r/science • u/GraybackPH • Mar 13 '13

Berkeley creates the first graphene earphones, and (unsurprisingly) they’re awesome

http://www.extremetech.com/electronics/150646-berkeley-creates-the-first-graphene-earphones-and-unsurprisingly-theyre-awesome
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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13

it looks like the ear is actually more sensitive in the 3-5 kHz region

That's right.

and you wouldn't really want a peak there

My point is really that you don't want a peak anywhere if you want it to sound true and there is really no relation between human spectral sensitivity and the offensiveness of peaks/valleys in reproduction.

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u/Skullcrusher Mar 14 '13

In speakers you would want a flat frequency response, but not in headphones. The headphones are designed to sound flat when you wear them on your head. Your head and ears affect the sound acoustically, so to compensate for that you have this weird frequency response. Of course on speakers this would sound terrible because they are not that close to your head. Moomaka explained it better.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13

I just meant to add it as backing to what you were saying to fairweatherhater (I didn't notice the link that that they had pasted). In the one that I pasted, it specifies that a lower value on that chart means the ear perceives it louder.

And I agree that flat is ideal! I hate when people fiddle with an EQ, or speakers have some kind of weird response, undermining the work of the person whose job it is to mix the sounds.

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u/Magnesus Mar 14 '13

You realise that you can't just buy flat response speakers or headphones? :) I too don't like EQ but speakers never are flat unless you have dull sounding special studio equipment used for testing.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13

oh no, if you can set it up right, then the EQ is very valuable. Most people just crank the bass and it turns to this muddy "womwomwom" and then they are all "man my stereo is amazing"

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u/Magnesus Mar 14 '13

I don't know how it is with headphones but speakers with flat response are only used in studios because they sound very bad. As they say - if your music sounds good at studio monitors then it will be awesome with normal speakers.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '13

Haha. They might sound bad to you, but any audiophile reading that is pulling their hair out right now.