ZMF Caldera Headphone Review

[SlothRock]

I appreciate Zach chiming in here and bringing up healthy discussion. I'm a big ZMF fan because it offers me a flavor of headphone that is just fun as heck to listen to. I have my Susvaras if I want to comply with Harmon, and I love them, and I have my Atrium Closed for when I want a little more fun, toe-tapping kind of experience and I love them and even have used them more lately than my Susvaras.

I appreciate that all of the reviews here have a basis in that they're looking to compare deviations from a scientifically backed model and, for me, that model is great and pleasing. But it also doesn't mean that anything deviating from it is poor or not worth listening to/having in your collection. In fact, to me, it's the complete opposite. Why would I have 2 headphones that do the exact same thing and sound the exact same way? I get headphones to cover different ranges, provide different experiences and enjoy my time listening while not paying mind to a certain tuning or not.

 

[ReaderZ]

I wonder who the driver supplier is.
Also how it would measure with the different pads that are available (might be closely the same)

I am under the impression they develop their own drivers, or is that just for the dynamics?

 

[zach915m]

I am under the impression they develop their own drivers, or is that just for the dynamics?

Our drivers are proprietary and designed from the ground up and built for us from approved vendors who follow our needs. The most important aspects of this driver are the unique magnet shape for the acoustic properties I was after, the membrane material and plating/coating techniques and materials used. I wanted to make sure our MFR OEM didn't make planar drivers for any other brand, which can be tough. Unfortunately I can't share suppliers, but we utilize numerous suppliers for everything we do so to meet the specs and performance I'm after as well as tolerances.

 

[solderdude]

I am under the impression they develop their own drivers, or is that just for the dynamics?

The dynamic drivers appear to be made by Foster, at least the 'paper' ones with the 'free edge' (biodynamics or what other fancy material name they give it).
Foster is a well known OEM driver manufacturer, have seen Chinese look-alike copies as well.

 

[zach915m]

The dynamic drivers appear to be made by Foster, at least the 'paper' ones with the 'free edge' (biodynamics or what other fancy material name they give it).
Foster is a well known OEM driver manufacturer, have seen Chinese look-alike copies as well.

You and Amir need to stop assuming stuff about ZMF. I'm an open book for most pragmatic things. We have three different companies we work with to make our drivers and none of them are Foster, I've never done anything with Fostex/Foster aside from mod-t-50rp's years ago. I've seen this rumor spread in various places and it's just false, and I have no reason positive or negative to gain from disputing it other than it's not true.

Our drivers are also not copies of the Foster drivers and if you had them in hand it would be very obvious, there are no other companies whose dynamic drivers have the design of ours, I spent a ton of money opening injection moulds to make sure of it once I had the design we wanted.

 

[MacClintock]

I don't take 6+ years to make the Caldera and not consider every facet, I literally don't do anything else with my life except think about headphones.

Taking 6+ years for a $3,500 headphone that is sounding off, a bit sad.

 

[L0rdGwyn]

Taking 6+ years for a $3,500 headphone that is sounding off, a bit sad.

It's guys like this who contribute to the bad parts of ASR's reputation. You contribute nothing, you are not clever.

 

[MacClintock]

It's guys like this who contribute to the bad parts of ASR's reputation. You contribute nothing, you are not clever.

Who are you to judge? And make bolt, untrue statements? You don't even know how to write "Harman" correctly and built DACs with tubes. So maybe it is you who is ruining some reputation here.

 

[amirm]

Let's move on folks.

 

[zach915m]

Let's move on folks.

@amirm I'm not sure what your policies or site ethos are - but why not delete comments that literally add nothing but animosity to the site and thread. Isn't the point of this site to be a useful place for information? I was moderated/comments held and then released earlier because the site was worried about links or something, why not do the same to users who aren't adding positively to the conversation? Asking people to move on just keeps comments up that just add to the look of the site. And yes - you have my permission to delete this comment along with it, please do.

