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Abyss Diana V2 Review (headphone)

Ayyakhema

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I post this for discussion. Jude uses an expensive isolation chamber by Herzan which he used for this testing:

View attachment 106296

There is a potential problem here that boosts low frequencies. Let me explain.

The enclosure he purchased is made to keep noise from entering the chamber. That is not my concern here (I exclude noise from THD measurements using signal process so don't need the enclosure for that). The concern is what happens when sound comes out of an open back headphone. In a normal listening room, the walls are pretty far from the headphone so reflections become quite low in amplitude by the time to come back to the headphone. I experimented by putting a box around my headphone gear and it massively corrupted the frequency response (and distortion since it is relative to level of the signal). Any box put around a headphone measurement system needs to be fully anechoic, otherwise the reflections will change the response of open-back headphones such as Abyss Diana V2.

Here is the Herzan chamber Jude uses:

10028012.jpg


Notice how small it is so reflections won't have much distance to attenuate.

Then there is the issue of those foam absorbers. Those are basically useless below 1 kHz or so. Here is a quick graph showing that:

AF_07_15_01-mugXA7RMVmY47IRNjVF3K6bh8g8.u0Ls.jpg


Look at that orange curve. It doesn't get to full absorption (alpha of 1.0) until you get past the right side of the graph at 4000 Hz! At 20 Hz absorption is just 10%. Wavelengths get so large in bass frequencies that you need feet of it, not an inch or two. This is why anechoic chambers are so expensive to build.

In addition, you also get "room modes" depending on where you put measurement fixture, causing response variations.

Now, I have not tried to build a chamber like his and see the impact. I just know that putting a box around the fixture causes massive error. Jude needs to experiment with measurements inside and outside of that chamber and see what effect it has.

Noise isolation is not needed for frequency response anyway when you use high enough level as I do (and he almost does). Neither is distortion impacted at the levels we are measuring and with proper signal processing to exclude noise.

I know Rting and Tyll both use similar enclosures although the latter two are home made. I think they automatically assumed there is goodness here, not realizing acoustics of sound and impact on open-back headphones.

the energy reflected back from open ear headphone is incredibly low. probably 5 to 10 times lower then what the mic is capting. then the amount of bass any open back makes is related to the pressure inside the cup. any open heapdhone when listened just 10 cm will have no bass at all.
then you need to take into account the distance the sound has to travel.

how can you seriously suggest that Jude box will boost bass.
 
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amirm

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how can you seriously suggest that Jude box will boost bass.
I explained that that this was a discussion, not assertion. Your post has no data so doesn't answer anything. I like to see a full frequency response sweep inside and outside that box. You have one? If not, then you don't have anything to add to the conversation other than a protest.
 

solderdude

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So yes, take care of your ears. But make sure your eyes and brain are not confused by lay statements like Jude is making to protect the industry he serves. He should have run the 114 dBSPL just as I did. It is not like he had to listen to them.

Indeed 114dB SPL in the bass region is not ear damaging loud. It's a good thing to test.
114dB SPL above 1kHz, however, will happen though but when it does it is very short lived and thus not painful. Have no idea if this is damaging for hair cells though. The average levels above a few hundred Hz will be much lower than the occasional peak.

A: 114dB SPL in the low bass (30Hz) is perceived as 80 Phon.
B: We hear in Phon not in dB's.
C: very short peaks is not the same as continuous exposure levels.
D: Low frequency distortion isn't very audible but when linearity is compromised the rest of the spectrum does get 'modulated' a bit.

Measuring at 114dB SPL makes sense. Please continue to do so.
The fact that others don't (I can't alas) does not mean it isn't realistic.
 
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Chocomel

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I post this for discussion. Jude uses an expensive isolation chamber by Herzan which he used for this testing:

View attachment 106296

There is a potential problem here that boosts low frequencies. Let me explain.

