Austrian Audio Hi-X65 open-back announced

[artburda]

Austrian Audio is releasing a new Headphone:
https://austrian.audio/hi-x65/?utm_...il&utm_term=0_cdf026ac65-eb006abba4-362830088

 

[LearningToSmile]

I've looked at their closed back over-ears briefly when buying my previous pair of headphones due to the company being created by former AKG employees. It seems like their build quality is pretty good, and I like the industrial design, but the frequency response is not exactly something I'd go for:

I wonder if the open back will be a bit more... conventional?

 

[Vini darko]

The technical specifications annoyed rather than informed as usual. It's funny before asr I would have just accepted them without thought. Forum doing good work making me hard to please

 

[3125b]

The problem with the X-55 is, that the tuning is not only far from Harman (or diffuse field), but also very uneven, meaning it sounds neither right nor pleasant. Granted, you can fix them via EQ, but that argument can be made for almost any headphone.
I'm skeptical, but mybe they upped their game with this new product.

 

[artburda]

I tried out both the Hi-55 and Hi-X50. The build quality was really nice but the comfort was not good. Having the Hi-55 on my head felt like the cups were creating some sort of weird vacuum effect. And the bass was on vacation. The Hi-50 had much more bass but the pressure on the ears from the flat pads was way too uncomfortable, I started sweating after a few minutes. Made in Austria sounds really good and I want to support them, but it‘s a difficult buy when the comfort and the sound is not there.

I‘m a bit sceptical if they really changed enough in the new model.

 

[Human Bass]

I've looked at their closed back over-ears briefly when buying my previous pair of headphones due to the company being created by former AKG employees. It seems like their build quality is pretty good, and I like the industrial design, but the frequency response is not exactly something I'd go for:
View attachment 129658
I wonder if the open back will be a bit more... conventional?

That is some massive mid bass bloat.

 

[mslim]

https://www.miniklangwunder.de/arti...-x65-im-test-als-offene-variante-noch-besser/

Some graphs there. Looks quite different to the Hi-X55

 

[MayaTlab]

They’re an interesting “closed front volume but with large ports into the rear volume” dynamic headphones unless I'm mistaken :

I quite enjoy that they seem to be a little bit more naturally adept at sub frequencies than the HD650/HD560S all the while seemingly being quite immune below 1kHz to variation in pad compression / positioning variations (not quite sure of this) ? Combined with what seems alright channel matching on my sample and a consistently good seal that may make it a pretty neat pair of HPs for EQing in that range.
I'm starting to think that this sort of half-way "open but not completely" design might be my favourite as a basis for EQing for passive headphones for its combination of somewhat decent bass extension (low THD as well ? Does it really matter ?) and FR stability.

That being said I personally don't like the default tuning and would have found them very difficult to EQ to my satisfaction above 1kHz a while ago before I started to get better at PEQing headphones.

I'ma little bit annoyed though that while they seem to have made the driver slightly angled and the pads deep, my head shape combined with the very thin and highly deformable pads means that my ear lobe touches the foam above the driver.

 

[mslim]

These 2 headphones are polarizing and controversial from a tuning POV. Couldn't wait for ASR to test these out. I don't hold high hopes...... Interesting "back story" regarding how Harman "let go" of the original AKG staff because of their own idea of tuning......ie. not following the science Harman put so much effort into researching (I guess).

 

[MayaTlab]

These 2 headphones are polarizing and controversial from a tuning POV.

Yep but they got an awful lot of things right as well. In an age when some HP companies are still struggling to understand that swivelling cups shouldn't been seen as a polite proposition but a fundamental aspect of what makes a great pair of headphones, constantly try to reinvent the wheel by re-imagining the yoke mechanism (and invariably fail in the process), or ship HPs with cables with no relief (*cough* Hifiman *cough*), the Hi-X65 is a breath of fresh air IMO. Other than some small tolerancing niggles, so far I think I only have one gripe with their design, it's that the earcup packaging + pad design doesn't provide enough space at the rear for my ear lobes (not enough depth at the rear once mounted on my head + the pads are compressed). It's one of my favourite HP designs I've seen in a while.