 

[MacClintock]

@amirm I'm not sure what your policies or site ethos are - but why not delete comments that literally add nothing but animosity to the site and thread. Isn't the point of this site to be a useful place for information? I was moderated/comments held and then released earlier because the site was worried about links or something, why not do the same to users who aren't adding positively to the conversation? Asking people to move on just keeps comments up that just add to the look of the site. And yes - you have my permission to delete this comment along with it, please do.

I think it was you who started with a hostile tone.

 

[Benesyed]

I am not sure why so many people are grading these headphones so poorly. They are extremely EQ responsive and their distortion values are impeccable. Pragmatically if you compare them to the DCA Expanse (which are pretty much desktop only units given the need for significant amplification) the Caldera are in the same league with EQ.

Yes I appreciate the DCA do not need EQ and that is great but other than philosophical reasons, who cares what the default FRC tuning is. Its desktop listening, just use EQ, you are just handicapping yourself for no reason! If the Expanse are golfing panther I think these at least deserve one rank below.

EDIT:

Also no reason to get hostile. At the end of the day this is just a hobby we enjoy.

 

[zach915m]

I am not sure why so many people are grading these headphones so poorly. They are extremely EQ responsive and their distortion values are impeccable. Pragmatically if you compare them to the DCA Expanse (which are pretty much desktop only units given the need for significant amplification) the Caldera are in the same league with EQ.

Yes I appreciate the DCA do not need EQ and that is great but other than philosophical reasons, who cares what the default FRC tuning is. Its desktop listening, just use EQ, you are just handicapping yourself for no reason! If the Expanse are golfing panther I think these at least deserve one rank below.

Believe it or not there's some people who prefer the non-EQ'd sound of the Caldera over the Expanse, and ofcourse vice-versa. Trained or untrained (which @amirm's arguments were contradictory earlier) people like what they like and the audience who buys $3000+ headphones has different tastes and needs than the general population, trained or untrained. There's just more that makes headphones sound as they do than FR (which doesn't negate the importance of FR).

And yes - the Caldera can be EQ'd just fine because the distortion is low, you can tune it however you want.

 

[Benesyed]

Believe it or not there's some people who prefer the non-EQ'd sound of the Caldera over the Expanse, and ofcourse vice-versa. Trained or untrained (which @amirm's arguments were contradictory earlier) people like what they like and the audience who buys $3000+ headphones has different tastes and needs than the general population, trained or untrained. There's just more that makes headphones sound as they do than FR (which doesn't negate the importance of FR).

And yes - the Caldera can be EQ'd just fine because the distortion is low, you can tune it however you want.

Yeah I don't think Amir denies that some people prefer the non EQ'd sound. I think he thinks that some of these people are preferring it due to bias and that in a blinded setting it might not hold up. I do not know if he thinks if this is true for all or some of the fans. I can't speak for him. Bias is a very powerful force and falling to is no criticism of a person. Even with all this knowledge our pragmatic use case will not be blinded so bias may likely trickle back in!

I have not done enough blind testing myself but I will get around to it and I will report my N of one haha.

 

[zach915m]

due to bias

Yes agreed! And the bias would assume that the Harman Target would be the only way to tune a headphone to sound good, or with a touch more, or a touch less bass. My only argument in this thread and going forward based on my non-studied experience, is that there's other factors that can make a headphone sound better in specific form factor scenarios, tuned slightly away from Harman (yes more or less bass/treble). Some headphones need strict adherence to harman and some don't based on form factor. It's what I have experienced and I know many users who only trust research are turned off by that, and I get it. I could definitely have added in distortion using other methods to get a harman like tuning in the bass of the Caldera, I found it didn't work for my and many of our owners tastes. I'm about to release a headphone that's around 1K that is pretty closely adhered to harman in some pad/mesh formats, it's not that I don't know how to tune to harman.

But to assume bias for users who buy our headphones after hearing other harman headphones back to back (I've seen it many times) assumes that they are buying them based on just aesthetics or something, or because I'm a nice guy and some marketing genius, that's just not true. There's stuff that hasn't been studied yet, some of it was pointed out earlier by Mad Economist, and I firmly believe an open mind about audio, taking into account how great the harman curve is, will lead to better future results for us all.

