A New Reference Target Curve for Studio Headphones

Förster J, Keppler L. A New Reference Target Curve for Studio Headphones. In: Express Paper. Audio Engineering Society; 2026.pp. 423:1-. Available from: https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=23256

@inproceedings{Forster2026_23256,
  author = {Förster, Jonas and Keppler, Lukas},
  title = {{A New Reference Target Curve for Studio Headphones}},
  pages = {423:1-},
  year = {2026},
  month = may,
  publisher = {Audio Engineering Society},
  url = {}
}

TY  - CPAPER
TI  - A New Reference Target Curve for Studio Headphones
AU  - Förster, Jonas
AU  - Keppler, Lukas
SP  - 1
M1  - Paper 423
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/05/28
UR  - https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=23256
PB  - Audio Engineering Society
LA  - en
AB  - Target curves for the sound signature of headphones are a helpful design target during the development process. While a lot of attention has been paid to finding target curves that match the listening preference of consumers, equivalents for studio headphones date back to the 90s. In the context of music production, a mutual target or even standard is essential to make mixing and mastering processes more independent of specific playback equipment. This becomes even more important since the main tool for sound engineers shifts from loudspeakers in professional environments, such as acoustically treated studios, to headphones, often additionally equipped with binauralization algorithms. This shift enables greater flexibility and reduces reliance on potentially expensive loudspeaker setups. The diffuse-field target, which remains the only standardized target curve for studio headphones, is frequently reported to poorly represent the frequency response of loudspeaker-based studio environments. In this paper, we approach to find a new standard target curve for studio headphones emulating the frequency response of a loudspeaker setup in modern studio environments. For this, we give an overview of current target curves and match them to their equivalent loudspeaker setups. Based on that we propose a new methodology for a measurement-based target curve incorporating typical panning paradigms of music signals. We evaluate the proposed approach through listening tests conducted with professional audio engineers in multiple studio environments.
ER  -