Author: Napier Lopez / Source: The Next Web
Spend some time shopping for headphones, and you’ll quickly grow tired of devices claiming to present music “as the artist intended,” despite sporting vastly different sound. But what if your favorite cans actually could sound like the recording studio where your favorite music was mixed?
Enter SonarWorks, a company I’m guessing you’re not familiar with, as it’s best known in audio engineering circles for tuning professional studio speakers. Now SonarWorks is turning its attention to something more mainstream by calibrating headphones to sound like those same studios.
The concept is simple. First you tell SonarWorks’ software, called True-Fi, which headphones you’re using; 138 models are supported, at the time of writing. It then modifies your PC’s audio output in order to “flatten” the frequency response into something very close to the neutral sound of a professional mixing studio. And I do mean very close.
SonarWorks put its money where its mouth is and invited me to Flux Studios in Manhattan, a recording space that has helped produce tracks for celebs like JLo, Chance the Rapper, and others. There I was, sitting in front of a speaker setup costing tens of thousands of dollars, for the sole purpose to be pitted against a couple of headphones running True-Fi.
First I listened to a track through the studio speakers – high end monitors from Focal Audio, for those wondering. Naturally, it sounded amazing. Neutral, transparent, with good bass extension, instrument separation and other positive audio jargon.
Then, I tried a pair of audiophile-approved Beyerdynamic headphones (DT770 or DT880, not sure). Finally, a pair of Marshall Major 2, which retail for around 50 bucks.
All the setups sounded the same. Not identical, but remarkably similar. $50 dollar headphones had the same overall sound presentation as a professional studio. That’s wild.
Of course, headphones can sound neutral at any price point – whether they sound is good is another matter entirely. Despite having similar presentation, the Marshalls were not as good as the Beyerdynamics. And Sonarworks isn’t tweaking the spatial presentation – your headphones won’t imitate the expansive soundstage you get from speakers.
Still, in each instance, turning…
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