LTS V3 Modular Headphone Review

[ZolaIII]

@TomislavL that's so base is TP-E (10 probably) thermo plastic elastomer.

Flexibile - TPU/TPE — Printer3D

Thermoplastic elastomer (TPE) TPE označava termoplastičn elastomer što je sveobuhvatni naziv za smjesu tvrde plastike i gume. Kategorija je plastike nalik gumi koja je izvrsna za ispis bilo čega što treba otpornost na udarce ili vibracije, neklizajuće karakteristike ili samo fleksibilnost...

printer3d.hr

Just to let you know Jugoplastika worked with it 50+ year's ago and those things still last. Rest are mixtures or added up layers in case of carbon fibre. It's not that expensive material (carbon fibre) but working with it consumes a lot of time as you can put up to three layers every 12 h. Did even car parts with it. Used boat repair kits for it. There is more expensive variants which are also 3x more rigid by use of better adhesive and kelvar instead of glass. Today they even print NiTi so for some future project take a look at it for parts that will suffer the most mechanical pressure over time like headband. Usually driver inclination angle is smaller when used as such. Graphite all do fragile has a different purpose for me, to be used as EMI rejection cage for electronic which need such, good old high quality spray for motors (with high content of graphite) is great and again with 10+ year's of warenty (on pistons). It's toxic until dried. Try to find Sorbus torminalis (Brekinju) wood for it's twisted inside composition as it grows hire and you can get it cheap (and they can't). Yamaha use it to make cimbals out of it for their grand pianos. Play with it it's your ticket to make equal attractive wood caps and gain advantage (regarding rigidnes) over competition you mentioned. Regarding one you didn't it's better that would be you then Don if you ask me. Simply, optimise and make commercial product. You would be amazed what can be achieved with simple paper when laminated in similar way. I did some modelling and making of glider models long time ago when 3D printing didn't exist. I am also sucker when it comes to Foster paper dynamic drivers but that's me. I wish you luck regarding future work and on the job doctor. And stick around lot's of great people from the DIY that could help you here for example with little training with solderdude you can learn for to make simple cheap electronic filters for peeks in highs, Rick Sykora did some work regarding dumping materials, it's experienced DIY-er and admin hire, MAB is great regarding simulations and so on. You might even bump on some legends from the history if you stick around long enough. Don't get lost what other people like, persue what you do. Have fun and enjoy!

 

[Mad_Economist]

I want to try and like all these Tymphany OEM driver boutique headphones but its just so hard to when there is clearly performance being left on the table. Lovely midrange tuning though.

If only there were Scanspeak/Purifi-class drivers for headphone use by vendors like there are for DIY loudspeakers.

Edit: also, and this is a sentiment many in the boutique headphone community share as I understand -- really puts larger manufacturers to shame with how polished the haptics and ergonomics are.

I suspect that there isn't a great deal of interest in the DIY scene for speaker OEMs in general, and unlike loudspeakers, there isn't nearly the heritage of DIY projects that makes companies like Parts Express, Madisound, etc able to justify potentially large orders of product. And, frankly, in the world of headphones, there's not that many driver OEMs who aren't also selling headphones, because you get a lot more margin selling a $1000 headphone with your fancy driver than you would selling a $50 driver (which would be very pricy for a headphone driver).

Anecdotally, it's been fairly hard for me to get even companies that I know work fairly happily with speaker DIYers to be interested in headphones simply because the volumes are margins aren't amazing and it's outside of their core competencies from their POV. What's particularly saddening to me about the Tymphany stuff is that based on dialogue with them, they designed significantly more headphone transducers than they ever released, but ultimately didn't see it as worthwhile to bring them to market.

The exception to this disinterest is, of course, some mainland Chinese companies who will happily sell (or even provide modified designs) in small quantities...but I haven't seen highly impressive drivers from those firms, to be honest.

 

[TomislavL]

Anecdotally, it's been fairly hard for me to get even companies that I know work fairly happily with speaker DIYers to be interested in headphones simply because the volumes are margins aren't amazing and it's outside of their core competencies from their POV. What's particularly saddening to me about the Tymphany stuff is that based on dialogue with them, they designed significantly more headphone transducers than they ever released, but ultimately didn't see it as worthwhile to bring them to market.

