This is a review, listening tests and detailed measurements of the Gold Planar GL2000 headphone. It was kindly sent to me by a member and costs about US $600.
The GL2000 feels rather luxurious and sturdy in hand and attractive to look at. The sample I received has solid leather pads. I understand there is also a perforated one. The pads are very soft and make wearing the 550 gram headphone comfortable to wear. That softness though gave fair bit of variations between the cups in the measurements at higher frequencies.
Gold Planar GL2000 Headphone Measurements
Let's start with our usual frequency response measurements:
As noted, very little of the response matches our target. I expect the tonality to lack bass, air and spatial qualities. The latter two due to short fall between 1.5 and 5 kHz. Development of equalization filter by eye can be challenging due to odd shape and number of variations:
I was impressed by how low the distortion was all the way up to 114 dBSPL:
In theory then we should be able to boost what we want without fear of distortion. Practice though was different as you will read in the listening section.
Group delay is messy likely due to resonances and internal reflections:
As expected from a Planar Magnetic design, impedance is flat:
I was pleasantly surprised by high sensitivity which should make it easier to drive with many sources/headphone amplifiers:
Gold Planar GL2000 Headphone Listening Tests and Equalization
Compared to my reference headphone, the sound was dull and unexciting. There was little bass. Female vocals were pushed way in the back. Essentially everything that I associate with "hi fi" sound was missing. So out came filters:
I initially did not have the high pass filter. Sadly with sub-bass heavy tracks, the headphone started to crackle forcing me to roll off the extreme low frequencies. What was there was now substantially better than stock tuning though with satisfying bass and dynamics. There was plenty of "air" now and spatial qualities were nice (B+). I could happily listen to the GL2000s with EQ. Turning off the EQ was dramatic, making the sound like the difference between CD and AM radio!
Conclusions
The GL2000 headphone lands in the story of "we will build it and EQ will come!" Cleary no target existed as far as tonality with so much deficiency in the response of the headphone, holding it back from producing enjoyable music. Fortunately most of that could be fixed with Equalization, sans very low bass. I have no explanation for why this aspect was not revealed in measurements. Perhaps I have bass at even higher level than 114 dBSPL!
I can't recommend the Gold Planar GL2000 as is. With EQ however, it becomes a good headphone with nice comfort and look/feel.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Appreciate any donations using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
The GL2000 feels rather luxurious and sturdy in hand and attractive to look at. The sample I received has solid leather pads. I understand there is also a perforated one. The pads are very soft and make wearing the 550 gram headphone comfortable to wear. That softness though gave fair bit of variations between the cups in the measurements at higher frequencies.
Gold Planar GL2000 Headphone Measurements
Let's start with our usual frequency response measurements:
As noted, very little of the response matches our target. I expect the tonality to lack bass, air and spatial qualities. The latter two due to short fall between 1.5 and 5 kHz. Development of equalization filter by eye can be challenging due to odd shape and number of variations:
I was impressed by how low the distortion was all the way up to 114 dBSPL:
In theory then we should be able to boost what we want without fear of distortion. Practice though was different as you will read in the listening section.
Group delay is messy likely due to resonances and internal reflections:
As expected from a Planar Magnetic design, impedance is flat:
I was pleasantly surprised by high sensitivity which should make it easier to drive with many sources/headphone amplifiers:
Gold Planar GL2000 Headphone Listening Tests and Equalization
Compared to my reference headphone, the sound was dull and unexciting. There was little bass. Female vocals were pushed way in the back. Essentially everything that I associate with "hi fi" sound was missing. So out came filters:
I initially did not have the high pass filter. Sadly with sub-bass heavy tracks, the headphone started to crackle forcing me to roll off the extreme low frequencies. What was there was now substantially better than stock tuning though with satisfying bass and dynamics. There was plenty of "air" now and spatial qualities were nice (B+). I could happily listen to the GL2000s with EQ. Turning off the EQ was dramatic, making the sound like the difference between CD and AM radio!
Conclusions
The GL2000 headphone lands in the story of "we will build it and EQ will come!" Cleary no target existed as far as tonality with so much deficiency in the response of the headphone, holding it back from producing enjoyable music. Fortunately most of that could be fixed with Equalization, sans very low bass. I have no explanation for why this aspect was not revealed in measurements. Perhaps I have bass at even higher level than 114 dBSPL!
I can't recommend the Gold Planar GL2000 as is. With EQ however, it becomes a good headphone with nice comfort and look/feel.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Appreciate any donations using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
