I have the same 65" version as your test unit and the HDR peak brightness measurements are surprising to me. Subjectively, it seems that my TV can get much brighter than your results indicate . I have a 2017 M-Series and, according to your review of that model, it gets much brighter in HDR but in a side-by-side comparison, I feel this model is brighter in HDR than the 2017 version. Very interesting results.
I registered specially to say that it is true! From my perspective, enthusiastic audiophile, who understands meaning of raw frequency response and your target curve which is great (the best i ever saw and heard), new sound profile box is totally useless and even missleading. For me, enthusiast that normally use raw FR and harman target/DF target, new sound profile and peaks/dips are hard to understand. At least much harder than the old bass, mid and highs boxes. Please, restore “bass”, “mid” and “highs” boxes at least! It was making it easy to equalize any headphones to match target curve and make headphones sound better. With that old test bench 1.2 i find you to be the best website about headphones which says the most accurate truth possible. Your fan, Peter.
Bring back the detail of Bass,Mid,and Treble, Omg
I agree with above. Formerly, you were the only website. With bass/mid/treble. This provides info for equalizing. I thought this was the main thing in determining sound reproduction quality. Correct me if I am wrong. Chris
I would like to respectfully request Rtings bring back the frequency response score, or at least make it a bigger emphasis. Headphones adhering to the standardized frequency response is the single most accurate determiner of headphone quality.
I absolute agree with all the above, this is what sets Rtings apart from all the other review sites. The more technical details regarding the sound profile the better.
Out of curiosity, what is the goal in removing them?
I agree with the rest of posts. Please retain FR, bass, mid,treble response. It was immensely useful.
You might re-order the page so that it flows from easy to digest(subjective) to objective to very technical if there is too much information on one page.
This new system will be confusing to the average user. Doesn’t make sense to score how bass-heavy or bright a headphone is, it makes it look like the headphone is doing something wrong if it gets a low score in any of those categories.
Thanks everyone for your feedback! The 1.3 changes are indeed a bit confusing. Note that you can end up with almost the same score as before by replacing (33% bass + 33% mid + 33% treble) by (50% Neutral + 50% Peaks/Dips). That’s what the usage ‘Neutral Listening’ does, so it is the equivalent of the old ‘Critical Listening’. We did the change to help people who wants to find headphones that have the sound profile that they like, which isn’t always the harman target depending on your personal preference.
Do you have suggestions on how to clarify the system or maybe changes that would work equally well for people who wants the harman target than for people who wants something different? Ideally as simple as possible so it is easy to understand.
Thanks everyone for your feedback! The 1.3 changes are indeed a bit confusing. Note that you can end up with almost the same score as before by replacing (33% bass + 33% mid + 33% treble) by (50% Neutral + 50% Peaks/Dips). That’s what the usage ‘Neutral Listening’ does, so it is the equivalent of the old ‘Critical Listening’. We did the change to help people who wants to find headphones that have the sound profile that they like, which isn’t always the harman target depending on your personal preference. Do you have suggestions on how to clarify the system or maybe changes that would work equally well for people who wants the harman target than for people who wants something different? Ideally as simple as possible so it is easy to understand.
I think what you were doing worked fine. Under 1.2 it was already pretty self explanatory how much bass or treble boost a headphone had.
Thanks everyone for your feedback! The 1.3 changes are indeed a bit confusing. Note that you can end up with almost the same score as before by replacing (33% bass + 33% mid + 33% treble) by (50% Neutral + 50% Peaks/Dips). That’s what the usage ‘Neutral Listening’ does, so it is the equivalent of the old ‘Critical Listening’. We did the change to help people who wants to find headphones that have the sound profile that they like, which isn’t always the harman target depending on your personal preference. Do you have suggestions on how to clarify the system or maybe changes that would work equally well for people who wants the harman target than for people who wants something different? Ideally as simple as possible so it is easy to understand.
What exactly target curve do you use on your website? I want to know because i think it is awesome. Is it harman OE2017?
