Verum Audio Verum 2 Headphone Review

[solderdude]

Electrets might be a different story as the membranes loose their charge over the years. Some do so more quickly than others.

I used to live (and work) near the sea and the salty air did make silver contacts (position switches in VCR mostly) tarnish more quickly giving all sorts of problems.
At that time I worked for the National/Technics/Panasonic service center and it became apparent that whenever I had to change one of those switches the majority of those VCRs came from coastal residencies.

Back to Verum 2...
Seems like a nice headphone.
I like how he uses intentional leakage to boost the lows a little.

 

[capslock]

@Igor_S: Do you see sample-to-sample variation of distortion, and if so, how do you control for it (statistical process controll, measure every unit, ...)? How about frequency response?

 

[Igor_S]

@Igor_S: Do you see sample-to-sample variation of distortion, and if so, how do you control for it (statistical process controll, measure every unit, ...)? How about frequency response?

When I measure THD enviromental noise always higher that what I can achieve in measurements. ( I measure in evening in usual quiet living room).
I've adopted some special measures that ensure stability of results. If somebody is interested - I can speak about it.
Difference in responce could be only due to difference in pads and position of microphone.

 

[capslock]

When I measure THD enviromental noise always higher that what I can achieve in measurements. ( I measure in evening in usual quiet living room).
I've adopted some special measures that ensure stability of results. If somebody is interested - I can speak about it.
Difference in responce could be only due to difference in pads and position of microphone.

Yes, please do. I assume IMD would be pretty robust in that it catches nonlinearities while not being sensitive to noise? However, IMD cannot pick up resonances well enough. Do you test every piece and then rework as needed?

 

[Oldvalvemic]

Ive had my Verum 2 headphones (in Red) for a few months now ..I waited over a year till they came through…really lovely looking and very light and comfortable…its a pity I’m not seeing many interpretations of the sound of these on this forum ..maybe its only people wanting to out do each other with spec chasing. It’s been really interesting to read the initial measurements but i guess these only mean anything if you are enjoying the sound. If I’m honest and I’m coming from a sound engineering background with a strong footing on the hifi industry I’ve found these headphones to be slightly disappointing. There are some aspects of the sound I enjoy which actually paradoxically make them not my favourites. In short I find then too top heavy and bass/low mid light on almost every source i use from a Chord Mojo to my Lynx Hilo I use for mastering. The clarity and transparency is initially beguiling and stunning and is like a window into the recording even compared to my old Hifiman HE500s which I rate massively still after all these years. The image is very focussed and analytically fascinating but I think it’s the lack of balance between upper mid/highs and the mid body of the music I’ve been missing whilst listening to Verum 2s. Compared to mid $ range cans I have like the Classic 99’s, Focal Lensys and even my hard (but solid) sounding old Sony MDR7520 there is very little of what i call mid range grunt and viscerality. The frequency graphs don’t seem to identify this but I’m always missing some middle weight and hefty presence in voices and drums. I also miss some satisfying deep warmth. Essentially not very musical or emotive. I waited a fairly long time for these cans and was i guess expecting something a bit more even in the way music might be expressed. After listening to them for a while I end up moving back to my HE500s which are a devil of a job to drive but deeply satisfying and also find my mid £ range dynamic driver cans more musical and exciting if not so transparent. In truth Ive found a lot of planar type cans (see newer Hifiman) far too analytical and lacking some heft so maybe this is par for the course. Not a bad pair of cans but in the great scheme of things not a pair i will reach for in the mastering suite, not a pair of cans I will reach for for a stroll outside with the Mojo and not a pair of cans to replace the Hifiman HE500s for focussed listening on the sofa. Every now and again I’ll put them on but i end up feeling fatigued and like I’m missing something. Anyone else have and sonic impressions of the Verum 2s …these were well burnt in so this is not the issue and have been used on many amp sources and styles of music.

 

[Igor_S]

@capslock For the first batch of ~50 pcs I've tested each and received identical results. Now I test every 10th.
The only thing I do for each unit - I gather drivers in pairs to match sensitivity.

Verum 2 has "independent" contact layer. I mean layers with traces and layer where I solder contacts are two different independent layers that are barelly attached to each other except 2 contact points.

You'll never see such things on V2 membrane:

Never except one situation - put Verum 2 into the fridge and you'll see "waves" on membrane. Then under normal conditions above at least ~15C everything will be back
to normal.

My design process usually looks like that:

1. Through iterations I finally make something decent. But usually it's very hard to manufacture and assemble after that.
2. Much longer time after that I put into simplifying construction and preventing all possible mistakes
3. Find random the most unskilled guy through local advertisment website, give him instructions and go away for an hour. If after an hour everything is assembled perfecly - work is done. If there're some mistakes\problems\misunderstanding - I go again to #2

In such a way I simplify QC a lot during serial production. In fact it's the only way possible for such a small manufacturer as me.

