Get this if you want to review headphones - MiniDSP Ears Pro Review

For as long as headphone measurement has been a part of this hobby, there’s been a wall between “real” rigs and everything the rest of us use. A proper GRAS fixture can run you north of $10,000, and a modern B&K system built on the new Type 4.3 standard sits closer to $50,000. That cost barrier is exactly why the community has relied on clone couplers from AliExpress—or, worse, the notorious miniDSP EARS.

The problem hasn’t only been accuracy: it’s been misuse. The original miniDSP Ears produces acoustic behavior that simply doesn’t reflect industry-standard rigs or real ears, yet its data often gets plotted against targets derived from the industry-standard rigs by operators or reviewers who don't know the difference. That mismatch misleads both reviewers and their audiences and mires entire discussions about headphone tonality in confusion. I say this as someone who owned and used one years ago. Mistakes were made.

But now there’s the miniDSP EARS Pro—and unlike the original, this one actually deserves to be in the conversation.

What the EARS Pro Actually Is

The EARS Pro is a full upright headphone test fixture that (finally) adheres to IEC 60318-4 and the outer ear parts of IEC 60318-7. In other words, the ear simulators meet the same standard as the couplers used in the industry.

• Base price: $1,550
• With interface (an interface is required, though many already have one): $1,800
• Included: Adjustable stand that lets you vary head width, height, and clamp force. Plug-and-play measurement chain (though its headphone output has audible roll-off and isn’t recommended for listening)

At this price, it naturally invites comparison to the AliExpress clone rigs attempting to emulate GRAS RA0045 or B&K 4195 couplers, or the GRAS KB5000/5010. While those clone couplers can get “somewhat close,” they vary dramatically, and rarely behave as close to their official counterparts as we'd hope. That unpredictability is the real danger: most users can’t tell when the rig is lying to them, or by how much, or where.

The EARS Pro gets much closer to the real thing. 

Ear Simulators, Pinnae, and Why They Matter

Measurement systems consist of two major components:

1. The ear simulator (the “canal + eardrum” microphone)
2. The pinna (the fleshy outer ear that shapes incoming sound)

The EARS Pro’s IEC 60318-4 (aka "711") ear simulators behave more reliably than the commonly used AliExpress clones. For IEM measurements especially, that matters—a lot.

The pinna, however, is governed by a different standard: IEC 60318-7, used for building full mannequin heads (think GRAS KEMAR). The most widely characterized pinna is the GRAS KB5000 (and its KB5010 variant for the "hammer" systems like the 45CA or 45CC). This is important because we have well-established diffuse-field HRTF data for that ear, which allows proper compensation and comparison.

The EARS Pro’s pinna appears modeled after the KB5010 geometry, though it’s not 100% identical. There’s an injection-mold seam that isn't present on official GRAS pinnae, and the canal entrance feels slightly different when inserting IEMs. But in overall geometry and stiffness, it is reasonably close.

While the Ears Pro isn’t a 1:1 match to an official GRAS or B&K system, but it is seemingly closer than the clone rigs we’ve tested.

Comparing Results to Industry-Standard Rigs

Testing against a GRAS 43AG-7 (KB5000 pinna + RA0402 coupler), some differences exist, especially in the treble (some expected, like a 13 kHz resonance present in the EARS Pro that isn't on the GRAS system due to the RA0402 having additional damping).

Conveniently, swapping the GRAS coupler into the EARS Pro isolates the pinna-only effect—and even then, the deviations stay within a useful range. For reviewers, enthusiasts, and anyone doing comparative evaluations, this level of accuracy is certainly workable, and in our opinion that means it sits squarely betweenclone rigs and the official GRAS rigs.

And we would argue that the existence of that middle tier is meaningful.

Don’t Use Harman

There’s a recurring question: “Can I use this with the Harman target?”

Short answer: No—but not for the reason you may think. It's not because the ear itself isn't sufficiently accurate.

Long answer: Harman research wasn’t conducted on any commercially available pinna, including those from GRAS that this is based on. Because headphone behavior changes depending on the ear you mount them on, Harman's 2018 target is technically incompatible with all publicly-available modern measurement heads and ears. Everyone used it anyway—including us, years ago—but it’s fundamentally mismatched, and people now need to know that.

To get the most out this rig, you need the diffuse-field HRTF of the specific pinna you’re using. For the EARS Pro, we don’t have that exact HRTF yet. But because its geometry is so close to KB5000/KB510, you can use a smoothed version of that diffuse-field compensation as an interim solution.

Oratory1990’s Conclusions

I had a conversation with Konstantin Davy (oratory1990) about this, and these are his conclusions:

• The EARS Pro is what the original Ears should have been.
• It’s close enough to a GRAS system to be meaningfully better, though not interchangeable. Slight differences in manufacturing and resonance behavior remain.
• The detachable couplers are a major advantage because they allow proper SPL calibration—something the original EARS couldn’t do.
• For professional production testing (factory QC, automation), calibration stability is still unknown; high-end systems (APx, GRAS, B&K) remain necessary.
• For reviewers, this is the correct choice unless you're very budget-constrained. Clone rigs are too inconsistent. Bad data is worse than no data.
• If you’re entering reviewing in 2026, you can’t ignore measurable behavior. And you can’t rely on measurement systems that aren’t standards-compliant.
• Even compared to newer Type 4.3-standard simulators (5128), this older-standard system still makes sense for reviewers to use. It’s accurate enough and affordable enough to be a valid starting point for using this sort of data.

Final Thoughts

While it'd be great if it was, the miniDSP EARS Pro isn’t a perfect replica of a GRAS 45CC system—but it doesn’t need to be, because it does something far more important:

It brings reliable, standard-compliant, repeatable headphone measurement into a price bracket that reviewers can actually reach.

This is the first time that the “compromise” isn’t compromised enough to be massively worrisome. It’s a tool you can trust reasonably well.

If you plan to measure headphones seriously for reviews or engineering curiosity, this is the first sub-$2k rig we can say is genuinely worth your time. Good job miniDSP!