Thanks everyone for your feedback! The 1.3 changes are indeed a bit confusing. Note that you can end up with almost the same score as before by replacing (33% bass + 33% mid + 33% treble) by (50% Neutral + 50% Peaks/Dips). That’s what the usage ‘Neutral Listening’ does, so it is the equivalent of the old ‘Critical Listening’. We did the change to help people who wants to find headphones that have the sound profile that they like, which isn’t always the harman target depending on your personal preference.
I am not sure what is the rationale behind peaks/dips graph. The peak/dips are primarily depedent on the design, and secondly dependent of the positioning of the headphone on the head. Since it is impossible to predict the FR of a headphone with poor FR consistency, it is a moot point to worry about it. The compensated FR or the raw FR is simple and easy to understand. Please don’t break something that works
Do you have suggestions on how to clarify the system or maybe changes that would work equally well for people who wants the harman target than for people who wants something different? Ideally as simple as possible so it is easy to understand.
You could provide different target curves for the compensated FR. Right now, it is rtings curve. May be add the Harman, free field, and diffuse field curves.
I am not sure what is the rationale behind peaks/dips graph. The peak/dips are primarily depedent on the design, and secondly dependent of the positioning of the headphone on the head. Since it is impossible to predict the FR of a headphone with poor FR consistency, it is a moot point to worry about it. The compensated FR or the raw FR is simple and easy to understand. Please don’t break something that works You could provide different target curves for the compensated FR. Right now, it is rtings curve. May be add the Harman, free field, and diffuse field curves.
I totally agree. BTW: what is name of current curve used by rtings?
Thanks everyone for your feedback! The 1.3 changes are indeed a bit confusing. Note that you can end up with almost the same score as before by replacing (33% bass + 33% mid + 33% treble) by (50% Neutral + 50% Peaks/Dips). That’s what the usage ‘Neutral Listening’ does, so it is the equivalent of the old ‘Critical Listening’. We did the change to help people who wants to find headphones that have the sound profile that they like, which isn’t always the harman target depending on your personal preference.
I also signed up just to let you guys know I’m not sure how much I like this change. I can appreciate what you’re trying to go for, and I do kinda like the idea. But the old graphs already told me what these new ones do in a way. Bass boosted headphones will be bass-heavy on a graph. Headphones with wildly shaped treble and spikes will be bright, etc. There’s value to these new graphs, but they aren’t as clear and detailed as before. “Warm” or “bright” sound signatures don’t really tell me much, they’re a more subjective terminology. Whereas your old information was more objective, and you stood out because of it. I’m not kidding when I say I browsed every single one of your newly added headphone updates. You’re a daily site for me.
These changes especially don’t help by having tons of grammatical errors that I am surprised to see missed. “How much the headphones have energy in the bass range” should be “How much energy the headphones have in the bass range” and “How much the headphones frequency response is balanced and follows a variant of the Harman target curve” should probably be “How balanced the headphone’s frequency response is while following a variant of the Harman target curve.” I could go on, there’s plenty more than just those examples.
Being perfectly honest, a lot of this new stuff feels half baked and doesn’t seem to consider or care for what a lot of users came here for originally. The new sound signature descriptors like “warm” or “bright” have always been vague from other reviewers, and while that’s good terminology to use, the fact you guys went into such great detail before helped explain exactly what about the headphone was “bass-heavy” or “neutral” was great. Sure the new sound signature graph does that to a degree, but not to the level it did before. It’s not as nuanced as before.
Do you have suggestions on how to clarify the system or maybe changes that would work equally well for people who wants the harman target than for people who wants something different? Ideally as simple as possible so it is easy to understand.
Why not both? Or at least some way of incorporating the old style into the new one or incorporating the new style into the old one, without just flat out dumping all the useful stuff that both have. The “neutral, bass-heavy, warm, and bright” descriptors and peaks/dips graphs are good ideas. Just not at the expense of everything else you had before. That old information made you guys stand out from other reviewers, and it’s why I value you as my top source for headphone reviews.
Sorry for the long post, but I think this stuff needs to be considered a little longer. Thanks for listening to our feedback!