The exception to this disinterest is, of course, some mainland Chinese companies who will happily sell (or even provide modified designs) in small quantities...but I haven't seen highly impressive drivers from those firms, to be honest.

I heard the same thing...not only that they had better drivers in development than the Peerless HPD50's, but I also heard from another maker who talked to someone in the company that they might not produce the HPD50 for much longer, I guess it's not profitable or the market is very small, which would be a shame, as it's a truly great driver, especially considering the price.

 

[Mad_Economist]

I heard the same thing...not only that they had better drivers in development than the Peerless HPD50's, but I also heard from another maker who talked to someone in the company that they might not produce the HPD50 for much longer, I guess it's not profitable or the market is very small, which would be a shame, as it's a truly great driver, especially considering the price.

Honestly, relative to other OEM options at scale I don't consider the HPD50 overly impressive for its price...but it's basically the only game in town, which de facto makes it the best deal in town. They didn't mention pulling entirely out of DIY headphone drivers when I talked to them, but that wasn't the main context of the conversation, and that wouldn't really surprise me. It's a pretty niche area.

 

[TomislavL]

Honestly, relative to other OEM options at scale I don't consider the HPD50 overly impressive for its price...but it's basically the only game in town, which de facto makes it the best deal in town. They didn't mention pulling entirely out of DIY headphone drivers when I talked to them, but that wasn't the main context of the conversation, and that wouldn't really surprise me. It's a pretty niche area.

I mean yea at scale it's still a steep price, someone mass producing headphones wouldn't give that amount for a single driver, but for DIY'ers is great considering the prices of headphone drivers from headphone companies which can be bought as spare parts. That's the issue as you said, there's not a lot of choice available at the moment.

 

[ZolaIII]

@Mad_Economist not a great business practice for them and sings of decline for them which I can understand when competition is overwhelming like DAC's (and even there they nead a hard push from DIY-ers) so we can have creative progress going.
At first deacent OEM's make only presentation examples for industrial clients, sometimes such hit the client market from industry brand even without alterations or purely cosmetic one's. When job ain't going good for OEM's they create commercial front ends to sell the finished products with more or less sauces even under very similar name but you can also get parts trough them. Ethical manufacturers are very not medium rare. You shouldn't be surprised that great ideas start sprinkling when you give people possibilities to express them and that's across the bord (game, app development, startups and so on).
I will give example of former only as Koss and I tend to know my drivers.
In the end it's really cat and mause game.
Anecdotally:

 

[lucian]

I heard the same thing...not only that they had better drivers in development than the Peerless HPD50's, but I also heard from another maker who talked to someone in the company that they might not produce the HPD50 for much longer, I guess it's not profitable or the market is very small, which would be a shame, as it's a truly great driver, especially considering the price.

you talking about this one?

https://www.digikey.de/de/products/detail/peerless-by-tymphany/HPD-50N25PR00-32/6211129

 

[Robbo99999]

Hey everyone, I'm the builder of this headphone, I got an email from the owner who sent it out on the loan for measurements and the review, just to say at the start for the sake of clarity that I have no influence on this review or the measurements. I've had some activity on various forums regarding this project years ago, but since then I finished my med school and started working as a medical doctor, so with a career that takes away quite a bit of my time and energy, I've been way less active in the whole headphone building scene, altough I'm still working on new stuff in my free time and have several new headphone models that are close to finished.

Regarding this particular headphone sample, it's a slightly modified design based on the V3 model, which is an old model at this point in itself, as it was was designed prior to 2020 (first prototypes of this model were made in 2019 and the first 3D printed headphone I designed and built was in 2016, I wasn't aware at the time of other similar projects), and this particular example was built a couple of years ago now too. There were modifications to the visuals of the headphone, the cup design was simplifed so there's no CNC machined metal logos on it, the headband parts are simplified. I don't remember if this sample had a different tuning than standard or not, since often people who order them ask for a particular response, but at least based on the graphs this looks like one of the bass-light configs. Regardless, since then a lot of little tweaks were done about the design of the standard V3 model, as well as other models I designed that use Peerless drivers, including sound, although again the V3 is an older headphone now and a new version of it designed from ground up has been in works for quite some time now.

