First, hi Amir and thanks for the review, so glad you enjoy the headphones!
Hi... I always enjoy seeing somebody "mod" our headphones, given our roots! Glad you like the build quality but sorry about that chipped paint, we announced this a year ago, we did have some units early on where the paint cure was not correct and a few shipped before we caught it (needless to say paint hardness is now tested). Flaking is covered by warranty and we’ll happily fix that for you. Contact us via the support link on our site...
Fun topic. I haven‘t seen research on this either but for clarity let me expand a bit.
By “live” I typically mean un-amplified acoustic instruments like drums, strings, acoustic guitar, and voice, which seldom has as much energy in the 2-5K region as I hear in a lot of gear. Generally I reference live chamber music or truly acoustic small venue jazz, I'm not trying to recreate some random PA in a club and god-forbid a stadium! That's kind of up to the recording engineer.
My thinking is always to start with live acoustic and then branch into electronica, rock, etc with the logic that if you can't do a good job on acoustic you're really creating a headphone that, if you're lucky, is genre specific, but if you get acoustic where you want and then can push the top and bottom without breaking it, you're on the road to a good all-around platform.
We sell this model direct and ship worldwide. It's not available through our resellers.
For planars impedance is mostly a function of trace width and length and trying to optimize a workable impedance and decent efficiency. For many planar designs, this means a Z from 12-50 ohms though Audeze did put out a couple of high-z models.
As a funny note, one self-described “famous” amp designer sent me a $5k amp to use at a tradeshow and it was specified as close to a watt output but I couldn't get above 75dB before clipping. Turns out he'd used the 150 ohm without testing it on planars. There are very few devices that have high output like that now, mostly OTL amps or tube amps with a high-Z output winding.
Planar driver math is easy enough. This is definitely a simplification because B is not linear within a motor, but assuming it is efficiency is a function of motor force, F=BIL, where B is a flux strength, I is current, and L is trace length. If Z goes up since I=V/Z I drops thus so does the force, conversely, if Z drops, I increases so force does. Since B is based on the magnets, our only variables are L and Z, so we optimize for this to get best efficiency.
I haven't listened to the RT but owned and enjoyed the closed Aeon and the closed Aeon2. Just got the perforated pads for the Aeon2. I can send them if you want to measure. I modified mine to take 3.5mm in each cup so they are compatible with the vast majority of cables I already had and make it much nicer to travel with due to less bulk.
I've known how good Dan Clark is but it really was apparent when looking inside these things and how they are designed and assembled. You never get this level of craftsmanship from someone without passion for the hobby. My only complaint is that it didn't take long for the paint to flake off of my headband in a couple of spots near the hinge due to me setting them down on my nightstand.
Hi... I always enjoy seeing somebody "mod" our headphones, given our roots! Glad you like the build quality but sorry about that chipped paint, we announced this a year ago, we did have some units early on where the paint cure was not correct and a few shipped before we caught it (needless to say paint hardness is now tested). Flaking is covered by warranty and we’ll happily fix that for you. Contact us via the support link on our site...
"Dan says he doesn't think complying with the target generates what he hears live. I agree with him on that, but disagree on desirability of it in the arsenal of the audiophile. I like that energy there! "
When I'd want to hear what I hear live, I'd usually listen to a live recording. But that mostly does not happen as I feel live sound to have worse sound quality than studio recordings where everything is far more controlled.
Not that it would be strictly a bad thing to have something that generates a "live sound" effect. I would assume there's not much research on that subject.
What would the name of that study be - "A study on the averaged effects of live music performance equipment and environments on deviation from the Harman target"?
Fun topic. I haven‘t seen research on this either but for clarity let me expand a bit.
By “live” I typically mean un-amplified acoustic instruments like drums, strings, acoustic guitar, and voice, which seldom has as much energy in the 2-5K region as I hear in a lot of gear. Generally I reference live chamber music or truly acoustic small venue jazz, I'm not trying to recreate some random PA in a club and god-forbid a stadium! That's kind of up to the recording engineer.
My thinking is always to start with live acoustic and then branch into electronica, rock, etc with the logic that if you can't do a good job on acoustic you're really creating a headphone that, if you're lucky, is genre specific, but if you get acoustic where you want and then can push the top and bottom without breaking it, you're on the road to a good all-around platform.
Two questions:
1: does someone know a source to buy it in the EU?
2: @amirm: can the THX 789 driver it well?
We sell this model direct and ship worldwide. It's not available through our resellers.
These look pretty good.
Though, if anyone here knows, I was wondering. What's up with this low impedance facination everywhere you look these days? I know for dynamic headphones, it's pretty trivial to switch up the impedance to a prefered value. But for planars, it seems universal, that they're all quite low. Is there a reason to have all of them go so low?
For planars impedance is mostly a function of trace width and length and trying to optimize a workable impedance and decent efficiency. For many planar designs, this means a Z from 12-50 ohms though Audeze did put out a couple of high-z models.
As a funny note, one self-described “famous” amp designer sent me a $5k amp to use at a tradeshow and it was specified as close to a watt output but I couldn't get above 75dB before clipping. Turns out he'd used the 150 ohm without testing it on planars. There are very few devices that have high output like that now, mostly OTL amps or tube amps with a high-Z output winding.
So it's not inherent to the design, it's simply inherent to being efficient? They can just add more "windings" by lengthening the wire run (or using a thinner gauge) to simply increase the impedance, but then I guess the efficiency plummets to undesirable levels for many devices?
But is this being done because of the understanding that most modern amplifiers in the consumer market (like PC sources and such) are able to deliver massive current easier than they can deliver massive voltages?
Planar driver math is easy enough. This is definitely a simplification because B is not linear within a motor, but assuming it is efficiency is a function of motor force, F=BIL, where B is a flux strength, I is current, and L is trace length. If Z goes up since I=V/Z I drops thus so does the force, conversely, if Z drops, I increases so force does. Since B is based on the magnets, our only variables are L and Z, so we optimize for this to get best efficiency.
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