I just read the Beats Solo Pro review (which I was very much looking forward to) and miss having the breakdown for the bass, mids, and treble. Still, appreciate what you’re doing! It’s very useful, but it was easier to compare headphones before.
I signed up to comment, because I also find this change to be very bewildering and confusing. I think your previous criteria for judging sound quality was exceptionally well-reasoned, because as a site that prides itself on thorough, repeatable, quantitative measurement for evaluating products, the compensated frequency response score was useful objective quality of the headphones to all listeners. I think the reasoning behind this new change is to offer more choices to help listeners who think they want something bass or treble heavy, but I don’t think catering to subjectivity concessions like this helps people make informed buying decisions.
The problem I have with this is that an individual’s preferences shouldn’t relate to sound quality. As quoted from your own sound quality page, sound quality is how accurately audio is reproduced as intended by the producer/engineer. This is a metric that can be measured in fairly objective terms and your previous compensated FR curve did a good job of this. The reason is because all of the literature that went into designing the Harman curve (that the rtings curve derives from) was based on the scientifically-supported hypothesis that most people with normal hearing all prefer a neutral target frequency response. Regardless of whether they think they’re bass-heads or they think they want the sharpest treble, extensive double-blind testing showed that what people really want out of audio reproduction, out of the ideal speaker in the ideal room, is a flat response.
I think the real value that the rtings format brought to the often messy and misinformed world of reviewing is that rtings educated people on what good qualities in a product actually are. With references to academic studies and thorough testing and retesting, rtings has managed to really demonstrate the value of certain objective metrics of displays and headphones. This is invaluable because it helps focus the conversation, particularly when there is a legendary amount of snake oil and magic pebble peddlers in the audio industry. Rtings tells people what they should want out of their purchases, backed up by thorough research. To me, this is like if the TV section got rid of the Color Accuracy section and instead asked me, “Well, how much of a green tint do you want in your TV? Because some people like that.”
Oh my god yes! I agree. I made my last few purchases based on the overall sound score and bass, mid and treble graphs. I just don’t understand the need for this change. Change for the sake of change is a bad idea. I hope the old graphs and scoring comes back asap.
Not only is the old system much better but what is infuriating is that the table tool no longer contains those metrics which I have used several times to sort and filter. The critical listening, bass, mid, treble and sound metrics no longer exist. WTF? This is going backwards not forward.
Thanks everyone for your feedback! The 1.3 changes are indeed a bit confusing. Note that you can end up with almost the same score as before by replacing (33% bass + 33% mid + 33% treble) by (50% Neutral + 50% Peaks/Dips). That’s what the usage ‘Neutral Listening’ does, so it is the equivalent of the old ‘Critical Listening’. We did the change to help people who wants to find headphones that have the sound profile that they like, which isn’t always the harman target depending on your personal preference. Do you have suggestions on how to clarify the system or maybe changes that would work equally well for people who wants the harman target than for people who wants something different? Ideally as simple as possible so it is easy to understand.
The solution is very simple: Give us Everything!
Quoting from the Changelog 1.3:
We will stop trying to say which headphones sound better overall. Instead, our goal is now to describe what the headphones sound like, so you can find which one matches your own preferences.
nope.. Again, give us BOTH! :D
1.- Keep the Original system with the Sound Quality Score and the Bass/Mid/Treble system, and (maybe) add the Peaks/Dips result as a small % or factor in it.
The new values could be: 20%-Bass, 19%-Mid, 18%-Treble, 5%-FR Consistency, 9%-Imaging, 18%-Soundstage, 6%-Weighted Harmonic Distortion, 5%-Peaks/Dips
And perhaps, also give the user the option to adjust the percentual values, or included factors themselves, so they can tailor the results to their preference.
2.- Let the Sound Profile and Neutral Score evaluation have its own section, where you can show the Objective results derived from the FR and other analysis.
Make the Graph in this section be Interactive, letting the user select the FR Target of their interest (RTINGS, Harman, Free-Field, Diffuse-Field..), and showing the accordingly compensated result.