To add a bit about modularity, everything is modular on it, every part of the headphone can be separately replaced or interchanged with a different part, every headphone comes with 3d printed baffle plugs which enable a quick modification to the bass response by simply using plugs with smaller or bigger holes on them, basically adding or reducing response under 1000hz. With the heaviest config, bass can be very prononced. Every baffle has a removable filter frame too, which is essentially the top part of the sandwich-style earcup design that carries the acoustic mesh filters on them, so this frame can be replaced with a frame that has different mesh on it (less or more transparent), leading to a different response again. What I call driver holder components can be designed for a different driver position in terms of distance from ear and angle, again modifying sound to ones preference. The filter mesh behind the driver can be replaced, again modifying sound. Different drivers can be put in as well, the small and cheap driver holder components just have to be designed to accomodate the driver and then it's plug and play with the rest of the cup, I've built a couple with driver different than Peerless, for examples some with Elleven Acoustica P1's were very good. Obviously the earpads can be replaced. The parts are 3D printed using industral SLS and MJF 3D printers, and the material choices available vary greatly from the most affordable PA12, to PA12 refinforced with glass fiber, or graphite, or carbon fiber, each with different levels of rigidity and different acoustics. So you kinda get the point, the whole idea is that the headphone is entirely flexible and gives freedom to owners to tweak the sound to exactly how they like it by only replacing or modifying some parts of the headphone, not replacing the whole headphone. This is why I started designing headphones almost 10 years ago to begin with it, I wanted something to give me that capability. Some of the later models like the V10 take this idea further by having sliders on the cup that allow opening or closing bass tuning ports on the go without even taking the headphones off.

Hi, it's good to have you here on the forums, and you're doing some pretty interesting stuff! I think there's a lot of people here on this forum that like to go off the measurements, so how does someone go about being certain how your various headphones measure & how the various mods measure? Looking at your other posts you mention you tried different measurement rigs (and became disillusioned with them) - I think GRAS measurements ie same rig as Amir's / Oratory / etc is what people here would like to see before buying a headphone - do you measure your options using that GRAS rig? Given what you've said it casts Amir's review into a bit of a moot point if we don't even know what spec of modded headphone it is - there's just no guarantee that consumers seeing Amir's review can guarantee that the headphone they receive will measure like that. That's the way I see it at the moment, albeit I can't deny your drive & passion for your headphones and you've certainly achieved some great looking products with interesting ideas and high quality build materials along with a different modular type approach.

 

[TomislavL]

Hi, it's good to have you here on the forums, and you're doing some pretty interesting stuff! I think there's a lot of people here on this forum that like to go off the measurements, so how does someone go about being certain how your various headphones measure & how the various mods measure? Looking at your other posts you mention you tried different measurement rigs (and became disillusioned with them) - I think GRAS measurements ie same rig as Amir's / Oratory / etc is what people here would like to see before buying a headphone - do you measure your options using that GRAS rig? Given what you've said it casts Amir's review into a bit of a moot point if we don't even know what spec of modded headphone it is - there's just no guarantee that consumers seeing Amir's review can guarantee that the headphone they receive will measure like that. That's the way I see it at the moment, albeit I can't deny your drive & passion for your headphones and you've certainly achieved some great looking products with interesting ideas and high quality build materials along with a different modular type approach.

