THIEAUDIO GHOST Headphone Review

[amirm]

This is a review, listening test, EQ and detailed measurements of the THIERAUDIO GHOST headphone. It was kindly drop shipped to me by a member and costs US $129.

As our British friends would say, the headphone "looks the part." Alas, it doesn't "feel" the part. One touch and you realize this is NOT what luxury products are made out of. It just feels cheap. I did like the thin cables that came with it although I wonder how long they will last. The feel was that of some "hardness" and stiff pushing of the corners of my ears -- not my favorite.

Member had sent me the Brainwavz Angled Pads as well. He said the word is that with them, it will rival that of Sennheiser HD6XXX. Given the measurements below, I highly doubt that. At any rate, I only tested them with the stock pads.

If you are not familiar with my headphone measurements, I highly recommend to watch my tutorial on it:

[And subscribe to the channel ]

THIERAUDIO GHOST headphone Measurements
Getting the headphone to fit well and produce similar response on both channels was difficult. I tried everything and this is the best I got for the headphone frequency response:

Checked elsewhere and correlation is very good so the bass is indeed drooping that much. As is treble response. If the only part of the music you like is from 150 Hz to 1 kHz, this is the headphone for you! EQ curve should not be hard to develop:

I don't think I have seen a headphone where distortion reduces with increased level but here we are:

I could easily see the bass sine wave distorted in the measurement panel (it takes a lot for it to look that way):

We have a very broad distortion pattern. Not good.

Group delay shows some disturbances but pales in comparison to above:

Impedance is low-mid range, meaning you need more current than voltage:

Sensitivity is better than average:

The combo should make it relatively easy to drive.

THIERAUDIO GHOST headphone Measurements
Did someone turn the audiophile life off??? That was the first impression of listening to the headphone. Dull, closed in, and totally non-hi-fi. If I have heard worse headphone sound, I don't remember it. A couple of filters bring some light back the the "picture:"

Given the massive boost I needed for bass, I had dial in a lot of headroom. This counters the sensitivity of the headphone, requiring a proper amp to drive it. With the three filters in place, the sound no longer sucked. While tonality was improved, spatial qualities were so poor that I could still not find words to praise it. By this time my ears were suffering from the hard pads I had to take the headphones off.

Conclusions
I don't know how much longer we need to so many companies choosing random frequency responses. Or is it just whatever they wound up with after they stuck a driver in an enclosure with nary a measurement? Yes, the price is low. If it had the response of Sennheiser HD6XX, it would pass. But it doesn't. HD6XX only lacks bass. This headphone lacks just about everything.

Really bad.

I can't recommend the THIERAUDIO GHOST headphone. Hopefully other than the poor owner, none of you have bought it.

------------
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/

 

[amirm]

Reserved for @AdamG to kindly post the specs.

Manufacturer Specifications:

Link to further product details:

THIEAUDIO GHOST

A New Chapter for THIEAUDIO’s Headphone Lineup The GHOST is a new precedent for THIEAUDIO’s headphone audio engineering. Our foremost goal with project GHOST has been to redefine our tonal balance for headphones and match it with uncompromising audio quality. To achieve this, we have completely...

www.thieaudio.com

 

[thewas]

Our @solderdude had also reviewed it https://diyaudioheaven.wordpress.com/headphones/measurements/thieaudio-ghost/ , guess with EQ the sound is ok but its price while not expensive it getting close to HD560 territory so it doesn't make much sense from market point of view.

 

[ObjectiveSubjectivist]

He said the word is that with them, it will rival that of Sennheiser HD6XXX.

As we can see a subjective opinion is really not something we can or should trust.

 

[solderdude]

The copy I had did have very good channel matching.

I measured the same sensitivity (110dB/V).

Distortion also is similar to my measurements.

Odd harmonic mostly indicating compression.

Even at 70dB SPL the distortion was high

so I looked at compression and around 60dB SPL in the bass compression (thus distortion) starts to happen.
60dB, 70dB, 80dB, 90dB and 100dB SPL

Yep, this is definitely NOT a 'poor mans' HD650.

Original pads are not available so when the pads need to be replaced one must look at compatible pads.
Was curious how the (FR only) BWZ pads would measure.

 

[Kaiju]

Thanks for review.

P.S.: You should review their monarch someday.

 

[solderdude]

Amir will ... when someone sends it in. The Monarch is a $1k IEM.

 

[AndreaT]

This is a poor man’s ears headphone indeed: coloring the musical signal with distortions all over the spectrum and also uncomfortable. Dante Alighieri would have had it in the sixth ring of his Inferno. Where has the AKG 371 tested a few years ago gone? Thank you Amir for steering us away from this product!

 

[isostasy]

As we can see a subjective opinion is really not something we can or should trust.

To be fair, the full context was:

"Member had sent me the Brainwavz Angled Pads as well. He said the word is that with them [brainwavz angled pads], it will rival that of Sennheiser HD6XXX"

But no measurements were done with these. There's no suggestion the owner thought they rivaled the HD6XX with stock pads, though this begs the question why they didn't ship them to Amir with their preferred pads fitted.

Pads can't magic away distortion but it's perfectly possible the frequency response might be closer to a HD6XX with the other pads.

