I think it is this one?
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Lily Audio Genesis One Headphone Review
- Thread starter amirm
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- May 17, 2026
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Sorry for the confusion but it is not. That rubber ring on the dust filter has been there from the begining (batch #1). The retrofit is inside the driver. It can not be seen without open up the headphone. I am going to have a blog explaining all these soon.
Last edited:
- Joined
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I also tested these headphones, figured some of you would be interested!
Full post here:
The below graph shows the same data (with the leather earpads) compared against the diffuse-field curve. The preproduction version was tuned somewhat close to the diffuse field curve (with added bass but no tilt in the treble). The production version is tuned differently, the bass is still present but the treble was reduced to be more in line with listener expectations.
The short version is that the velours earpads are a bit more "V-shaped" (more bass and a bit more treble).
I also tested the effect of stacking two of those damping screens, this lowers the SPL above 5 kHz even more.
Some amplifiers (specifically Class D amplifiers) will emit an inaudible signal in the MHz region. This is not an issue on traditional headphones where the voice coil forms an inductor, which will have a high impedance at high frequencies and effectively block any current from being drawn in the MHz region. But for capacitive loads this could mean that a lot of current is being drawn from the amplifier at the switching frequency (MHz range). You will not hear this (we can not hear MHz signals), but the amplifier needs to provide the current nonetheless, which can send the amplifier into an overcurrent state.
Some amplifiers will also not like that the impedance of a capacitor shows a phase shift of -90°.
So when selecting an amplifier to be used with this headphone, make sure that it can handle capacitive loads without going into overcurrent or starting to oscillate.
Since the impedance drops down with increasing frequency, it also means that when you pair these headphones with an amplifier that has a high output impedance, you are effectively building a low-pass filter and are lowering the voltage for high frequencies. Meaning: When using this headphone with an OTL tube amplifier, you will get a significant reduction in the treble.
Here's an example of how this headphone's frequency response changes when used with an amplifier with an output impedance of 120 Ohm:
I measured these at a voltage sensitivity of 74.2 dB at 1 Volt (averaged from 500 Hz to 1 kHz). This is about 5 dB better than the pre-production unit, but is still very, very low.
The exact voltage that you need from your amplifier depends on:
Note that the level here is the peak level, which is calculated as
So to find the voltage that you need for a certain level, you calculate:
For example, I like to listen to rock music at an average volume of about 75 dB. This means that the peak levels that I'd be listening to would be at about 87 dB (75+12). To produce 87 dB, this headphone needs to be fed with 4.4 Volt. That's high, but plenty of audiophile amplifiers are capable of that. I could even do that with a Qudelix 5K and only miss the goal by like 1 dB (not relevant on the grand scheme of things).
Below is a table showing the required output voltage for common combinations of listening level and music genre (crest factor):
Compared to the pre-production unit, the Genesis One requires about 35% less voltage thanks to the improved voltage sensitivity.
I don't have a measurement result for this, but I did test these headphones on two humans using in-ear microphones to see how much leakage occurs on normal heads, and the results aligned very well with the regular measurements on the test fixture. Meaning: Despite the slightly odd shape of this headphone, my test fixture accurately simulates a real human in terms of leakage.
For completeness' sake, here's how this headphone's frequency response changes with different amounts of leakage. For the red line there was a 1/2 inch gap between the headphone and the test fixture, which is absolutely unrealistic, but it does highlight which frequency ranges you would expect to see a change.
That's all great, but how does that compare to other headphones?
For this comparison, I've measured SPL and THD at different input levels for:
The relation of distortion and sound pressure tends to be linear, we can easily look at the trends.
The most notable result is in the midrange, where the Genesis One shows a notable improvement in terms of distortion compared to the pre-production version - a reduction in distortion by about 50% is a remarkable feat if you've ever done a deep dive into nonlinearity of piezo coefficients!
At subbass frequencies (45 Hz), Genesis One performs comparable to other dynamic headphones. The fully open K1000 runs into its limits here. Soft-suspension planar magnetic headphones are unbeatable in this regard.
At 1 kHz we see a strong improvement over the pre-production version, but still, dynamic headphones and especially planar magnetic headphones have the upper hand here, thanks to significantly more man-hours having been poured into them over the past decades.
Full post here:
Frequency Response & Earpads
The Genesis One comes with two sets of earpads which the company refers to as Earpads #2 (fenestrated leather) and Earpads #3 (velour). As always I'm showing the average of multiple reseats. The shaded area shows by how much the frequency response can change just by slightly moving the headphone forward/backward/up/down on your head. You can see how this can cause a lot of variation at high frequencies, which is one of the reasons why frequency response measurements at high frequencies need to be taken with a grain of salt. Don't go looking for individual peaks >10 kHz on such charts, they'll move a lot depending on how exactly you place the headphone on your head.
