If you're not weirdly obsessed with headphones you can leave at any time.
Crinacle is a reviewer famous around the world (at least, I'm on the opposite side of it as he is) for his extensive reviews and measurements of in-ear monitors (IEMs). CrinGraph is the tool which allows readers to compare measurements against each other, and save easily readable images to share around the internet. Although it was designed for Crin's site, the code here can be used freely by anyone, with no restrictions. There are now many instances, including Banbeucmas, HypetheSonics, Rohsa, and Super* Review, which has links to even more of them. If you're interested in using it for your own graphs, see Configuring.md and ask me about any questions that come up.
If you want the whole story, there's no choice but to get it from the man himself. 5,000 words and you'll still be disappointed when it's over.
The most informative headphone measurement, and the only one handled by this tool, is the frequency response (FR) graph. An FR graph shows how loud the headphone will render sounds at different pitches. The higher the left portion of the graph, the more your brain will rattle; the higher the right portion of the graph, the more your ears will bleed. The current industry standard is a "V-shaped" response which applies both conditions at once. Using an FR graph you may easily see which headphones conform to this standard and which are insufficiently "fun".
This repository includes some sample data so that the tool can be shown through Github pages. Sometimes I use this to show people features before they're adopted on Crin's site.
Because Crinacle's frequency response measurements are not public, the sample response curves shown are synthesized. They are not real headphones and you can't listen to them. To reduce potential disappointment, steps have been taken to ensure that the curves are as uninviting as possible. Any resemblance to the exports of a large East Asian county is purely coincidental.
If you want one that's not here, just ask so I can explain why it's a bad idea.
The graph tool displays:
- A graph window at the top
- The toolbar just below it
- The selector at the bottom left, or below the toolbar for narrow windows
- A target selector
- The manager for active curves
- Standard logarithmic frequency (Hz) and sound pressure level (dB) axes
- Colors are persistent and algorithmically generated to ensure contrast
- Use the slider at the left to rescale and adjust the y axis
- Hover over or click a curve to see its name and highlight it in the manager
- Zoom into bass, mid, or treble frequencies
- Normalize with a target loudness or a normalization frequency
- Smooth graphs with a configurable parameter
- Toggle inspect mode to see the numeric response values when you mouse over the graph
- Label curves inside the graph window
- Save a png screenshot of the graph (with labels)
- Recolor the active curves in case there is a color conflict
- Toolbar collapses and expands, along with the target selector, when the screen is small
- Headphones are grouped by brand: select brands to narrow them down
- Click to select one headphone or brand and unselect others; middle or ctrl-click for non-exclusive select
- Search all brands or headphones by name
- Targets are selected the same way but are independent from headphones
- Curve names and colors are displayed here
- Choose and compare variant measurements of the same model with a dropdown
- Use the wishbone-shaped selector to see left and/or right channels or average them together
- A red exclamation mark indicates that channels are imbalanced
- Change the offset to move graphs up and down (after normalization)
- Select BASELINE to adjust all curves so the chosen one is flat
- Temporarily hide or unhide a graph
- PIN a headphone to avoid losing it while adding others
- Click the little dots at the bottom left to change a single headphone's color
File a Github issue here for topics related to the project. You can also reach me by the email in my Github profile and the LICENSE. I can sometimes be found on Crin's Discord server where I am creatively named Marshall.