The enclosure he purchased is made to keep noise from entering the chamber. That is not my concern here (I exclude noise from THD measurements using signal process so don't need the enclosure for that). The concern is what happens when sound comes out of an open back headphone. In a normal listening room, the walls are pretty far from the headphone so reflections become quite low in amplitude by the time to come back to the headphone. I experimented by putting a box around my headphone gear and it massively corrupted the frequency response (and distortion since it is relative to level of the signal). Any box put around a headphone measurement system needs to be fully anechoic, otherwise the reflections will change the response of open-back headphones such as Abyss Diana V2.

Here is the Herzan chamber Jude uses:

10028012.jpg


Notice how small it is so reflections won't have much distance to attenuate.

Then there is the issue of those foam absorbers. Those are basically useless below 1 kHz or so. Here is a quick graph showing that:

AF_07_15_01-mugXA7RMVmY47IRNjVF3K6bh8g8.u0Ls.jpg


Look at that orange curve. It doesn't get to full absorption (alpha of 1.0) until you get past the right side of the graph at 4000 Hz! At 20 Hz absorption is just 10%. Wavelengths get so large in bass frequencies that you need feet of it, not an inch or two. This is why anechoic chambers are so expensive to build.

In addition, you also get "room modes" depending on where you put measurement fixture, causing response variations.

Now, I have not tried to build a chamber like his and see the impact. I just know that putting a box around the fixture causes massive error. Jude needs to experiment with measurements inside and outside of that chamber and see what effect it has.

Noise isolation is not needed for frequency response anyway when you use high enough level as I do (and he almost does). Neither is distortion impacted at the levels we are measuring and with proper signal processing to exclude noise.

I know Rting and Tyll both use similar enclosures although the latter two are home made. I think they automatically assumed there is goodness here, not realizing acoustics of sound and impact on open-back headphones.

I don't believe such enclosures would cause any such issues but if you have any measurements to support your claims would be interesting to see.
 

the_brunx

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I don't see how it would help FR measurements though, but I do see how it could only skew FR measurements, even holding up my hand near my electrostatic headphones while listening to music does something to the sound.
 

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I also want to ping @GoldenOne back here. Only 2 hours after their measurements were posted, you left a comment there saying:

"Thank you so much for this incredibly thorough and detailed response. I think given the evidence shown here the issue can pretty much be put to bed.
Objective measurements are incredibly useful. But of no use to anyone if there are obvious flaws which the provider of said measurements refuses to even entertain the possibility of addressing (or that it is a flaw at all)."


It's interesting how you can so easily state "demonstrably faulty" criticisms here, and yet so uncritically accept Jude's measurements as gospel. I'm not saying that one measurement is more 'right' than the other, or that there is a true way of doing things that either Amir or Jude stick closer to. However, given how much discussion there has been on both sets of measurements, it's odd that you have only scrutinised one side.
I do not accept Jude's measurements as gospel, and Amir has brought up some valid points. (And some I disagree with but am not wishing to argue)

I don't consider either set of measurements to be "perfect", and honestly nor do I think its possible to get a "perfect" set given as even with objective measurements there are simply so many variables that like it or not, have to be subjectively decided upon when designing the test setup.

But Judes ARE more comprehensive, and demonstrate the fact that the seal does hurt performance a lot. That isn't really a question anymore, and THAT was the point I wanted to address.

If people want to criticise the (still not exceptional) THD spec with a seal, that's totally valid, but the whole thing I had an issue with was that Amir's measurements were done without a seal, and thus were NOT representative of how the headphone would perform for most people.

My initial post was not at all intended to be a jab, I was really hoping it would just end up with Amir or someone else providing a fresh set of measurements with a seal so that I and everyone else could get a better idea of the headphones TRUE performance in a realistic situation. But unfortunately that wasn't what happened. My post was intended to be constructive and further the discussion.

Until Amir or someone else completely independent re-does the measurements in a fair manner, we probably won't get a better picture.
Until then, there is little point in bickering. We've got multiple sets of measurements now, the seal issue has been demonstrated, that's all I wanted.

