New Rode NTH-100 headphones.

[solderdude]

But this just sounds off. Muddy. I don't see how this can be helpful.

When you hear the sound and it sounds a bit 'rolled-off' in the upper treble/clarity... what do you do ?
That is ... someone with good hearing and no access or knowledge of EQing the monitor only...
You adjust the tone controls so it sound 'right' to you.
This thus increases the 'detail' in sound which is a good thing as most people listening to the 'final product' usually have rolled off treble anyway in their TV.
Yes that will also mean HT geeks and good nearfield monitor PC setups etc will have a bit more clarity/upper treble but this is not an extreme amount and voices usually do not have much treble anyway.

The design seems to have been made deliberately this way. Not having sibilance like the DT770/MDR7506 that is. There is substantial damping in front of the driver that removes the typical treble peaks. This will always be at the expense of upper treble/air.

What does one do when one would monitor/produce using a DT770/7506 (which has elevated treble and lightly elevated bass.
One dials down the sharpness and maybe even the lows (as to not hear boomy voices) and end up with rolled off treble as a result.

The Rode is not designed for music production but for spoken word. For this, IMO, it works really well. It is a tool. Just like a hammer and screwdrivers are tools. You can pick the right one for the job.

Then there is EQ. This can be used (and IMO should be used) when one has to mix/produce with headphones only anyway.

I feel that fidelity should be the goal or at least tune in a way that many agree with, that's truthful, that give a clear picture.

I fully agree. Thank God for nearfield monitors or headphones with EQ.

 

[solderdude]

RodeNTHeadphone-100
Pretty sure that's how they label their gear. They like the "rodent"

Nouvraught... you do poses some humor (or Rode does).
These are opposite DT770/990 which compensate for your rolled off hearing.. totally immunized by listening to MountBeyer treble

 

[Kuppenbender]

RodeNTHeadphone-100
Pretty sure that's how they label their gear. They like the "rodent"

With the expectation that sales would shoot off ‘like a rat up a drainpipe’, apparently.

 

[PeteL]

When you hear the sound and it sounds a bit 'rolled-off' in the upper treble/clarity... what do you do ?
That is ... someone with good hearing and no access or knowledge of EQing the monitor only...
You adjust the tone controls so it sound 'right' to you.
This thus increases the 'detail' in sound which is a good thing as most people listening to the 'final product' usually have rolled off treble anyway in their TV.
Yes that will also mean HT geeks and good nearfield monitor PC setups etc will have a bit more clarity/upper treble but this is not an extreme amount and voices usually do not have much treble anyway.

The design seems to have been made deliberately this way. Not having sibilance like the DT770/MDR7506 that is. There is substantial damping in front of the driver that removes the typical treble peaks. This will always be at the expense of upper treble/air.

What does one do when one would monitor/produce using a DT770/7506 (which has elevated treble and lightly elevated bass.
One dials down the sharpness and maybe even the lows (as to not hear boomy voices) and end up with rolled off treble as a result.

The Rode is not designed for music production but for spoken word. For this, IMO, it works really well. It is a tool. Just like a hammer and screwdrivers are tools. You can pick the right one for the job.

Then there is EQ. This can be used (and IMO should be used) when one has to mix/produce with headphones only anyway.

I fully agree. Thank God for nearfield monitors or headphones with EQ.

Yeah I understood your point the first time, but It wouldn't prevent you to sound too bright, in fact you wouldn't know how bright you are making your (spoken) voice sound. OK it could maybe prevent some unexperienced podcasters to pop too much trying to go for that deep radio voice proximity effect. It may tell them to back off the mic a bit. Maybe.
Sure this is the anti 7506, things evolve, we see less and less of those in broadcasting, they are just too bright (I have less experience with the Beyer) but it doesn't mean we should go all out in the other direction. Only time will tell if this gets to be a goto appreciated tool for spoken word podcasting. I think M series is where it's at at the moment, they are not perfect neither, but they sell much more worldwide than DT770/MDR7506, it's becoming the standard, the goto not the only valid choice of course, but this Rode is in my opinion too flawed to become a recommended and appreciated option. We'll see, again beside that they are extremely well made so it'll sell just for that. Sure it's a tool, you did not fully convince me that it's the right tool, maybe for some.