 

[ObjectiveSubjectivist]

To be fair, the full context was:

"Member had sent me the Brainwavz Angled Pads as well. He said the word is that with them [brainwavz angled pads], it will rival that of Sennheiser HD6XXX"

But no measurements were done with these. There's no suggestion the owner thought they rivaled the HD6XX with stock pads, though this begs the question why they didn't ship them to Amir with their preferred pads fitted.

Pads can't magic away distortion but it's perfectly possible the frequency response might be closer to a HD6XX with the other pads.

Oh I missed that somehow... I thought it was measured with provided extra pads.
Oh well.

 

[wisechoice]

These headphones look a lot like the Shure SRH1840.

Some of the parts appear to be interchangeable, as well.

https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/188i7eg/turns_out_thieaudio_ghosts_are_a_11_clone_of

 

[Multicore]

This is a poor man’s ears headphone indeed:

I would not say so. "Poor" people with a ton available for cans have some options that are very enjoyable instead of this.

 

[Berwhale]

I would not say so. "Poor" people with a ton available for cans have some options that are very enjoyable instead of this.

Yes, I picked up a new pair of HD 560S direct from Sennheiser UK for £80 (~$103) in their recent sale. The 560S are great, maybe great enough to overcome my price-value bias and make me prefer them over my HD 660S

 

[AetherDrive]

I actually daily drive these at work but I replaced the pads with some very comfy leatherette pads which does bring in a bit more bass. The original pads weren't comfortable and I had these pads laying around, they just happened to work out for these. Overall, this setup is what I'd consider non-offensive and non-fatiguing which is appreciated in the workplace. I wouldn't recommend them to be your main/only headphone for sure.

 

[Curupira]

I had this headphone in the past and I wouldn't scold it's sound after hearing it, given context for how much it costs. It always sounded, and felt, like a cheaper version of the HD 6X0 family, but with lesser upper midrange (Hd660S-like), warmer tuning and some treble inconsistencies (in hindsight, that 6khz peak in contrast to lowered pinna corroborates this). My personal EQ for it mirrored Amirms, but I gave up on the bass boosting after awhile, and on the headphone shortly that. Mine also had imbalance problems, center being very skewed to the right.

I don't think, again, that it is a broken headphone (not considering the channel imbalance). It can have very pleasing though inoffensive sound, that some might just call boring. Given it's price back when it launched and the frequent discounts, it did made sense, specially in currency devalued markets like Brazil. In today's one, though, it makes less sense.

Two things I can't condone, however, are the shallow, very sweaty pads and the cable. It's no wonder both of them are usually upgraded by the fandom.

 

[Jeromeof]

I have this headphone also but I got it for $50 in a Linsoul sale. Alternative earpads do change the sound signature significantly and especially the comfort (the stock earpads are terrible). So with lots of EQ it is a reasonable headphone for $50 but there are allot better headphones.

 

[mc.god]

I can't recommend the THIERAUDIO GHOST headphone. Hopefully other than the poor owner, none of you have bought it.

ahaha, thank you Amir for your kind words, here is another owner.

I voted not terrible but for personal specific reasons:

• i bought them when on super sale at Linsoul at less than €50
• i personally find them very comfortable even with my glasses, but I didn't try very log run
• i like them as they are for background listening due to their super laid back signature

Well, I'm totally voted to iems and got them just out of curiosity for the said super sale price, and used them very little so far.
Last time I used them I found extremely enjoyable this eq profile generated from VSG squig measurements of them:

Preamp: -8.2 db
Filter 1: ON PK Fc 21 Hz Gain 8.3 dB Q 0.5
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 69 Hz Gain 1.1 dB Q 2
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 240 Hz Gain -4.2 dB Q 0.5
Filter 4: ON PK Fc 1100 Hz Gain -2.5 dB Q 2
Filter 5: ON PK Fc 3300 Hz Gain -2.5 dB Q 2
Filter 6: ON PK Fc 3400 Hz Gain 6.3 dB Q 0.5
Filter 7: ON PK Fc 5100 Hz Gain 1.4 dB Q 0.5
Filter 8: ON PK Fc 6600 Hz Gain -3.6 dB Q 2
Filter 9: ON PK Fc 9100 Hz Gain 4.8 dB Q 2
Filter 10: ON PK Fc 13000 Hz Gain -5.1 dB Q 2

Maybe because distortion lowers when rising level lol

Thanks @Amir for the review and a solidarity hug to all other owners

 

[Herbert Shooler]

Yet another excellent review,now its debatable that this is better value than the Susvara?

 

[3125b]

Visually these remind me of the old Takstar Beyerdynamic-knockoffs and headsets like HyperX Clound series, might it be the same OEM?

These headphones look a lot like the Shure SRH1840.

Oh yeah, those were pretty universally disliked, not sure that's a good thing to copy. In fact, the SRH1540 were some of the most annoying to wear expensive headphones I ever tried.

Where has the AKG 371 tested a few years ago gone?

Faded into obscurity. I have one, it is one of the better sounding closed-back headphones, but it has significant issues with material choice, it's not durable enough for regular use.

 

[oozlum]

SRH1540 expensive? Annoying to wear? Are you sure you tried them with alcantara pads? Maybe headband is not that durable/comfortable but I think Shure SRH1540/1840 are both great headphones!