Dan Clark Audio AEON RT Review (closed headphone)

[ziddy76]

At the moment I'm not sure if they're the same as the RT, but here is what I was able to measure with the Closed X:
View attachment 153795

I definitely prefer it to the open so far, but the open has smoother treble. For reference, here's the Original Aeon Closed:
View attachment 153799

And the Open X:

View attachment 153800

I think it's also important to keep in mind that the way these pads are designed, they may result in some unit variation.

Read somewhere that Dan Clark confirmed the Drop X Closed and RT Closed are the same and he offers the same warranty for both.

 

[SilverWolf]

Pretty sure I also had read the comment that the RT was the same as Drop X, interesting. I own both the Drop Aeon models, some of my fav cans in fact.

Pads, mine are the one with the front half perforated. Comfy as heck but my only gripe.... it's a PITA how the memory foam moves and turns about and you have to tease it back in place every few days.

 

[aandres_gm]

The exact quote was both headphones were very similar.

 

[ziddy76]

Hmm everywhere I read, people are saying Dan Clark confirmed to them they are not similar, they are the same, including on the product page for Drop question/answer section.

 

[TheHighContemplator]

@Resolve ,

Thanks for the measurements. I'll put up Oratory's measurements so there can be a side by side comparison.

 

[aandres_gm]

Hmm everywhere I read, people are saying Dan Clark confirmed to them they are not similar, they are the same, including on the product page for Drop question/answer section.

This is what the man himself said. Posted in this very thread

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ew-closed-headphone.19393/page-10#post-639320

 

[Robbo99999]

@Resolve ,

Thanks for the measurements. I'll put up Oratory's measurements so there can be a side by side comparison.

View attachment 153870View attachment 153871

I don't know anything about the Drop headphone, but they look wildly different, I'd say they're certainly not the same headphone.

 

[TheHighContemplator]

I don't know anything about the Drop headphone, but they look wildly different, I'd say they're certainly not the same headphone.

I created an EQ profile for the Drop Closed X based on the graph posted by @Resolve . I much prefer Oratory's settings that I posted. Not sure what to think here. Maybe someone better at crafting parametric EQ settings can send me the numbers and I can give it a go.

 

[Robbo99999]

I created an EQ profile for the Drop Closed X based on the graph posted by @Resolve . I much prefer Oratory's settings that I posted. Not sure what to think here. Maybe someone better at crafting parametric EQ settings can send me the numbers and I can give it a go.

You judgement will depend on whether or not you know you like the sound of the Harman Curve - as in if you've tried other headphones that have been EQ'd to the Harman Curve by Oratory for example, and also how accurately you've created your EQ. But really if I was you I'd use the measurement by Resolve because that's actually the measurement for the Drop Aeon X Closed, which is the headphone you own. Given the wild differences in frequency response, I'd trust that they are different headphones and therefore I would not base your EQ on a measurement of the Aeon RT Closed. I might be able to get an EQ done for you this weekend for the Drop Aeon X Closed based on Resolve's measurement. My approach is that I use VirtuixCAD to scan the measured frequency response to turn the graph into data points, then I import that into REW and then manually create the filters to fit the curve.

 

[TheHighContemplator]

You judgement will depend on whether or not you know you like the sound of the Harman Curve... ....then manually create the filters to fit the curve.

I have my Meze 99 Classics w/ Brainwavz Hybrid pads EQ'd to Oratory's Harman Curve for that particular configuration and love it. Oratory's settings for the Aeon Closed RT's sounds pretty exceptional on my Drop Aeon X Closed. I've never gone through the process to generate an EQ profile as you described, but if you have the time to generate the data points for me, I would definitely give it a thorough listen and comparison. I can switch between profiles on PulseEffects with very little lag.

 

[Resolve]

I don't know anything about the Drop headphone, but they look wildly different, I'd say they're certainly not the same headphone.

This is why I was surprised. I've reached out to Drop to see if they can send another one to double check. But certainly this would suggest it's not exactly the same. Another consideration is which pads are being used. The drop X versions use the perf pads - not sure what the RT uses.

 

[aandres_gm]

This is why I was surprised. I've reached out to Drop to see if they can send another one to double check. But certainly this would suggest it's not exactly the same. Another consideration is which pads are being used. The drop X versions use the perf pads - not sure what the RT uses.

That may very well be the difference.

Btw the Closed X are $399 at drop right now. Any brave members willing to ship a pair to @amirm to clear this up?

 

[Migel83]

I have read that too,
Dan Clark says it's the same one.
Others say that Drop X is more W-shaped and Dan Clark's is more V-shaped.
It's hard to judge if you don't have both versions but only one of them.

 

[aandres_gm]

I have read that too,
Dan Clark says it's the same one.
Others say that Drop X is more W-shaped and Dan Clark's is more V-shaped.
It's hard to judge if you don't have both versions but only one of them.

