Aune AR5000 Headphone Review

[amirm]

What happens in the messy group delay area after EQ in the same area?

It remains. The areas you don't want to touch are the ones with very sharp and tall peaks.

Tonality rules way above any timing aspects.

 

[Absolute]

I have no such rule. We say that non-minimum-phase areas can potentially be problematic. Even there, I try EQ and see what happens. Automated EQ systems like Dirac do the same.

Okay, I see. Let me try to phrase the questions and thoughts correctly;

In speaker/room-terms you would need put a minimum phase line on top of that GD plot to actually see if it would be recommendable to EQ or not?
By recommended I mean to be certain that EQ won't add other potentially audible issues.

Is it possible to transfer the same reasoning over to headphones and view the enclosed area inside the cup and skull/ear and the reflections there as you would view room reflections? Or is it perhaps too close in time of arrival to the ear to matter at all in terms of what is and isn't EQ-able?

It remains. The areas you don't want to touch are the ones with very sharp and tall peaks.

Tonality rules way above any timing aspects.

Do you have any examples of before and after EQ, maybe especially interesting if there's high Q peqs involved?
(Is it possible to add minimum phase on the group delay plot like we can do in REW?)

I'm only asking these questions because I want new headphones and have absolutely no experience and knowledge about how this stuff works compared to a normal speaker/room set-up. A quick Google search on this topic shows some interesting debates about the possible effect of messy group delay on soundstage in headphones.

These Aune headphones looks interesting, affordable and easy to drive, so hence my sudden curiosity. And thank you for replying

 

[Soria Moria]

Thanks!

Hello! How angled is the driver of the headphone? 20 degrees?

 

[SeasButter]

Hello! How angled is the driver of the headphone? 20 degrees?

I have one. The plate is angled, and the ear cups are also angled. Maybe more than 20 degrees, I think. I am not sure.

 

[SeasButter]

I suppose you're using the Hi-freq or Hires coupler, given how the 14kHz looks? But other than that, indeed very similar results!

It's a B&K coupler. I tested them in my friends' lab.

 

[DonR]

The areas you don't want to touch are the ones with very sharp and tall peaks.

Those are usually masked, correct? Especially above 5-8KHz or so.

 

[Robbo99999]

Hello! How angled is the driver of the headphone? 20 degrees?

I have one. The plate is angled, and the ear cups are also angled. Maybe more than 20 degrees, I think. I am not sure.

It'd be good to hear from the supplier as to how angled they are in total and maybe also for interest how angled the driver is and how angled the pad is (assuming that they are both angled in the same direction to increase the angle). @auneaudio

 

[Jimmy]

The driver placement is very interesting, it's not just angled as it can be seen in the product page:

Aune AR5000 Open Ear Headphone | Aune Store

Buy Aune AR5000 open Over Ear Headphone directly from the Official Aune Store ✔ 2 Years Warranty ✔ Free Shipping ✔ Shipping from Europe

www.aune-store.com

It shares some resemblance to the upcoming Drop-Grell's OAE1 although not as extreme :

https://www.google.es/search?sca_esv=593389473&q=grell+oae1

 

[Soria Moria]

It shares some resemblance to the upcoming Drop-Grell's OAE1 although not as extreme

Very excited for that one. Hopefully Amir will get a unit.

 

[phoenixdogfan]

IDK if anyone has noticed, but in addition to handily outperforming them in almost every measurable, these guys bear a more than superficial resemblance to the Susvara's.

 

[monochiro]

I got them today and they sound really great. I think the EQ provided in the review makes them sound terrible though. Seem to be balanced almost perfectly (right and left driver) and only require minor tone adjustments. EQ I used is:
Tone:
50hz Q = 0.3 2dB
2222hz Q = 2 0.5 dB
1500hz Q = 2 -1dB
7555hz Q = 2 1dB
Left driver:
79hz Q = 0.1 0.5dB
9222hz Q = 3 1.5dB

 

[IAtaman]

Just bought a pair. Excited to try it.

Did you receive them yet?

 

[Soria Moria]

Did you receive them yet?

They arrived a few days ago but I was celebrating Christmas and new years with my family who lives light years away. The good news is that I returned to my apartment today and will pick them up tomorrow to post pictures.

 

[IAtaman]

They arrived a few days ago but I was celebrating Christmas and new years with my family who lives light years away. The good news is that I returned to my apartment today and will pick them up tomorrow to post pictures.

Happy to hear that you spent some time with family far away during year end holidays season. I have been an expat almost all my adult life, know exactly well how precious those moments are. Headphones can most certainly wait

When you find the time, tell us how it sounds, and particularly how it compares to HD560S in your opinion.