The below graph shows the same data (with the leather earpads) compared against the diffuse-field curve. The preproduction version was tuned somewhat close to the diffuse field curve (with added bass but no tilt in the treble). The production version is tuned differently, the bass is still present but the treble was reduced to be more in line with listener expectations.
The short version is that the velours earpads are a bit more "V-shaped" (more bass and a bit more treble).
Damping Screen
Similar to the HD800, this headphone has a fabric screen inserted directly in front of the loudspeaker. Removing this damping screen (red graph) causes the sound pressure to be reduced significantly from 2 to 5 kHz, and increased above 5k.I also tested the effect of stacking two of those damping screens, this lowers the SPL above 5 kHz even more.
Impedance
The capacitance of the Genesis one is 160 nF. Meaning that at 20 Hz this headphone has an impedance of 100 kOhm. At 10 kHz it's still well over 100 Ohm. Such a high impedance means that very little current will be drawn from the amplifier...at least at audible frequencies:Some amplifiers (specifically Class D amplifiers) will emit an inaudible signal in the MHz region. This is not an issue on traditional headphones where the voice coil forms an inductor, which will have a high impedance at high frequencies and effectively block any current from being drawn in the MHz region. But for capacitive loads this could mean that a lot of current is being drawn from the amplifier at the switching frequency (MHz range). You will not hear this (we can not hear MHz signals), but the amplifier needs to provide the current nonetheless, which can send the amplifier into an overcurrent state.
Some amplifiers will also not like that the impedance of a capacitor shows a phase shift of -90°.
So when selecting an amplifier to be used with this headphone, make sure that it can handle capacitive loads without going into overcurrent or starting to oscillate.
Since the impedance drops down with increasing frequency, it also means that when you pair these headphones with an amplifier that has a high output impedance, you are effectively building a low-pass filter and are lowering the voltage for high frequencies. Meaning: When using this headphone with an OTL tube amplifier, you will get a significant reduction in the treble.
Here's an example of how this headphone's frequency response changes when used with an amplifier with an output impedance of 120 Ohm:
Sensitivity / "How hard to drive"
One thing to keep in mind with piezo transducers is that the piezoelectric force is about one order of magnitude lower compared to the Lorentz force, so 10x higher voltages are required. That's less than electrostatic headphones, but more than "normal" electrodynamic headphones.I measured these at a voltage sensitivity of 74.2 dB at 1 Volt (averaged from 500 Hz to 1 kHz). This is about 5 dB better than the pre-production unit, but is still very, very low.
The exact voltage that you need from your amplifier depends on:
- how loud you want to listen on average, and also on
- the type of music you listen to - specifically on the crest factor of the music (crest factor describes how much higher the highest peaks of the music are compared to the average volume).
Level = Sensitivity + 20*log10(voltage)Note that the level here is the peak level, which is calculated as
peak level = average level + crest factorSo to find the voltage that you need for a certain level, you calculate:
Required voltage = 10^( (peak level - sensitivity)/20)For example, I like to listen to rock music at an average volume of about 75 dB. This means that the peak levels that I'd be listening to would be at about 87 dB (75+12). To produce 87 dB, this headphone needs to be fed with 4.4 Volt. That's high, but plenty of audiophile amplifiers are capable of that. I could even do that with a Qudelix 5K and only miss the goal by like 1 dB (not relevant on the grand scheme of things).
Below is a table showing the required output voltage for common combinations of listening level and music genre (crest factor):
| Listening Level | Type of music | Required output voltage of amplifier |
|---|---|---|
| Low (~60 dBA) | Modern EDM (~5 dB crest factor) | 0.35 Vrms |
| Medium (~70 dBA) | Modern EDM (~5 dB crest factor) | 1.1 Vrms |
| Loud (~80 dBA) | Modern EDM (~5 dB crest factor) | 3.5 Vrms |
| Very loud (~90 dBA) | Modern EDM (~5 dB crest factor) | 11 Vrms |
| Low (~60 dBA) | Rock music (~12 dB crest factor) | 0.78 Vrms |
| Medium (~70 dBA) | Rock music (~12 dB crest factor) | 2.5 Vrms |
| Loud (~80 dBA) | Rock music (~12 dB crest factor) | 7.8 Vrms |
| Very loud (~90 dBA) | Rock music (~12 dB crest factor) | 25 Vrms |
| Low (~60 dBA) | Classical music (~18 dB crest factor) | 1.6 Vrms |
| Medium (~70 dBA) | Classical music (~18 dB crest factor) | 4.9 Vrms |
| Loud (~80 dBA) | Classical music (~18 dB crest factor) | 16 Vrms |
| Very loud (~90 dBA) | Classical music (~18 dB crest factor) | 49 Vrms |
| Very loud (~90 dBA) | Classical music with VERY high dynamic range (20 dB crest factor) | 62 Vrms |
Compared to the pre-production unit, the Genesis One requires about 35% less voltage thanks to the improved voltage sensitivity.
