Aune AR5000 Headphone Review

[Doltonius]

I agree. Its like someone buying a black car and then giving it a red paint job once he drives home with it. When I buy audio equipment, I try to bring some of my pieces to have the best idea how it would sound. If I'm happy with the sound, I won't need to apply eq to it. Besides, adding eq can cause smearing and phase issues or even pre-ringing if you use a linear phase eq in the bass region. Besides, I have a traditional sound system in my livingroom and the tone controls on my amplifier are bypassed. Careful speaker placements yields the best sound, not eq. As for the Aunes, I got mine from a store where I compared three headphones (including the Aunes) before I finally bought it after an hour of A/B'ing. Granted, some nice people may not live near a store, so it's harder for them to compare. But Amazon has a great return policy for that. It's strange that some nice people think they can make a $50 headphone sound like a $1000 one. What's even stranger is that some actually manage to make a $1000 headphone sound like a $50 one.

You definitely shouldn't be using linear phase eq for these tuning purposes. You should use minimum-phase.

 

[Mr Vinyl]

You definitely shouldn't be using linear phase eq for these tuning purposes. You should use minimum-phase.

The whole point I was making was not about which eq to use, but to not use eq at all. Aune engineers probably spent months - if not longer - to make the best sounding headphones for the price, so why ruin it? If you want to use eq, just buy 50USD headphones and eq to your heart's content.

 

[Doodski]

The whole point I was making was not about which eq to use, but to not use eq at all. Aune engineers probably spent months - if not longer - to make the best sounding headphones for the price, so why ruin it? If you want to use eq, just buy 50USD headphones and eq to your heart's content.

Each person's ears hear differently and we have different taste. PEQ is your friend.

 

[IAtaman]

The whole point I was making was not about which eq to use, but to not use eq at all. Aune engineers probably spent months - if not longer - to make the best sounding headphones for the price, so why ruin it? If you want to use eq, just buy 50USD headphones and eq to your heart's content.

I think you are overestimating the amount of engineering hours that goes into tuning a $299 headphone, and what can be achieved with mechanical manipulations alone. Plus, every tuning can only be good as its tuning target. If you don't like the target, you can change the tuning to what you like.

If you can get the comfort and maybe build quality of $299 headphone, and the sound of a $10K one, it would be quite unwise to pass on that opportunity based on some form of engineering purity ideal, especially for a mass manufactured consumer electronic product, wouldn't it.

 

[Mr Vinyl]

Each person's ears hear differently and we have different taste. PEQ is your friend.

Exactly. That's why there are different models of headphones - for different tastes and hearing. It's also why auditioning them prior to purchase is important. As I said in my original post, why would you buy a red car only to paint it blue (your preferred taste in colour) when you could've just bought a blue one to begin with?

 

[Doodski]

Exactly. That's why there are different models of headphones - for different tastes and hearing. It's also why auditioning them prior to purchase is important. As I said in my original post, why would you buy a red car only to paint it blue (your preferred taste in colour) when you could've just bought a blue one to begin with?

Your not making sense. You are making a argument but it makes no sense.

 

[Mr Vinyl]

I think you are overestimating the amount of engineering hours that goes into tuning a $299 headphone, and what can be achieved with mechanical manipulations alone. Plus, every tuning can only be good as its tuning target. If you don't like the target, you can change the tuning to what you like.

If you can get the comfort and maybe build quality of $299 headphone, and the sound of a $10K one, it would be quite unwise to pass on that opportunity based on some form of engineering purity ideal, especially for a mass manufactured consumer electronic product, wouldn't it.

If you don't like the target, then why did you buy it?

 

[Human Bass]

If you don't like the target, then why did you buy it?

Because it is extremely hard, almost impossible to any headphone meet your target from 20hz to 20khz. Compromises are real and EQ is an easy and practical way to correct things.

The idea of EQ being heresy is silly, is changing the sound via different pads wrong too?

 

[Robbo99999]

Exactly. That's why there are different models of headphones - for different tastes and hearing. It's also why auditioning them prior to purchase is important. As I said in my original post, why would you buy a red car only to paint it blue (your preferred taste in colour) when you could've just bought a blue one to begin with?

By using EQ you can work out roughly what kind of target curve you like - Harman exactly or maybe Harman with a bit less bass, or praps a bit more bass as some of the most common variations that people like. And as @Human Bass said, there are almost zero headphones that will meet your preferred target (or Harman target) exactly all the way from 20Hz - 8000Hz (let's say above that the measurements are more unpredictable and following the target curve exactly above that are not important). So by using EQ you can work out what you like quite easily and also optimise any of your headphones to be as close to your ideal as possible. About the only headphones that accurately follow Harman Target pretty much all the way cost thousands of dollars and are the DCA Stealth & DCA E3, so with EQ you can close that gap without spending thousands.

 

[Mr Vinyl]

Because it is extremely hard, almost impossible to any headphone meet your target from 20hz to 20khz. Compromises are real and EQ is an easy and practical way to correct things.

The idea of EQ being heresy is silly, is changing the sound via different pads wrong too?

