Sonarworks Tru-Fi, am I missing something?

Since I like experimenting I visited the site of Sonarworks and listened to the demo of Tru-Fi, the application targeted toward home audio.

I was interested to see that the Sennheiser HD 600, HD 650 HD 380 Pro, Audio-Technica ATH-M50x and HiFiMan HE400i had their own calibrated profiles and I tried them all.

I didn't notice any drastic change while listening to the HD 600 and HD 650. it sounded perhaps a bit better but really, nothing to write home about since even when not using the calibrated curve the sample clips sounded fine. Not exactly the music I like but perfectly fine for testing.

The HD 380 Pro sounded worse using the calibrated curve. It was as if someone put some additional foam into the earcups. It wasn't terrible but I can hardly call it an improvement.

The ATH-M50x are the headphones I prefer to forget that I own and here Tru-Fi managed to tame the boomy bass and weird treble but did nothing to make them enjoyable, which reinforced my feeling that it would be very difficult for someone used to the HD 600 to like anything about the ATH-M50x.

Which bring us to the HiFiMan HE4XX and that's where it went really weird. I was under the impression that the Massdrop HE4XX I own are similar to the HE400i so this is the curve I tried and I was astounded by the level and magnitude of change brought by using the calibrated curve. Let's be clear - these were not positive changes. The bass became overwhelming, the sound stage disappeared and all the sound clips sounded as if they were pumped through a concrete pipe. It was that bad.

Is it possible the HE4XX are completely different from the HE400i? I doubt it. Could it be that the earphones used by Sonarworks to calibrate their curve were deffective? I find this also hard to believe. Is it me? But then why everything was fine with the HD 600 and HD 650 and why my experience with the ATH-M50x is pretty much in line (setting aside personal opinions and preferences) with what Sonarworks tell us in their video review?

Has anyone else tried or own Sonarworks Tru-Fi and can tell us about his experience with this software?

 

I have been testing out the desktop app (Reference) and have tried the phone app, but not with those headphones. I'm using Sony MDR-V6 with an SMSL IQ. The desktop app does correct some of the anomalies with the sound of the V6 (using the V-7506 curve), but may be too drastic for some people if you're used to the stock sound. Additionally, I have aftermarket ear pads on my V6s, so my highs are already attenuated a little bit before applying the correction curve. Overall I like what this software does but it has some quirks. You can't use any sample rate above 44khz and it's a bit of a resource hog. I can get "close enough" by tweaking an EQ plug-in with Foobar, so when the trial is over, I doubt I'll be buying this.

One thing to take into account is that you may be used to the stock sound of the headphones. The other thing is that your source and other components you use with the headphones have a sound of their own, which may not gel well with the Sonarworks correction.

My 2 cents.

 

I just tested the Andriod app. It seemed to help a bit with my Grado SR80e headphone. The sound was smoother, a bit more bass and it allowed a bit more volume with the advanced settings. Can't comment on the desktop app. I don't use headphones with my computer just speakers. So useless and not worth $80 to me. I didn't even bother with the free trial. The headphones only cost $100, I'm not paying 80% of the cost for them to sound better.