 

[polmuaddib]

I ordered these before Solderdude's review and after reading it I regreted ordering them, since my use is for listening music primarily.
But now that they have arrived and I had a chance to listen to them for some time, I don't think that they are that bad in the trebble region. Sure, they are slightly darker, but it doesn't take away from the music listening pleasure. I still hear the high frequencies and there is still ambience in the recording without eq. It creates a little different mood is all.
I am glad now I bought them.

 

[RandomEar]

I ordered these before Solderdude's review and after reading it I regreted ordering them, since my use is for listening music primarily.
But now that they have arrived and I had a chance to listen to them for some time, I don't think that they are that bad in the trebble region. Sure, they are slightly darker, but it doesn't take away from the music listening pleasure. I still hear the high frequencies and there is still ambience in the recording without eq. It creates a little different mood is all.
I am glad now I bought them.

Honestly: I think the Harman target is a useful tool and a good scientific basis for comparisons. But I also think, many users around here falsely assume that a Harman-compliant pair of headphones would sound perfect to them. The Harman targets represent an average of what a large number of users subjectively accepted as "sounding the best" to them. It's an average preference and very few people in this world have a perfectly average and therefore identical taste (and head physiology). The research papers themselves show huge deviations for individual users compared to the final, averaged target. In my limited experience, you have to test some headphones yourself and develop a rough personal "sounds best to me"-curve. Then, go shop for headphones which come close to that based on published measurements and see where you end up.

 

[Resolve]

Honestly: I think the Harman target is a useful tool and a good scientific basis for comparisons. But I also think, many users around here falsely assume that a Harman-compliant pair of headphones would sound perfect to them. The Harman targets represent an average of what a large number of users subjectively accepted as "sounding the best" to them. It's an average preference and very few people in this world have a perfectly average and therefore identical taste (and head physiology). The research papers themselves show huge deviations for individual users compared to the final, averaged target. In my limited experience, you have to test some headphones yourself and develop a rough personal "sounds best to me"-curve. Then, go shop for headphones which come close to that based on published measurements and see where you end up.

Exactly. I constantly see people making this mistake with EQ profiles as well. I think things shift a bit when your goal is to sell lots of headphones that will be well-received by a general audience. But that doesn't mean it's best for individual people.

 

[MayaTlab]

The Harman targets represent an average of what a large number of users subjectively accepted as "sounding the best" to them. It's an average preference and very few people in this world have a perfectly average and therefore identical taste (and head physiology). The research papers themselves show huge deviations for individual users compared to the final, averaged target.

To put some more quantifiable numbers on that, which is a little bit difficult as Harman didn't always provide the ratings for each individuals, I found it interesting to digitise the data from the papers and compare traces.

For example, in this paper : https://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=19436
The headphones HP19, HP25 and HP26, as measured on Harman's modded GRAS fixture and virtually reproduced on a pair of modded K712, were at least equal or even preferred to the Harman target by untrained listeners (102 subjects).
On the other hand, trained listeners (28 subjects) still preferred the target, but not by much.
The HD650 (HP20) was in a tier below for both groups, despite sticking to the target just as well as HP25 for most of the range and better than HP19 and 26 for most of the midrange.

The data, normalised across an average of 4 octaves, centered at 500Hz :

And with the Harman target flattened and only showing the difference, this time normalised at 500Hz exactly :

HP19, 25, 26 and the HD650 all deviate from the target in a way that I'd consider quite easily audible.

In the IEM study of the same kind (https://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=19237), "Target 2", a variation around the IE target at the time, was equally preferred to the target by both trained and untrained listeners. This is how it deviates from the IE target (red trace above) :

A caveat of that study is that unlike in the over-ears study where some of the alternative curves that were pitted against the target were quite close to it, in the IE study only "target 2" could be considered a reasonable variation around the target, while all other alternative curves were quite a way off, providing fewer clues as to the range of acceptable variations around it.

So, basically, a few dBs away from Harman is fair game for certain. As it's already been said, it's a rough guideline of what most people prefer, which also happens to be based on a rather sensible starting point ("decent loudspeakers in a decent listening room").

