Austrian Audio The Composer (headphones) and Full Score one (headphone amplifier)

[PBSequence]

Austrian audio announced a new flagship headphone "The Composer" some time ago:

https://austrian.audio/headphones/thecomposer/

And a new headphone amplifier "Full Score one":

https://austrian.audio/headphones/fullscoreone/

Both have been displayed at the last CanJam and apparently, review units are being sent out, but I have not been able to find an official release date.
The headphones are being sold for 2.5k Euros, and the amplifier at 1.5k.

Measurements for "The Composer" have been posted on Reddit by oratory1990:

https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/17eezzs

Definitely some interesting new products by a company with mixed releases in the past.

 

[Soria Moria]

The treble seems decently smooth for good EQ potential. Very flat and well extended bass for an open-back dynamic headphone.

 

[Soria Moria]

The amplifier has this technology that I have no idea what means or what it’s supposed to do:

True Transient Technology​

TTT​

The new model features Austrian Audio’s proprietary True Transient Technology (TTT), which helps deliver the most jaw-dropping transients, such as the snap of a kickdrum or the delicate pluck of a guitar string in unaltered detail. The analogue amplifier design is as clean as a whistle: Fully discrete, no ICs in the signal path, and low noise. Lovely.
All made in Austria and built to last.
Our technical approach to our first headphone amp was comparable to building a very low-noise power amplifier. The Full Score one handles low-impedance headphones down to 10 Ohms as well as high-impedance, low-sensitivity headphones with over 300 Ohms.
Thanks to innovative design – the amplifier comprises a wide band, fully symmetrical voltage feedback circuit with a triple emitter follower output stage biased in class B, a high-speed complementary push-pull gain stage and a cascoded parallel differential input stage – the Full Score one secures very low THD (Total Harmonic Distortion) at every output level and over a wide frequency range.
This makes the Austrian Audio Full Score one a perfect duo together with the Austrian Audio The Composer.

 

[PBSequence]

The treble seems decently smooth for good EQ potential. Very flat and well extended bass for an open-back dynamic headphone.

That's what I was thinking too. Especially the graph comparing it to the HD 800S impresses me. Its tonality might be palatable even without EQ, and well-suited for equalizing as well. The big question is, besides the physical properties, if it can present a similar level of spatialness as other good headphones at that price range, and how good this quality remains after equalizing it. The 800S still sounds "wide" to me after EQ, and that makes it a favorite so far

The amplifier has this technology that I have no idea what means or what it’s supposed to do:

It's not clear to me either. Since it can be toggled, it'd be interesting to see measurements comparing the amplifier in both states and see what it does, if anything at all.
.

 

[oratory1990]

The amplifier has this technology that I have no idea what means or what it’s supposed to do:

It essentially increases the bandwidth of the Amplifier. I don't know the upper bandwidth limit (it exceeds the bandwidth of our measurement system in standard configuration, and I don't feel like taking it into the electronics labs in a different city) but unless I'm mistaken, Austrian Audio told me that it reaches into MHz.

It does have a miniscule effect on the frequency response below 20 kHz as well (note the scale on the y-axis):

It was a very quick measurement, the headphone was connected to the Full Score One amplifier and I made two measurements, one with TTT turned off and one with TTT turned on.
Shown here is the difference between those two measurements. At low frequencies you're mostly seeing background noise.
Again, this is a quick and dirty measurement, but it does show a statistically significant effect of around -0.2 dB at 7 kHz and +0.5 dB at 20 kHz.

 

[Soria Moria]

It essentially increases the bandwidth of the Amplifier. I don't know the upper bandwidth limit (it exceeds the bandwidth of our measurement system in standard configuration, and I don't feel like taking it into the electronics labs in a different city) but unless I'm mistaken, Austrian Audio told me that it reaches into MHz.

It does have a miniscule effect on the frequency response below 20 kHz as well (note the scale on the y-axis):
View attachment 321093
It was a very quick measurement, the headphone was connected to the Full Score One amplifier and I made two measurements, one with TTT turned off and one with TTT turned on.
Shown here is the difference between those two measurements. At low frequencies you're mostly seeing background noise.
Again, this is a quick and dirty measurement, but it does show a statistically significant effect of around -0.2 dB at 7 kHz and +0.5 dB at 20 kHz.

So it's just a very tiny EQ preset? Lol!

 

[lewdish]

Seems like AA has a target response that involves dips of about 2-5 db around 1.5-2khz this one seems to be kinda almost a more extended hi-x65, a few other companies seem to like to do the same thing, I hear it on my x65 as well, I dont mind it but I do wish it wasnt so radical, it would be nice if they bumped it back up another 1-2db i think. I do kinda want it though because i've been pretty pleased w/ the AA sound overall.