Dan never said it was the same. He claimed they were very similar.

 

[Robbo99999]

I have my Meze 99 Classics w/ Brainwavz Hybrid pads EQ'd to Oratory's Harman Curve for that particular configuration and love it. Oratory's settings for the Aeon Closed RT's sounds pretty exceptional on my Drop Aeon X Closed. I've never gone through the process to generate an EQ profile as you described, but if you have the time to generate the data points for me, I would definitely give it a thorough listen and comparison. I can switch between profiles on PulseEffects with very little lag.

Hi, I took some time tonight to do this EQ for you using @Resolve 's measurement (for the Drop DCA Aeon X Closed), here it is, it was a little tricky to get it accurate to the Harman Curve, but I generally managed to do so without using excessively sharp filters, find the EqualiserAPO config file attached at the end of the post:

It was tricky because it has those massive and very wide elevated treble spike area above 10kHz so I had tried a few different approaches to deal with those. I chose to use a Q2 filter on that area which I hope is wide enough to make it relevant for when you wear the headphone, because frequency response above 10kHz is unreliable so therefore you don't want to use narrow filters in that area. If the EQ sounds immediately strange to you then switch off that filter I'm talking about....Filter#10 which is the 12,140Hz Q2 filter and see how it sounds without that, if that doesn't help then reactivate that filter. It makes me wonder if the wide & sharp peaking area above 10kHz is a measurement error or a unit variation problem, because I would think peaks of that degree in that area and so elevated over a wide area would be literally quite painful to listen to, so it makes me question whether the measurement is reflecting reality - but as I said you can turn that Filter#10 at 12140Hz on & off to see what kind of an effect it has.

You can tweak the bass level to your taste using the 105Hz Low Shelf Filter which is Filter #14 in the pic, the last filter, (my EQ as it stands is Harman level bass as you can see). You can tweak the treble to your taste above 11,000Hz using the High Shelf Filter at 11,000Hz which is Filter #9 in the pic.

This EQ uses a -3.3dB Negative Preamp, and if you tweak my EQ using any further boosts then you'll need to check the total EQ curve to make sure it's not digitally clipping, at which point you'd increase the negative preamp to allow for any boosts you do.

I'm relatively happy with how this EQ turned out visually considering the problems, but it'll be interesting to hear what you say regarding the elevated treble between 10-14kHz which I've tried to tame......as well as your other impressions. (We'll try not to have too many back on forths on this because it's only tenuously linked to the subject of this thread which is in fact a different Dan Clarke headphone)

 

[Resolve]

Hi, I took some time tonight to do this EQ for you using @Resolve 's measurement (for the Drop DCA Aeon X Closed), here it is, it was a little tricky to get it accurate to the Harman Curve, but I generally managed to do so without using excessively sharp filters, find the EqualiserAPO config file attached at the end of the post:
View attachment 153925
It was tricky because it has those massive and very wide elevated treble spike area above 10kHz so I had tried a few different approaches to deal with those. I chose to use a Q2 filter on that area which I hope is wide enough to make it relevant for when you wear the headphone, because frequency response above 10kHz is unreliable so therefore you don't want to use narrow filters in that area. If the EQ sounds immediately strange to you then switch off that filter I'm talking about....Filter#10 which is the 12,140Hz Q2 filter and see how it sounds without that, if that doesn't help then reactivate that filter. It makes me wonder if the wide & sharp peaking area above 10kHz is a measurement error or a unit variation problem, because I would think peaks of that degree in that area and so elevated over a wide area would be literally quite painful to listen to, so it makes me question whether the measurement is reflecting reality - but as I said you can turn that Filter#10 at 12140Hz on & off to see what kind of an effect it has.

You can tweak the bass level to your taste using the 105Hz Low Shelf Filter which is Filter #14 in the pic, the last filter, (my EQ as it stands is Harman level bass as you can see). You can tweak the treble to your taste above 11,000Hz using the High Shelf Filter at 11,000Hz which is Filter #9 in the pic.

This EQ uses a -3.3dB Negative Preamp, and if you tweak my EQ using any further boosts then you'll need to check the total EQ curve to make sure it's not digitally clipping, at which point you'd increase the negative preamp to allow for any boosts you do.

I'm relatively happy with how this EQ turned out visually considering the problems, but it'll be interesting to hear what you say regarding the elevated treble between 10-14kHz which I've tried to tame......as well as your other impressions. (We'll try not to have too many back on forths on this because it's only tenuously linked to the subject of this thread which is in fact a different Dan Clarke headphone)

Thanks for doing this, I'll give it a shot today at when I head into the studio. I'd probably drop 9khz by a bit more for concha, and yeah generally the stuff above 10khz is really difficult to get a sense of, both due ever so slight positioning variation and also the fact that we're not using a 5128 haha. At the moment I take visual information up there as "there's something up there, but specifics are unclear". I should also note, Drop has kindly agreed to send another sample over for me to measure, so that should be more conclusive if it measures the same.

