Abyss Diana V2 Review (headphone)

[deafenears]

@crinacle has updated his measurements database with the Diana V2:

https://crinacle.com/graphs/headphones/abyss-diana-v2/

 

[liuj2001]

Amirm and Crinacle are among my few credible resources when coming to head-fi gear reviews. Way too many reviewers have their own agenda when doing reviews.

 

[Deleted member 27429]

For what it's worth, I've listened to 70~ headphones from $100 to $3,000 including ones that measure well, and to my ears the Diana v2 sounds the best. It's one step above the likes of the Verite, Empyrean, Focal Utopia, HD 800s, and every other headphone I've listened to.

To those that look at this thread and count Abyss out... Trust your own ears.

 

[JohnYang1997]

For what it's worth, I've listened to 70~ headphones from $100 to $3,000 including ones that measure well, and to my ears the Diana v2 sounds the best. It's one step above the likes of the Verite, Empyrean, Focal Utopia, HD 800s, and every other headphone I've listened to.

To those that look at this thread and count Abyss out... Trust your own ears.

Right, to my ears I like k240 mkii a lot more.

 

[Tachyon88]

For what it's worth, I've listened to 70~ headphones from $100 to $3,000 including ones that measure well, and to my ears the Diana v2 sounds the best. It's one step above the likes of the Verite, Empyrean, Focal Utopia, HD 800s, and every other headphone I've listened to.

To those that look at this thread and count Abyss out... Trust your own ears.

Its comments like these that further solidify my feelings on the V2 and "summit-fi" in general. I personally do not think the V2 is that much better sound wise than the HD6xx. The fact that you have listened to 70 headphones and think these are better than those other over priced headphones just tells me summit-fi isn't really a mountain as far as fidelity is concerned, but rather price.

For me the HD800s is an experience and the other 2 headphones I mentioned just sound like good headphones.

 

[Rthomas]

Its comments like these that further solidify my feelings on the V2 and "summit-fi" in general. I personally do not think the V2 is that much better sound wise than the HD6xx. The fact that you have listened to 70 headphones and think these are better than those other over priced headphones just tells me summit-fi isn't really a mountain as far as fidelity is concerned, but rather price.

For me the HD800s is an experience and the other 2 headphones I mentioned just sound like good headphones.

I think entering ''Summit Fi'' is a personal decision based on ones priorities and finances.

I've owned the HD600 and HD650. Now my main headphone system is an SR009S + KGSSHV Carbon amp. I use EQ to bring up the bass and tone down the brightness.

If the HD600 sounded as good as my Stax I'd sell the Stax in an instant and use the money elsewhere.

''Summit Fi'' headphones (many of them) do provide tiny improvements in some areas over classics like the HD600.

The problem is all the shills who lie telling people that going from a solid performer like an HD600 to a Summit Fi headphone is like going from a Beats Pill to having Allison Krauss give you a private performance at the Royal Albert Hall.

How much more comfortable is a Rolls Royce Phantom than a Mercedes S-Class? 0.5%? 1% ? but 4 to 5 times the price.

I have no thoughts on the Abyss headphones as I've never listened to one. Their cable business turns me off the company as a whole.

 

[Tachyon88]

@Rthomas "The problem is all the shills who lie telling people that going from a solid performer like an HD600 to a Summit Fi headphone is like going from a Beats Pill to having Allison Krauss give you a private performance at the Royal Albert Hall. " THISSSS. That pretty much my point. I do think the V2 is "better", but its more similar than different overall.

 

[Tachyon88]

I wish Amir had a Diana PHI at the same time, because I think it would be interesting to make an EQ profile for the V2 to match the PHI FR and see if the V2 sounds identical to the PHI with a critical listening test.

 

[WickedInsignia]

For what it's worth, I've listened to 70~ headphones from $100 to $3,000 including ones that measure well, and to my ears the Diana v2 sounds the best. It's one step above the likes of the Verite, Empyrean, Focal Utopia, HD 800s, and every other headphone I've listened to.

To those that look at this thread and count Abyss out... Trust your own ears.

Sorry mate, that won't fly here.
It doesn't matter if you've tried every headphone in existence and own more than half of them yourself....your ears are no less suspect to bias than anyone else. No-one is here to be told by someone who fancies themselves a headphone connoisseur what is "good sound". We have objective studies from experts in the field that resolve that question far better than any individual with buckets of money to throw at expensive gear. The headphones which follow this science also happen to be highly successful and appealing to consumers who know nothing of things such as the Harman Target.

I would also suggest against using expressions like "trust your own ears". Humans are incredibly fallible to biases of all sorts, and it's one of the reasons we have pervasive urban myths with absolutely no grounding in reality. It's also true that in-store demos aren't enough, since something energetic and excessively V-shaped may sound good on first listen but reveal itself to be fatiguing over longer periods.

Lastly I implore everyone to give Abyss a skip in light of their $2000 cable upgrade. No company willing to exercise that sort of slimy salesmanship is worth anyone's time.

 

[solderdude]

You made me look..

3m TRS upgrade cable for Diana = €2.330,00
3m TRS upgrade cable for AB1266 = €3.990,00

and you get all this for that kind of money!

Compared to stock cables (which are very good)-- Greater inner clarity and fuller upper bass and mids without brightness, soundstage and room boundaries open up outside your head, musically detailed from the bottom on up, far easier to touch the source. Did we mention you have to hear these cables...

 

[WickedInsignia]

Did we mention you have to hear these cables...

Man seriously, screw those guys.