This section could also have a Description with all the Subjective Impressions/Opinions that you gather from the headphones, so we can know how they sound in themselves, but also in comparison/relation with other headphones..
Having both the cold Technical derived results, and a more elaborated Subjective description/comparison will help us having a clearer idea.. plus having its own extended section, will make the whole review more thorough and complete.
I agree with all the other users, but since I was already a registered user, I’m actually thinking of having my account deleted because of this new representation of the headphones sound. Rtings was really the go-to website before. This new test doesn’t make sense to me.
If I wanted to know whether a headphone is warm or bright or cold (all subjective connotations), I would head over to or look for the “Best Sounding Headphones For Pleasure Listening” article, or something.
But in the graphs? OMG. It was pure gold to have an objective representation of the Frequency response, zoomed in for Bass, Mid and Treble separately too (which were again divided into Lower-, Mid- and Upper-). With that objective information, plus my own brain, ears and headphones, I could understand which other headphone to buy, try or recommend, because I would learn that a certain headphone profile I’d hear corresponded to the graph I would easily find here in Rtings.
Now, the JBL in-ears headphones are considered the top choice for listening to how a track was mastered. Simply ridiculous.
Are you afraid of other websites copying your graphs and hence you’ve taken yours down? I can only see that as a possible explanation. Like others have said, I would at least keep the old system, and, if you really want to introduce us to your new system, make it an addition rather than the only system available on your website. And maybe also explain why it is so much better than the plain old and intuitive bass-mid-treble family.
A very disheartened fan of your website.
Thanks everyone! You are right, we can do both at the same time. We will discuss internally all your feedback and come up with a proposal next week to share with you before we implement the changes.
To summarize this thread so far (and let me know if I miss important things):
Do you have feedback on the other changes of 1.3? For example, the connectivity section overhaul, new phone call usage or the peaks/dips?
Thanks everyone! You are right, we can do both at the same time. We will discuss internally all your feedback and come up with a proposal next week to share with you before we implement the changes. To summarize this thread so far (and let me know if I miss important things):
- The new sound profiles are confusing and seems subjective, not objectively based
- Bass, Mid, and Treble boxes are useful Do you have feedback on the other changes of 1.3? For example, the connectivity section overhaul, new phone call usage or the peaks/dips?
I don’t think there are issues with anything else that was added. Sound Quality (Bass/Mids/Treble) should be given priority over Sound Profile as this is very subjective. By all means keep both, but I’d display the old boxes first then Sound Profile later on the page.
My (unrelated) suggestion would be to give us an idea of the decibel level at certain volume levels using a popular test device such as an iPhone. The ear tries to protect itself at 90dB, which results in a compromised listening experience and potentially hearing loss once that level is exceeded. I think having this info could help benefit consumers once properly educated. It can’t be a perfect science as different sources will result in varying decibel levels, but I think some implementation of this (even just noting the volume level and test device when doing the Weighted Harmonic Distortion test) would be useful to know.
Thanks everyone! You are right, we can do both at the same time. We will discuss internally all your feedback and come up with a proposal next week to share with you before we implement the changes. To summarize this thread so far (and let me know if I miss important things):
- The new sound profiles are confusing and seems subjective, not objectively based
- Bass, Mid, and Treble boxes are useful Do you have feedback on the other changes of 1.3? For example, the connectivity section overhaul, new phone call usage or the peaks/dips?
Ok, so, I looked backed at the new graphs now that you put out some new headphone reviews post 1.3 update. I changed my mind, I am 100% not a fan of the sound profile graph. Peaks and dips? Still neat, I like that one. If you wanna keep sound profile and also bring back the old stuff, great, I’d love that even more. Keep the best of both worlds!