People can debate the merits of using or not using specific measurement rigs or methods, i'm not concerned about that. I was just wanting to see the absolute minimum that could be done to give any pair of headphones a fair shot.
 

richard12511

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and thus were NOT representative of how the headphone would perform for most people.
.

This is where I disagree. I think it's more likely that most people are listening to the unsealed response, especially when so few songs have bass that low, and the unsealed response actually looks to have more bass in the regions that songs have more content. Most people are likely to perceive that deep bass hump as more bassy than the super deep sub bass extension without the hump, and thus think that's the sealed response(imo).

Amir wasn't able to get them to seal on his head, which is why the unsealed response correlated better with what he heard and worked better as a base for EQ. Imo, where Jude, and most other reviewers fall short is by not trying to correlate hearing to the measurements. They kinda seem to assume that perfect sealed response is what most people will hear, which I think is a mistake.

That said, I agree with your point that showing the sealed response for all headphones would make them all more comparable. In a perfect world, I would like to see both a perfect sealed response, and a unsealed response, as well as testing to confirm which is closer to the truth(what is heard).
 

TulseLuper

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These two sets of measurements are not dramatically different with regard to bass and effect of the seal. Both drop off steeply starting at 50Hz. Combined with poor ability to boost due to high distortion (also present in both sets), it doesn't look great.

I appreciate the deeper investigation here and questions that were brought up. But the way I see it, we've found nothing to change the story of these cans since Amir's review.
 

tential

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I'm really not sure what the big deal is, the headphones do sound distorted and some people in this community like that sound. They track the curve, so it's not displeasurable at all. I liked them what I heard them but graininess made me feel like they couldn't be used in every scenario. I like the light weight of the headphone as well and just the general build of it, it was much more comfortable than most headphones for me personally.

I heard the audeze and Diana's and, both headphones that Amir has reviewed and he pretty much said the exact thing I heard.

A lot of these headphones in the high-end have a "signature". What that actually is either distortion or changes in the frequency graph.

Why is this surprising? Sony announced this year for 2021 their TVs color processing chips will use ai to make the image more appealing to our eye, rather than their typical accurate, but underselling Samsung like crazy tvs.

Why?

Because people don't want accurate, they want EXCITING. that's what a lot of these headphones are. Exciting and different. And that's what this was to me. But when I find something exciting, I'm wary as hell about it, because an amazing tool is rarely exciting. Normally it's actually bland and unassuming, but gets the job done.

If you've watched their videos, they describe how they make headphones. By ear. Not by measurements.

Let's use schiit. Schiit was the same way. They didn't make gear to measure well, that wasn't their crowd. Then, they did it. And I think the best part of that was acknowledging their current products were NOT aimed at this crowd, and then saying "but we can make products that meet your standards" and delivering. I'm not saying abyss has to do that, but they don't have to act like their product is perfect for the audiophile science based community and the audiophile emotion based community. It's two different crowds.
 

TulseLuper

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people don't want accurate, they want EXCITING. that's what a lot of these headphones are. Exciting and different.

This particular community is focused on finding products that offer maximum fidelity to the recording, and less focused on appreciating the audible eccentricities that manufacturers are able to discover in making products. I don't think people here care if you want to collect a dozen headphones because you enjoy their different distortions. What gets people riled up is when a product which is advertised to be high fidelity is not high fidelity. You're still free to love it.
 

tential

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This particular community is focused on finding products that offer maximum fidelity to the recording, and less focused on appreciating the audible eccentricities that manufacturers are able to discover in making products. I don't think people here care if you want to collect a dozen headphones because you enjoy their different distortions. What gets people riled up is when a product which is advertised to be high fidelity is not high fidelity. You're still free to love it.
Please don't speed read and understand exactly what you're responding to, don't just pick out a small part.

I described the headphone itself, and why it would be made this way. Not that you should like it, or that it was maximum fidelity. My literal point to my post was that many headphones in this price range sound distorted and this shouldn't surprise people.

Your quoting one small snippet of my post to distort the meaning is frustrating.

