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Kennerton Rognir Review (Closed Back Headphone)

bunkbail

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The only problem I face with software PEQ is latency. Using it with things like rhythm games and video editing is a no go.
I'm just glad pretty much all hardware PEQ is only 5ms or less. That's fine to deal with.
Hmmm what softwares are you using that have noticable latencies?
 

PeteL

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There's plenty of EQ software to choose from for smartphones and tablets. And then there's the Qudelix-5K for hardware PEQ.
These days, there's no good excuse for not equalizing your headphones.
If You don't have a Qdelix. Can you recommend a software solution using Tidal as source on IOS?
 

Aperiodic

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I suspect that the large, shallow, flat and perfectly round back cups are causing the issue by causing standing waves and cancelations, not just with the diaphragm and diaphragm housing, but also with the users head, similar to two large parallel walls in a room. The opposite of this is the basic shape of Dan Clarks closed back designs, which try to mitigate these types of problems as much as possible.
I was wondering whether someone would bring up the Dan Clark Stealth, which seemingly crushes this in every way possible at nearly the same price point. Why would you buy this rather than that? A nearly $4K headphone shouldn't need this much 'help'.
 

sarumbear

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To me, it's just like the Bose 901s. Take an absolute wreckage of a speaker, built from rubbish drivers, put a ton of them in a box and EQ the hell out of them to make the entire product partially acceptable.
Risking going off-topic, I must correct this post. Bose 901 drive units were state of the art at the time. Aluminium rectangular profile wire on voice coil, etc. They are good PA speakers even by today’s standards.
 
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ngs428

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Looks like you want him to repeat the frequency response and distortion measurements after eq so that you can compare the charts.

I would also like this. But it is doubling the amount of work he needs to do per headphone.
It is double the work, but we are on ASR, so some science behind the EQ changes would be welcome.

Since most every headphone is recommended after EQ (and not before). The graphs after would be a very important part of the review.

Edit: guess it can’t be done per Amir below.
 
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amirm

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I would also like this. But it is doubling the amount of work he needs to do per headphone.
It is more than double the work. The measurement pipeline just doesn't support it.

I create the EQ in Roon player. There is no exporting of that EQ and even there were, it would be a pain to reimplement it in Audio Precision as a filter. The only way to then measure the impact is to run an asynchronous test where Roon plays test tones and AP captures it. It can be done and I have done it but it is really a pain.

Ultimately the purpose of my EQ is to show whether the frequency response measurement artifacts are audible and to what extent. I am building a closed loop of listening with measurements. It is not meant to be a 100% precise inverse correction of frequency response error but rough approximation.
 
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amirm

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@amirm What dB value for Headroom management in Roon do you use?
I use the default in Roon which I think is -3 dB. But then in addition I watch the clipping indicator in addition to compensating for overall level shift and pull the whole EQ down as needed. You can see that here:

index.php


See how there is a second purple horizontal line. That shows that I reduced overall levels with the slider on the right.

In general I try to minimize the amount of headroom as that impacts headroom of the amplifier.
 

Dro

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I was wondering whether someone would bring up the Dan Clark Stealth, which seemingly crushes this in every way possible at nearly the same price point. Why would you buy this rather than that? A nearly $4K headphone shouldn't need this much 'help'.
Head-fi thinks the Rögnir is much better than the Stealth.
 

Skinner001

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I don't get why people are getting confused by Amir saying he doesn't take price into consideration when making recommendations. You're buying, so take price into account. The notion of value is also quite subjective.

For example - there really is no reason to spend 4k on the DC Stealth, because there are much cheaper options which can get you close enough to it (especially with EQ) - but there is a place for it in the market and there are people for whom 4k is not a deal-breaker or even bad value.

This is an expensive headphone with a bunch of problems - with EQ it becomes bearable. You decide if the look, feel, materials, comfort and other sources of value and motivation for buying all amount to something you want to buy - Amir can't answer that question - he can only talk about the measurement and what EQ does for it. He could answer, for himself, personally, but it still has nothing to do with your notion of value.

E.g. Amir loves the Stealth and decided to keep the unit he got (if memory serves it he swapped some of his stuff for them) - but I wouldn't do it - I'd get the Noir or wait for Stealth tech to trickle down to lower priced options from DC - that's my price limit, within my notion of value.

For me personally, this is a piece of junk which I would not waste a 100$ on - well, I would, and then resell it to some audiofool for a nice profit :D
 
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amirm

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Measurements here are truly awful. We are told that this horror can be rescued by EQ and ultimately sounds almost great. Aren't we 100% in subjective territory here?
If you want to live by the sword, you need to die by the sword. If the awfulness is due to frequency response, then correcting it with EQ should be more than an acceptable solution to that very problem.

Once there, you do benefit from very high power capability of this headphone, its overall comfort, and excellent spatial effects. None of this shows up in objective measurements -- not directly anyway -- so subjective experience needs to fill in the gaps.

Also, keep in mind that subjective listening tests with EQ are at the service of measurements. It is not like I dialed in a bunch of random EQ and told you it now sounds good. Measurements 100% instructed what correction I put in there. So your comment that this is "100% subjective" is completely wrong. The work was, as I have explained so many times, to verify the audibility of measurement artifacts. In this case it was proven that the major variations were really problematic.

Now how much the residual noisiness in the response matters, I don't know. I don't have the subjective listening test setup to evaluate that. Maybe what is left is terrible, maybe not. With the bit of evaluation I did, I stand by my assessment that they are not playing a major role.
 

Tks

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Don't get it.. Performance doesn't seem state of the art by any stretch, and the construction doesn't seem all that great either. Where did they pull this price? I'm sorry but have these folks seen what a Meze Elite/Empyrean look like?
 

PierreV

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If you want to live by the sword, you need to die by the sword. If the awfulness is due to frequency response, then correcting it with EQ should be more than an acceptable solution to that very problem.
Fair indeed.
Once there, you do benefit from very high power capability of this headphone, its overall comfort,
Again very good points.

and excellent spatial effects. None of this shows up in objective measurements -- not directly anyway -- so subjective experience needs to fill in the gaps.

OK again. Headphone testing keeps a lot of subjectivity then.

Also, keep in mind that subjective listening tests with EQ are at the service of measurements. It is not like I dialed in a bunch of random EQ and told you it now sounds good. Measurements 100% instructed what correction I put in there. So your comment that this is "100% subjective" is completely wrong. The work was, as I have explained so many times, to verify the audibility of measurement artifacts. In this case it was proven that the major variations were really problematic.

So, what led you to the 880Hz correction here? I am genuinely curious, not trying to complain in any way. Looking at that FR, I would not have the idea to try to touch that area.
 
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amirm

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So, what led you to the 880Hz correction here? I am genuinely curious, not trying to complain in any way. Looking at that FR, I would not have the idea to try to touch that area.
It is a peak there:

1634499994720.png
 

Skinner001

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So, what led you to the 880Hz correction here? I am genuinely curious, not trying to complain in any way. Looking at that FR, I would not have the idea to try to touch that area.
Is it that hard to see?
It has a slight 2-2.5 db peak there and thus, it is 100% informed by the measurement - you might not have seen it as something to correct, and in that respect yes, subjective in deciding what one would want to correct - but not 100% subjective since still informed by measurements.

EDIT: :D as Amir posted a moment earlier than this post.
 
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