Leakage
It's an open headphone so naively we would expect its acoustic impedance to be low, but that is not the case here - the acoustic impedance of this headphone is dominated by the actuator's stiffness and the diaphragm's mass. When adding additional leakage to the system (by introducing a small, controlled gap between the earpads and the "cheek" of the test fixture) you can see the SPL dropping down at frequencies below 1 kHz.I don't have a measurement result for this, but I did test these headphones on two humans using in-ear microphones to see how much leakage occurs on normal heads, and the results aligned very well with the regular measurements on the test fixture. Meaning: Despite the slightly odd shape of this headphone, my test fixture accurately simulates a real human in terms of leakage.
For completeness' sake, here's how this headphone's frequency response changes with different amounts of leakage. For the red line there was a 1/2 inch gap between the headphone and the test fixture, which is absolutely unrealistic, but it does highlight which frequency ranges you would expect to see a change.
Distortion
A surprising amount of people don't know this, but distortion actually changes depending on how loud you turn up a headphone. Below are the SPL and THD results for different input voltages:
That's all great, but how does that compare to other headphones?
For this comparison, I've measured SPL and THD at different input levels for:
- "regular" dynamic headphones (Sennheiser HD518)
- high-end dynamic headphones (Sennheiser HD800)
- other headphones with a very open concept (AKG K1000 and Grell OAE2)
- planar magnetic headphones (Hifiman HE600 and SJY Zeph)
The relation of distortion and sound pressure tends to be linear, we can easily look at the trends.
The most notable result is in the midrange, where the Genesis One shows a notable improvement in terms of distortion compared to the pre-production version - a reduction in distortion by about 50% is a remarkable feat if you've ever done a deep dive into nonlinearity of piezo coefficients!
At subbass frequencies (45 Hz), Genesis One performs comparable to other dynamic headphones. The fully open K1000 runs into its limits here. Soft-suspension planar magnetic headphones are unbeatable in this regard.
At 1 kHz we see a strong improvement over the pre-production version, but still, dynamic headphones and especially planar magnetic headphones have the upper hand here, thanks to significantly more man-hours having been poured into them over the past decades.
EQ
To compensate some of the idiosyncracies of this headphone, you can apply an EQ preset and adjust to preference from there:- EQ setting for Earpads #2 (leather)
- EQ setting for Earpads #3 (velours)
Soria Moria
Addicted to Fun and Learning
Great work, though hard to read here with the forum set to dark modeI also tested these headphones, figured some of you would be interested!
Full post here:
Frequency Response & Earpads
The Genesis One comes with two sets of earpads which the company refers to as Earpads #2 (fenestrated leather) and Earpads #3 (velour). As always I'm showing the average of multiple reseats. The shaded area shows by how much the frequency response can change just by slightly moving the headphone forward/backward/up/down on your head. You can see how this can cause a lot of variation at high frequencies, which is one of the reasons why frequency response measurements at high frequencies need to be taken with a grain of salt. Don't go looking for individual peaks >10 kHz on such charts, they'll move a lot depending on how exactly you place the headphone on your head.
The below graph shows the same data (with the leather earpads) compared against the diffuse-field curve. The preproduction version was tuned somewhat close to the diffuse field curve (with added bass but no tilt in the treble). The production version is tuned differently, the bass is still present but the treble was reduced to be more in line with listener expectations.
The short version is that the velours earpads are a bit more "V-shaped" (more bass and a bit more treble).
Damping Screen
Similar to the HD800, this headphone has a fabric screen inserted directly in front of the loudspeaker. Removing this damping screen (red graph) causes the sound pressure to be reduced significantly from 2 to 5 kHz, and increased above 5k.
I also tested the effect of stacking two of those damping screens, this lowers the SPL above 5 kHz even more.
Impedance
The capacitance of the Genesis one is 160 nF. Meaning that at 20 Hz this headphone has an impedance of 100 kOhm. At 10 kHz it's still well over 100 Ohm. Such a high impedance means that very little current will be drawn from the amplifier...at least at audible frequencies:
Some amplifiers (specifically Class D amplifiers) will emit an inaudible signal in the MHz region. This is not an issue on traditional headphones where the voice coil forms an inductor, which will have a high impedance at high frequencies and effectively block any current from being drawn in the MHz region. But for capacitive loads this could mean that a lot of current is being drawn from the amplifier at the switching frequency (MHz range). You will not hear this (we can not hear MHz signals), but the amplifier needs to provide the current nonetheless, which can send the amplifier into an overcurrent state.