 

[Soria Moria]

I have it now. It sounds really good! Nothing sounds off about the tonality and all I did was add a bass shelf using my RME. Imaging is very good. Comfort is very good. Driver is quite angled and the pads are angled as well. The pads are thicker behind your ears and thinner in the front. It's not angled upwards as @Robbo99999 thought it seemed like. I might remove the pads tomorrow to take better photos. Build quality is great, it doesn't creak. Cable is good, only slightly microphonic.

 

[Robbo99999]

I have it now. It sounds really good! Nothing sounds off about the tonality and all I did was add a bass shelf using my RME. Imaging is very good. Comfort is very good. Driver is quite angled and the pads are angled as well. The pads are thicker behind your ears and thinner in the front. It's not angled upwards as @Robbo99999 thought it seemed like. I might remove the pads tomorrow to take better photos. Build quality is great, it doesn't creak. Cable is good, only slightly microphonic.

Ah, that's good to hear that feedback from you on the pad angling, that's a lot more definitive than me looking at the pics on the manufacturers website! From your pics it looks like the pads are quite aggressively angled, more than I've seen in a lot of angled pad headphones. And judging by what looks like the angle of the driver (from your pic showing the inside of the earcup) is angled to compliment & further exaggerate the angling that's already there in the pads, so they're both working together in the same direction it looks like) - which means this might be a headphone with the most extreme overall ear to driver angle, so that could be certainly interesting from a soundstage perspective, I wonder if it really does increase the soundstage, I wonder if that headphone has a large soundstage.

 

[sharock]

How does it compare to the 560s?

 

[Mr Swing King]

I am waiting on my own to show up shortly, but I imagine the massive snow and rainfall of the past couple of days has left large areas of Europe extremely difficult to travel.
Judging by the initial impressions, I’m looking forward to this can. Truth be told, my very first little jump into ‘audiophilia’ was via the Aune X1 dac/amp combo…and when I saw the first pics of this their first venture into headphones..well my heart skipped a beat. I absolutely love the way it looks - and it furthermore looks genuinely comfortable.
I also seem to be having quite a bit of succes/interaction with headphones that utilise angled driver designs and my pinnas (maybe that’s why I hear the (original) HD560S and HD400 Pro as Sennheiser’s take on big AKGs?). So when I saw the frequency response, I was curious to know how that translates to me wearing the thing. Here I’m specifically thinking about the presence region and low treble cirkus 1.5k to 4-5k.

 

[Mr Swing King]

Two days in and my overall impression is very good.
The first impressions were ‘man that’s a big headphone’…and subsequently putting it on my head ‘Holy moly this is the new king of comfort’.
With a suspension strap and large Denon-like pads with velour-type material touching my skin, this feels like a design meant for 700 grams Audezes and ZMFs…yet the AR5000 only weighs about half and quite literally disappears on my noggin shortly after arriving there.

The first hour of listening had me thinking about a fixed Meze Empyrean, or a more realistic take on it nonetheless. Smooth, elegant, laidback and surprisingly good bass performance for an openback dynamic driver headphone. In fact this sound is probably what a lot of “high end audiophiles” seem to be looking for. Heck I know a couple myself that absolutely adore cans like the LDC-4, Empyrean and similar somewhat midrange and low treble shy headphones. They’ll love this sound I’m sure.

Cue me having to take a pee. Take off headphones…abracadabra…put on headphones: hey mr midrange! You showed up to the party?
Midrange plays Tom Petty’s voice in return and I love it whilst feeling somewhat confused. It’s not an HD600 but we’re getting in the vicinity. It still retains that smoothness from before though which is brilliant.
Depending on where you position your ears vs the drivers, you can finetune this baby to your liking. With my ears forward in the cups, where it incidentally also feels the most comfortable to me, is also where the mids are at their most prominent making for a wonderful realistic presentation.
Want that suave laidback Empyrean sound back? Get those ears back in the cup and voila.
I imagine this being quite important to know with regards to EQ. I would advise folks to play around with the positioning - see what’s what, and then maybe from there go with a combination of the recommendations on page 1 and what sounds right to you personally.
Charming fella this Aune. Recommended.

 

[pk500]

Are we simply trolling these days? Recommending something AFTER eq is just plain nonsense, it's like saying "it's a good car, but you need to change the wheels and suspension"...

Horsesh*t.

I've worked in racing for 35 years. Imagine a race team that gets its car and makes no changes to the base setup to find more speed during an event. Sure, it may be competitive, but it probably won't win, even in the hands of a skilled driver. It's a rare weekend when a race team "rolls the car out of the truck" and wins.

EQ for me has always been like setup changes to a race car. Sometimes you get that base setup just right, roll the car out of the truck, and it flies. But most weekends, you need to change various setup parameters on the car for it to reach its peak performance and for the driver to be comfortable.

No different with most headphones. Some are excellent out of the box. But most can be made even better with a few EQ tweaks.