click to convert the display to dB and adjust the slider so it reads 0.0 dB. -
Page 10: Configure Rew
3) On the Soundcard tab, set the sample rate to 48 kHz. Select the headphone amplifier (or DAC) as the output and the EARS as the input source. Choose the “sensitive” channel (Left in this example) for both output and input, and set the Sweep Level to −20 dBFS. - Page 11 The very first time you do this, we suggest that you increase the volume with the headphones on your head instead of EARS. This will help ensure that you don’t blast your headphones at full power if something is not set up correctly.
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Page 12: Measure The First Channel
12) When the measurement process finishes, you will get a new measurement in the REW main window. Rename the measurement so that you don’t lose track of which is which. miniDSP Ltd, Hong Kong / www.minidsp.com / Features and specifications subject to change without prior notice... -
Page 13: Measure The Other Channel
16) When the measurement finishes, you will get a new headphone measurement in the REW main window. Rename the measurement so that you don’t lose track of which is which. miniDSP Ltd, Hong Kong / www.minidsp.com / Features and specifications subject to change without prior notice... -
Page 14: Changing The Calibration File
In that case: 1. Reduce the analog gain of the EARS (see page 7). 2. Reduce the SPL calibration target by the amount that you decreased the analog gain. For example, if you reduced the gain from 18 to 12 dB, change the SPL calibration target from e.g. -
Page 15: More About Measurement
The measurements in this section are intended to illustrate certain points. They are not intended as reference measurements of the headphones and IEMs mentioned. miniDSP Ltd, Hong Kong / www.minidsp.com / Features and specifications subject to change without prior notice... -
Page 16: Other Types Of Measurement
EARS can not be used to make impedance measurements. EARS is also not well suited for sound isolation measurements, as the omnidirectional microphone capsules pick up sound from the back of the “ear,” limiting the maximum attenuation that can be measured. -
Page 17: More On Headphone Measurements
“center” position measurement that is very close to this average. Figure 5. Effect of headphone positioning 1 (K702) Figure 4. Effect of headphone positioning 2 (LCD-XC) miniDSP Ltd, Hong Kong / www.minidsp.com / Features and specifications subject to change without prior notice... - Page 18 Earpads will also make a difference to a headphone measurement. While the EARS can be used to identify the differences in frequency response that you hear with different earpads, this is also information to provide if sharing your measurements with others. For example, the top two traces in Figure 6 show the Massdrop/HIFIMAN HE4XX with FocusPad in green and the FocusPad-A in purple.
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Page 19: More On Iem Measurements
Figure 8 shows the effect of different eartips (each graph is the average of left and right on an Etymotic ER4SR). While EARS can be used to measure the frequency response changes that you hear with different eartips, this also means that the eartips you used should be mentioned if sharing or publishing your measurements. -
Page 20: Effect Of The Amplifier (And Dac)
EQ compensates for the amplifier as well as the headphones. In that case, measure using the same amplifier that you plan to listen with. miniDSP Ltd, Hong Kong / www.minidsp.com / Features and specifications subject to change without prior notice... -
Page 21: Calibration/Compensation Curves
AW VS COMPENSATED RESPONSE When a measurement is made of a headphone with the EARS, the “raw” measurement tends to look something like the green graph in Figure 11. This curve is hard to interpret, and so typically a “compensation” is applied to produce a measurement that looks more like the graph in blue. -
Page 22: Headphone Eq Compensation ("Heq")
Figure 12. Suggested target curve for headphone EQ based on the HEQ compensation Note: as the diagram suggests, some adjustment to the target based on listening will be required. Please follow the guidance in this application note: • Headphone EQ with EARS and REW 4.3 IEM (“IDF”) DIFFUSE FIELD COMPENSATION The IDF compensation for IEMs is intended to equalize an IEM to a diffuse field response. -
Page 23: Headphone Measurement Compensation ("Hpn")
Ltd, Hong Kong / www.minidsp.com / Features and specifications subject to change without prior notice... -
Page 24: Further Information
250 x 180 x 130 mm 5.2 O BTAINING SUPPORT 1. Check the forums on miniDSP.com to see if the issue has already been raised and a solution or solutions provided. 2. Contact miniDSP via the support portal at minidsp.desk.com with: a.
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