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NAD Viso HP50 Review (headphone)

mitchco

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Seems like your review is saying they sound good without EQ, correct?

Yes. In this review I made a binaural recording of the HP50 while listening to music. I took the original source track and the recorded track, loaded them into a DAW, level matched and lined up the timing of both tracks. Starting with the original track, it plays for 10 seconds, then switches to the HP50 binaural recording which plays for 10 seconds then switches back to the original track for 10 seconds, repeating back and forth for about 3 minutes.

Regardless of individual HRTF's, it is a "relative" comparison to the source track.

Tracy Chapman Fast Car source track compared to NAD HP50 binaural recording: wav file 33 MB
 

yossarian

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I had these for a brief moment. Headband combined with my head shape made it absolutely impossible to get any seal at the bottom of the cup. I have ended up returning them. I missed out on the idea of stuffing the pad, maybe I should have tried this...
 

reluctant_engineer

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Ah, didn't notice that. Agree that he is showing far less differential than I am. Maybe they did change drivers since then. Or maybe these were rejected because they were out of spec or something. Without having the same sample as what others have tested, it is very hard to troubleshoot such things.

Yeah could be any of the reasons you mentioned. It'll be great if you manage to get another sample to measure, but I'm guessing your schedule must be tight right now with reviewing a plethora of other products.
 

pavuol

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2021-01-06 09_53_07-14-039_NAD_VISO HP50_Over-Ear_Data Sheet.indd.jpg

I think the "room feel" thing just nets out to more bass. So in some sense it is compliant with Harman research of needing bass gain that speakers and rooms provide. But for the rest, it clearly is not following that.

You are correct. "Room Feel" was the (goofy) marketing name given to following the harman target curve.

I'm signing off this forum, you all always try to ruin romantic mysteries. I hoped for some immeasurable magic :(
1484065585-scaredbart.gif
 

SpaceMonkey

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tuga

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If you can survive the presenter this interview is reasonably informative:

 

tuga

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Either I have overly large ears or the HP50's pads are too small... Otherwise they sound good off an old iPhone 4s when I'm cooking or flying.

I have attached the IF measurements if anyone's interested.
 

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solderdude

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The one I owned (and measured) is a lot closer to your Right channel measurement than the left channel.
1609929542974.png


fr-hp50.png


I would reckon either the left channel has some leakage, the plot below shows what happens.
perfect seal, thin armed glasses, thick armed glasses, seal broken.
looks like you have a little seal breach on the left channel... somewhere.

glasses-seal.png


Indeed getting the right fit with these headphones was a pain indeed. Depends on the the geometry of one's head.
Furthermore, the one I had is an earlier model that had a different headband.
 
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andreasmaaan

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I’ve had a pair of these for quite a few years, which I use for DJing mostly. Similar to @jhaider’s experience, I had to stuff the bottom/rear of the pads to get a proper fit, and I also had to bend the metal rod somewhat to make them clamp tightly enough. Once that was done, the fit was good, but without it they were more or less unusable.

Without EQ, they sound bass heavy to me. I tried a few different EQ settings, based on measurements from Oratory and Soundstage, and managed to get them sounding quite good.

Although they play very loud and clean, I was never 100% happy with the tonality, no matter what I tried. Perhaps the relatively gross interchannel differences account for this. And I can’t say I noticed particularly impressive spatial effects, either, although I never thought they were poor in this area. They are good for DJing though, as they are laid-back in the potentially ear-piercing upper midrange, and they also quite effectively block out sound in that region (which is the main reason I bought them).

IIRC, they were indeed designed to conform to the first iteration of the Harman target curve (which is nearly 8 years old now).
 

bobbooo

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Note: 12PPO & only the 1 channel used from the deviation graph

Preference Rating
SCORE: 56

Left channel? Could you calculate the score for the right channel? As the latter looks closer to other measurements.
 
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bobbooo

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If in his measurements Amir matched harman curve to red line measurement he would get closer to what Oratory1990 got:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/mjbp2dau2o3m680/NAD Viso HP50.pdf
View attachment 104104

Yep, Oratory doesn't match at a single frequency. He says he matches according to:
smallest deviation averaged across the midrange, from 200 to 2 kHz. I do not believe in aligning at a single frequency, but averaging across the whole spectrum is too vulnerable against large deviations in the bass and treble, hence the band-limited spectral average.
The aim is to see the most overlap from target to raw curve. If the best overlap is in the bass then I will align there, but usually the best overlap occurs with said midrange averageing.
I suspect this is because the brain judges sound quality by overall frequency response shape, so subconsciously 'matches' in this way too, not at a particular single constant frequency for every headphone, which can give a misleading depiction of tonality in relation to the Harman target for some headphones, such as these HP50s. Oratory's method also means on average lower dB magnitudes for EQ filter corrections are needed to reach the Harman target.
 
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eddantes

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Sigh... Owned a pair till the headband broke... Don't miss them. I just don't get the love they get. I always felt they are "just OK" and the comfort was so-so at best.
 

bobbooo

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I thought this phone was one of the first to be designed with the Harman headphone research in mind. Or am I mis-remembering that? I thought they were almost like the PSB M4u phones.

Yep, the HP50 has been widely known for a long time as a headphone that matches the Harman target pretty closely:

Harman 2018-NAD Viso HP-50.png
 
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Mauro

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This is a review and detailed measurements of the NAD HP50 headphone. ...
You should try the NAD HP70. That one has been DSPed to match exactly the roomfeel, which is based on the same theory than Harman curve, as the AKG K371. I guess it might be interesting to check these headphones against your measurement rig!
 
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