V-Moda M200 Headphone Review

[Billy Budapest]

Any idea what the “aK” nomenclature on the cups means?

 

[kencreten]

When I read reviews like this... it hurts a little. I'm sure I'm not alone in that. I'm not sure how strategy meetings in companies like this go, but I picture someone saying, "who gives a shit about how it sounds! Build it cheap and make product! Only do what you have to do for people who don't know any better!" It's my audio bias, but it seems on the verge of true evil. heh

 

[markanini]

When I read reviews like this... it hurts a little. I'm sure I'm not alone in that. I'm not sure how strategy meetings in companies like this go, but I picture someone saying, "who gives a shit about how it sounds! Build it cheap and make product! Only do what you have to do for people who don't know any better!" It's my audio bias, but it seems on the verge of true evil. heh

It doesn't hurt you that consumers are willingly enabling such corporate strategy by emptying their wallet en masse?

 

[amirm]

Yep, it's super simple to use a Negative Preamp that's large enough to cover off your largest boost in the EQ, no reason to rely on clipping meters that have different levels of sensitivity depending on the software in question.

Oh yes there is. If you just go by mathematical computation, you wind up with way more compensation than you need. Instead, by using a clipping indicator (and your ear confirming the same), you can tune the level to a much smaller number. I routinely find only a clip or two with deep bass causing clipping and rest of my library being fine. In these cases, I set it to the more aggressive value.

I don't know which software you are using that has poor clipping indicator. The one in Roon is right on the money with what I hear.

 

[Cars-N-Cans]

Unless the negative preamp setting is fixed by Amir, I do not find the EQ distortion listening tests be trustworthy. The distortion measurement would indicate that these headphones can take as much EQ as you want to give it.

I don't know about you but that is a funky looking distortion profile for a dynamic headphone. Usually they get progressively more nonlinear with increasing output due to the larger excursion in the bass range. Here they all sort of just cluster around each other, despite there being a 20 dB difference in output. That might make sense if the thing was way short on bass, but from the measurements its more of a typical shortfall normally seen in a lot of headphones, albeit with a substantial mismatch. The rest above 100 Hz looks fairly typical, but there is definitely something going on below that. (Edit: It might be interesting with this headphone to re-take the FR at the various SPL levels to see if its consistent. That would definitely be a technological breakthrough in drivers if you could make them have distortion that is largely independent of output. Bassheads rejoice! In reality, I think the listening tests are accurate, but there is something else that is not showing up in the measurements.)

If I saw that from a speaker, my first inclination would not be to assume that I can just drop the hammer with reckless abandon. I would be going back to have a look at the measurement equipment and setup to see if there is something amiss, and then take more detailed measurements from there to see what's going on. Not that I think Amir's measurements were in error, (Edit: Unless it was so bad that something in the measurement chain was overloaded. The 114 dB is fairly suspect in that it dives down below the others at one point. On the corrections-side, needed EQ doesn't look any more out of the ordinary than what we normally see so I don't think that is the issue) but that the headphone is probably misbehaving in some way that we don't see yet.

 

[Cars-N-Cans]

The response between 30-70 Hz at 114 dB is what's not passing the smell test for me. Either side of it looks like what you would expect, then it just drops before coming back up and then continuing on like one would normally expect it to.

 

[usern]

Disclaimer: While I own V-Moda headphones and think it was more than worth it in the past for me, I do not think they are good buy these days as much cheaper and better alternatives have become available. Sonarworks review has arrived at similar conclusions also: link

But the EQ listening tests and their lack of transparency here bother me.
* What content was used?
* What Windows (or other OS) settings were used?
* What equipment was used?
* Where was volume changed (OS, application, DAC, AMP)?
* At which volume setting the distortion starts?

All corrections were "gross" levels and conservative. Still, they made a huge difference in pulling the headphone out of the gutter. Fidelity was now good but you could not crank up the volume much, forcing me to move the bass correction forward (as seen above). Left down at 20 Hz it caused static at fairly low playback levels. Likely needs a cut off at or below 20 Hz to avoid that.

Could someone explain how applying EQ could produce STATIC noise? In my experience, polymer drivers that can flex gradually start amplitude modulating high frequency content to the tune of low frequency content. Metal drivers might do the same, but the distortion kicks in suddenly and you could even hear cracking or clicking noise. Never have I heard static noise as a result of applying software equalization to headphones.