Some amplifiers will also not like that the impedance of a capacitor shows a phase shift of -90°.
So when selecting an amplifier to be used with this headphone, make sure that it can handle capacitive loads without going into overcurrent or starting to oscillate.
Since the impedance drops down with increasing frequency, it also means that when you pair these headphones with an amplifier that has a high output impedance, you are effectively building a low-pass filter and are lowering the voltage for high frequencies. Meaning: When using this headphone with an OTL tube amplifier, you will get a significant reduction in the treble.
Here's an example of how this headphone's frequency response changes when used with an amplifier with an output impedance of 120 Ohm:
Sensitivity / "How hard to drive"
One thing to keep in mind with piezo transducers is that the piezoelectric force is about one order of magnitude lower compared to the Lorentz force, so 10x higher voltages are required. That's less than electrostatic headphones, but more than "normal" electrodynamic headphones.
I measured these at a voltage sensitivity of 74.2 dB at 1 Volt (averaged from 500 Hz to 1 kHz). This is about 5 dB better than the pre-production unit, but is still very, very low.
The exact voltage that you need from your amplifier depends on:
The calculation goes as follows:
- how loud you want to listen on average, and also on
- the type of music you listen to - specifically on the crest factor of the music (crest factor describes how much higher the highest peaks of the music are compared to the average volume).
Level = Sensitivity + 20*log10(voltage)
Note that the level here is the peak level, which is calculated aspeak level = average level + crest factor
So to find the voltage that you need for a certain level, you calculate:
Required voltage = 10^( (peak level - sensitivity)/20)
For example, I like to listen to rock music at an average volume of about 75 dB. This means that the peak levels that I'd be listening to would be at about 87 dB (75+12). To produce 87 dB, this headphone needs to be fed with 4.4 Volt. That's high, but plenty of audiophile amplifiers are capable of that. I could even do that with a Qudelix 5K and only miss the goal by like 1 dB (not relevant on the grand scheme of things).
Below is a table showing the required output voltage for common combinations of listening level and music genre (crest factor):
Listening Level Type of music Required output voltage of amplifier Low (~60 dBA) Modern EDM (~5 dB crest factor) 0.35 Vrms Medium (~70 dBA) Modern EDM (~5 dB crest factor) 1.1 Vrms Loud (~80 dBA) Modern EDM (~5 dB crest factor) 3.5 Vrms Very loud (~90 dBA) Modern EDM (~5 dB crest factor) 11 Vrms Low (~60 dBA) Rock music (~12 dB crest factor) 0.78 Vrms Medium (~70 dBA) Rock music (~12 dB crest factor) 2.5 Vrms Loud (~80 dBA) Rock music (~12 dB crest factor) 7.8 Vrms Very loud (~90 dBA) Rock music (~12 dB crest factor) 25 Vrms Low (~60 dBA) Classical music (~18 dB crest factor) 1.6 Vrms Medium (~70 dBA) Classical music (~18 dB crest factor) 4.9 Vrms Loud (~80 dBA) Classical music (~18 dB crest factor) 16 Vrms Very loud (~90 dBA) Classical music (~18 dB crest factor) 49 Vrms Very loud (~90 dBA) Classical music with VERY high dynamic range (20 dB crest factor) 62 Vrms
Compared to the pre-production unit, the Genesis One requires about 35% less voltage thanks to the improved voltage sensitivity.
Leakage
It's an open headphone so naively we would expect its acoustic impedance to be low, but that is not the case here - the acoustic impedance of this headphone is dominated by the actuator's stiffness and the diaphragm's mass. When adding additional leakage to the system (by introducing a small, controlled gap between the earpads and the "cheek" of the test fixture) you can see the SPL dropping down at frequencies below 1 kHz.
I don't have a measurement result for this, but I did test these headphones on two humans using in-ear microphones to see how much leakage occurs on normal heads, and the results aligned very well with the regular measurements on the test fixture. Meaning: Despite the slightly odd shape of this headphone, my test fixture accurately simulates a real human in terms of leakage.
For completeness' sake, here's how this headphone's frequency response changes with different amounts of leakage. For the red line there was a 1/2 inch gap between the headphone and the test fixture, which is absolutely unrealistic, but it does highlight which frequency ranges you would expect to see a change.
View attachment 539197
Distortion
A surprising amount of people don't know this, but distortion actually changes depending on how loud you turn up a headphone. Below are the SPL and THD results for different input voltages:
View attachment 539198
That's all great, but how does that compare to other headphones?
For this comparison, I've measured SPL and THD at different input levels for:
The graphs below show the SPL on the x-axis and the distortion on the y-axis. A good result would therefore be towards the bottom right ("loud and no distortion").