But now that I took a closer look at the sound profile graph… Confusing is right. I now realize that the graph no longer is a flat line, and instead sways up and down along with the data the headphones have. That to me personally is almost completely worthless. Before, the flat line was the target. True neutral. The ideal, staying as close to that dotted line as possible. Now the dotted line swings wildly around whatever seems to be the average the headphone puts out. That’s hardly “neutral listening” to me at all. If it’s supposed to be, it’s not clear at all. And while your section has a neutral rating and can rate it poorly for wide dips and rises in frequency response, it still tells me nothing about what neutral is supposed to look like on that graph. A number just tells me that. There’s no line that says where true neutral is, and what parts of the frequency response go above or below that. I can tell the Skullcandy Sesh Truly Wireless’s bass goes way above neutral. Where’s neutral? No idea, that’s anybody’s guess now. In 1.2, I knew where the neutral line was, what the ideal was, and what I look for in a headphone. Now? It’s anyone’s guess where the headphones are supposed to land if I’m a critical listener like your old review style said.
I still stand by the idea that there’s value in these 2 new graphs. But with the way the sound profile graph is now, I can’t seem to narrow down a single bit of objective information from it that your old graphs had before and it’s simply unhelpful. It needs to be a little more detailed and clear (And maybe have a neutral line on it to give an idea of just how boosted or recessed some frequency responses are), and you definitely need to re-word your descriptors in the (?) icons. I dunno who wrote them, but they need an editor. Or have the guy who wrote the old ones do it again.
You say you can do both? Please, please do. I’m not even sure why you changed to begin with. Where there complaints? Was something drastically wrong with the sound profile graphs we had before that they had to be scrapped? Anybody can say a headphone is “warm” or “bass heavy” and call it a review. Heck, that’s what most people do, and they’re generally unhelpful. But nobody else but you told people where those terms landed compared to a true, neutral headphone sound response. That was your strength. That’s what I’d argue most of your users come here for. Don’t throw it away, please
My take is that the new sound profile graph itself is fine. It shows the L/R averaged and compensated response curves with the dotted line representing the headphones own curve as set against the flat line at 90db which is the ideal target curve (“neutral”).
What I don’t like is the subtraction of the bass/mid/treble scores and the addition of the Bass Heavy/Warm/Bright scores. I know the intent is to tell people whether the headphones will sound more “bassy”, “warm” or “bright” but you can pretty much figure that out by looking at the graph along with the new Dips/Peaks graph which is a nice addition - showing the variance the headphone has from its own sound curve.
I would bring back the bass/mid/treble scores and show them below the overall neutral score (34% bass, 33% mid, 33% treble) . You can then add a sub-section within sound profile called Sound Signature or something that shows scores for bass heavy, warm and bright showing the user where the headphones lean irrespective of their accuracy or variance to the standard compensation curve used.
In general I agree with people that the more data you show the better. I know one can get overwhelmed when there is too much data but I think the old bass/mid/treble was very useful for folks and should be kept.
I would like to chime in and say the best solution is to have both! I enjoyed the previous implementation but the addition of peaks/dips is great
I also have used the bass heavy sound profile filter. I would prefer to have both systems though
Thanks again everyone for your feedback! The original changes were made because we received complaints by people wanting a sound different than neutral, but we shouldn’t have done those changes at the expense of people that want an objective sound score based on research. Here is our proposal that should bring the best of both systems:
Let me know what you think, and we can do the changes above this week.
There is more stuff we can improve on but that would require more time, so feel free to give also comments on long term changes that we could do or about the other changes we did in 1.3 like the connectivity section.