By quoting that one small part you take the post completely out of context and make it sound like I am saying something I am not.
 
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tential

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This particular community is focused on finding products that offer maximum fidelity to the recording, and less focused on appreciating the audible eccentricities that manufacturers are able to discover in making products. I don't think people here care if you want to collect a dozen headphones because you enjoy their different distortions. What gets people riled up is when a product which is advertised to be high fidelity is not high fidelity. You're still free to love it.
Also, this type of posting in this thread is why I didn't want to chime in. People are way too emotional over this to even finish reading any posts.

Because you didn't even bother to finish reading my post, you made a snarky assumption, and this community isn't about finding the highest fidelity products, but finding truth and bringing that to light.

I own ONE headphone. I literally haven't bought anything in 10 years since there isn't good data vs the audiophile speaker community which has so much more data on avsforum. I auditioned these and simply chimed in, literally to confirm what was said by amir, and give an explanation since people seem to be worked over this for no reason.

I'll be done with these headphone conversations. These are the most toxic area of discussion on this forum. I'll just read the original post. Seems people can't be remotely civil by reading any of these threads.
 
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TulseLuper

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Please don't speed read and understand exactly what you're responding to, don't just pick out a small part.

I described the headphone itself, and why it would be made this way. Not that you should like it, or that it was maximum fidelity. My literal point to my post was that many headphones in this price range sound distorted and this shouldn't surprise people.

Your quoting one small snippet of my post to distort the meaning is frustrating.

Really not here to nitpick or misrepresent your post, just trying to be instructive because this thread has a lot of passers-by and many don't understand what ASR is about.

I agree with you that it is not surprising. Here at ASR, we are not surprised when high end gear fails Amir's tests. It's actually very normal.

And I did not and do not intend to accuse you of falsely suggesting that this headphone provided maximum fidelity. Many manufacturers do this, however.

I quoted that part of your post not because I didn't read the rest, but because it does not apply to this community. We want accurate, and let Musicians and recording engineers take care of the exciting part.

Apologies if it came off as snarky, not my intent. Read the rest of my few posts and I think you'll find I do well avoiding that.

EDIT: You're correct. I re-read this back at my desk and I see I misunderstood your post.
 
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richard12511

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These two sets of measurements are not dramatically different with regard to bass and effect of the seal. Both drop off steeply starting at 50Hz. Combined with poor ability to boost due to high distortion (also present in both sets), it doesn't look great.

I appreciate the deeper investigation here and questions that were brought up. But the way I see it, we've found nothing to change the story of these cans since Amir's review.

Agreed. If anything, Jude's measurements confirm Amir's measurements more than they refute them.

I also think the perfect seal vs imperfect seal(and which is more likely) is a bit of a distraction. Most content doesn't have significant sub-bass as part of the music to really tell the two apart, so it's not a huge deal either way. More concerning are the other issues higher up in the frequency band that this headphone has, and which both Amir's and Jude's measurement's show. Ignoring the extra deep-bass vs extra sub-bass issue, these are still - objectively - not a good headphone for the money. Of course, subjectively, there will still be many who love these headphones, especially when considering other non sound related factors(psychoacoustics).

If you're one of those people that owns and subjectively loves this headphone, then don't worry about what these(or other) measurements show, and don't let other's opinions of this product hamper your enjoyment of it :). Trying to convince other strangers on the internet to see these headphones the same way you do is likely a waste of effort that will just end in frustration for both parties. It's worth repeating that measurements can predict the sound that the majority will like or dislike, but they can never perfectly predict the sound that you will like. This is even more true for headphones than it is with loudspeakers.
 

Ayyakhema

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I explained that that this was a discussion, not assertion. Your post has no data so doesn't answer anything. I like to see a full frequency response sweep inside and outside that box. You have one? If not, then you don't have anything to add to the conversation other than a protest.
the points I brought I thought would be enough to demonstrate the impossibility to your assertion.

in my eye, your grasping at straws here. Jude's measurements clearly demonstrate the flaws of your own measurements. rather then go back and measure again, you go on a weird tangeant about Jude's measurements box

I hope you wont be offended by how I talk to you about those matters
 

abdo123

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in my eye, your grasping at straws here. Jude's measurements clearly demonstrate the flaws of your own measurements.