- "regular" dynamic headphones (Sennheiser HD518)
- high-end dynamic headphones (Sennheiser HD800)
- other headphones with a very open concept (AKG K1000 and Grell OAE2)
- planar magnetic headphones (Hifiman HE600 and SJY Zeph)
The relation of distortion and sound pressure tends to be linear, we can easily look at the trends.
The most notable result is in the midrange, where the Genesis One shows a notable improvement in terms of distortion compared to the pre-production version - a reduction in distortion by about 50% is a remarkable feat if you've ever done a deep dive into nonlinearity of piezo coefficients!
At subbass frequencies (45 Hz), Genesis One performs comparable to other dynamic headphones. The fully open K1000 runs into its limits here. Soft-suspension planar magnetic headphones are unbeatable in this regard.
At 1 kHz we see a strong improvement over the pre-production version, but still, dynamic headphones and especially planar magnetic headphones have the upper hand here, thanks to significantly more man-hours having been poured into them over the past decades.
EQ
To compensate some of the idiosyncracies of this headphone, you can apply an EQ preset and adjust to preference from there:
- EQ setting for Earpads #2 (leather)
- EQ setting for Earpads #3 (velours)
solderdude
Grand Contributor
How's the channel matching (below 3kHz) ?I also tested these headphones, figured some of you would be interested!
Full post here:
Frequency Response & Earpads
The Genesis One comes with two sets of earpads which the company refers to as Earpads #2 (fenestrated leather) and Earpads #3 (velour). As always I'm showing the average of multiple reseats. The shaded area shows by how much the frequency response can change just by slightly moving the headphone forward/backward/up/down on your head. You can see how this can cause a lot of variation at high frequencies, which is one of the reasons why frequency response measurements at high frequencies need to be taken with a grain of salt. Don't go looking for individual peaks >10 kHz on such charts, they'll move a lot depending on how exactly you place the headphone on your head.
The below graph shows the same data (with the leather earpads) compared against the diffuse-field curve. The preproduction version was tuned somewhat close to the diffuse field curve (with added bass but no tilt in the treble). The production version is tuned differently, the bass is still present but the treble was reduced to be more in line with listener expectations.
The short version is that the velours earpads are a bit more "V-shaped" (more bass and a bit more treble).
Damping Screen
Similar to the HD800, this headphone has a fabric screen inserted directly in front of the loudspeaker. Removing this damping screen (red graph) causes the sound pressure to be reduced significantly from 2 to 5 kHz, and increased above 5k.
I also tested the effect of stacking two of those damping screens, this lowers the SPL above 5 kHz even more.
Impedance
The capacitance of the Genesis one is 160 nF. Meaning that at 20 Hz this headphone has an impedance of 100 kOhm. At 10 kHz it's still well over 100 Ohm. Such a high impedance means that very little current will be drawn from the amplifier...at least at audible frequencies:
Some amplifiers (specifically Class D amplifiers) will emit an inaudible signal in the MHz region. This is not an issue on traditional headphones where the voice coil forms an inductor, which will have a high impedance at high frequencies and effectively block any current from being drawn in the MHz region. But for capacitive loads this could mean that a lot of current is being drawn from the amplifier at the switching frequency (MHz range). You will not hear this (we can not hear MHz signals), but the amplifier needs to provide the current nonetheless, which can send the amplifier into an overcurrent state.
Some amplifiers will also not like that the impedance of a capacitor shows a phase shift of -90°.
So when selecting an amplifier to be used with this headphone, make sure that it can handle capacitive loads without going into overcurrent or starting to oscillate.
Since the impedance drops down with increasing frequency, it also means that when you pair these headphones with an amplifier that has a high output impedance, you are effectively building a low-pass filter and are lowering the voltage for high frequencies. Meaning: When using this headphone with an OTL tube amplifier, you will get a significant reduction in the treble.
Here's an example of how this headphone's frequency response changes when used with an amplifier with an output impedance of 120 Ohm:
Sensitivity / "How hard to drive"
One thing to keep in mind with piezo transducers is that the piezoelectric force is about one order of magnitude lower compared to the Lorentz force, so 10x higher voltages are required. That's less than electrostatic headphones, but more than "normal" electrodynamic headphones.
I measured these at a voltage sensitivity of 74.2 dB at 1 Volt (averaged from 500 Hz to 1 kHz). This is about 5 dB better than the pre-production unit, but is still very, very low.
The exact voltage that you need from your amplifier depends on:
The calculation goes as follows:
- how loud you want to listen on average, and also on
- the type of music you listen to - specifically on the crest factor of the music (crest factor describes how much higher the highest peaks of the music are compared to the average volume).