Thanks again everyone for your feedback! The original changes were made because we received complaints by people wanting a sound different than neutral, but we shouldn’t have done those changes at the expense of people that want an objective sound score based on research. Here is our proposal that should bring the best of both systems:
- Bring back ‘Bass’, ‘Mid’, ‘Treble’ boxes, but renamed to ‘Bass Accuracy’, ‘Mid Accuracy’, ‘Treble Accuracy’ (some people got confused in the past about the old names). Example mockup: https://i.imgur.com/eeoMpf7.png
- Remove ‘Neutral’, ‘Bass Heavy’, ‘Warm’, ‘Bright’ sound profile scores that are confusing, and instead add ‘Bass Amount’ and ‘Treble Amount’. Example mockup: https://i.imgur.com/0a8w7SZ.png
- Change all ratings usages to use (33% bass + 33% mid + 33% treble) instead of (50% Neutral + 50% Peaks/Dips)
- Bring back the original ‘Sound’ score, via a rating usage named ‘Neutral Sound’, which replaces ‘Neutral Listening’. This new usage score has no component besides sound elements and uses the Bass, Mid and Treble boxes. Also, worth noting that you can customize it to your liking via this tool: https://www.rtings.com/user/ratings. Example mockup: https://i.imgur.com/sLNhOcZ.png
- Replace the ‘Sound Profile’ graph by the old ‘Frequency Response’ graph. Let me know what you think, and we can do the changes above this week. There is more stuff we can improve on but that would require more time, so feel free to give also comments on long term changes that we could do or about the other changes we did in 1.3 like the connectivity section.
Pretty much everything in that proposed update sounds good to me! There’s only one thing I’m unsure of, and that’s with the proposed changes in #2 on your list. It kinda falls in the middle of unhelpful for both the new and old system. I can kinda see that -3.2db of bass means it has a low bass end, but that doesn’t mean that’s consistent in any one specific part. Same with the treble. If it were to have a spike at, say, +2.5db, then that tells me there’s a spike there… but if that’s the only spike there is, then that doesn’t account for the entirety of the treble spectrum of a headphone’s sound. Same with the -0.79db level the example shows. It only speaks for one small part, not the treble range as a whole.
It also does little to tell me if the headphones are bassy, bright, warm, etc. Mostly because of the aforementioned info, but also because it doesn’t account for the mid-range either. It’s almost too simplistic for the new changes you made in 1.3, and doesn’t tell enough to be helpful for the 1.2 test bench either. It’s a middle ground of meh. If you just add the old frequency response graph and keep your new sound profile graph, keeping them separate but still part of the review, that really is the best of both worlds (If a bit more work for you guys).
Other than that, the changes you proposed are great! Thanks for hearing our feedback instead of just telling us to suck it up like many other companies would
Please, bring back the original ‘Sound’ score. I am already looking for other sites.
Pretty much everything in that proposed update sounds good to me! There’s only one thing I’m unsure of, and that’s with the proposed changes in #2 on your list. It kinda falls in the middle of unhelpful for both the new and old system. I can kinda see that -3.2db of bass means it has a low bass end, but that doesn’t mean that’s consistent in any one specific part. Same with the treble. If it were to have a spike at, say, +2.5db, then that tells me there’s a spike there… but if that’s the only spike there is, then that doesn’t account for the entirety of the treble spectrum of a headphone’s sound. Same with the -0.79db level the example shows. It only speaks for one small part, not the treble range as a whole. It also does little to tell me if the headphones are bassy, bright, warm, etc. Mostly because of the aforementioned info, but also because it doesn’t account for the mid-range either. It’s almost too simplistic for the new changes you made in 1.3, and doesn’t tell enough to be helpful for the 1.2 test bench either. It’s a middle ground of meh. If you just add the old frequency response graph and keep your new sound profile graph, keeping them separate but still part of the review, that really is the best of both worlds (If a bit more work for you guys). Other than that, the changes you proposed are great! Thanks for hearing our feedback instead of just telling us to suck it up like many other companies would
I agree. For now, the text written in that box for each individual reviews will provide more nuance and describe the sound profile. In the future, we will work on a better way of doing it.
Changes are now live on the website: https://www.rtings.com/headphones/tests/changelog/1-3-1
Thanks again everyone for your feedback and let us know what other changes or improvements you want us to do in the future.
Now is perfect, ty Rtings <3
Excellent! Thank you for listening to our opinions and requests..
I guess there’s many ways we could go about it, but with the old ratings back, we’ve got the best of both worlds now.
Looking forward to see what will the next CSD, DRC or Impedance Driveability implementation be.
Thank youuuu!
Every product you guys are reviewing have 5.0 out of 10 scores yet they’re the best? Something is seriously wrong with your scale if everything is pretty much listed as the same.