Aune AR5000 Headphone Review

[Robbo99999]

Looks mostly fixable with EQ, and the distortion is impressively low. Price seems reasonable. The angled drivers seem interesting, does anyone know how much these ones are angled? Not a knock out the park from the measurements, but ok.

 

[Robbo99999]

Since the bass region needs close to a +10db boost in the sub-bass area (which already has the highest distortion) to match the Harman target I suspect it's not that unlikely that bass distortion will be audible after EQ.

Well, if you give a +10dB bass boost and then assume the bass is following the green 114dB line in the distortion graph then that's still ok distortion wise, and in this scenario 1kHz will be sitting at 104dB which is plenty plenty loud enough, in fact I don't think you can run the headphone like that without going deaf. Most I ever have my headphones is about 86dB at 1kHz, and then obviously you've got your music which will sit below that by a large margin as it's not a 0dBFS sine wave. So I can't imagine listening at a level where a 0dBFS 1kHz sine wave is at 104dB!

 

[Robbo99999]

Just bought a pair. Excited to try it. View attachment 335802

Interesting! What headphones have you got currently (apart from your HD560s & HE400se)? Do you use Oratory EQ on them?

 

[Soria Moria]

The angled drivers seem interesting, does anyone know how much these ones are angled?

I have tried to find information about it online but I can't. But here's a picture of the driver as well as a picture of the headphones from top so you can see that the earpads are angled as well. In total it's quite an angled design.

 

[OctoEmu]

I have tried to find information about it online but I can't. But here's a picture of the driver as well as a picture of the headphones from top so you can see that the earpads are angled as well. In total it's quite an angled design.

180 degrees for the widest sound!

 

[soundwave76]

I currently have HD660S, I wonder if these would be better…

 

[Thomas_A]

Looks mostly fixable with EQ, and the distortion is impressively low. Price seems reasonable. The angled drivers seem interesting, does anyone know how much these ones are angled? Not a knock out the park from the measurements, but ok.

Yes. Wonder how they compare to HD800S. Regarding ”spatial” impression it is mostly likely related to phase differences (dependent on angle and distance deiver to ear). Should be possible to process in the mix as well. There was one post about this doing it in the mix to get sound ”outside” the headphones.

 

[amirm]

My memory of HD800s is long gone but from the bit I recall, it was better than this headphone.

 

[Robbo99999]

I have tried to find information about it online but I can't. But here's a picture of the driver as well as a picture of the headphones from top so you can see that the earpads are angled as well. In total it's quite an angled design.

Yes, so angled drivers and then on top of that angled pads, that seems quite unique, I can't recall offhand other headphones going for both strategies, and the first pic showing the angled drivers seems that it's angled quite aggressively. Hmm, that is interesting, I wonder just how much angling can influence soundstage. It'll be interesting to see what you think to them, and how you find the soundstage vs your other headphones.

EDIT: although the angling of the pads looks like it's in the wrong direction, angled upwards, so that won't add to the angling of the drivers, as the angling of the drivers is to simulate more "coming from front" sound, but the angling of the pads there is instead to do with getting a good seal based on the geometry of the earcup mounting system I would wager:

EDIT#2: perhaps the pads are angled to the front as well as upwards, as your previous pic does seem to suggest a little angling to the front, but I can't be sure.

 

[Robbo99999]

Yes. Wonder how they compare to HD800S. Regarding ”spatial” impression it is mostly likely related to phase differences (dependent on angle and distance deiver to ear). Should be possible to process in the mix as well. There was one post about this doing it in the mix to get sound ”outside” the headphones.

There's the Smyth Realiser, Impulcifier Project, and also "generic HRTFs" related to Soundblaster SBX for instance, so it's certainly possible to process out of head experiences, just the best results are the first two where you do actual measurements of both speakers and headphone with in ear mics so as to capture your own HRTF. Perhaps the seemingly extreme angling of the drivers in the Aune AR5000 will help use some of own HRTF, which would be associated with just the ear rather than the whole head of course, so maybe the soundstage is good in these headphones in comparison to most others.

 

[Robbo99999]

Do you mean that phase differences are directly resulting form the angling of the drivers? If I do the maths taking into consideration the small diameter of a HP driver, I doubt our ear can perceive the phase difference between say 2 opposite points on the periphery of the driver (but I could be wrong!). I suspect the angling of the drivers is more about impacting the reflections inside the ear / HP cavity, an indirect effect on the phase / intensity of the reflections, "interpreted" by our brain as spatial clues...

