German Maestro GMP 8.35 D Headphone Review

[Matt_Holland]

Those are ideal sounding and very rugged phones for monitoring, when playing live in a recording studio, as a musician. You definitely don't want too much bass, let alone sub-bass, in such a situation, and you also don't want ear-piercing 4kHz power.

Those are valid points, and presumably no information was given to Amir by the manufacturer to give context to the measurements, otherwise he would have included it in the beginning of the review? And if you just go by the website description these headphones “amazes listeners with its dynamic bass response” so I assume they are supposed to give good bass, even emphasis in this area?

For studio use the headphone monitor channel would have some simple tone controls to cut out bass if needed, no?

 

[Universal Cereal Bus]

Due to their close to indestructible build these were used by a large German electronics & music store chain for listening stations.

You jogged my memory--I knew I've seen these before... at lots of different museums!

MKII Headphones - Auckland War Memorial Museum - blackbox-av

Our MKII Headphones were utilised both indoors and outdoors with multiple video screens across Auckland War Memorial Museum

www.blackboxav.co.uk

 

[daniboun]

"Built like a tank and designed without R&D"...

 

[Power Pop 23]

There is a market for the build quality of the German Maestro GMP 8.35 D headphone.

This is an opportunity for German Maestro to offer a variant tuned to the Harman curve with larger cups.

 

[VientoB]

That massive dip at 4kHz is just weird. I can only assume they wanted you to test them for developmental feedback?

 

[Tell]

Thanks Amir.

Company states on their website:

Acoustically the GMP 8.35 D Monitor amazes users with its dynamic bass response and overall transparency in the midrange and high frequency section. The headphone's low-impedance and highly sensitive drivers are able to adapt the widest range of equipment - whether on a mixing table or on portable devices. And of course the GMP 8.35 D Monitor features the same technical design standard of series 8.000 headphones - as a long term durability is granted. Against his countermodel - GMP 8.35 D Monitor - this model has a 1.4m detachable cable which is connected with the headphone by a 3.5mm jack socket.

Specifics

• Frequency Response: 20 - 27.000 Hz
• Nominal Impedance: 35 Ohm
• Acoustical Principle: closed
• Ear Pads: synthetic leather, circumaural (41-6086)
• Average pressure on the ear: ~ 5,5 N
• Weight without cable: 250g
• Connector: gold plated stereo--jack 3,5mm
• yarn braided cable 1,4m

Based on their description and what we see from the measurements I would say they failed on the bass performance, and to some extent on transparency in high frequencies.

For Hifi use, these look poor. For professional use they look decent mechanically but the poor bass response will surely be an issue.

Voted poor because of the huge number of better options out there.

The frequency response of especially headphones have always been more oe less a lie, but these one takes the price when they say it goes down to 20Hz while the measurements show its down to -3dB at around 150Hz already. The speaker in my phone got better bass response than this headphone.
I also voted poor.

 

[338h10]

Never heard of them. Maybe these headphones sound better when used in the bathtub? https://www.german-maestro.de/Deutsch/shop/marine-audio/

I believe there is a connection to MB Quart, which used to rival Beyerdynamic.

 

[338h10]

These used to be really highly regarded/recommended on the forums until around 10 years back

I think the higher regarded ones were their models with higher impedance drivers -- 120ohm and 300ohm. For example, German Maestro's updated version of MB Quart's QP95, which used to compete with Beyer's DT990.

 

[GD Fan]

Why can't they be durable and rugged and also sound good?

 

[DSJR]

At least they're cheap... so I imagine someone might be interested. I'll move on to the next one.

Thanks for the review

CHEAP???

Oh bloomin' 'eck, I really am mixing with the wrong crowd now if two hundred UK quid is regarded as cheap these days...

As you were fellas, as you were (mumbles off into the sunset)

 

[gzost]

Below the response curve as measured by Sonarworks (and displayed in their SoundID Reference software).

This also as the issue around 4 kHz and too much treble, but much better, though still not great, bass extension.

 

[Igor_S]

Interesting. How such deep cancellation at ~ 4khz occurs? I've tried some cheap drivers from Aliexpress and received same result even in fully open cup. So it's not a reflection from the cup. It's some sort of reflection from driver's own basket?

 

[solderdude]

I'll give a hint from another closed German headphone regarding the sharp null.
Like some famous Australian movie star once said....
That's not a null ... THIS is a null.

 

[solderdude]

Those are valid points, and presumably no information was given to Amir by the manufacturer to give context to the measurements, otherwise he would have included it in the beginning of the review? And if you just go by the website description these headphones “amazes listeners with its dynamic bass response” so I assume they are supposed to give good bass, even emphasis in this area?

For studio use the headphone monitor channel would have some simple tone controls to cut out bass if needed, no?

You should read the advertorials for the AKG K92 and then have a look of what they are selling.