 

[Benesyed]

Yes agreed! And the bias would assume that the Harman Target would be the only way to tune a headphone to sound good, or with a touch more, or a touch less bass. My only argument in this thread and going forward based on my non-studied experience, is that there's other factors that can make a headphone sound better in specific form factor scenarios, tuned slightly away from Harman (yes more or less bass/treble). Some headphones need strict adherence to harman and some don't based on form factor. It's what I have experienced and I know many users who only trust research are turned off by that, and I get it. I could definitely have added in distortion using other methods to get a harman like tuning in the bass of the Caldera, I found it didn't work for my and many of our owners tastes.

But to assume bias for users who buy our headphones after hearing other harman headphones back to back (I've seen it many times) assumes that they are buying them based on just aesthetics or something, or because I'm a nice guy and some marketing genius, that's just not true. There's stuff that hasn't been studied yet, some of it was pointed out earlier by Mad Economist, and I firmly believe an open mind about audio, taking into account how great the harman curve is, will lead to better future results for us all.

You theory could be true but a blinded test would be the way to go about it. Could easily do it at the next CanJam. Might be a fun little experiment! Stock Caldera vs Harman-ified Caldera side by side and no one knows which is which and just have people listen and rate them. Would even be interesting to see what the spread ended up looking like.

 

[zach915m]

You theory could be true but a blinded test would be the way to go about it. Could easily do it at the next CanJam. Might be a fun little experiment! Stock Caldera vs Harman-ified Caldera side by side and no one knows which is which and just have people listen and rate them. Would even be interesting to see what the spread ended up looking like.

Absolutely, 'tis a great idea.

 

[MacClintock]

Believe it or not there's some people who prefer the non-EQ'd sound of the Caldera over the Expanse, and ofcourse vice-versa. Trained or untrained (which @amirm's arguments were contradictory earlier) people like what they like and the audience who buys $3000+ headphones has different tastes and needs than the general population, trained or untrained. There's just more that makes headphones sound as they do than FR (which doesn't negate the importance of FR).

And yes - the Caldera can be EQ'd just fine because the distortion is low, you can tune it however you want.

If people could choose between a Caldera without EQ and one EQed to Harman, a large majority would prefer the Harman one. This research has been done and there are no serious doubts about this. You always make the same argument that preferences vary and so on, but it is simply not true, you either don't know or acknowledge sufficiently the research. This is also largely independent of age, origin, gender and training. That many people buy your phones says nothing about their sound quality, Beats by Dr. Dre were a massive success as well ( I guess a tiny bit larger success even).

 

[oleg87]

If people could choose between a Caldera without EQ and one EQed to Harman, a large majority would prefer the Harman one. This research has been done and there are no serious doubts about this. You always make the same argument that preferences vary and so on, but it is simply not true, you either don't know or acknowledge sufficiently the research. This is also largely independent of age, origin, gender and training. That many people buy your phones says nothing about their sound quality, Beats by Dr. Dre were a massive success as well ( I guess a tiny bit larger success even).

Great, let’s make *every* product as close to the average preference as possible and viciously attack anything that fits non-average preferences

You have plenty of choices for products that satisfy your requirements. Not sure why you seem so worked up about these headphones.

 

[zach915m]

If people could choose between a Caldera without EQ and one EQed to Harman, a large majority would prefer the Harman one. This research has been done and there are no serious doubts about this. You always make the same argument that preferences vary and so on, but it is simply not true, you either don't know or acknowledge sufficiently the research. This is also largely independent of age, origin, gender and training. That many people buy your phones says nothing about their sound quality, Beats by Dr. Dre were a massive success as well ( I guess a tiny bit larger success even).

There's plenty of headphones out there that adhere to Harman, that are under $500 - why would anyone buy a Harman tuned headphone like the DCA stuff that's way more expensive given the tuned is the same? AKG 361/371 is a great example. Why buy anything more expensive if FR is all that matters?