Level = Sensitivity + 20*log10(voltage)
Note that the level here is the peak level, which is calculated aspeak level = average level + crest factor
So to find the voltage that you need for a certain level, you calculate:
Required voltage = 10^( (peak level - sensitivity)/20)
For example, I like to listen to rock music at an average volume of about 75 dB. This means that the peak levels that I'd be listening to would be at about 87 dB (75+12). To produce 87 dB, this headphone needs to be fed with 4.4 Volt. That's high, but plenty of audiophile amplifiers are capable of that. I could even do that with a Qudelix 5K and only miss the goal by like 1 dB (not relevant on the grand scheme of things).
Below is a table showing the required output voltage for common combinations of listening level and music genre (crest factor):
Listening Level Type of music Required output voltage of amplifier Low (~60 dBA) Modern EDM (~5 dB crest factor) 0.35 Vrms Medium (~70 dBA) Modern EDM (~5 dB crest factor) 1.1 Vrms Loud (~80 dBA) Modern EDM (~5 dB crest factor) 3.5 Vrms Very loud (~90 dBA) Modern EDM (~5 dB crest factor) 11 Vrms Low (~60 dBA) Rock music (~12 dB crest factor) 0.78 Vrms Medium (~70 dBA) Rock music (~12 dB crest factor) 2.5 Vrms Loud (~80 dBA) Rock music (~12 dB crest factor) 7.8 Vrms Very loud (~90 dBA) Rock music (~12 dB crest factor) 25 Vrms Low (~60 dBA) Classical music (~18 dB crest factor) 1.6 Vrms Medium (~70 dBA) Classical music (~18 dB crest factor) 4.9 Vrms Loud (~80 dBA) Classical music (~18 dB crest factor) 16 Vrms Very loud (~90 dBA) Classical music (~18 dB crest factor) 49 Vrms Very loud (~90 dBA) Classical music with VERY high dynamic range (20 dB crest factor) 62 Vrms
Compared to the pre-production unit, the Genesis One requires about 35% less voltage thanks to the improved voltage sensitivity.
Leakage
It's an open headphone so naively we would expect its acoustic impedance to be low, but that is not the case here - the acoustic impedance of this headphone is dominated by the actuator's stiffness and the diaphragm's mass. When adding additional leakage to the system (by introducing a small, controlled gap between the earpads and the "cheek" of the test fixture) you can see the SPL dropping down at frequencies below 1 kHz.
I don't have a measurement result for this, but I did test these headphones on two humans using in-ear microphones to see how much leakage occurs on normal heads, and the results aligned very well with the regular measurements on the test fixture. Meaning: Despite the slightly odd shape of this headphone, my test fixture accurately simulates a real human in terms of leakage.
For completeness' sake, here's how this headphone's frequency response changes with different amounts of leakage. For the red line there was a 1/2 inch gap between the headphone and the test fixture, which is absolutely unrealistic, but it does highlight which frequency ranges you would expect to see a change.
View attachment 539197
Distortion
A surprising amount of people don't know this, but distortion actually changes depending on how loud you turn up a headphone. Below are the SPL and THD results for different input voltages:
View attachment 539198
That's all great, but how does that compare to other headphones?
For this comparison, I've measured SPL and THD at different input levels for:
The graphs below show the SPL on the x-axis and the distortion on the y-axis. A good result would therefore be towards the bottom right ("loud and no distortion").
- "regular" dynamic headphones (Sennheiser HD518)
- high-end dynamic headphones (Sennheiser HD800)
- other headphones with a very open concept (AKG K1000 and Grell OAE2)
- planar magnetic headphones (Hifiman HE600 and SJY Zeph)
The relation of distortion and sound pressure tends to be linear, we can easily look at the trends.
The most notable result is in the midrange, where the Genesis One shows a notable improvement in terms of distortion compared to the pre-production version - a reduction in distortion by about 50% is a remarkable feat if you've ever done a deep dive into nonlinearity of piezo coefficients!
At subbass frequencies (45 Hz), Genesis One performs comparable to other dynamic headphones. The fully open K1000 runs into its limits here. Soft-suspension planar magnetic headphones are unbeatable in this regard.
At 1 kHz we see a strong improvement over the pre-production version, but still, dynamic headphones and especially planar magnetic headphones have the upper hand here, thanks to significantly more man-hours having been poured into them over the past decades.
EQ
To compensate some of the idiosyncracies of this headphone, you can apply an EQ preset and adjust to preference from there:
- EQ setting for Earpads #2 (leather)
- EQ setting for Earpads #3 (velours)
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Some of the resonances above 1 kHz aren't at the same position.