Why should I change the pads to alter the sound if I'm happy with the ones that came with it? If I didn't like the sound while auditioning them, I wouldn't have been able to tell if it was due to the pads, the tuning or the cable - or if the cable was OFC 90% or OFC 99% - I just wouldn't have bought them. One of the models I auditioned alongside the Aune, was a Grado (a less expensive model as they didn't have the equivalent in price for demo). Now, the Grado was in-your-face built for the 'wow' factor. But after a while, I ascertained that it would cause fatigue in extended listening. Plus, the bass and highs were boosted and slightly grainy (especially in the highs). Now, I could've said to myself to pay less for the Grado and just eq it, but that's not how I see things (for one, you can't eq grain). I went for the sound that I liked and got the Aune because they were better balanced (according to my tastes) and much more refined. So why should I alter the sound?

 

[usern]

I agree. Its like someone buying a black car and then giving it a red paint job once he drives home with it. When I buy audio equipment, I try to bring some of my pieces to have the best idea how it would sound. If I'm happy with the sound, I won't need to apply eq to it. Besides, adding eq can cause smearing and phase issues or even pre-ringing if you use a linear phase eq in the bass region. Besides, I have a traditional sound system in my livingroom and the tone controls on my amplifier are bypassed. Careful speaker placements yields the best sound, not eq. As for the Aunes, I got mine from a store where I compared three headphones (including the Aunes) before I finally bought it after an hour of A/B'ing. Granted, some nice people may not live near a store, so it's harder for them to compare. But Amazon has a great return policy for that. It's strange that some nice people think they can make a $50 headphone sound like a $1000 one. What's even stranger is that some actually manage to make a $1000 headphone sound like a $50 one.

I've used like 10 pairs (more with earbuds and IEMS) of headphones and none of them had the exact sound I wanted (without EQ). If there simply isn't any headphone for my taste, what do I do?

 

[Mr Vinyl]

By using EQ you can work out roughly what kind of target curve you like - Harman exactly or maybe Harman with a bit less bass, or praps a bit more bass as some of the most common variations that people like. And as @Human Bass said, there are almost zero headphones that will meet your preferred target (or Harman target) exactly all the way from 20Hz - 8000Hz (let's say above that the measurements are more unpredictable and following the target curve exactly above that are not important). So by using EQ you can work out what you like quite easily and also optimise any of your headphones to be as close to your ideal as possible. About the only headphones that accurately follow Harman Target pretty much all the way cost thousands of dollars and are the DCA Stealth & DCA E3, so with EQ you can close that gap without spending thousands.

I think I'm starting to understand what you guys (or girls) are talking about. I think many people 'conform' to certain targets and I think this is where all the discrepancies come from. I don't 'conform' to any target consciously. I already know what I like to hear and what my personal 'target' is. I'm an audiophile who also does music production (film/instrumentals). These are two very different worlds. I bought the Aune for purely musical enjoyment. I have different headphones that will give me different sound signatures. I don't eq each one so they all sound the same, frequency wise. The Aune, as far as frequencies go, is pretty close to my ideal. I do have a tendency - a big one - to favour evenly balanced sound. Of course, I would prefer better front-to-back imaging and seperation, but that has nothing to do with frequency response. So, I guess it makes me pretty old-fashioned.

 

[Mr Vinyl]

I've used like 10 pairs (more with earbuds and IEMS) of headphones and none of them had the exact sound I wanted (without EQ). If there simply isn't any headphone for my taste, what do I do?

Let's not get religious about this. If that is your case, then eq them. Ultimately, it is for your own personal enjoyment. As I mentioned in an earlier post, some people don't have stores nearby where they can take their time to properly compare headphones - or IEMs unless you live in Singapore - so if you must, then eq them. It is better to do that than have to suffer with a sound that aggravates you, right?

 

[Human Bass]

Why should I change the pads to alter the sound if I'm happy with the ones that came with it? If I didn't like the sound while auditioning them, I wouldn't have been able to tell if it was due to the pads, the tuning or the cable - or if the cable was OFC 90% or OFC 99% - I just wouldn't have bought them. One of the models I auditioned alongside the Aune, was a Grado (a less expensive model as they didn't have the equivalent in price for demo). Now, the Grado was in-your-face built for the 'wow' factor. But after a while, I ascertained that it would cause fatigue in extended listening. Plus, the bass and highs were boosted and slightly grainy (especially in the highs). Now, I could've said to myself to pay less for the Grado and just eq it, but that's not how I see things (for one, you can't eq grain). I went for the sound that I liked and got the Aune because they were better balanced (according to my tastes) and much more refined. So why should I alter the sound?

You are being binary. A sound signature has dozens, maybe hundreds of characterics that a person may like or dislike.

We try to improve the aspects we dislike while keeping the ones that are liked.

Sure we should star with a good foundation, a headphone that sounds already good as it is. Then we may fine tuning here and there respecting the limits of the transducer.

 

[Chagall]

You are being binary. A sound signature has dozens, maybe hundreds of characterics that a person may like or dislike.

We try to improve the aspects we dislike while keeping the ones that are liked.

Sure we should star with a good foundation, a headphone that sounds already good as it is. Then we may fine tuning here and there respecting the limits of the transducer.