 

[TheHighContemplator]

Hi, I took some time tonight to do this EQ for you using @Resolve 's measurement (for the Drop DCA Aeon X Closed), here it is, it was a little tricky to get it accurate to the Harman Curve, but I generally managed to do so without using excessively sharp filters, find the EqualiserAPO config file attached at the end of the post:
View attachment 153925
It was tricky because it has those massive and very wide elevated treble spike area above 10kHz so I had tried a few different approaches to deal with those. I chose to use a Q2 filter on that area which I hope is wide enough to make it relevant for when you wear the headphone, because frequency response above 10kHz is unreliable so therefore you don't want to use narrow filters in that area. If the EQ sounds immediately strange to you then switch off that filter I'm talking about....Filter#10 which is the 12,140Hz Q2 filter and see how it sounds without that, if that doesn't help then reactivate that filter. It makes me wonder if the wide & sharp peaking area above 10kHz is a measurement error or a unit variation problem, because I would think peaks of that degree in that area and so elevated over a wide area would be literally quite painful to listen to, so it makes me question whether the measurement is reflecting reality - but as I said you can turn that Filter#10 at 12140Hz on & off to see what kind of an effect it has.

You can tweak the bass level to your taste using the 105Hz Low Shelf Filter which is Filter #14 in the pic, the last filter, (my EQ as it stands is Harman level bass as you can see). You can tweak the treble to your taste above 11,000Hz using the High Shelf Filter at 11,000Hz which is Filter #9 in the pic.

This EQ uses a -3.3dB Negative Preamp, and if you tweak my EQ using any further boosts then you'll need to check the total EQ curve to make sure it's not digitally clipping, at which point you'd increase the negative preamp to allow for any boosts you do.

I'm relatively happy with how this EQ turned out visually considering the problems, but it'll be interesting to hear what you say regarding the elevated treble between 10-14kHz which I've tried to tame......as well as your other impressions. (We'll try not to have too many back on forths on this because it's only tenuously linked to the subject of this thread which is in fact a different Dan Clarke headphone)

You are a champ, Mr. Robbo! This does indeed sound better. Details are all there, but it also sounds fuller, especially male vocals. The improvement, when comparing back and forth is immediately apparent. The Oratory EQ I was using sounds a little "tinny" by comparison, if that makes sense. I subtracted another db (now -2db) from filter 9 (11000hz) and boosted the 105hz low shelf by 3db and it sounds magnificent. I can't thank you enough for doing this. I tried looking for VirtuixCAD on Linux, but it doesn't seem to be available. I'm really impressed with the skills you just put on display. You should make a video about your process for generating EQ parameters as you did here. I guess the RT and X models are different. Mine do have the perforated pads, so I wonder if the RT's are using a different pad. Anyone who has a pair, please share if your ear pads are perforated of solid.

I think the discussion is highly relevant to this thread, since everywhere I look online, the RT and X are being claimed to be exactly the same. If you want to start a new thread for just these, I'll get it going and we can share your fine work.

 

[TheHighContemplator]

Thanks for doing this, I'll give it a shot today at when I head into the studio. I'd probably drop 9khz by a bit more for concha, and yeah generally the stuff above 10khz is really difficult to get a sense of, both due ever so slight positioning variation and also the fact that we're not using a 5128 haha. At the moment I take visual information up there as "there's something up there, but specifics are unclear". I should also note, Drop has kindly agreed to send another sample over for me to measure, so that should be more conclusive if it measures the same.

This is excellent news. Thank you, Resolve, for your work on all of this as well. Do you review gear? I'd love to add another source to my audio bookmarks. I look forward to your thoughts and any adjustments you make to the settings Robbo crafted.

 

[ziddy76]

Dan never said it was the same. He claimed they were very similar.

Multiple people have said they asked him and he told them they were exactly the same.

He told the lead person for Drop's lead for collaboration and development of audiophile gear, they are exactly the same.
"Dan Clark Audio confirmed that the headphones are the same except for the naming."
- This from the dude who spent time tuning the Aeon X Open with DCA. I find it strange DCA would lie to the Drop who he has a contract with. I don't really care what he said to some person on an audio forum. Cause this is how Drop is advertising the Drop X Closed, Aeon RT with different name. Otherwise IMO Drop X Closed folks should demand their money back for false advertisement.
- Drop explains in great detail how Aeon X Open differs from Aeon Flow Open or other Aeon's. So don't see why they would lie about Aeon X Closed.

 

[TheHighContemplator]

@ziddy76 , this is strange. I hope we can get to the bottom of all this soon. It will be interesting to see how Resolve's next sample from Drop measures. I wonder if @Dan Clark will chime in to clarify what's going on here.