K92

back to AKG back to measurements home published: Jun-27-2018, updated: Apr-7-2019 NO SMOOTHING is applied to the shown plots. Most measurement sites have some smoothing applied which ‘irons flat’ s…

diyaudioheaven.wordpress.com

And Amir's measurement:

Yes, that's what manufacturers sell and advertise as great sounding.

 

[Matt_Holland]

You should read the advertorials for the AKG K92 and then have a look of what they are selling.

K92

back to AKG back to measurements home published: Jun-27-2018, updated: Apr-7-2019 NO SMOOTHING is applied to the shown plots. Most measurement sites have some smoothing applied which ‘irons flat’ s…

diyaudioheaven.wordpress.com

And Amir's measurement:
View attachment 553886

Yes, that's what manufacturers sell and advertise as great sounding.

Wow!!!

 

[solderdude]

Studio monitors just have to isolate really well (so the mic won't pick anything up).
Not have distracting bass, not have any sharpness and sibilance (3-6kHz range) but does have treble for the finer nuances.
All it needs to do is have a good midrange for vocals (200Hz to 3kHz) and that's what it does.
Isolate well, extremely sturdy (like Beyerdynamics) because they sometimes drop on the floor, are accidentally sat on etc.
No one wants these working tools at home to enjoy music or mix on.

The K92 does not match that description though but the DT770 and GMP 3.5 do.
On top of that the GMP can be driven from just about any device.

Those are ideal sounding and very rugged phones for monitoring, when playing live in a recording studio, as a musician. You definitely don't want too much bass, let alone sub-bass, in such a situation, and you also don't want ear-piercing 4kHz power.

Exactly ^^

 

[TNT]

At least they're cheap

245USD.. cheap?

//

 

[Salt]

Interim conclusion: according to @KSTR and @solderdude , these headphones do highly fit for the the target use.

 

[Eulipian]

This is a review, listening test, EQ and detailed measurements of the German Maestro GMP 8.35 D Headphone. It was sent to me by the company and sells for US $245.
View attachment 553776
As you see the headphone looks somewhat industrial and seems to be built to be durable. It came with another set of pads but I chose to test the defaults as you see. The cups are a bit small for me so the fit was not very comfortable. A detachable 3.5mm connector/cable carries the signal to it and two different lengths are provided.

I had not heard for the company before when they reached out to me. But they explained their long history including at some point being MB Quart.

German Maestro GMP 8.35 D Headphone Measurements
The ribbed section of the headphone covers an adjustment for the headphone band. Alas, no matter what I did, I could not improve the bass frequency response:
View attachment 553778
I checked and found one other measurement online showing similar bass droop so I think this what the headphone is going to deliver. Some kind of cancellation exists around 4.2 kHz causing that trough. The combination I am afraid is going to take the life out of the incoming signal. We could of course EQ:
View attachment 553779

Alas, distortion is high in both areas, making application of EQ costly:
View attachment 553780
View attachment 553781

Group delay reflects the same:
View attachment 553782

My fixture for measuring impedance has broken. Company specifies 32 ohm.

Sensitivity is well above average so driving them should not be difficult at all:
View attachment 553783

German Maestro GMP 8.35 D Listening Tests and EQ
As expected, the sound was quite dull on my reference tracks, causing me to immediately resort to EQ:
View attachment 553784

The large boost for bass requires a lot of headroom so best watch out for that or you will digitally clip. With EQ, created by eye, the sound became more lively but still not what I would like to listen to.

Conclusions
When the company reached out to me, I explained that I like to see Harman-like headphone response and not achieving that would result in rather negative review. To their credit the company insisted that I measure and test them anyway. Sadly my prediction has come true with a headphone response that is just not very hi-fi in my book. Company positions the headphone for professional use so maybe someone in that domain likes this kind of response.

They have managed to build a durable headphone from what I can tell. So if someone wants to not worry about stepping on a headphone and breaking it, then there is some value here.

As much as I appreciate the company sending me the German Maestro GMP 8.35 D, I can't recommend it.
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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.815

You'll have to update your introduction to audio measurements video Amir with dynamic foot-pressure metric explained.

 

[829]

The will last decades.

The enclosures maybe, certainly not the drivers. Having the highest distortion where SPL is the relative lowest, is quite an art. I really would like to know what was the reasoning behind such a product... You cannot explain it with this:

Those are ideal sounding and very rugged phones for monitoring, when playing live in a recording studio, as a musician. You definitely don't want too much bass, let alone sub-bass, in such a situation, and you also don't want ear-piercing 4kHz power.

You'd limit yourself one way - you can only further decrease audio fidelity but should more accurate monitoring be required, you cannot fix it since distortion already is limiting. The smart way would be to build at least a decent product and if required:

[...]

For studio use the headphone monitor channel would have some simple tone controls to cut out bass if needed, no?

And even if the intention was like @KSTR suggested and marketing accidentally released the right text for the wrong headphone, why accept such a strange distortion behavior?

This makes me sad considering what German engineering once stood for.