Once I did accidentally enter (+)100 to preamp field and result was loud square wave. No static.

 

[Robbo99999]

Oh yes there is. If you just go by mathematical computation, you wind up with way more compensation than you need. Instead, by using a clipping indicator (and your ear confirming the same), you can tune the level to a much smaller number. I routinely find only a clip or two with deep bass causing clipping and rest of my library being fine. In these cases, I set it to the more aggressive value.

I don't know which software you are using that has poor clipping indicator. The one in Roon is right on the money with what I hear.

I think that's a little foolish as I'm sure you've got more than enough power in your DAC/amps to drive pretty much any headphone along with a significant Negative Preamp, so I'm sure you don't need to worry about running out of amp headroom. Given what I've seen re clipping meters, and my conversation with one of the devs of Neutron Player I can see that they do not design the clipping meter to catch every single over. Some software may have a clipping meter that is absolute & strict about catching every single over (no matter how small or short), but I don't know which software (if any of them) have clipping meters that are that strict - as you know in my previous post I explained the massive difference in the clipping meter sensitivity between PEACE (EqualiserAPO) and Neutron Player. I think it's foolish to rely on a clipping meter, especially if you are critically listening to music and comparing headphones (reviewing), etc - the exception being if you've spoken with the dev of the software to confirm that they've designed the clipping meter for maximum sensitivity to remove every single over no matter how small or how short. That's the way I see it based on my experience with different clipping meters and conversation with a dev. It's far easier & more bullet proof to simply run a Negative Preamp that covers the largest boost on your Total EQ Curve, then there is no concerns about missing any overs.

(There is an argument that could be made along the lines of: "Well a clipping meter might not catch all of tiniest/shortest overs, but it's not audible anyway". Point is I don't think we know where that point is, so instead it's better to set a Negative Preamp that covers the largest boost on the Total EQ Curve, so that you can be sure it catches them all.)

 

[Robbo99999]

The response between 30-70 Hz at 114 dB is what's not passing the smell test for me. Either side of it looks like what you would expect, then it just drops before coming back up and then continuing on like one would normally expect it to.

View attachment 261922

That is strange, I agree. And as you mention, I'd expect there to be a bigger difference between them in the bass, and certainly with the 94dB blue line to be a lot lower anyway.

 

[Billy Budapest]

Any idea what the “aK” nomenclature on the cups means?

Anyone?

 

[usern]

Anyone?

It could mean anything: https://www.v-moda.com/us/en/customization

 

[Billy Budapest]

It could mean anything: https://www.v-moda.com/us/en/customization

Ok—didn’t know it was a customization and thought it was something V-Moda put on them as standard.

 

[PeteL]

The response between 30-70 Hz at 114 dB is what's not passing the smell test for me. Either side of it looks like what you would expect, then it just drops before coming back up and then continuing on like one would normally expect it to.

View attachment 261922

What does your smell test tells you? Measurment error? In any case it is very very low distortion for a dynamic closed back. The fact that somthing is making this driver even more exceptional at 50 Hz should be worrysome? I am not saying this is a good headphone but those distortion levels at 114 dB are great. I do believe it’s probably an oddity in the measurment tough, remember it’s a set of tones, not a sweep. Not sure how many to cover this region and where they are exactly

 

[Cars-N-Cans]

What does your smell test tells you? Measurment error? In any case it is very very low distortion for a dynamic closed back. The fact that somthing is making this driver even more exceptional at 50 Hz should be worrysome? I am not saying this is a good headphone but those distortion levels at 114 dB are great. I do believe it’s probably an oddity in the measurment tough, remember it’s a set of tones, not a sweep. Not sure how many to cover this region and where they are exactly

From my experience testing DUTs, usually when you get something "exceptional" that fails somewhere else, its not exceptional, there is something going on you are not aware of. To have the distortion DROP below the other distortion curves when the level is increased 10 dB, but only in one area alone would be an interesting find, and point to some wizardry being done in the headphone to make it do what most other dynamics cant, namely play loud without distortion in the bass region. However, if the thing crackles and breaks up once you actually try and cash in on those "good" drive capabilities, then something doesn't add up. Given the bass mismatch and Amir's comment: "Fidelity was now good but you could not crank up the volume much, forcing me to move the bass correction forward (as seen above).", I think this headphone has some issues beyond its FR. I personally would not risk going out to buy it thinking it could be EQed as one sees fit without ramifications. Maybe if you low-pass filter, but that doesn't bode well for the drivers since that would imply they don't have much room for excursion before they either reach the end of their travel or suffer some form of mechanical interference.

