Abyss Diana V2 Review (headphone)

[Francis Vaughan]

Doubt that a magnetic field will have any effect. The microphones are almost certainly capacitor mics. The magnetic field falls off dramatically with distance anyway. A static field will have a great deal of difficulty influencing anything. Things need to be moving and you need to shift current.

 

[the_brunx]

“All GRAS measurement microphones are of the condenser type.”

AKA capacitor

not sensitive to magnets.

Some people are looking for all types of excuses not to face reality.

 

[KTN46]

Did you listen to these before or after you measured them? I think it would be interesting to see the prior... I wonder if you would be subject to the same level of cognitive bias as the Youtube Reviewers.

 

[phoenixdogfan]

Abyss makes the ugliest headphones in the world!

Looks like the head piece on an electric chair.

 

[thewas]

Look at this distortion graph:

They could consider adding a word to its name:

 

[phoenixdogfan]

Posted this review on /rheadphones, called Abyss fans a cult, and got like 50 downvotes. Those fanboys were pist.

 

[Mnyb]

Did you listen to these before or after you measured them? I think it would be interesting to see the prior... I wonder if you would be subject to the same level of cognitive bias as the Youtube Reviewers.

Our biases can vary a bit , if you never heard of these phones before or been on the hype train waiting for weeks for your pair or being negative to the brand for some reasons ? It can swing either way imho . The remaining thing is that no one is bias free ever , hence why our host is going to all the trouble trying his best to measure to some objective standard

 

[gvl]

Thank you. I now know how the abyss where money disappear looks.

 

[manishex]

Amirm, if you need to turn the volume all the way up to be able to hear it sing, then probably your AMP does not have enough power to drive it. Planar requires a lot of power to work properly. I bet you will get similar results if you measure LCD 4 or Hifiman Survana using that amp.

With this being said, I am happy to send you their recommended pairing AMP - the Broadway AMP - for you to conduct a proper measurement of V2.

The Broadway is still only 1.5 Watts, Using the flux labs fa-10, 16 Watts on the LCD4 opened them up a lot.
Measurement wise these Diana have wayy too much distortion that I don't think is related to the amp being used. (Unless we start seeing all low sensivity headphones measure poorly).
My friend still says the Heddphone has the most distortion free sound he's heard even after showing him it has the same high levels of distortion measured here.

 

[Nikola]

I let the video run in the background, and I made it through the video. HINT: don't watch it. They and their infinite subjectivism put the THX AAA 789 in the 'D' class below the liquid spark in the 'B' class. WTF kind of sentimental wankery is this stuff? Nothing that they said in this half hour episode was even remotely substantive. It played back like a really long ad. I'm sure they wouldn't be able to tell the transparent amps apart in a blind test. Ugh! Ok, I'll calm down now.

This review reminds me of the time DMS showed off these 'things' to LTT.

At least now we know why Linus cried.

 

[KTN46]

Our biases can vary a bit , if you never heard of these phones before or been on the hype train waiting for weeks for your pair or being negative to the brand for some reasons ? It can swing either way imho . The remaining thing is that no one is bias free ever , hence why our host is going to all the trouble trying his best to measure to some objective standard

Oh no I wasn't questioning the objective measurements, I just thought it would be interesting to get Amir's impressions before he measured, to see if his experience of sound was cognitively different to that of his measurements.

 

[Mnyb]

Oh no I wasn't questioning the objective measurements, I just thought it would be interesting to get Amir's impressions before he measured, to see if his experience of sound was cognitively different to that of his measurements.

I think we actually mean the same thing (I'm not an native English speaker) prior or post knowledge probably change our biases. and it would be fun to see where it goes.

That makes me appreciate the work of Sean Olive and others even more . To really blind a listening test (remove as much bias as possible) you need to make some one else put the phones on your head without you seeing them and find test subjects without to much intimate knowledge of headphones ,so that the feeling of the cups and headband is not a give away tricky and really hard .

So even if the "harman curves" can be criticized I've have not seen much else objective research we can lean on . Both Speaker design (and speaker driver design) and headphone design seems a little medieval alchemist in it's approach to much basic science is hidden away inside corporate research and not shared .

I'm happy with the approach here on ASR not perfect but the best a one man operation can do with effective use of time .
The real value will show in time with a grooving database of tests and when others starts following an objective approach.
ASR can make a real difference if this becomes the accepted approach and turns the tide as to what other publications and websites do.

What I learned here is that Headphones too does not show any strong correlation between price and performance once you get out of the bargain basement , like any other audio product.
So for now every 10-15 years when i need new phones I buy some mid tier Sennheisers like I've always done (I have HD650 I think ) I'm so old that headphones basically where AKG or Sennheiser (or stax if you where a rich weirdo) when i was younger.
So thanks for the heads up on Abyss I'll avoid that brand for now as they cost like 10 times more than even the best headphones in the world should cost imo.

Btw ugliest phones I think the old Jecklin float beats Abyss by a country mile . Jecklin where very Dart Wader in their look.

 

[Robbo99999]

Having not read any of the comments yet, but after reading the review, I'll mostly just say "Well that's a bit of a messy expensive headphone!".

Not really fixable with EQ and a number of other undesirables including distortion and a high level of frequency response variation from measurement to measurement associated with the pads effect on positioning.