 

[Igor_S]

@Oldvalvemic I think you prefer darker sound signature:

Have you tried EQ to your preferences to imitate He-500 FR?

p.s. Thanks for support and sorry for such a long wait.

 

[Oldvalvemic]

@Oldvalvemic I think you prefer darker sound signature:


View attachment 500357

Have you tried EQ to your preferences to imitate He-500 FR?

p.s. Thanks for support and sorry for such a long wait.

Not tried yet …I’m usually quite anti Eq as i have a lot of cans and speakers so make judgement calls on as much of a flat output as I can …i know this is currently antithetical (everyone seems to like to use DSP now ..me included sometimes) but when you Eq music for a living you kinda want your monitoring to be “flat” at least for ones own aesthetic. DSP essential for speakers in a (less than ideal) room but less than ideal for a headphone i always think. Does the V2 respond well to Eq ? It seems to me to be missing the weight and solidity in that low mid area. The transparency is sensational and so clear but i feel is too airy for me anyway ….I think people take this airiness for fidelity and at the age of 60 you’d think my ears would crave that top end but mid range and weight especially for voices and some of the electronic stuff i listen to is paramount…. This is I understand a very personal point of view.

 

[Igor_S]

@Oldvalvemic our ears for headphones are the same as room for speakers

 

[Oldvalvemic]

@Oldvalvemic our ears for headphones are the same as room for speakers

Interesting although i could make a case that everybodies ears are the same distance from a headphone driver with nothing different in between driver and ear unlike a pair of speakers in a room .. i can accept speaker tuning will be different for everybody due to room acoustic but cans you are down to source and amp which in my experience create far less tuning issues ….my head and HRTF however may be far different to yours ….we can only go on what we hear and look at specs i guess. I can make excuses for speakers but fewer for headphones. Im happy to stand corrected on this.

 

[Curupira]

Ive had my Verum 2 headphones (in Red) for a few months now ..I waited over a year till they came through…really lovely looking and very light and comfortable…its a pity I’m not seeing many interpretations of the sound of these on this forum ..maybe its only people wanting to out do each other with spec chasing. It’s been really interesting to read the initial measurements but i guess these only mean anything if you are enjoying the sound. If I’m honest and I’m coming from a sound engineering background with a strong footing on the hifi industry I’ve found these headphones to be slightly disappointing. There are some aspects of the sound I enjoy which actually paradoxically make them not my favourites. In short I find then too top heavy and bass/low mid light on almost every source i use from a Chord Mojo to my Lynx Hilo I use for mastering. The clarity and transparency is initially beguiling and stunning and is like a window into the recording even compared to my old Hifiman HE500s which I rate massively still after all these years. The image is very focussed and analytically fascinating but I think it’s the lack of balance between upper mid/highs and the mid body of the music I’ve been missing whilst listening to Verum 2s. Compared to mid $ range cans I have like the Classic 99’s, Focal Lensys and even my hard (but solid) sounding old Sony MDR7520 there is very little of what i call mid range grunt and viscerality. The frequency graphs don’t seem to identify this but I’m always missing some middle weight and hefty presence in voices and drums. I also miss some satisfying deep warmth. Essentially not very musical or emotive. I waited a fairly long time for these cans and was i guess expecting something a bit more even in the way music might be expressed. After listening to them for a while I end up moving back to my HE500s which are a devil of a job to drive but deeply satisfying and also find my mid £ range dynamic driver cans more musical and exciting if not so transparent. In truth Ive found a lot of planar type cans (see newer Hifiman) far too analytical and lacking some heft so maybe this is par for the course. Not a bad pair of cans but in the great scheme of things not a pair i will reach for in the mastering suite, not a pair of cans I will reach for for a stroll outside with the Mojo and not a pair of cans to replace the Hifiman HE500s for focussed listening on the sofa. Every now and again I’ll put them on but i end up feeling fatigued and like I’m missing something. Anyone else have and sonic impressions of the Verum 2s …these were well burnt in so this is not the issue and have been used on many amp sources and styles of music.

Wouldn't boosting low mids in EQ give you that? You mentioned headphones whose FRs aren't linear as the Verums on that region, so it is in the FR.

 

[ObjectiveSubjectivist]

Interesting although i could make a case that everybodies ears are the same distance from a headphone driver with nothing different in between driver and ear unlike a pair of speakers in a room .. i can accept speaker tuning will be different for everybody due to room acoustic but cans you are down to source and amp which in my experience create far less tuning issues ….my head and HRTF however may be far different to yours ….we can only go on what we hear and look at specs i guess. I can make excuses for speakers but fewer for headphones. Im happy to stand corrected on this.

That's not true.
Headphones indeed measures differently depending on our head and ears.
Sometimes the difference could be huge to what you see on the FR measured on gras/BK.

And not much could be done with that, not passively.
Advanced dsp with some ear measurements are probably a future of personal music listening but that's not something that will happen anytime soon.
For now PEQ is our only weapon.