We also need to remember that the headphone will not be playing at a nominal of 96, 104, or 114 dB during those measurements since it has not been EQed yet. If you need to add EQ, then the headroom will decrease proportionally as you will be effectively running it on the higher distortion curves even at lower volumes. The plots just give some idea of how much there is, and with this one I would not have much confidence in it given the odd behavior.

 

[Cars-N-Cans]

What does your smell test tells you? Measurment error? In any case it is very very low distortion for a dynamic closed back. The fact that somthing is making this driver even more exceptional at 50 Hz should be worrysome? I am not saying this is a good headphone but those distortion levels at 114 dB are great. I do believe it’s probably an oddity in the measurment tough, remember it’s a set of tones, not a sweep. Not sure how many to cover this region and where they are exactly

I would even go further and say that the odd distortion measurements, mismatched response, and no objective targets point to there not being much design work done outside of the normal electrical and mechanical design that would be done for other electronic devices. I suspect they got it to look the way they wanted, then some cursory testing was done on the drivers themselves in some sort of non-standard test setup that doesn't reflect any real-world use scenario, and out the door it went with whatever performance we ultimately end up with. Edit: And to be fair some other models do seem to have ok performance, so maybe they do have some sound methodology in place to design and evaluate them. But why was it not done, here? Do they have poor QC?

 

[PeteL]

From my experience testing DUTs, usually when you get something "exceptional" that fails somewhere else, its not exceptional, there is something going on you are not aware of. To have the distortion DROP below the other distortion curves when the level is increased 10 dB, but only in one area alone would be an interesting find, and point to some wizardry being done in the headphone to make it do what most other dynamics cant, namely play loud without distortion in the bass region. However, if the thing crackles and breaks up once you actually try and cash in on those "good" drive capabilities, then something doesn't add up. Given the bass mismatch and Amir's comment: "Fidelity was now good but you could not crank up the volume much, forcing me to move the bass correction forward (as seen above).", I think this headphone has some issues beyond its FR. I personally would not risk going out to buy it thinking it could be EQed as one sees fit without ramifications. Maybe if you low-pass filter, but that doesn't bode well for the drivers since that would imply they don't have much room for excursion before they either reach the end of their travel or suffer some form of mechanical interference.

We also need to remember that the headphone will not be playing at a nominal of 96, 104, or 114 dB during those measurements since it has not been EQed yet. If you need to add EQ, then the headroom will decrease proportionally as you will be effectively running it on the higher distortion curves even at lower volumes. The plots just give some idea of how much there is, and with this one I would not have much confidence in it given the odd behavior.

Ok, you think that the headphones has some issues, but there is no correlation with the measurment oddity you mention, and the static noise Amir mention. Low distortion is just that, low distortion. You can’t go and extrapolate that all that is caused by a drop of distortion at 50 Hz. Let’s take measurments from what they are. Yes digital clipping is one hypothesis, but unlikely per Amir’s. comments and let’s not mix everything. a drop in distortion at 50 Hz don’t mean more chance of digital clipping, it means just that. I agree this is odd behaviour. Measurments errors also occurs, there should be an explanation for that, But no, exceptional in one area don’t mean fail in other. You can elaborate on your experience in Device testing, I‘d like to understand what you mean exactly, but no, there is no such correlation not as far as i know. Many are ecxceptional in all areas and many suck at everything and some equipment are a mix bag, please explain to me where this theory comes from.

 

[Cars-N-Cans]

Ok, you think that the headphones has some issues, but there is no correlation with the measurment oddity you mention, and the static noise Amir mention. Low distortion is just that, low distortion. You can’t go and extrapolate that all that is caused by a drop of distortion at 50 Hz. Let’s take measurments from what they are. Yes digital clipping is one hypothesis, but unlikely per Amir’s. comments and let’s not mix everything. a drop in distortion at 50 Hz don’t mean more chance of digital clipping, it means just that. I agree this is odd behaviour. Measurments errors also occurs, there should be an explanation for that, But no, exceptional in one area don’t mean fail in other. You can elaborate on your experience in Device testing, I‘d like to understand what you mean exactly, but no, there is no such correlation not as far as i know. Many are ecxceptional in all areas and many suck at everything and some equipment are a mix bag, please explain to me where this theory comes from.

