Should you tune room to headphones

Blue,

Your 5000s have teh 4 3 way level adjustments on each speaker.

Setting room size to small and location to free (for lowest low and mid bass levels) might bring the tonal balance to be more like the Grado phones with less bass. I tend to run my 5s with low bass levels by preference, despite being on solid concrete foundation floor. Too much bass can mask midrange detail and probably be further from the Grado sound.

18" to walls might be a tad close, even with treatments. Of course, if you move them out further, the bass level adjustments on the 5000 can be upped if needed to compensate. Each level on the controls adds/subtracts 3 db to the target frequency range. Very useful for helping adjust to room acoustics and something that cannot be done with most speakers these days.

Tune a quality box guitar to the key of E, tune your system with resonace control useing the box guitar, you would be supprised with the outcome of the sound to becoming shockingly real!, A trade secret revealed by the audiolabyrinth, Enjoy the music.

Blue,

Here is approach I would recommend to get everything in order.

Good hEadphones like better Grados are a good reference for what is in a recording to hear, ie essentially detail. Each has their own sound though in regards to detail, tonality, distortion at various levels, etc.

I've heard your Grados once recently. My recollection is that they are very revealing through the midrange in particular being just a touch towards the brighter side of many phones, and also very good detail, and smooth.

My OHM 5s, similar to your 5000s are set up to sound quite similar. So it can be done.

The problem is room acoustics. Unlike phones, every room impacts its own sound to some degree. Getting that under control is the first essential.

WIth any speakers, including OHM omnis, getting focused soundstage and imaging is mission one. That requires assessing the room acoustics, liveliness and levels of reflected sound, and then placing speakers and/or treating accordingly.

Large speakers including OHM usually require some distance to walls to achieve best results.

Regarding wall treatments, the same strategy applies to OMNIs as more directional speakers, ie treat primary reflection points first and go from there as/if needed. The difference with omnis is you have to determine where you will be listening from in order to identify primary reflection points, where as with directional speakers there is only a single sweet spot to choose from.

After this, enough space to walls to avoid early reflections is key. I'd shoot or 2-3 feet or perhaps a tad more depending in a room that size.

Then of course, electronics, ICs etc. come into play as well. But you have good stuff, so I woudl not be concerned about that. Focus on optimizing the setup.

If you can do it with the OHMs, you will be in a place that is hard to beat. The key though is to do it. We all know that can take some time, but having a reference sound to shoot for helps. You gotta know the target before you can hit it.

The soundstage and imaging of live speakers is what headphones will never deliver. ITs what makes teh difference between listening to a recording and possibly getting the emotional involvement with the music that one might get at a live event.

Blue,

Also keep in mind that wall treatments affect soundstage and imaging as well. They reduce the levels of reflected sound at the higher frequencies, which is often what is needed to some extent. Lower levels of reflected sound is also what one gets by moving speakers further away from walls, so both can be applied to achieve similar results in regards to soundstage width or depth as needed. However, early reflections are always bad, even at low levels, so some distance between drivers and walls is always a must with any speakers in order to get the best imaging results. Its the imaging and soundstage that makes speakers in a room special. THe rest can be pretty much had for much less with a good set of headphones

Mapman, Sound from each speaker comes to opposite ear with some delay creating image in front instead of the image in the center of the head. Some headphones have acoustic feedback from one cup to another but it can be also done by creating analog delay/crosstalk in the headphone amp or by DSP processing in computer playback.

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