That has been a challange for me while developing, how to objectify the performance, especially on a uni student budget when much of the development took place, so a dummy head rig was out of the picture. I built my own rig and made it as accurate as I could. My way of objectifying was measuring existing well known headphones that have been measured plenty by other sources, DT770Pro's in my case at the time (but repeated the process with other headphones as well) and simply seeing graphs of DT770's from my measurement rig vs. how those same headphones measured elsewhere online. Once I found a balance between online measurement databases and various microphones I tested on my rig where existing DT770 graphs made by big measurement websites online looked the most like the measurements of those headphones made on my measurement rig, I knew I was at least in the ballbark of having a measurement rig that is close to accurate. Checked with multiple headphones, K701, SR125, etc. Then I could compare my headphones to DT770s, volume matched at 1khz, on the same rig, all being equal apart from the headphones. That was the best way for me to objectively show the FR, basically a side-by-side comparison with another headphone. Someone on another forum did that with another V3 (equal to the spec I considered default, as shown in my post above) and measured the V3 and the HD650 side by side using the same method, their graphs ended up very similar for much of the range, both when speaking about those two headphones relative to each other, as well as how the V3's measured on that rig vs. my rig. Meaning, no major differences, no peaks or dips that existed on one rig that didn't on the other, no major discrepancies in terms of distortion, impedance, etc. At that time, that was a sort of confirmation to me that what I was doing was at least facing the right direction, especially considering I did the tuning on that headphone by ear at the time without having listened to the HD650's for a couple of years prior to it (but I did own it for a couple of years up to 2014 and it was one of my favorite sounding headphones at the time, so no wonder what I preferred was similar). Seeing the differences or similarities in the response of two headphones measured on the same rig side by side (albeit on "inaccurate" graphs in absolute terms) is the best I could do. It's a limitation, at least until a totally standardized method of measurement with a standardized measurement rig becomes available at an affordable price. Far from a reference method, I know, but it was good enough for me at the time, final tuning of the sound balance was done by ear anyway, the measurements for me were most useful in determining what kind of effect certain design choices had and how different materials/configs compared to each other relatively speaking, dealing with distortion, reflections, etc.

 

[Ilkless]

Hi, it's good to have you here on the forums, and you're doing some pretty interesting stuff! I think there's a lot of people here on this forum that like to go off the measurements, so how does someone go about being certain how your various headphones measure & how the various mods measure? Looking at your other posts you mention you tried different measurement rigs (and became disillusioned with them) - I think GRAS measurements ie same rig as Amir's / Oratory / etc is what people here would like to see before buying a headphone - do you measure your options using that GRAS rig? Given what you've said it casts Amir's review into a bit of a moot point if we don't even know what spec of modded headphone it is - there's just no guarantee that consumers seeing Amir's review can guarantee that the headphone they receive will measure like that. That's the way I see it at the moment, albeit I can't deny your drive & passion for your headphones and you've certainly achieved some great looking products with interesting ideas and high quality build materials along with a different modular type approach.

At the same time how many people have Gras and/or couplers and don't even come close to nailing the midrange tuning? I think it's one hell of an achievement for the tuning to be this spot-on up to 6kHz.

 

[usern]

Looks like 560S distortion profile

 

[Maiky76]

This is a review, listening tests, EQ and detailed measurements of the LTS V3 "modular" headphone. It is on kind loan from a member and costs €669 (US $700) plus €60 for shipping.
View attachment 429277
The picture doesn't quite do it justice when it comes to impeccably solid plastics which rival those uses in luxury car dashboards. It is a rather light headphone for its size which translated into comfortable wear. Drivers have pretty acute angle which should result in good spatial characteristics.

The designer has written a book about the design process of this headphone using 3-D printing and such. I can't do it justice so suggest you read it if you want to learn about what makes this headphone unique.

If you are not familiar with my headphone measurements, please watch this video first:

LTS V3 Headphone Measurements
As usual, we start with the headphone frequency response measurements on GRAS 45CA standardized fixture:
View attachment 429278
I like the good compliance for large part of the spectrum. There is some bass roll off but it starts lower in frequency than some. And some peaks above 5 kHz. The combination of the two may tilt the sound toward being a bit bright and light on its feet (bass).

Not much EQ should be needed but here is the guide for how to dial them in:
View attachment 429279

Note that the peak at 8 kHz is in one channel but not the other, indicating that its nature highly changes with positioning. The one at 6 kHz however, is quite consistent so much better candidate for equalization.

Distortion is rather average with typical bass and a few treble disturbances:
View attachment 429280
View attachment 429281

The 4 kHz one could be out of phase, resulting in a corresponding dip in frequency response.

Impedance is variable and on the low side:
View attachment 429282

Combined with above average sensitivity, it should be an easy drive for most sources:
View attachment 429283

Finally, group delay shows fair bit of disturbance which is likely due to many reflections in the cup:
View attachment 429284

LTS V3 Headphone Listening Tests and Equalization
The sound was exactly as measurements predict, good overall with a bit subdued bass response and some sharpness. I went to work with EQ starting with bass:
View attachment 429285
Despite increased and more correct bass response, there was some sharpness depending on the track. I first dialing the one at 6 kHz but the problem did not go away. It took the filter at 1.1 kHz to really balance the tonality. Once there, the fidelity was excellent Every one of my reference tracks sounded excellent including the Binaural one you see from Max Cooper. Speaking of that, spatial qualities near top of the class. The only minor miss was that bass impact was not 100% there. Maybe boosting filter there would get it us there.