No, the distortion measurement is at odds with other dynamics we have seen done thus far and that alone is cause for at least some suspicion in its own right. Again, if that was the only thing and just the FR was in error, I would be all for it as another poster child for EQ, esp. if it could handle the long-term abuse. But so far its not. And the whole "digital clipping" argument doesn't carry much weight since this would be omnipresent at all volumes since AFAIK Amir uses the HP amp itself to control the volume at the headphone.

 

[Cars-N-Cans]

Low distortion is just that, low distortion.

And FWIW with dynamic headphones where you have a speaker-like diaphragm the trend is for the distortion to rise with rising SPLs at low frequencies. Its hard to make materials that behave like linear springs, and there is almost always some nonlinear behavior as the driver is pressed to larger excursions, and this along with other variations in the driver generally cause distortion to rise at low frequencies as SPL increases due to the increasing excursion. But magically, it manages to have less distortion at its highest SPL output at low frequencies, which so far I have not seen in any other dynamic measured here thus far. That along with the mismatch in bass response and an FR that is in the gutter points to a headphone that has at least bizarre if not outright broken performance characteristics. Even more concerning is that none of those things actually really correlate with each other, which is even worse. Its like its broken in multiple different ways.

Edit: And if those distortion measurements are real, then a multitone as you suggested earlier in the same range of frequencies wont tell us much more, really. A linear system's overall response will simply be the sum of its individual responses. If, however, its in error for some reason, then the multitone could indeed be instructive.

 

[PeteL]

And FWIW with dynamic headphones where you have a speaker-like diaphragm the trend is for the distortion to rise with rising SPLs at low frequencies. Its hard to make materials that behave like linear springs, and there is almost always some nonlinear behavior as the driver is pressed to larger excursions, and this along with other variations in the driver generally cause distortion to rise at low frequencies as SPL increases due to the increasing excursion. But magically, it manages to have less distortion at its highest SPL output at low frequencies, which so far I have not seen in any other dynamic measured here thus far. That along with the mismatch in bass response and an FR that is in the gutter points to a headphone that has at least bizarre if not outright broken performance characteristics. Even more concerning is that none of those things actually really correlate with each other, which is even worse. Its like its broken in multiple different ways.

Edit: And if those distortion measurements are real, then a multitone as you suggested earlier in the same range of frequencies wont tell us much more, really. A linear system's overall response will simply be the sum of its individual responses. If, however, its in error for some reason, then the multitone could indeed be instructive.

OK, so your whole point is that it doesn’t make sense that it measures that way. Ok, I am saying the same thing. The distortion does rise at lower frequency and does rise with spl. It is just 50 Hz that don’t follow. My point about discrete tones is that there may not be many points in this area to reproduce that curve, and it just take one measurment in error at 50 Hz to give this odd result. Amir don’t know what caused clipping, but he says it himself, those measurments don’t tell that, that’s all I am saying. That drop at 50Hz is extremely likely erroneous, and even if. it’s not, it doesn’t explain the problems you are mentioning, at all. It does not mean the distortion measurments are “not real” There is nothing strange in these curves, there just one odd point! In science you just dismiss this point and move on to the representative one, you don’t build a whole theory of how a the design is broken based on one value, you loom at the trend… Again please describe your experience to come up with a conclusion like that. Amir‘s experience of distortion is real, I don’t doubt it, but no, those measurments don’t explain this. The explanation has to be of other nature.

Edit. Also I don’t think the RME adi-2 has an analog volume. No it wouldn’t clip at all volumes. Not saying it is the reason and that it’s digital clipping. Ot’s a possibility.

 

[usern]

One thing is if Roon shows clipping, another thing is if RME is set up correctly to take full signal: https://forum.rme-audio.de/viewtopic.php?id=33195

Not every integrated amplifier can handle such hot signals, some are overdriven at their input.
The kind of “noise”-sound you describe points to overdrive of electronic input switches of typical integrated amplifiers.

Again, how can headphones produce static noise? It is not a signal generator.