@vene-nemesis
I've listened to this Harman target for a couple of years now and I think it destroyed my hearing permanently. If you are still listening to this curve, please consider quitting. I just recently decided that it would be a good idea to leave my house once in a while after a couple of years of messing with EQ and spending my days doing analytical listening, as I felt I was starting to forget why reality sounds like outside of headphones. I saw there was a live orchestra playing in a park nearby, so I thought to myself, great, I can go and have a listen for reference then go back home and mess around with EQ some more to achieve a set of profiles that perfect match my HRTF in an effort to recreate a true-to-life sound that would permanently end the need to live without wearing headphones (I work from home).
It was an absolute nightmare. The sibilance I experienced listening to that orchestra was overwhelming. My first insitct was that perhaps everything is recorded and poorly mixed, and that speakers must be hidden somewhere behind the trees, but that theory quickly died as I realized that there were no cables going in an out of their instruments. No, these were genuinely real instruments messing up my worldview one note at a time. For a long time my reference has been the HD6x0 series - like other innocent folk in this hobby, I regarded this series as being the most "true-to-life" representation of what real life instrumentation sounds like. That could not be further from the truth, as this orchestra sounded nothing short of a DT1990 Pro without EQ. I looked around me in dismay as other people were just chilling on the grass, smiling, listening to this sibilant assault as if their hearing could not go past 8Khz. After 10 minutes of auditory torture I decided to take my leave.
The way back home was difficult. I believe that the initial excitement of leaving my home without headphones or IEMs had drawned out my pereception of the sounds around me. The sound of my footsteps was extremely muffled and wonky, literally no higs or low end. The chirping of the birds was overly shouty with a very painful peak at 6Khz. But nothing could prepare me for the deafening +30db LSF at 200Hz as trucks went by.
I am now lying down on my couch with my beloved SDR-modded OG HD800 + Oratory1990's EQ profile listening to Random Access Memories and I cannot help but feel like I am living in a simulation. I believe I have permanently damaged my auditory perception of reality and I believe that my obsession with Harman and the overall desire to achieve the ultimate neutral FR are to blame. May this act as a warning to all people who are starting their audio journeys. Pelase don't do the same mistake. Perhaps FR flaws are not mistakes to be corrected. As I learned today, the sound of real life is deeply flawed, and perhaps attempting to correct all that so as to achieve a subjective senese of ultimate sound neutrality is a fool's errand. That said, I am determined to make efforts towards learning to hear the world as in once more. I have already ordered a new pair of DT1990 Pro. Starting tomorrow, I will be getting rid of my EQ profiles and being daily one hour sessions of listening to the DT770 Pro unEQed.
As much as it pains me to say this, I do hope that the Harman curve is dead soon.