Where I think I'd like to see more temperance is in evaluating individual HP models against it without making certain that the way they measure on an artificial ear is a decent match for most people (which I have little doubt about for a pair of HD650 up to a few kHz - and circling back to this thread, to a certain extent the NTH100 as well if a good seal is achieved -, and a lot more for a pair of Bose HPs). Besides, Harman's own articles on the use of virtual headphones as a way to reproduce singular HP models, IMO, is not a good demonstration that it's a valid way to faithfully assess all headphones (one word : HP5).

 

[tikky]

I am an audio engineer sitting in a well-tuned room, with great pro-grade speakers (4 different pairs). Our job is to make a song sounds good on every source from speakers to hifi, to dirty cheap headphones to luxury ones. I think I have some good experience mixing music, working on sound with headphones in my 25 years of career and every time I tuned headphones to the Harman Target they sounded pretty much the same as my studio monitors. In 25 years I have collected some great reference tracks that never failed on any source I checked. When I A/B Harman with my monitors and check these reference tracks that I know inside-out how they sound, the closest target is HARMAN in headphones.

If it's a matter of taste, free field and optimum hi-fi tunings are really bad to my ears. Weak, lacking, bright and I don't enjoy the tuning thb. Harman is not spot on but Harman gives you the best-closest "translate" when you mixdown a song and check it on the other sources. For the listeners, audiophiles, music lovers' perspectives, other tunings may work well, but for the well-trained professional ears, Harman is almost spot-on for professional work. With well-trained professional ears, Harman gives great "technical" results. I don't mean the rest cannot understand it or audio engineers have golden ears, absolutely NO. Because we just listen to SOUND not music in a very very different, technical way than say well-trained audiophiles. We try to make music sounds good, while audiophiles try to enjoy music. A very different category of trained ears and not comparable.

In this case, Harman Curve helps a lot to achieve balanced mixdowns than any other curve I have ever tuned my headphones IMHO. For example, I toke @Resolve measurement and compared it to what I heard before he even release his measurements, it's really spot-on. I created my EQ curve based on his and @solderdude measurements and boom. NTH-100 sounds good now, at least good enough to "work" on music.

 

[MayaTlab]

Rtings' full review :

RØDE NTH-100M Review

While RØDE is well-known for its microphones and audio equipment, the Australian company released the RØDE NTH-100, its first pair of headphones, in the spring o...

www.rtings.com

 

[tuga]

Review is up.

Good for studio work.
Those looking for a headphone for 'audiophile' music enjoyment should look elsewhere (misses details/nuance/sparkle/clarity).
Can't do more measurements as it is returned.

How does it compare with the NAD HP50?
I've been thinking of replacing the NAD because my ears are too big but I like how they sound.

 

[solderdude]

HP50 vs NTH-1

 

[tuga]

View attachment 204080
HP50 vs NTH-1

Thanks. Perhaps not as "warm/full" or as extended in the bottom end but overall similar. May give it a go.

 

[RandomEar]

OK, just got the NTH-100. Quick first impressions:

• Build quality, adjustment mechanics, packaging - top notch. You get a thin synthetic pouch with the headphones, plus some color coded tabs for the cable. Maybe useful for studio environments, not so much for me.
• The "cooling gel" tech is a funny marketing gag. The headphones actually feel cool-ish when you first put them on, but after around 10 minutes, there's no difference anymore to regular pads. Oh well....
• Subjective sound stuff (I preemptively apologize to the audioSCIENCEreview gods):
  • Channel matching seems close, but not perfect on my unit. Maybe +0.5 dB on R or so. May just be the fit or my hearing itself.
  • I like the sound. I'm rather sensitive to sharp treble and these certainly don't trigger me. As the measurements by @solderdude suggest, the treble is tamed by that dip. I played around with a single peaking filter in EAPO and +4 dB @ 8500 Hz with Q=3 bring's the sound closer to a subjectively neutral presentation for me. People not so sensitive to treble might prefer a stronger push than 4 dB. However, I find the lack of sharpness (without EQ) pleasant for some songs. I'll have to see if that changes over time.
  • On bass-heavy tracks, a low shelf of +7.5 dB @ 80 Hz with fixed S=0.9 brings more fun to the party. Might revisit that.