Well anyone who has the slightest grasp of how science works can tell that Jude (if the measurements are indeed a response to Amir’s measurements) very obviously manipulated the way the data is presented so it would look as if the headphones are not that bad.

You can get anyone who published a paper or any postgraduate student in any field of science and they would agree to that.

Infact Amir’s response was the most comprehensible response that i have read on this forum, because it requires zero acoustic knowledge to understand.
 
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the_brunx

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the points I brought I thought would be enough to demonstrate the impossibility to your assertion.

in my eye, your grasping at straws here. Jude's measurements clearly demonstrate the flaws of your own measurements. rather then go back and measure again, you go on a weird tangeant about Jude's measurements box

I hope you wont be offended by how I talk to you about those matters

All three comments you have ever made since 2018 is to criticize Amir? :)
 

GoldenOne

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This is where I disagree. I think it's more likely that most people are listening to the unsealed response, especially when so few songs have bass that low, and the unsealed response actually looks to have more bass in the regions that songs have more content. Most people are likely to perceive that deep bass hump as more bassy than the super deep sub bass extension without the hump, and thus think that's the sealed response(imo).

Amir wasn't able to get them to seal on his head, which is why the unsealed response correlated better with what he heard and worked better as a base for EQ. Imo, where Jude, and most other reviewers fall short is by not trying to correlate hearing to the measurements. They kinda seem to assume that perfect sealed response is what most people will hear, which I think is a mistake.

That said, I agree with your point that showing the sealed response for all headphones would make them all more comparable. In a perfect world, I would like to see both a perfect sealed response, and a unsealed response, as well as testing to confirm which is closer to the truth(what is heard).

And its totally fine to disagree on that. And yes, for SOME people, its certainly going to be the case, and then it'd be a valid criticism.
BUT, from an objective standpoint there is no evidence to suggest that it'd be the case for most, and you'd need to do a survey to find out what proportion of people it would or would not seal on.
I know Amir said they didn't seal on him, but he also said stax didn't seal which is not the case for most people, so it could simply be him in that regard.

Anyway in the absence of such evidence, choosing ONLY to present the unsealed measurements is a SUBJECTIVE (and in my opinion unfair) decision.
Either BOTH sets of measurements should have been included, or he should have included only the sealed ones given as that is how he measures all the other headphones.

The issue here is that assumptions and/or subjective choices are corrupting the objective information. It is not valid to simply "assume" that these headphones will not seal for most people.

PS: Just to reiterate, I do not own any abyss products, I have never tried the Diana, I have no idea if I'd like them, what they sound like, and have no opinions on them whatsoever because I have never tried them. I am not defending my own purchase or preferences.
I am simply wanting to see a fair comparison of headphones, that's all, so that I and others can make properly informed decisions. And I do not believe this was done fairly.
 

Thomas savage

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I explained that that this was a discussion, not assertion. Your post has no data so doesn't answer anything. I like to see a full frequency response sweep inside and outside that box. You have one? If not, then you don't have anything to add to the conversation other than a protest.
Better do up your belt buckle mate, another pant leg tugger is after you .

Hopefully you have put some weight on over the winter festivities and the belt is not required ha ha
 
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NDRQ

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Well anyone who has the slightest grasp of how science works can tell that Jude (if the measurements are indeed a response to Amir’s measurements) very obviously manipulated the way the data is presented so it would look as if the headphones are not that bad.

You can get anyone who published a paper or any postgraduate student in any field of science and they would agree to that.

Infact Amir’s response was the most comprehensible response that i have read on this forum, because it requires zero acoustic knowledge to understand.

Ofc manipulated, this isnt even the first case, he is often doing paid measurements for the site sponsors.
 
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