They sound atrocious without EQ and I would have found them very difficult to EQ without some additional tricks I've added to my "EQ assist toolbox" this year but I have a feeling that the fundamentals may be there for a pretty neatly EQable pair of HPs in the end and that I'll keep them long term.

 

[mslim]

Yep but they got an awful lot of things right as well. In an age when some HP companies are still struggling to understand that swivelling cups shouldn't been seen as a polite proposition but a fundamental aspect of what makes a great pair of headphones, constantly try to reinvent the wheel by re-imagining the yoke mechanism (and invariably fail in the process), or ship HPs with cables with no relief (*cough* Hifiman *cough*), the Hi-X65 is a breath of fresh air IMO. Other than some small tolerancing niggles, so far I think I only have one gripe with their design, it's that the earcup packaging + pad design doesn't provide enough space at the rear for my ear lobes (not enough depth at the rear once mounted on my head + the pads are compressed). It's one of my favourite HP designs I've seen in a while.

They sound atrocious without EQ and I would have found them very difficult to EQ without some additional tricks I've added to my "EQ assist toolbox" this year but I have a feeling that the fundamentals may be there for a pretty neatly EQable pair of HPs in the end and that I'll keep them long term.

But to sound atrocious out of the box as you said is really bad..... I like the design but quite a few people have said the foam in the pad is bad and I think no 3rd party replacements. It is off my consideration list.

 

[MikeJ]

Ordered these today after reading Keith Howard's measurements here:

https://headphonetestlab.co.uk/test-results-manufacturers-a-d-austrian-audio-hi-x65

What's really impressive is their rather clean impulse response and unbelievably clean CSD. I have never seen a waterfall decay plot (i.e. resonance plot) so uniform and non-resonating - almost like electrostats.

This can indicate that they could be really fast in transient response and they probably have seriously low harmonic distortion. Which is always a good thing for studio work.

Will let you know my impressions once they arrive. Looking forward to these.

 

[mononoaware]

I also agree with some of the comments here saying there is something odd going on with the frequency response of Austrianaudio’s headphones.

I am not “extremely into” headphones but it still presents as very odd to me.
I do recall one YouTube reviewer claiming they are on the the top of their list though not sure what’s going on there.

 

[JJB70]

The Hi-X 55 is a favourite of mine. I find it extremely comfortable and well built, and it is crazily easy to drive. And for what I use it for (running a sound desk for live performances and also as a sometime performer) I still say it has excellent balance for the purpose in being very precise, detailed and accenting vocals and with decent isolation. For what I use it for I haven't found anything better.

 

[MikeJ]

Picked them up today Still listening to them as I type this, but maybe I can give some first impressions about their sonic qualities:

Bass:
- seems like the first headphone to me which got the bass quantity just about right out of the box, very well done AA!
- no fakey midbass hump
- very tight, hi-definition bass quality to me

Mids:
- sound perfectly neutral yet smooth, zero complaints here

Highs:
- almost neutral, but well detailed character
- very little touch on the bright side

Transient Response:
- I can definitely hear very fast and properly damped drivers here (confirms what Keith Howard has measured)
- very dynamic and punchy sounding headphones
- maybe their fast nature can attribute to the very slightly bright character?

Distortion:
- first impression is that they definitely don't sound distorted anywhere in the frequency spectrum
- will need to confirm with real measurements of course

Soundstage:
- definitely open sounding headphones
- surprisingly no obvious "inside your head" character
- if HD800 is the soundstage king (100%), I would rate these between 70-75%
- overall a very nice, airy feeling presentation with lots of space between the musical instruments

Comfort:
- 10/10, zero complaints here
- earpads are big and comfortable
- headband is just as awesome
- headphone cable transfers very little mechanical noise to the earcups

So far so good and for this price, seems like a very well engineered headphone from Austrian Audio guys!

