I hv the Ab1266 phi/cc and the Susvara! Both HPs are enjoyable with judicious applcation of EQ. The Ab1266 needs a Class A or a tube amp and a touch of lower mid boost to correct the slight wonky sound and a slight cut at 4.5-5 khz to remedy that slight hard edge! Yr description of Sound Field of both HPs is what I hear too! I never liked the 1266 TC! The Treble is a bit shrill at the 8-9k I think... U definitely need a 300b tube amp to tone this down! Good review! BTW I was sitting next to u at the recent Spore HP show on Sat at the ZMF booth... I did not like any of the ZMF HPs at all. U were next to me on Sun at the RAAL booth! Immanis wOw that has some mid and lower treble richness! Together w the LAIV DAC.. I dont this the total sound was neutral... but musical magic
Hi good day, does the Enleum synergize very well with Abyss 1266 like it does with Susvara's? if it doesn't what is the best amp for 1266 below 7K from your experience?
U12T more bass than Maestro SE?! You must have received a defective unit. The SE has a sub bass shelf of 20db above neutral. In fact, the Maestro SE sub bass is secondary only to Fatfreq's own Scarlet Mini and nothing else. The SE should sound much fuller than U12T in both sub bass and mid bass since that is what the Maestro series is designed for. Also, U12T is all BA set so im not sure how the bass can feel more tactile. I have V16 from thieaudio which is supposed to have more bass than U12T and it still feels like it has less bass compared to Sennheiser's IE600.
I think it has to do with a lot with fitting, insertion depth and also what is the baseline listening level. Cause for me in normal listening impression, I will raise till the level I feel comfortable for the vocals. In measurement the SE do measure higher as per my FR measurement if you dive into my site. There’s just to many factors to IEM perceived performance but at least when I’m listening to it, my impression in the video stands while in measured, it is as you said. It may also be due to tracks I use too.
any comparison to the focal clear og? i saw the clear og go for $730 on headphones site on sale and hadenys is $700. from what ive read people have said hadenys doesnt slam as hard as clear og but is also less bright/harsh in the highs and hadenys timbre is better than clear og(clear og timbre is metallic? idk what thats supposed to mean but im guessing thats not a good thing). looking for an upgrade for my hd6xx because the bass sucks. and for my hiphop playlist sounds boring so im looking for something with a lot more bass and impact(been looking at bokeh, lcdx, radiance too)
I have not heard a Clear OG at least not next to a hadenys. However if it's from HD6XX, my comparison in this video of HD650 vs Hadenys should be quite relevant. Bokeh is alot more "boomy" sounding nature, does have little more bass but its not as quick and precise as hadenys. LCDX or most of Audeze have deep sub bass but not exactly slammy types which is actually what you are looking for. I did try Radiance before but the impression wasn't as great as Hadenys, but that maybe due to testing in the retailers shop rather than at home.
To me it does. I prefer stealth over the E3. The difference is there vs the stealth but I’m not not sold to E3 from the technical and sound signature . So to me caldera close is way better
@@levinste2750 I don’t own the E3, only the stealth, but my local distro has one. So I did a rather extensive test vs my stealth. I find the E3 more exciting sounding but definitely not on the same level as caldera close. Sound stage wise I’m very sure that caldera close will be bigger since my memory of E3 doesn’t have anything of notable soundstage vs my stealth.
@@ZPProductions thanks for the quick reply even on a video thats 5 months old, currently binge watching your videos. They are great 👍 Have you tried any Hifimans like he1000’s/ Arya’s?
This is really helpful since I'm searching for a DD. Because I tried Focal Utopia and he1000se yesterday and the hifiman sounds like you are in a cave/church with so much echo/reverb which I didn't like. Utopia to me is more focused and I could hear everything laid out clearly in front of me. Atrium was sold out so I couldn't try it yet but it seems from your description I wouldn't like it. Does the maestro se compare at all or is it inferior?
@@ZPProductions I guess I'm an iem type of guy. Although I do like my he6, but it sound close and focused around the head like an iem. Utopia sounds taller in comparison. Thanks.
Great run down. This also proves that preference is the biggest factor as I find the Composer to not really offer anything that grabs you or make you sit and listen. It is a good headphone at being good if that even makes sense. The Utopia and Atrium on the other hand has character that grabs the listener to listen. Utopia keeps you at the edge of your seat ready ever so ready and eager. Atrium grabs you and sinks you deeper in your seat. The Composer you really have to get specific tracks on a playlist that would play right on the Composer and have a good listen.
it ultimately depends on what you want and what genre you listen. Composer was great for me cause I want the air in female vocals which it gives alot haha. I like all 3 though haha.
The only way to know if a DAC actually sounds different is to do a blinded, instant, A/B comparison between 2 sources that are perfectly gain matched by voltage measurements... Me personally, I think it's people justifying their purchases and any decent DAC is brutally linear and clean already.
