Verum Audio Verum 2 Headphone Review

[Igor_S]

@ZolaIII Verum 2 has 82mm of active area so it's about 53 squaare centimeters.
Typical 50mm driver has about 16 sq. cm (50mm is an outer diameter). To move same amount of air I need 53/16 = 3.3 times less excursion. You still think it's a problem?

 

[Chagall]

@Chagall mr. Grell named as biggest disadvantages of planar weight and "home listening" ( I think he was saying about fragility).
And when he was talking about possibility of limits of dynamic drivers he said primarily about efficiency and weight.

For the sake of clarity, he said that planar headphones are good and especially for home listening because their main disadvantage is weight. He dismissed the idea that dynamic drivers are "hitting their ceiling" as nonsense and pointed out that dynamics won't be phased out due to their higher efficiency and lower weight.

As for his point of view about problems of manufacturing dynamic drivers.. I think I can produce mediocre sounding dynamic driver during an hour on youtube stream including winding my own coil. Why I'm so sure? Cause I've made a lot of dynamic drivers in my life And I even made a hybrid of dynamic and planar.

I'm sorry, but what does this prove? I'm sure mediocre-sounding planar drivers can also be made in an hour. He is clearly talking about good drivers and the cost and time required to develop them. One current example of advances in dynamic drivers is Composite Sound’s new TPCD in the HEDD D1. How long did that take to develop...

And what's more important - dynamic drivers hit their ceiling long ago.

Could you please elaborate why is that the case?

 

[LuckyNat]

@zolalll

I don't quite understand your post - may be a small language barrier, and Google comes up with nothing for "Xroom" which is a term I don't know - but are you talking about how bass feels in a room from speakers vs how it is reproduced in headphones?

In studio world, the problem of how people are used to experiencing bass in a room, what they *love* about that .. conflicts with how they feel about studio monitors in rooms where the bass starts and stops on a dime, where the reverb time of the room in the low end is really low.

The latter is the ideal for conveying what is actually in the recorded audio .. but so many people hate it and think it's 'wrong" , looses all the excitement from bass they are looking for ..

Is that the kind of thing you're talking about when you say "fake", that you don't experience the room gain that you do from speakers?

 

[Igor_S]

One current example of advances in dynamic drivers is Composite Sound’s new TPCD in the HEDD D1. How long did that take to develop...

I know nothing about them. Something make them special and unseen for dynamic drivers before?

Could you please elaborate why is that the case?

I study this market, bought almost all decent off the shelf drivers available, made my own experiments during last 5-6 years and I see almost zero progress in that field.
Hd600 released almost 30 years ago and are still good tecnically capable dynamic headphones.

 

[ZolaIII]

@zolalll

I don't quite understand your post - may be a small language barrier, and Google comes up with nothing for "Xroom" which is a term I don't know - but are you talking about how bass feels in a room from speakers vs how it is reproduced in headphones?

In studio world, the problem of how people are used to experiencing bass in a room, what they *love* about that .. conflicts with how they feel about studio monitors in rooms where the bass starts and stops on a dime, where the reverb time of the room in the low end is really low.

The latter is the ideal for conveying what is actually in the recorded audio .. but so many people hate it and think it's 'wrong" , looses all the excitement from bass they are looking for ..

Is that the kind of thing you're talking about when you say "fake", that you don't experience the room gain that you do from speakers?

Every box has it's fundamental and it's position is relative to how box is deep. This is room fundamental and you need a long one (8.5+ m) to get with it in infra sound (below 20 Hz). I refer that to newer studies how we psy hear in ELC form ISO 226 2012 and later. It's fake as it's not pressure and best planars try to emulate it a bit by rise in amplitude where slam should be (120 Hz), talking about Stelth. I won't even start serious talk about time domain.
@Igor_S it's physics, original HD 600 you say... How about free edge dynamic drivers so you have that and better extension for still not very expensive headphones? Even that (free edge) is two sided sword, everything is so it's an art of making compromises. You won't see ribbon tweeters on concerts as they can't be loaded instead you will see bunch of long horn loaded classic ones to get trow and coverage and you shore as hell won't see electrostatic subwoofer.

 

[Carlo2AC]

The black version looks better than the one you received Amir

Although i loved the low distortion, those highs are not for me, i seem to always have trouble EQ'ing treble, meanwhile bass is much easier to fix for me

 

[Yevhen]

Any headphone amp/dac combo that I recommend will be able to drive it quite loud.

The volume is not a problem for me, but I anticipate that the power amplifier IC in a tiny USB-C dongle might go into a current/power protection mode (if that is the thing). I know there is some basic short-circuit protection. I checked the datasheets from TI, ESS and others, but they all characterise at something like 32-600 Ohm.

@Igor_S Did you experience any problems with the portable DACs/AMPs working into 8 Ohm?

 

[Yevhen]

The black version looks better than the one you received Amir
View attachment 499044


Although i loved the low distortion, those highs are not for me, i seem to always have trouble EQ'ing treble, meanwhile bass is much easier to fix for me

What's your highs? I love my Grado's, but all their models have that nasty spike at 2kHz. Do you hear the elevated 1kHz region with these Verum?