 

[MikeJ]

Small update.

Even after listening to these / working with them in the studio for a couple of hours, my ears don't feel tired at all! I am very sensitive to "bright sound" character which always causes listening fatigue to me.

Therefore I am convinced now that the slightly bright character of the Hi-X65 I've mentioned in my previous post doesn't come from some kind of elevated treble response but from their awesome transient response and apparent lack of any distortion.

I can also confirm what the other studio guy posted about them on GS forum recently - they're unbelievably revealing and their posibility to tear individual instruments apart in a very dense mix is brutal - it's almost like you can touch invidual tracks in a mixdown very effortlessly, just unbelievable.

My new favourite headphones, period.

PS: They seem to not need any EQ...

 

[Carlo2AC]

Have you done any measurements on it? i really don't want to be disappointed again on Austrian Audio, hearing how you talk it feels like new toy syndrome

 

[MikeJ]

Have you done any measurements on it? i really don't want to be disappointed again on Austrian Audio, hearing how you talk it feels like new toy syndrome

No, it's certainly not a "new toy syndrome". I'd suggest looking at Keith Howard's and oratory's measurements (just google for it). Also what I'm hearing seems to match with other respected studio guys' reviews. It think people are starting to get insanely obsessed with Harman's target curve but I'm not entirely sure that it works for studio work.

 

[MayaTlab]

Have you done any measurements on it?

If I may, I can provide my on-head measurements for them, at least as a way to illustrate my own subjective impressions of them.

A first thing to note is that I've tried (and measured) several of them because of various QC issues. One sample for example arrived with a poorly assembled yoke, that would "grate" on the cup's plastic :

The one I decided to keep has a slightly asymmetrical headband arc shape, and one of the pads was poorly assembled :

I've received new pads from Austrian Audio via mail as a replacement.

So, my on-head measurements :

Using mic number 2 in that photo :

I'm getting somewhat decently low seatings to seatings variation during the same session (by "session" I mean that the mics weren't moved between the measurements), for example :

Five individual traces.
Not as good as some other headphones, but not too bad.

Comparing them on my head with mic number 1 above (top traces) and 2 (bottom traces) vs the HD560S, HD650 with Dekoni Elite Velour pads (not comparable to stock HD650), and H400SE, I'm getting this :

Averages of five traces during the same session (session means the mic wasn't moved between the HPs measurements), right channel only. X65 in turquoise, HD560S in blue, HD650 with Dekoni pads in orange, H400SE in dark fuchsia.

Please note :

- these measurements were done on my own head. Using the exact same methodology and instruments on your head may produce different results. These comparative results are not valid for you.

- the probe mic is calibrated against a UMIK-1 in very near field conditions with a speaker. The results are uncompensated otherwise.

- the absolute values are incorrect, so you can't say "5672Hz is 3.2dB higher than 3289Hz" - it's not that inaccurate for the probe, but shouldn't be trusted.

- the relative values between the four headphones have a degree of inexactitude that depends on seatings to seatings repeatability on my own head, sample variation, pads wear, pads warming up over the measurement session, the repeatability of the measurement method, the relevance of each measurement method for the application. You can't say "At 7629Hz headphones A are 7.45dB higher than headphones B", but rather "at around 7600Hz headphones A are around 7-8dB higher than headphones B", and it more specifically depends on each specific headphones for specific parts of the FR (I don't have the same degree of confidence in the 2-4kHz region as in the 4-6kHz region for example).