We all have access to great EQ software and completely free libraries of headphone measurements made by enthusiasts to the target most people will find preferable. This should be enough for him to understand why it's a big deal.

Or maybe it's just cool to be a contrarian.

 

[Robbo99999]

I think I'm starting to understand what you guys (or girls) are talking about. I think many people 'conform' to certain targets and I think this is where all the discrepancies come from. I don't 'conform' to any target consciously. I already know what I like to hear and what my personal 'target' is. I'm an audiophile who also does music production (film/instrumentals). These are two very different worlds. I bought the Aune for purely musical enjoyment. I have different headphones that will give me different sound signatures. I don't eq each one so they all sound the same, frequency wise. The Aune, as far as frequencies go, is pretty close to my ideal. I do have a tendency - a big one - to favour evenly balanced sound. Of course, I would prefer better front-to-back imaging and seperation, but that has nothing to do with frequency response. So, I guess it makes me pretty old-fashioned.

You have a very different approach which is not based on measurements, it's just based on listening, which is a more confusing task to get at your best sound in my experience - albeit I have tuned many many different EQ's many different times for my few different headphones, so it's not exactly simple if you keep trying to finetune the sound, but eventually you'll find your best EQ's that you keep coming back to & then you'd probably stop there. Just to pick up one of your points, imaging & seperation is definitely to do with frequency response, particularly if your drivers (left & right) aren't matched through the frequency range, and the frequency response will also change how seperated the instruments could appear and also have soundstage effects - so frequency response affects almost everything.

 

[Mr Vinyl]

When I'm

You have a very different approach which is not based on measurements, it's just based on listening, which is a more confusing task to get at your best sound in my experience - albeit I have tuned many many different EQ's many different times for my few different headphones, so it's not exactly simple if you keep trying to finetune the sound, but eventually you'll find your best EQ's that you keep coming back to & then you'd probably stop there. Just to pick up one of your points, imaging & seperation is definitely to do with frequency response, particularly if your drivers (left & right) aren't matched through the frequency range, and the frequency response will also change how seperated the instruments could appear and also have soundstage effects - so frequency response affects almost everything.

When I'm mixing or mastering, my best friend are my ears and not measurements - or at least as little as possible. Mind you, one needs to do cross referencing with reference (target) tracks and different equipment. When mixing, I rarely use headphones except for searching for errors (someone coughing, a pen falling, wrong notes, electronic buzz, etc). I agree with what you said about an imbalance of the drivers, however, I see this as a defect and not as a natural cause of a frequency affecting the imaging depth or instrument separation. Of course, If we have a problem with hearing in one of our ears, then this will also cause an imbalance. One of the first things I do when purchasing headphones or speakers, is to listen to them with different mono recordings. If there is a discrepancy between the drivers, back they go. This actually happened to me a while ago with a pair of speakers, but I was lucky enough to happen to live in the same city as the company, and was invited to go for a visit where the speakers were made in-house. I was of course given a newly matched pair.

 

[Robbo99999]

When I'm

When I'm mixing or mastering, my best friend are my ears and not measurements - or at least as little as possible. Mind you, one needs to do cross referencing with reference (target) tracks and different equipment. When mixing, I rarely use headphones except for searching for errors (someone coughing, a pen falling, wrong notes, electronic buzz, etc). I agree with what you said about an imbalance of the drivers, however, I see this as a defect and not as a natural cause of a frequency affecting the imaging depth or instrument separation. Of course, If we have a problem with hearing in one of our ears, then this will also cause an imbalance. One of the first things I do when purchasing headphones or speakers, is to listen to them with different mono recordings. If there is a discrepancy between the drivers, back they go. This actually happened to me a while ago with a pair of speakers, but I was lucky enough to happen to live in the same city as the company, and was invited to go for a visit where the speakers were made in-house. I was of course given a newly matched pair.

(I had to send back a pair of headphones once for channel imbalance which I also detected during listening before I measured them - I have a miniDSP EARs measurement rig that I mainly use for measuring channel balance and then creating per channel EQ's that then match the channels perfectly.)

 

[vco1]

I see the AR5000 quite often compared to the HD600/650/6XX. I own a HD650 and like it. Although these are not the most exciting headphones imo.
Will the AR5000 be noticably different from the HD6's and as such worth buying? Or will it be more of the same?

 

[Mr Swing King]

I see the AR5000 quite often compared to the HD600/650/6XX. I own a HD650 and like it. Although these are not the most exciting headphones imo.
Will the AR5000 be noticably different from the HD6's and as such worth buying? Or will it be more of the same?

The AR5000 is actually two headphones in one depending on how you position your ears in the cups. Placed back in the cups and you get a warmer sound signature, whereas you get increased vocal balance with your ears placed more forward.
Both signatures sound different to any Sennheiser 6 series with better bass and subbass. There is also a slight drop in energy around 1k that mimics the sort of sound you encounter over most Hifiman’s.
It’s also a very easy headphone to drive meaning that you can use it on the go with a simple dongle or mp3 player. Mouse farts will power this can to uncomfortably loud levels.