Why would the angling direction matter? If the "spatial" clues result from the phase / intensity levels coming from secondary reflections, it's all about controlling these reflections in relation to the headphones cavity design. Any "angle" could theoretically work, depending on the detail design of the HP cavity...

Yes, the HD800(S) has angled drivers.. but I wonder if its "annular" driver is the more important (overlooked) feature: since the central section of the driver does not emit sound, you don't get that direct "beam" right into your ear canal. Again, just a theory, but Sennheiser hinted the HD800 was closer to how we perceive sounds in the real world--a more realistic "balance" of direct/reflected sounds giving the HD800 its "spatial" qualities. The angled driver may be the obvious element of design, but I wonder whether it is actually the less important element as compared to the annular driver.

The way I understand it is that the drivers would be angled to "point into the ear from front" (as much as possible within the confines of the headphone design) so as to mimic more closely the fact that when listening to speakers the sound source is from in front of you. I think when drivers are angled like that I think it expresses an element of the ears "frontal HRTF" that wouldn't be expressed if they weren't angled and were instead just pointing into your ear "flat" from the side of your head. I think it's more about the frequency response effects received at your eardrum.

 

[Thomas_A]

Do you mean that phase differences are directly resulting form the angling of the drivers? If I do the maths taking into consideration the small diameter of a HP driver, I doubt our ear can perceive the phase difference between say 2 opposite points on the periphery of the driver (but I could be wrong!). I suspect the angling of the drivers is more about impacting the reflections inside the ear / HP cavity, an indirect effect on the phase / intensity of the reflections, "interpreted" by our brain as spatial clues...

Why would the angling direction matter? If the "spatial" clues result from the phase / intensity levels coming from secondary reflections, it's all about controlling these reflections in relation to the headphones cavity design. Any "angle" could theoretically work, depending on the detail design of the HP cavity...

Yes, the HD800(S) has angled drivers.. but I wonder if its "annular" driver is the more important (overlooked) feature: since the central section of the driver does not emit sound, you don't get that direct "beam" right into your ear canal. Again, just a theory, but Sennheiser hinted the HD800 was closer to how we perceive sounds in the real world--a more realistic "balance" of direct/reflected sounds giving the HD800 its "spatial" qualities. The angled driver may be the obvious element of design, but I wonder whether it is actually the less important element as compared to the annular driver.

See this video. I have not experimented with it myself though.

Closed back headphones for mixing

Hi all, I have relied on near field monitors for mixing for the past few years, but due to a change in circumstances I will need to do much more work on headphones (and they need to be closed-backs, unfortunately). My budget is around 300USD. Ideally, I'm looking for cans that will fulfill both...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[IXOYE]

Is there really any headphone that doesn't improve with EQ? I've never heard anyone.

 

[JDS]

My memory of HD800s is long gone but from the bit I recall, it was better than this headphone.

The HD800S is also roughly 5X the price of this Aune. I tried the 800S a couple of times and liked them, but that's a hefty premium.

 

[amirm]

That it it is. It also doesn't look nice.

 

[CedarX]

Is there really any headphone that doesn't improve with EQ? I've never heard anyone.

Yes… the one with a perfect frequency response for you!

Joke aside (sorry!), the whole point of EQ is to fine-tune the FR to your liking… If it doesn’t improve, it means that you are either EQ-ing wrong (as in the wrong direction or not fine enough) or, you are trading other audio characteristics—for example, increasing distortion beyond an acceptable threshold (which is also somewhat personal)… or it’s already perfect (unlikely but possible).

 

[jdoe]

When I saw their new dacamp Aune S17 Pro (https://cdn02.plentymarkets.com/dvw13795n3e0/frontend/Aune_S9c/Aune-S9c-DAC-HeadphoneAmp.jpg) for the first time I though headphones on the photo is Susvara, but it is actually new model from Aune. It looks almost identical from the distance.

 

[auneaudio]

Looks nice! Good showing, @auneaudio

Thanks!

 

[Absolute]

In terms of speaker EQ we always say that you should leave EQ well alone in areas where the group delay is messy. When it comes to headphones this rule seems to go out the window. What gives?

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

 

[amirm]

In terms of speaker EQ we always say that you should leave EQ well alone in areas where the group delay is messy.

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.