- For various reasons the blocked ear canal entrance relative measurements aren't quite as trustworthy as the probe in the 2-4kHz region and simply useless above 7kHz. Using the HD650 as a reference and plotting the difference with the other headphones I tend to get a pretty good agreement between mic 1 and 2 below 2kHz and between 4-7kHz (in the latter range mind the fact that it's the area where the X65 shows some seatings to seatings variation) :

The difference in the 2-4kHz region can be explained by the ear canal being blocked with mic 2. Above 7kHz they substantially disagree but some specific listening tests make me think that the probe is more trustworthy (I can't find a single transfer function for the blocked ear canal mics that consistently accurately locate the peaks in that range, while the probe as is consistently does so, and the probe is more consistent in terms of relative differences between headphones in that range from session to session, while the slightest modification of the insertion depth of the blocked canal mic changes the relative differences between HPs). Above 10kHz both methods are useless so far.

So the short version is that for me their on-head response differs quite a bit from Oratory or HeadphoneTestLab's measurements (particularly the elevated response at around 6kHz), but that similarly to them, while the peaks / dips tend to be quite significant in magnitude, they all have a symmetrical slopes and none of them are of the really high-Q and difficult to correct kind. Like HeadphoneTestLab's measurements I seem to not get too much in the way of sharp resonances.

I don't think that the discrepancy (for example the significant 6kHz peak) is caused by sample variation. At least not to that degree. This is two different X65 samples during the same measurement session (the two bottom traces) :

Five individual traces for each, right channel.
Perhaps it's related to how they sit on my head vs. your typical test rig. I have a pretty extreme case of "wide temple + wide jaw + narrow neck" and the X65's design magnifies that issue :

The cups are quite significantly tilted upwards and rearwards, nearly hitting the limits of the yoke's range of motion in both cases. The large inner hole of the pads makes this worse as geometrically speaking it means that the lower rear quadrant sits further from my ear lobe in an even more depressed area.
This also means that the foam above the driver caresses my ears and may slightly deform my pinna.
Seal is, however, excellent.
Anyway, these are just idea thrown out there, I don't really know why.

Anyway, theoretically only a few filters would make short work of these problems. And indeed it does to my utmost satisfaction - in fact post EQ they're among my favourite HPs so far - ... but only for a short while.

I was finding myself regularly in need to fine tune the EQ profile I made based on these measurements. Luck would have it I've been regularly measuring headphones with the exact same protocol around once a week in an effort to gather data en masse, and pulling all my X65's measurements done with the blocked ear canal mics highlighted a pretty significant issue : these may have one of the worst cases of "pads break-in" I've experienced yet.
This is the X65 compared to the HD650 with Dekoni Elite Velour pads (again, not comparable to stock) during the same period. The HD650's Dekoni pads were installed a couple weeks prior so not a direct 1:1 comparison of pads break in though :

What you're seeing here :
- each trace is an average of five individual seatings taken during the same measurement session.
- X65 at the top, HD650 with Dekoni pads at the bottom, both L and R channels. Please do note that these on-head measurements are inadequate to properly assess L/R channel matching.
- X65's L channel in fuchsia, R channel in turquoise.
- each measurement session was roughly a week apart. Both are my most used headphones at home so while I haven't logged the hours they both were pretty heavily used in that time.

The HD650 + Dekoni pads seems to have remained superbly stable in all that time (and it seems that the blocked ear canal measurements show decent repeatability for absolute values up to 7kHz or so).
The X65's variation in FR is directly correlated with measurement date. The 1600kHz dip has filled up over time (black arrow). The L channel seems to have departed from the earlier measurements further below 1kHz (red arrows). It's difficult to know why, but this is the pad that shows some deterioration of the fabric lining (cf. photo early in this post). While this seems correlated, I'm not certain that there is a causal relationship here.

So while the X65 is very EQable short term, that makes the X65 so far actually impossible to EQ long-term, as it's a constantly shifting goalpost. What worries me is that so far it doesn't seem to be reaching stability.

I have yet to install the newer pads, but will do so in September, as well as installing new Dekoni pads on my HD650, and I'll repeat with more regularity these "pads break-in" measurements while trying to log in the hours.

That problem in the end is what may do it for me in terms of not keeping the X65 long term.

 

[MikeJ]

https://headphonedatabase.com/oratory/headphones?ids=344