Overall, I'm pleasantly surprised. Recently had the Sennheiser HD560S to test and those sounded uncomfortably tinny to me. A small emphasis on treble plus not much base was a combo that didn't work well for me. EQ did help some, but it would have required a lot of testing to fine tune and I didn't have the patience for that. The NTH-100 on the other hand sound decent to me out of the box and two filters seem to bring'em reasonably close to my preference. I'll see if that impression holds over the next couple of days.

 

[Slapo]

It looks like removing the inner foam helps with treble somewhat:

I wonder if different pads could sort out that bit of wonkiness in the bass.

 

[RandomEar]

Just a heads-up: They seem to have weak point in the locking adjustment connector, causing it to crack after a couple of months. A handful of reports on this youtube video, plus some more elsewhere.

 

[makinao]

I needed closed headphones for long zoom meetings to prevent feedback from my headband mic. I also needed it to be comfortable because my online meetings and classes can go on for hours. And finally, I wanted it focused on voices because that’s the content of most meetings. My HD650 and HD58x are out because they're open. My HD280 has seen better days and has gotten a bit squawky. My HD25spii is hard to keep on my ears for long. And having my in-ears stuck in my ear canal gets annoying after a couple of hours.

Based on solderdude’s review, I got an NTH-100. The local distributor just announced a shipment from Australia, and I sprung for it immediately. A 4-hour zoom meeting the next day was a perfect test bed, and it worked perfectly. The dip in the sibilance range filtered out the painful hissing from other participants cheap earbud and mini-boom mics. The rolloff in the top end was not missed as most voices don’t have much there anyway. But the slight lift around the 5k region is enough to ensure consonant articulation and presence. And the ample but un-exaggerated bass makes the voice mellifluous. The pads did not heat up, despite my being in an un-airconditioned tropical house. The clamp was firm but not too tight. And the ear cups were large and deep enough to prevent discomfort. The only thing left to worry about now is the cracking lock. Hopefully the 2-year warranty will take care of that.


I can imagine this would be great for hours of voiceover editing. I tried some EQ using just the Apple Music equalizer and it seems to scale up ok. I also put in a request to Sonarworks for a preset already. School starts next month, and my university will still be conducting half of its classes online. So this will be perfect for my 3-hour grad school classes. All in all, I am very happy with the NTH-100 for my specific use.

 

[Alchemist_]

Начнем с того, что я не инженер по микшированию/мастерингу, но, во-первых, я бы не микшировал/мастерил музыку в наушниках, а на хороших студийных мониторах.
Проверка миксов... да. Но не на NTH100, но используйте что-то вроде Strealth или более старых HE-6 для такого рода вещей или других Hi-Fi наушников с эквалайзером или таких, с которыми владелец полностью знаком (по сравнению с его мониторами).

Устное слово и т. д., которые будут использоваться только для просмотра видео на не очень Hi-Fi системах с обычно свернутыми верхними высокими частотами, NTH100 в порядке.

Жаль, что у Вас нет обзора по Shure 840A и 440A.
Возможно с подушками 1840/1540 они бы лучше себя показали)

 

[solderdude]

Жаль, что у Вас нет обзора по Shure 840A и 440A.
Возможно с подушками 1840/1540 они бы лучше себя показали)

It's a shame you don't have a review of the Shure 840A and 440A.
Perhaps with 1840/1540 cushions they would have performed better

The 840A and 440A are indeed different.
They sound nor measure anything like the NTH100 though.

I don't know if it is just the pads (in the A versions) or also the driver or tuning that causes the differences.
Maybe someday someone sends one in for measurements.

 

[Fred Waites]

Warning - design flaw: Had these headphones for 6 weeks before they broke. The twistlock that holds the earcup on is a very thin piece of plastic and snapped clean in two. If you look at the 1 star reviews on Amazon you can see that this peice is breaking in the exact same way for lots of people.

Shame, they were very comfortable for extended use and the sound was good enough for what I was using them for (blocking the noise of gronks in the office).