 

[Mocie]

In awe that a space priding itself on science is pearl clutching to the point of trying to skew a poll focused on objective performance, fortunately that hasn'tpanned out well. Kudos to Amir for handling this perfectly.

Absolutely know where I'm going when I need new open-back planars, the performance and sound signature are right up my alley.

 

[torgeirs]

current/power protection mode

About 100mA

 

[LuckyNat]

Every box has it's fundamental and it's position is relative to how box is deep. This is room fundamental and you need a long one (8.5+ m) to get with it in infra sound (below 20 Hz). I refer that to newer studies how we psy hear in ELC form ISO 226 2012 and later. It's fake as it's not pressure and best planars try to emulate it a bit by rise in amplitude where slam should be (120 Hz), talking about Stelth. I won't even start serious talk about time domain.
@Igor_S it's physics, original HD 600 you say... How about free edge dynamic drivers so you have that and better extension for still not very expensive headphones? Even that (free edge) is two sided sword, everything is so it's an art of making compromises. You won't see ribbon tweeters on concerts as they can't be loaded instead you will see bunch of long horn loaded classic ones to get trow and coverage and you shore as hell won't see electrostatic subwoofer.

Just to understand you right, you have come to a review of some planar headphones to declare that planar headphones are rubbish ?

OK. I hope you're having fun.

When a headphone driver pressurises the air between it and your ear at a 20hz rate, that pressure wave travels along the chunk of air trapped in the headphone pad and your ear canal and then presurises the ear drum and the air behind it. In turn, the workings of your ear sense 20hz. It is as simple as that..

If you want room gain, then you can add it with EQ or find a headphone closer to Harmon which I assume includes a room gain preference.

Otherwise, I am at a bit of a loss as to what you're saying. I'm not sure where loudness curves come in either ..

 

[LuckyNat]

You won't see ribbon tweeters on concerts as they can't be loaded instead you will see bunch of long horn loaded classic ones to get trow and coverage and you shore as hell won't see electrostatic subwoofer.

You can and will see ribbon tweeters at concerts. They're relatively common in PAs, line arrays. Not as common as compression drivers - it just requires the PA manufacturer to have a model that uses them, that's all.

He's an example of an artist touring with a ribbon based PA system :

Alison Krauss tours with Alcons line array - LSi Online

USA – In a city renowned worldwide for its music, live production companies need something extra special to highlight their status. Based in Memphis, Tennessee, ProductionOne has achieved this with the purchase of two Alcons Audio pro-ribbon systems. As company owner Kiley Butler says, “We love...

www.lsionline.com

 

[RogerSmith]

...As long as it's not black.

Ahem... Sorry.
Bad joke.

In fact I ordered the black one (ignoring your bad joke attempt). Heaving a quite affordable headphone with stellar distortion measurements and reasonable frequency response even without EQ and thereby supporting somebody from the Ukraine was most important for me.

 

[ZolaIII]

@LuckyNat learn to read and stop making majutic conclusions in other people behalf. Each and every driver type has it's advantages and disadvantages and none is ideal. So you use them at what they do best and avoid what they can't. There is no driver in the world that can follow ISO 226 2012 you can get there and I explained how.

 

[kchap]

Same earpads size as Moondrop Para or round Hifimans, a bit smaller then Audeze.

I have a small head. I fined a lot of modern headphones, are too heavy and too large. The combined weight and size results in them sliding down until the pads rest on the top of my ears. For reasons of comfort I prefer my Sennheiser HD650 headphones.

Edit: Wrong Link. Try this: Correct link

 

[dark132]

I have a small head. I fined a lot of modern headphones, are too heavy and too large. The combined weight and size results in them sliding down until the pads rest on the top of my ears. For reasons of comfort I prefer my Sennheiser HD650 headphones.

Edit: Wrong Link. Try this: Correct link

Compared to its weight, the headband on the HDxxx series is too tight. It took me six months of wearing the HD600 before it finally felt comfortable. The weight and sound quality of planar magnetic headphones are directly proportional—there's no such thing as a lighter planar magnetic headphone with better sound quality. To achieve superior sound, you must inevitably sacrifice portability. This is a physical limitation.

 

[Klonatans]

Although i loved the low distortion, those highs are not for me, i seem to always have trouble EQ'ing treble, meanwhile bass is much easier to fix for me

-3dB from about 5 to 8.5kHz works pretty well for me.

 

[FrantzM]

This is not surprising. Planar magnetic or electrostatic headphones exhibit lower distortion, but dynamic headphones offer superior longevity. The reason planar or electrostatic models haven't gained popularity in the mainstream monitoring market is their fragility and inherent sensitivity to humidity. Without meticulous care, they are prone to natural deterioration and cannot match the environmental tolerance of dynamic headphones.

Sources?

 

[dark132]

Sources?

Anrun is the largest headphone distributor in China. I inquired with them about the maintenance of planar magnetic and electrostatic headphones. The biggest problem they mentioned is the extremely humid climate of southern China, which is near the coast, resulting in a large number of instances of damage.

 

[amirm]

Anrun is the largest headphone distributor in China. I inquired with them about the maintenance of planar magnetic and electrostatic headphones. The biggest problem they mentioned is the extremely humid climate of southern China, which is near the coast, resulting in a large number of instances of damage.

How do they damage? Delamination of the traces from mylar?