 

[solderdude]

So it's just a very tiny EQ preset? Lol!

sort of but not exactly.
When done analog (what this is) you can do this up to a much higher frequency (up into the 100kHz to MHz range) because there is no limit imposed by a sampling frequency.
Of course 'transients' in music are well below 20kHz bandwidth otherwise you could not reproduce that on 44.1/48kHz anyway so .... there's that.
Increasing the upper treble (some speakers do) can lead to the impression of 'more air' (thin super tweeters that have an output much higher than the tweeter below it in level)

What one will see on the scope is a very sharp overshoot in a square wave. That may not even be very high.
Fortunately there are no square waves in normal music and any digital recorded music will be bandwidth limited anyway so there is no need for those silly dV/dt.

Besides that there will be phase shifts going into the opposite direction as other amps (who roll-off in the other direction) in the audible band.

The trick is to do this without destabilizing the circuit which will require a very high BW. The 'boost' may be marginal though and remain below a few dB up to the MHz range.
Could be achieved with inductors and/or capacitors in the feedback path which would also require high BW and high open-loop gain unless one allows for distortion to be higher.

Of course you can get quite similar results using a bell EQ at say 30kHz with a wide enough Q using 192kHz sample freq. Probably no negative pre-amp needed because there isn't much energy/life above 20kHz in recordings anyway (amplitude wise) that would require extra headroom.

 

[TRDK]

Is there Convolution filters (WAV files) for "The Composer"?

THX

Torben

 

[IAtaman]

So it's just a very tiny EQ preset? Lol!

You can do better "EQ" by opening or closing your mouth or clenching you jaw probably.

 

[TRDK]

Austrian Audio - The Composer with Fiio M11 Plus

 

[lewdish]

Austrian Audio - The Composer with Fiio M11 Plus

View attachment 332231

How are you liking them? I hope the staging is even bigger than the x65

 

[TRDK]

How are you liking them? I hope the staging is even bigger than the x65

After a couple of days:

• Very good tonality and technicalities
• Ultra-clean and ultra-fast driver
• Amazing bass range down to the lowest frequencies
• Very easy to drive (using Fiio M11 Plus medium gain)
• Magnet attachment for earpads
• Very comfortable - I normally get warm ears, so far that is not the case

Needs a couple of days to sound good.

So far I am not using any EQ

Torben

 

[MayaTlab]

• Magnet attachment for earpads

The Hi-X65's earpads annoyed the hell out of me, including their attachment mechanism, and this was so nice to see when I got my hands on them for a very short while.

I have occasionally seen mentioned that using magnets to attach pads can make it a challenge to consistently seal well enough, but here it's for a pair of open headphones, and some closed back headphones like the B&W P7 or AirPods Max have such a mechanism, so... please more of this ?

 

[unpluggged]

The amplifier has this technology that I have no idea what means or what it’s supposed to do:

It's a very good piece of text that helped me to take care to never touch any of this brand's products.

I know some conductors and I'm still trying to understand what this picture is supposed to mean:

 

[Matthew87]

(just from 30 seconds of listening, so take it with truck of salt) I think those may be my new favorite headphones... Which is an achievement given that nothing was able to win over my old, beaten up, HD800.

 

[TRDK]

It will be even better after a couple of days

Torben

 

[Human Bass]

Can the nerds here translate that to watts? Thanks in advance

Max. output voltage, 5 Hz – 20 kHz:

19 dBV, 9 Vrms @ 0,01% THD

 

[IAtaman]

Can the nerds here translate that to watts? Thanks in advance

Max. output voltage, 5 Hz – 20 kHz:

19 dBV, 9 Vrms @ 0,01% THD

In order to tell you the power, we gotta know at what impedance is it rated for at 9Vrms. Amps are voltage sources so they can not always manage the output voltage if the impedance is too low, requiring more current then their output transistors can manage.

V = I x R and P = V x I. Two simple equations, you don't need the nerds for that.

Power is Voltage times Current but we don't know the Current, we know the Resistance. So if we replace I with its equivalent from V = I x R equation, we can do the whole calculation in one step, instead of calculating the current first. If we do that, we find:
P = V x V / R

So the power it can deliver (if it can do 9V at 10ohms) would be :

P = 9V x 9V / 10ohms = 8.1W

I don't think it can do 8.1W. Maybe 9V is output voltage driving 300ohms load? If that is the case just replace 10ohms with 300ohms above.

 

[solderdude]

When connecting it to the Composer one is not likely to even reach 3V (0.4W) peaks though as that would be playing at very impressively loud levels already that you cannot endure for longer than a minute or so.