charliehatch wrote: One more comment. I thought about this some more...

Say I have a good high end system, and by dint of a lot of experimentation with speaker position, listener position, bass control setting, and maybe just dumb luck, I end up with a system that measures flat across the audio band. This is the ideal goal, right?

Actually, no, if you accept the findings of the NRC in their landmark study of loudspeakers and listener preferences.

Moderator,

I haven't read that study, but we may have a semantics problem here, as is often the case. I'm talking about achieving flat in-room response, and that has always been my goal. We buy the best electronics we can afford, high quality cabling, and even use DSP to tame room modes, all in the name of getting flat. Yes, there are other considerations to the sound, but I'm not talking about that side at the moment.

Given that that is my objective (which I have come close to achieving), when I put on a pair of headphones, the "room" now becomes the space between my ears and the phones, and I want the headphones to produce the same flat response I have worked so hard to achieve in my main system.

Charlie

Probably not semantics.

Anechoic flat is a design goal but that is not the same as the desired in-room response. This forum is not the place for a full discussion of this, but, you may want to take a read through Floyd Toole's book "Sound Reproduction: The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers and Rooms (Audio Engineering Society Presents) 3rd Edition" if you want to have a better understanding of all this.

Thanks, Moderator. I have read Toole's book (I own it), but it has been a while. I'll take another look at it.

Charlie

@moderator

Do you have an opinion about active noise cancelling head phones in general, and the PSB's specifically? Keep in mind the GE dealer I've used only "deals" with PSB headphones and highly recommends them (as they do GE products). That in itself carries some weight as far as I'm concerned.

GDHAL wrote: @moderator

Do you have an opinion about active noise cancelling head phones in general, and the PSB's specifically? Keep in mind the GE dealer I've used only "deals" with PSB headphones and highly recommends them (as they do GE products). That in itself carries some weight as far as I'm concerned.

I think they're great for use on airplanes or in other noisy environments. I do not think they are great for serious listening. I think Paul Barton is a gifted designer and all the PSB headphones I have heard have been excellent. Perhaps the best of the ones offered by a speaker brand. Until GoldenEar headphones arrive, of course.