 

[the_brunx]

When you trust the words of a primarily snake oil vendor (JPS labs cables is their parent company) and their marketing campaign more than obvious objective measurements data now available. then I guess it's true: There's a sucker born every minute

 

[all24bits]

When you trust the words of a primarily snake oil vendor (JPS labs cables is their parent company) and their marketing campaign more than obvious objective measurements data now available. I don't know how to help you. I guess it's true. There's a sucker born every minute

So is literally everyone who listens to and enjoys these headphones objectively wrong?

I enjoy the Vali 1 or the Vali 2 (as well as others in solid state config), amps that measure considerably worse with more distortion, than I do my SMSL SP200 (an excellent measuring amp). Am I objectively wrong?

Also, I'll add, I've heard the Diana Phi and loved it. I was on zero hype train, I didn't even know really what Abyss was when I heard them the first time. I just found them at a head-fi meet and listened. In fact, my initial experience was with the 1266 and I wasn't even that impressed with those.

I don't know, I don't live my hobbies through measurements. If you go to a stereo shop and start asking the guy to read off measurements for you instead of playing the equipment, he'll tell you to get out of his shop.

 

[Noodles]

Oh wow... such a letdown .... thanks for the review @amirm

 

[KTN46]

So is literally everyone who listens to and enjoys these headphones objectively wrong?

I enjoy the Vali 1 or the Vali 2 (as well as others in solid state config), amps that measure considerably worse with more distortion, than I do my SMSL SP200 (an excellent measuring amp). Am I objectively wrong?

I guess the frustration here is that "enjoyment" is so subjective, and unfortunately that means that cognitive biases play a heavy role in whether or not we enjoy something. We tend to enjoy things more if it's well reviewed, we tend to enjoy things if it's aesthetically pleasing, we tend to enjoy things based on marketing and social presence... The list goes on.

I think the frustration here is that products are placed on a pedestal based on these superfluous ideas, and because this pedestal introduces bias, we can never be sure if we're enjoying something because it's marketed well, or because it is genuinely a good product.

That's the value judgement being made here. Sure you might genuinely enjoy the Vali, nobody is going to tell you that your feelings are wrong. If however the Vali was reviewed poorly by the community from day 1, if Schiit wasn't such a prolific company... Would you have enjoyed the Vali in the same way?

I argue that it is right to shun all these snake oil sales tactics and approach audio more objectively. The mysticism about audio is what scams people out of their money. Some of the people who brought snake oil hundreds of years ago may have genuinely had the placebo effect work on them! But that doesn't mean we should give it any weight as a medical tool.

Your enjoyment is not wrong, but there are more grounded, consumer friendly, technologically progressive ways to foster a sense of enjoyment, and I argue that this is much healthier than our current status quo.

 

[m8o]

Oh no I wasn't questioning the objective measurements, I just thought it would be interesting to get Amir's impressions before he measured, to see if his experience of sound was cognitively different to that of his measurements.

My thoughts exactly.

Now, this analysis brings me back to the Pass Amp Camp. We sure ripped it apart. I was a party to that. But people who love it, love it. Period. Purely on a subjective basis. They are loving the "tonality" of a saw-tooth wave added to every wiggle of the source signal (think violin). Personally, as long as they are honest enough to accept the objective reality of that, I'm fine with it.

Same case here. I loved the musicality of these. I didnt have any problem with it un-EQed (something I do embrace and do do. But when auditioning at CanJam, that is unlikely unless you are using your own source and have an objective measurement to work from and have the time to make a quick EQ.) It was more the ergonomics I did not like and will keep me from ever buying.

If I owned this however, the objective reality of all the imperfections that color the sound and factor into why I loved it woukd be a tough pill to swallow. But I would have to accept it nonetheless as I also embrace the realities that technical measurements expose.

If the HE-1000 is ever tested, the statement I made immediately above will be put to a test. As the last thing I expect is it will be the flag bearer in technical perfection. But I do love the sum of the imperfect parts. The imperfect whole is much greater than those imperfect parts alone. I look at the analysis of this HP in the same light.

 

[all24bits]

That's the value judgement being made here. Sure you might genuinely enjoy the Vali, nobody is going to tell you that your feelings are wrong. If however the Vali was reviewed poorly by the community from day 1, if Schiit wasn't such a prolific company... Would you have enjoyed the Vali in the same way?

I assure you none of these came or come into my listening thoughts when listening. I've heard gear that was RAVED about and been entirely disappointed. (Wilson Audio, Schiit Asgard 2, etc., Stax, NWAVGUY/O2, cough cough) If I like it, I like it. I don't base my likes on what I think of the company or what the reviews say. I base my likes on what my ears say.

 

[KTN46]

I assure you none of these came or come into my listening thoughts when listening. I've heard gear that was RAVED about and been entirely disappointed. If I like it, I like it. I don't base my likes on what I think of the company or what the reviews say. I base my likes on what my ears say.

The point I'm making is that you can't know for sure. We cannot trust our own minds to make value judgements. Time and time again this has been proven in psychology. You can't really know what your cognitive biases are, and even if you did you can't be sure you can account for it.

Stating that "I base my likes on what my ears say" is in itself an implicit mode of cognitive bias.