By itself it sounds really interesting… The parametric equalizer is definitely the right direction, if a bit limited with 4 bands, but it’s better than the defined ones, because you can at least start right in the problem areas.
What I want from manufacturers in the future is that this will be expanded further. A parametric equalizer with 10 bands can work wonders and turn a carrot into a great headphone, even if I’d generally prefer the headphones sound at least usable even without the equalizer.
With the Shure, it looks promising at first that it doesn’t have an exaggerated bass focus compared to most other headphones in this segment. However, the bass drop sounds bad, something you usually find with open headphones, and even then it’s not that obvious. Of course, it is not yet possible to determine how the measurement is generally classified.
Here is a comparison of the Shure SRH-840, Airpods Max, and Sennheiser HD600 unlocked and neutrally rated for comparison:
You can see that Airpods Max actually has a noticeable bass focus. The Shure has upper bass and then lowers the bass (like the Aonic – maybe not as strong), the Sennheiser has a linear bass and from 100Hz it drops slowly.
If the Shure with the Aonic 40 is simply equivalent to the SRH-840, it can be really great, and the remaining flaws can then be eliminated with PEQ. Apparently this is not the case. The frequency response is a bit strange for closed-back headphones, reminiscent of bookshelf headphones
Although the scale can still be worked on, it looks worse than it is. But for the first measurement under the device, it is very good.