Conclusions
Objectively and subjectively, the LTS V3 comes close to tonality that you would want. It is a bit bass shy and highs are a bit exaggerated. The latter you may adopt to. But best to deploy EQ. Once there, you get near reference quality headphone.

The cost is up there but I think the build quality and comfort backs it up.

I am going to recommend the LTS V3.
------------
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.8150/

Here are some thoughts about the EQ.
Please report your findings, positive or negative!

Notes about the EQ design:

• The average L/R is used to calculate the score.
• The resolution is 12 points per octave interpolated from the raw data (provided by @amirm)
• A Genetic Algorithm is used to optimize the EQ.
• The EQ Score is designed to MAXIMIZE the Score WHILE fitting the Harman target curve (and other constraints) with a fixed complexity.
  This will avoid weird results if one only optimizes for the Score, start your journey here or there.
  There is a presentation by S. Olive here.
  It will probably flatten the Error regression doing so, the tonal balance should be therefore more neutral.
• The EQs are starting point and may require tuning (certainly at LF and maybe at HF).
• The range around and above 10kHz is usually not EQed unless smooth enough to do so.
• I am using PEQ (PK) as from my experience the definition is more consistent across different DSP/platform implementations than shelves.
• With some HP/amp combo, the boosts and preamp gain (loss of Dynamic range) need to be carefully considered to avoid issues with, amongst other things, too low a Max SPL or damaging your device. You have beed warned.
• Not all units of the same product are made equal. The EQ is based on the measurements of a single unit. YMMV with regard to the very unit you are trying this EQ on.
• I sometimes use variations of the Harman curve for some reasons. See rational here and here
• NOTE: the score then calculated is not comparable to the scores derived from the default Harman target curve if not otherwise noted.

Good L/R match.

I have generated one EQ, the APO config file is attached.


Score no EQ: 90.2
Score Amirm: 88.3
Score with EQ: 94.0

LTS V3 APO EQ Flat@HF 96000Hz
February182025-110720

Preamp: -5.80 dB

Filter 1: ON PK Fc 18.4 Hz Gain 5.86 dB Q 0.72
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 171.1 Hz Gain -2.47 dB Q 0.72
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 3840.0 Hz Gain 3.64 dB Q 1.51
Filter 4: ON PK Fc 1205.2 Hz Gain -2.84 dB Q 1.72
Filter 5: ON PK Fc 6514.7 Hz Gain -5.49 dB Q 1.34

 

[Sha1rholder]

That looks really like Sony R10

 

[Robbo99999]

That has been a challange for me while developing, how to objectify the performance, especially on a uni student budget when much of the development took place, so a dummy head rig was out of the picture. I built my own rig and made it as accurate as I could. My way of objectifying was measuring existing well known headphones that have been measured plenty by other sources, DT770Pro's in my case at the time (but repeated the process with other headphones as well) and simply seeing graphs of DT770's from my measurement rig vs. how those same headphones measured elsewhere online. Once I found a balance between online measurement databases and various microphones I tested on my rig where existing DT770 graphs made by big measurement websites online looked the most like the measurements of those headphones made on my measurement rig, I knew I was at least in the ballbark of having a measurement rig that is close to accurate. Checked with multiple headphones, K701, SR125, etc. Then I could compare my headphones to DT770s, volume matched at 1khz, on the same rig, all being equal apart from the headphones. That was the best way for me to objectively show the FR, basically a side-by-side comparison with another headphone. Someone on another forum did that with another V3 (equal to the spec I considered default, as shown in my post above) and measured the V3 and the HD650 side by side using the same method, their graphs ended up very similar for much of the range, both when speaking about those two headphones relative to each other, as well as how the V3's measured on that rig vs. my rig. Meaning, no major differences, no peaks or dips that existed on one rig that didn't on the other, no major discrepancies in terms of distortion, impedance, etc. At that time, that was a sort of confirmation to me that what I was doing was at least facing the right direction, especially considering I did the tuning on that headphone by ear at the time without having listened to the HD650's for a couple of years prior to it (but I did own it for a couple of years up to 2014 and it was one of my favorite sounding headphones at the time, so no wonder what I preferred was similar). Seeing the differences or similarities in the response of two headphones measured on the same rig side by side (albeit on "inaccurate" graphs in absolute terms) is the best I could do. It's a limitation, at least until a totally standardized method of measurement with a standardized measurement rig becomes available at an affordable price. Far from a reference method, I know, but it was good enough for me at the time, final tuning of the sound balance was done by ear anyway, the measurements for me were most useful in determining what kind of effect certain design choices had and how different materials/configs compared to each other relatively speaking, dealing with distortion, reflections, etc.