Below 1 kHz channel matching is below audibility thresholds.
solderdude
Grand Contributor
Quite similar to the copy I have here (flatplate, no pinna, no ear canal, own target, acoustic smoothing) so nothing 'official'.
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what does the abs(L-R) look like with your data?
solderdude
Grand Contributor
L-R difference:
of course above a few kHz the response is quite position dependent.
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yeah that's similar to my results indeed. alright results, mostly below audibility threshold except for the region broadly around 2 kHz.
AndrewChoppa
New Member
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Hello friend. I reviewd the OG version of these and wasn't completely impressed. I sent feedback to Lily Audio and I did just review their Genesis One headphones final edition-This is a review, listening tests, EQ and detailed measurements of the Lily Audio Genesis One open back headphone. It was kindly sent to me by a member and costs US $1,200.
View attachment 532557
The headphone is as light as it can be while at the same time, sports the largest cups I have ever seen! It is very comfortable to wear. The pads are quite think though which made it a bit challenging to mount on the test fixture. Member supplied them with balanced XLR cable which is what you need as a minimum (see measurements below).
Lily Audio Genesis One Measurements
No matter what I tried the sharp drop off in sub-bass existed so I think that is part of the design:
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We have good bass response and decent compliance with the target until about 1.5 kHz. Then some kind of resonance sets in, causing significant peak. Then things settle down and then go off the scale above 6 kHz. That region is not reliable in measurements so I am just noting that.
Relative difference to our target shows that precise EQ will take some work:
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Clearly we are going to have some brightness to deal with.
Forgot to mention that to get to 94 dBSPL I had to nearly max out the Topping A90 on high gain! This is one insensitive headphone:
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It required almost 11.2 volts to reach just 94 dBSPL. At that level, we have copious amount of distortion:
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Normally the red line would be 104 dBSPL. Here, it actually represents 84 dB. I would say that is about the usable level of loudness. We are talking 30 dB shortfall in dynamic capability compared to most headphones!
Distortion is mostly symmetrical as indicated by third harmonic:
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Not good... Not good at all.
Impedance is very high which is the reason you need an amp with very high voltage output:
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Group delay is chaotic, no doubt due to large cups but maybe also resonances/diffractions:
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Lily Genesis One Headphone Listening Test
I maxed out the volume on my everyday Topping DX5II with balanced output yet this just produced mild level of loudness. I kept wanting to crank up the volume but there was none. As a reference, my everyday headphone which is not the most sensitive in the world, is -35 dB! So I fed the output of the DX5II to the aforementioned A90 and that allowed me to get maybe 30% more volume before the headphone started to crackle. So forget about any partying with this headphone. It is just not going to delivery on any reasonable level of loudness.
Within those constraints, my first impression was that of brightness, naturally. So dialed in a filter quickly and listened:
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Had my son do some listening and he preferred it with the pink filter as well. I then boosted the upper bass and lower midrange which provided good bit of warm. The two combined, added fair bit to the experience. A more precise set of filters may do better.
Once there, I really enjoyed the spatial qualities until static set it.Bass performance was good but again, at such low levels that you had to squint with our ears to hear them.
Conclusions
It is nice to see a new concept here in headphones. Alas, the technical execution is barely there. Frequency response is not right and distortion is through roof. Amplification requirements are almost at the edge of what is available. I wouldn't put a speaker amp on it as the A90 was already capable of driving it to max excursion.
I can't recommend the Lily Genesis One. Comfort and spatial qualities are there. With EQ, the sound is good as well. But paying so much money and get so little dynamic range doesn't make sense to me.
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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
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What amps did you use to "squint with our ears to hear them"? I was SHOCKED to read your experience.
And what exactly do you mean by "the technical execution is barely there". I'd really like you to elaborate on this one.......... The FR is reasonably V-shaped (I can't measure but a fellow reviewer has done for me).
Now I just don't understand......What distortion are you referring to? My Erzetich Bacillus II+ with literally 157mW single ended drove them so well. My Aune A17 amp drove them so well also. So many more of my other amps drove them well or ok. With NO distortion. Period.
You "wouldn't put a speaker amp on it as the A90 was already capable of driving it to max excursion"?????????? You surprise me to no end sir.
They come equipped with a huge buffer to prevent them from being dangerous on speaker amps, (as some headphones can be).
And the A90 drove them to "max excursion". How do you know???? You haven't taken the time to pair them with "proper" amps to understand them fully.......
Many Many flaws and cracks appear in your evaluation of these headphones - I won't summise why...........
I do. however, challenge you to put these headphones on some "proper (non Topping A90.........)amps" and then test them again. I hope you can then review them objectively, without bias.
As I said, I am NO expert (so far from that, it's not funny), but EVERYthing you said about the G1s differs from what I have experienced. I would LOVE to understand why............