 

[Oldvalvemic]

Wouldn't boosting low mids in EQ give you that? You mentioned headphones whose FRs aren't linear as the Verums on that region, so it is in the FR.

Well interesting idea i know…years of Equing sound systems tells me that just equing isnt going to solve all problems …(and Equing introduces other problems of its own ) …if this were so we wouldnt need to buy expensive and well engineered audio equipment we could just use a DSP plug in. Is Eq all there is to a sound signature ?
I will of course experiment with the Verum 2s but if i have to create an Eq curve (if that were all it were) on every bit of gear I use the Verums on my life would get complicated. If you take a bunch of headphones (cheap and expensive) and Eq them all to look flat would they sound the same or respond to the Eq exactly the same ?

 

[Oldvalvemic]

That's not true.
Headphones indeed measures differently depending on our head and ears.
Sometimes the difference could be huge to what you see on the FR measured on gras/BK.

And not much could be done with that, not passively.
Advanced dsp with some ear measurements are probably a future of personal music listening but that's not something that will happen anytime soon.
For now PEQ is our only weapon.

Indeed and as I mentioned our HRTF will be different …the measurement will always be the same regardless of our ears as that is a scientific based action not a human perception….perception wise yes i agree we will all be different…..so does this make a mockery of headphone statistics as we are all hearing headphones differently ? I think the differences aren’t so great as the change a room acoustic will make to a speaker for example.

 

[ObjectiveSubjectivist]

Indeed and as I mentioned our HRTF will be different ….so does this make a mockery of headphone statistics as we are all hearing headphones differently ? I think the differences aren’t so great as the change a room acoustic will make to a speaker for example.

Looking at some graphs from Sean olive presentations I would say that differences can be huge. And extremely difficult to EQ - in higher frequencies to almost impossible to fix with closer back designs (open too depends on the design) and when the leakage occurs because of our head.

You can see huge differences here:
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...rk-not-recommended-so-much.45041/post-1607258

 

[Oldvalvemic]

Looking at some graphs from Sean olive presentations I would say that differences can be huge. And extremely difficult to EQ - in higher frequencies to almost impossible to fix with closer back designs (open too depends on the design) and when the leakage occurs because of our head.

You can see huge differences here:
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...rk-not-recommended-so-much.45041/post-1607258

Well it may be that i have the wrong sized/shaped head for the V2s then ;-) ….this gamut of human idiosyncrasies does make a mockery of Eq results on a mannequin test head but i guess those do give you a reference to compare to. My point i think is that there is much more to listening to transducers than just eq curves and I think this was what i was trying to point out earlier. If it were only a case of Eq everything would be fixable.

 

[Yevhen]

Well it may be that i have the wrong sized/shaped head for the V2s then ;-) ….this gamut of human idiosyncrasies does make a mockery of Eq results on a mannequin test head but i guess those do give you a reference to compare to. My point i think is that there is much more to listening to transducers than just eq curves and I think this was what i was trying to point out earlier. If it were only a case of Eq everything would be fixable.

If it's not just about the FR for you... I see that HE-500 have a dominant 2nd harmonic. Maybe that's the thing you like in them? Not sure what it does in the headphones, but in a speaker, it would definitely give a fatter upper bass and probably even further highlight the mids (taking into account that the FR of HE-500 already shows suppressed highs). https://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/hifiman-headphone-compendium.1685/

 

[amirm]

Not tried yet …I’m usually quite anti Eq as i have a lot of cans and speakers so make judgement calls on as much of a flat output as I can

These headphones are not "flat." Almost no headphone is flat. We are aiming for perceptually flat based on listening tests. That is what the target is (dashed blue line):

You say they lack warmth. That is precisely what the measurements show in shortfall between 30 and 200 Hz. They also have excessive energy from 700 Hz to 2000 Hz. And possibly above 5 kHz. Therefore EQ is mandatory.

As I noted in the review, distortion is vanishingly low which means you can boost the response without it adding problems of its own.

The transformation with EQ is very noticeable and makes this headphone very enjoyable. If you have the tools, you need to give it a try and then perform an AB test.

 

[johny_2000]

Far too big me. Go to the web site and look at the people wearing a pair of dinner plates; oops I mean headphones.

I agree. Headphones with large, round earcups don't look very attractive, regardless of the manufacturer. There are many examples: Audeze, Grell, HiFiMan, and others.
For me, the most pleasing and ergonomic shape for over-ear headphones is oval, like the HD650, CRBN2, FT1 PRO, etc.

 

[Klonatans]

These headphones are not "flat." Almost no headphone is flat. We are aiming for perceptually flat based on listening tests. That is what the target is (dashed blue line):

I probably represent a minority here but I do not find Harman target flat at all, especially in the ear gain region where Harman tuning sounds brutally shouty to me requiring to apply at least -2dB cut at 3 kHz area. I agree though that EQ is a must in the case of Verum 2. It's a relatively easy task as there are no sharp peaks or dips and Verum 2 takes EQ like a champ.