I think you can get pretty cheap Chinese clones of the GRAS rigs nowadays, at least in comparison to the cost of the original, but I think some are more accurate than others in copying the GRAS rig - I don't have the details I just remember reading about it. I mean there are some innaccuracies associated with how you've gone about your rig, but I think it's a good way of making the best of the situation without spending big on GRAS (albeit the clones would likely be better). I still think people here like to see GRAS measurements before purchasing so maybe Amir may end up measuring some other tuned options of your headphones (who knows).....I think quite a lot of people would be hesitant to buy based on Amir's review here unless they could spec the same headphone with you - people need to be clear on what they're getting. Interesting projects & headphones, you've achieved a lot as a one man band!

 

[Robbo99999]

At the same time how many people have Gras and/or couplers and don't even come close to nailing the midrange tuning? I think it's one hell of an achievement for the tuning to be this spot-on up to 6kHz.

Yes, it's well done for this particular headphone!

 

[Robbo99999]

Looks like 560S distortion profile

Ha, true! And also frequency response is quite similar, and just to note Amir's measurement of HD560s is the Old Version HD560s:
Old Version HD560s Frequency Response

LTS V3 Frequency Response:

Just as another data point, when Oratory measured my unit of HD560s he got lower distortion than Amir's measurement, following is Oratory's measurement of distortion of HD560s:

 

[brandall10]

That looks really like Sony R10

Qualia for sure.

 

[isostasy]

I know the polls are just for fun and everyone is using different criteria but I rated 'great' as, objectively, it is!

I know people balance priceerformance when rating, and these are a lot money, though in fairness I think they must be the cheapest headphones using this Peerless driver?

If the drivers were better matched (in this case so there wasn't that resonance at 7kHz) it would be even better! That adds so much cost though.

@TomislavL I think you're very humble, I came across your website a while ago when researching DIY designs and the amount of work alone is amazing even without considering how high quality the final products look. You also don't even mention here that you've made your previous designs freely available!

I really recommend anyone on this thread with an interest read through the website. The transparency and focus on things like user repairability is refreshing.

 

[solderdude]

I followed the evolution a bit on SBAF.
This is probably the best DIY build quality there is.

Great development... another guy that made it their business and succeeded (and also is not cheap) is @Dan Clark and he even made his own drivers and innovated.
In that light ... the asking price for a (hand built) one certainly is not absurd.
The LTS designs are something you can not find in a retailer shop either and probably shouldn't either as there is no mass production and distributors and sellers would increase the price even more.

That 7kHz peak is easily (and cheap) to solve passively as well
Excellent job @TomislavL.
I can only admire people that develop this kind of stuff and offer it to the public as well.

 

[xthechar]

The new V3 model being developed has a different geometry of the baffle, way more open area for less reflections, less plastic surfaces around the driver for sound to bounce from, different driver position, etc.

Hey there! The V3 looks great and I'm really interested in getting a pair, but now that you mentioned there's a new V3 model I'm considering waiting for that. I definitely prefer the physical design of the V3 over the V10, especially the seemingly quite slim cups that don't protrude out much. Is the cup shape going to be the same, or does your comment here indicating that the baffle geometry will be different imply that the cups will be larger and stick out more? I know this is a niche preference, but for me, having headphones with a reasonably slim profile makes a difference (especially for portability and use while commuting and traveling). Actually, if you had dimensions for the cups on the V3, V10, and upcoming new V3 models, that'd be very helpful. If not no worries, and thanks for your great contributions to the DIY headphone scene!