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I very much doubt that you are capable of providing a coherent summary.
After enduring your flatulent prose, I could not bear to open the YouTube video. To those of us who have been around a while, your audiophile cliches ("proper amps," "what I have experienced") are torture.
Your admission that you are not an expert is entirely correct, and you therefore have no business posting extended equipment reviews to YouTube.
AndrewChoppa
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I do welcome the chance to say hello to a patronising sycophant. Hello sir.
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How loud were you listening? If you weren't listening at a particularly high level then it's entirely possible you didn't encounter distortion.
AndrewChoppa
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Hi mate. Thanks for reaching out. I have them on now and I go very loud and the sound is honestly crystal clear. We are both talking about the latest revision, yes?
They are SOOO much easier to drive than older itaerations. I hope you watched my review but if you didn't, my Erzetich Bacillus II+ amp with literally 157mW drives them almost as well as the Aune A17 does. On speaker taps, on my Advance Paris A10, they are one of the ebst pair headphones I have heard. And I have heard most TOTLs. This on a speaker amp though. But the A17 and Bacillus does drive them loud and they sound magnificent. The Bacillus starts to distort a about 3:30 on the pot but that's because of the low wattage. The A17 I can listen at 99 and it is very loud, and 0 distortion. Happy to continue discussing. I was just extremely surprised at that review. We all hear differently, I understand, but that was just chalk and cheese from my experience.
Cheers,
Andrew
They are SOOO much easier to drive than older itaerations. I hope you watched my review but if you didn't, my Erzetich Bacillus II+ amp with literally 157mW drives them almost as well as the Aune A17 does. On speaker taps, on my Advance Paris A10, they are one of the ebst pair headphones I have heard. And I have heard most TOTLs. This on a speaker amp though. But the A17 and Bacillus does drive them loud and they sound magnificent. The Bacillus starts to distort a about 3:30 on the pot but that's because of the low wattage. The A17 I can listen at 99 and it is very loud, and 0 distortion. Happy to continue discussing. I was just extremely surprised at that review. We all hear differently, I understand, but that was just chalk and cheese from my experience.
Cheers,
Andrew
solderdude
Grand Contributor
With no audible distortion to his ears at to him acceptable listening levels ...
During my listening to the G1 using a 200WPC(8Ω) power amp I could reach pretty loud levels without any audibly sound degrading distortion that arguably reached quite measurable levels.
While the meters showed peaks of close to 300W (50V = 140Vpp) that amp was not supplying much actual power.
At pleasant just above reference levels I saw '40W' peaks (17V).
@AndrewChoppa
You spoke of dB/mW efficiency numbers for G1 which makes no sense. It might be a better idea to compare sensitivity numbers (dB/V) in the future and convert dB/mW numbers in dB/V numbers when comparing headphones.
The 157mW rating of the amp literally says absolutely NOTHING about the output voltage it can achieve.
The manufacturer (nor any independent measurements) say anything else than 157mW in single ended and 8-600 Ω.
To make my point 157mW in 8Ω = 1.1V, 157mW in 600Ω = 9.7V
With 9.7V it sounds reasonable loud.
So ... what voltage level was actually present ? We have no idea as '157mW' means absolutely nothing.
The volume pot 'settings' literally say NOTHING about the output voltage peaks.
This depends on the gain of the amp, input voltage and above all 'taper' of the volume control.
The G1 sounds quite good to me (with my proposed filter to remove the sharpness) with overblown bass (on well made recordings) and good bass on 'lifeless older pop/rock recordings'.
BUT it is a hard to recommend headphone simply because of the unusually low sensitivity of 76dB/V (we can't speak of efficiency here nor is that useful without mentioning the nominal impedance).
Very comfortable headphone, low clamping force and weight.
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Great! Like I said, individual audibility thresholds for distortion vary. And even for distortion above the audibility threshold, preference does not correlate fully inversely with distortion:
At low distortion levels, lower distortion is not always preferred.
It's only at very high distortion levels (>10% THD) where "less distortion" is generally preferred.
So while I would expect some people to be able to detect the distortion of this headphone in controlled conditions, I'm not surprised at all that some people don't perceive the distortion of this headphone as problematic.
Yes, the production version.
They certainly are much easier to drive than previous iterations, requiring about 35% less voltage.
Though the input power isn't that relevant - this headphone is driven by voltage (volt), not by power (watt). And even though it requires less voltage than the prototype / preproduction, it still needs quite a lot of voltage.
Good to know though that your amps drive them well enough!
If you have a multimeter or voltmeter you could roughly figure out how loud you're listening by measuring the voltage coming out of the amplifier while you're listening. The position of the potentiometer doesn't say a lot about the voltage, sadly. So this doesn't help us figure out how loud you're listening.
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