That’s also not quite accurate since you can’t actually listen to a dac directly and go through an amp. So the amp ability to gain linearly is important since most dacs don’t have any volume control. Not sure if you went through the entire video, the highlighted point is from the measurement stand point at volume match (less then 0.1db) measuring the transducer output, two dac may sound exactly identical given certain settings on the dac itself. May as I am not able to measure anything else for now. However makers are adding in filters and options and though not called eq, do change the measurable output in a visible way on the frequency response. Does that translate to an audible experience depends a lot on the listener and track, but it is evidence that there’s a difference in the physical and not psychoacoustic domain which if given the right situation is likely audible. This is where things get tricky since even though a well built dac should be near identical as shown in this video, but the default setting may not. This result makes reviewing dacs with blanket statement that they all sound the same likely to be false unless one knows the setting to match.
@@ZPProductions I wasn’t doubting your testing, more referring to the people who claim high end DACs sound different but doesn’t show in measurements and they need to take their bias out of it with perfectly matched blinded comparisons where they don’t have expectation bias or placebo effect :)
Great review style, really enjoyed it. Q- is it perhaps the same sound as Meze Empeyrion original? If you have that headphone is this then not a sound style duplication…? Aesthetically is another thing. Thanks for and feedback and good work!
I don’t own meze stuff. Something about their headphone and me don’t click. I did like some of them but never enough to buy it. I personally thing atrium open is very different from anything meze to me. Most of ZMF is more like warm and focused on general timbre while meze I feel from the surface impression has more technicalities and is more neutral tuned but I never felt they are exciting for me. But that said, last I tried a meze is months ago.
I prefer this for sure since I tried the trio last time but preferred the U12T. But exact comparison I don’t really have one on hand and it won’t be accurate base on memory
Gives u a info bra, ur coupler holes should as same as ur ear canal sizes..Then pour ur thought on the tips thing..btw new pmg apx se frm Poland..Peace!
when I tried the Volur, it sounds similar to the U12T just with a more controlled bass. So you whatever I said in this video in comparison with U12T holds except for the bass. For RN6, it's more fun and dynamic a more lifted mids.
get the 7 Hz Zero 2, good bass and overall good sound. Anything with more bass than that has terrible sound which I can't in any good conscience recommend. To get better bass, you need to pay nearly 20x the price of the Zero2
No double they look like some medieval torture device hahaha. But that said in real world usage, they are surprisingly easy to wear, relatively comfortable and only look real awkward
They can measure differently for sure. Even if they didn’t measure different they could still sound different. Measurements only give us a small snapshot of the experience. 😊😊😊😊 Cheers.
Actually they don’t measure differently with certain settings. Sounding different or not really depends on a lot of factors and if it is significantly different enough at the output stage.
I'm new to dongle DAC/amps. If I have this connected to my iPhone 15, and am using IEM's, can I accept incoming phone calls on the IEM's and talk via the phone's speakerphone?
That is correct. You have the extra Usb 3 hump on top for the additional throughput. For most devices that use USB B, I doubt they will ever need the high data throughput there. For Audio, USB2 throughput is way higher than any known bitrate.
It seems that Hasselblad's firmware has been adapted for Profoto triggers. I speculate that with certain triggers, after pressing the shutter, the camera does not start exposing immediately but waits for a slight delay, perhaps around 300ns, before beginning the exposure, in order to better align with the flash's peak output. Raven can reduce the delay time, but it still cannot completely resolve the issue. It seems that only if the camera manufacturers optimize this part of the logic internally can the delay time be minimized to the greatest extent. What do you think?
There are people such as Amir on the ASR forums doing various measurement tests on DAC's, but lets remember most DAC's will be using different chips, different designs and different output stages. What I do consider is what is actually more accurate? Many don't like a completely neutral as close to the original intended sound at home, its why many are not into studio dacs and active studio monitors, and why all hifi speakers have a coloured sound, why manufacturers often try to create their own house sound. But really, what is the point in this? Many choose dacs after listening tests because as stated, they offer subtle differences. If you are going on as if frequency responce is a possible reason for DACs to sound the same, then all amplifiers and sources would also sound the same as you have a box with vibrating cones producing th efrequencies and most audio equipment and cables have negligible differences anyway.
Well the thing is most measurement don't revolve around physical output stages. Which means measurement in a constant chain. You can think of this as a curiosity test, where frequency response is actually one of the most prominent measurement at the output stage that can be heard. I do know of ASR and other measurements, but without something like APx555 it's probably impossible to get a good reading. . Now what's the point of doing this. There's the people that believe there is something and there's people that believe there's nothing. Doing this test and showing it in the final output stage where one listens shows that if there is a measurable something in the physical domain, it means someone out there can hear it given the right tracks. But if there is nothing, it doesn't mean it cannot be heard as what I said at the start. It means there is something else, be it distortion characteristic, response, or whatever else beyond my test here can prove. If anything you can take back from this video is there are definite measurable differences in DACs depending on options and implementation which most makers do not disclose what they actually do and ultimately result in.
Yup. I think some minor lost in optics especially for edges is compensated with better AF and way smaller size. That said barrel distortion is visible in this lens but a click in LR can rectify it
Well let's put it in another way. Whether one can hear it or not is a very different argument. This is produced by the transducer at the end of the chain, producing a measurable difference in the physical space within the audible frequency range. