New headset have sharp sound when the letter S is heard

[Ivan587]

Hello, so I recently bought HyperX Cloud II, and when I'm listening to music, whenever letter S is being heard in a song headphones make a very sharp sound that hurts my ears. They are currently connected with USB but it's the same thing when I connect them on the phone. I've read this is called sibilance but I found no way how to reduce it when listening to music. I tried two other headphones, it's the same thing but it's less heard (that's why I haven't noticed it before). Any help?

[rice guru]

That seems like you are sensitive to higher frequencies and things sound sibilant. Best way to do it is find a frequency chart of the headpho e on rtngs and use an equalizer like equalizer APO and find which frequencies  have peaks and lower those frequencies 1-3 decibles

[rice guru]

 

 Here is a pretty good guide on how to eq

[Ivan587]

Thank you, I'll try that

[shuri]

Or the good old toiler paper behind ear pads

[Spuriae]

2 hours ago, rice guru said:

That seems like you are sensitive to higher frequencies and things sound sibilant. Best way to do it is find a frequency chart of the headpho e on rtngs and use an equalizer like equalizer APO and find which frequencies  have peaks and lower those frequencies 1-3 decibles

Not happening with the HyperX Clouds. At sibilant frequencies the phase response is so wonky that there's a dip in the absolute amplitude charts that masks a long-lived ringing resonance in the time domain. Lowering the higher frequency peak attenuates all the nearby non-problematic frequencies while not solving the real problem. Similarly, boosting the trough on the amplitude chart doesn't boost those frequencies appreciably in the physical response since there's a near-perfect phase cancellation there. It does manage to make the ringing at the harmonics even worse.

1 hour ago, shuri said:

Or the good old toiler paper behind ear pads

Yep. Sibilance is often due to a high-Q resonance in the headphones, which can't be fixed effectively using conventional amplitude-based EQ. Damping the resonance physically is the only "simple" way to effectively fix the problem. Add damping, reducing the efficiency of the headphones, then amplify them back to normal levels and try to fix the new lower Q resonances with EQ. It's a lot easier said than done – toilet paper is far from a cure-all! Here's a good teardown with some modding ideas for the Takstar Pro 80, which the Clouds are based on.

 

Honestly, I'd recommend that OP sell the HyperX Clouds if he's sensitive to sibilance. There's no easy physical mod that improves the treble appreciably without ruining other aspects of their sound. It usually takes a good amount of time-consuming tuning to get a mod to sound better than the original headphone.

[Ivan587]

38 minutes ago, Nimrodor said:

Not happening with the HyperX Clouds. At sibilant frequencies the phase response is so wonky that there's a dip in the absolute amplitude charts that masks a long-lived ringing resonance in the time domain. Lowering the higher frequency peak attenuates all the nearby non-problematic frequencies while not solving the real problem. Similarly, boosting the trough on the amplitude chart doesn't boost those frequencies appreciably in the physical response since there's a near-perfect phase cancellation there. It does manage to make the ringing at the harmonics even worse.

Yep. Sibilance is often due to a high-Q resonance in the headphones, which can't be fixed effectively using conventional amplitude-based EQ. Damping the resonance physically is the only "simple" way to effectively fix the problem. Add damping, reducing the efficiency of the headphones, then amplify them back to normal levels and try to fix the new lower Q resonances with EQ. It's a lot easier said than done – toilet paper is far from a cure-all! Here's a good teardown with some modding ideas for the Takstar Pro 80, which the Clouds are based on.

 

Honestly, I'd recommend that OP sell the HyperX Clouds if he's sensitive to sibilance. There's no easy physical mod that improves the treble appreciably without ruining other aspects of their sound. It usually takes a good amount of time-consuming tuning to get a mod to sound better than the original headphone.

Well, I didn't understand most of what you have written because I don't know much about the audio. So what are you trying to say is that I can't fix this without ruining other things? I've tried the EQ and also found presets from other people but it destroys sound and didn't do much. I can't listen to most of the songs and it's driving me crazy, I feel like I just wasted 78£.

[rice guru]

45 minutes ago, Nimrodor said:

Not happening with the HyperX Clouds. At sibilant frequencies the phase response is so wonky that there's a dip in the absolute amplitude charts that masks a long-lived ringing resonance in the time domain. Lowering the higher frequency peak attenuates all the nearby non-problematic frequencies while not solving the real problem. Similarly, boosting the trough on the amplitude chart doesn't boost those frequencies appreciably in the physical response since there's a near-perfect phase cancellation there. It does manage to make the ringing at the harmonics even worse.

Yep. Sibilance is often due to a high-Q resonance in the headphones, which can't be fixed effectively using conventional amplitude-based EQ. Damping the resonance physically is the only "simple" way to effectively fix the problem. Add damping, reducing the efficiency of the headphones, then amplify them back to normal levels and try to fix the new lower Q resonances with EQ. It's a lot easier said than done – toilet paper is far from a cure-all! Here's a good teardown with some modding ideas for the Takstar Pro 80, which the Clouds are based on.

 

Honestly, I'd recommend that OP sell the HyperX Clouds if he's sensitive to sibilance. There's no easy physical mod that improves the treble appreciably without ruining other aspects of their sound. It usually takes a good amount of time-consuming tuning to get a mod to sound better than the original headphone.

He just got it so their is a chance he can just return it. The the takstar pro 80 that bad?.or did hyper x fuck with it? last I heard it they seemed fine to my ears

[Ivan587]

Just now, rice guru said:

He just got it so their is a chance he can just return it. The the takstar pro 80 that bad?.or did hyper x fuck with it? last I heard it they seemed fine to my ears

If I could return them, I would return them instantly. The problem is I bought them while I was in the UK but I live in Croatia...

[Spuriae]

25 minutes ago, rice guru said:

The the takstar pro 80 that bad?.or did hyper x fuck with it? last I heard it they seemed fine to my ears

Like most headphones with ringing, some people love them because they inject fake detail ("Wow, I never noticed how much sparkle this track had before!"). Grados, HD700, some Hifimans, most flavor-of-the-month Chinese closed-backs have the same issue.

 

Takstar Pro 80 is a good choice if you like its sound signature. It responds poorly to EQ. Same deal with the HyperX Clouds; Kingston changed very little. The damping scheme is identical.

[rice guru]

22 minutes ago, Nimrodor said:

Like most headphones with ringing, some people love them because they inject fake detail ("Wow, I never noticed how much sparkle this track had before!"). Grados, HD700, some Hifimans, most flavor-of-the-month Chinese closed-backs have the same issue.

 

Takstar Pro 80 is a good choice if you like its sound signature. It responds poorly to EQ. Same deal with the HyperX Clouds; Kingston changed very little. The damping scheme is identical.

not sure if that qualifies but I personally really enjoy beyer treble the 990 is th elimit to my enjoyment of them the t9 is too much but the 1990 is like one of my favorite cans that I can't afford. probably the reason why the cloud 2 sounds fine to me. 

[rice guru]

but then again I only played games with the cloud 2 I've never really consumed media with it.