 

[Robbo99999]

You made me look..

3m TRS upgrade cable for Diana = €2.330,00
3m TRS upgrade cable for AB1266 = €3.990,00

and you get all this for that kind of money!

Compared to stock cables (which are very good)-- Greater inner clarity and fuller upper bass and mids without brightness, soundstage and room boundaries open up outside your head, musically detailed from the bottom on up, far easier to touch the source. Did we mention you have to hear these cables...

lol, that's ridiculous, really can't take a company seriously (nor their products) when they say & sell such rubbish for sickening prices......should almost be locked up for it!

 

[Quomz]

You made me look..

3m TRS upgrade cable for Diana = €2.330,00
3m TRS upgrade cable for AB1266 = €3.990,00

and you get all this for that kind of money!

Compared to stock cables (which are very good)-- Greater inner clarity and fuller upper bass and mids without brightness, soundstage and room boundaries open up outside your head, musically detailed from the bottom on up, far easier to touch the source. Did we mention you have to hear these cables...

Same company - JPS Labs - has XLR and RCA interconnects for 3600$ a pair. AC cables up to 5000$. Citation from the product description:

Then one day it hit, what about current reflections in the AC line? While researching such a phenomenon, JPS found that electrical current, analogous to water flow in a pipe, does not appreciate being suddenly stopped and started (as it is with an amplifier and its sudden changes to power requirements in response to the music). This constant change in current flow, particularly where the homes AC wiring is not as good as it could be, creates reflections- or ripples- all the way back to the breaker panel, impeding the smooth flow of power to the system.

 

[solderdude]

Same company - JPS Labs - has XLR and RCA interconnects for 3600$ a pair. AC cables up to 5000$. Citation from the product description:

Then one day it hit, what about current reflections in the AC line? While researching such a phenomenon, JPS found that electrical current, analogous to water flow in a pipe, does not appreciate being suddenly stopped and started (as it is with an amplifier and its sudden changes to power requirements in response to the music). This constant change in current flow, particularly where the homes AC wiring is not as good as it could be, creates reflections- or ripples- all the way back to the breaker panel, impeding the smooth flow of power to the system.

They probably have more 'gems' like this.
Makes the prices of their headphones relatively low compared to their cables.

 

[Zensō]

You know what they say about a fool and his money. JPS appears to be keenly aware of this axiom.

 

[amirm]

Amir's measurements were proven to be flawed here, I'd be wary of seemingly blindly following someone even when the measurements were certainly eyebrow raising to begin with

Oh yeh? They also said I don't look good on camera. Here is a shot of me last night. You be the judge:

I rest my case!

 

[amirm]

On a personal note, "that won't fly here" and your overall tone does not align with a community that like any wants to grow. If the only opinion is that of the hivemind, what's there to debate? Where is the interest?

Every time my doctor wants to tell me what the consensus of the medical community is on some cure I have read about on the Internet, he reads me the same line. Now I know what to tell him back! Thanks a bunch.

 

[amirm]

We each have different tastes, even Harman's research acknowledges this where there's a good 30% of their participant group that had significant deviations in bass levels preference -- the low mids dip in the Harman target 2018 O/E also had significant deviations in preference levels

Wonder how you know you are in the 30% and not 70%. I know I am in the top 99% of the males who always thinks he is right. What about you? Are you in the 1%?

 

[amirm]

Yes, we do have biases (off the top of my head, preferring $3,000 headphones over $200 560 S), but "trust your ears" means that we each have individualized tastes (see my prior point), assuming that the listener indeed tried a wide range of headphone types, source gear, recordings, etc

Makes perfect sense to me. I just can't figure out why most of us like Chocolate.

Answer this to me. Why is it that when people were tested for ability to identify aberrations in speakers, audio sales people and reviewers did so poorly compared to trained listeners in controlled, blind tests?

Don't they get exposed to all the things you mentioned?

 

[WickedInsignia]

@Assaf To your points, in order:

1. Let's have some evidence/links of that. Amir doesn't strike me as someone to shy away from solid evidence against his own methods.
2. I can't speak to the technical aspects of this, so I'll let someone else weigh in on whether resonances or timbre (not the wood timber) appear in measurements.
3. Yes we all have different tastes. We don't recommend headphones exclusively to outliers though, we recommend them to the major public. Therefore something that deviates can't really be recommended to most people. Even then, the Harman target preferences deviate in only select frequencies, and EQ is regularly recommended on this site. The Abyss doesn't fulfill its price tag even with EQ and it has severe technical shortcomings that are explained in detail.
4. Great. Refer to 3.
5. Never suggested there wasn't. Although I think it's fair to say that most people prioritize good sound, especially in a $3000 investment. The expectation that impressions made here are purely on measurements alone without listening to confirm their validity is flawed at best.
6. If the scientific method is a "hivemind", wait until you hear about how much math books, engineering fundamentals and medical courses parrot each other. It's almost like there's empirically proven standards that can be universally relied on!

Sorry Assaf, you've got nothing going on here. No measurements, nothing objective, nothing to throw at us to support your contentions. All of this reads as defending yourself and your right to say "But the Abyss is good!" in a forum full of people who pride themselves on objective evaluation. You want to stomp on everyone here with the misled trump card that you've tried 70~ headphones, and don't seem too happy that it didn't land with everybody.

Start a thread and blow us all away with some empirical proof that the Abyss undeniably outperforms all the other gear you've tried. If you can't do that, the rest of us will keep recommending other headphones instead.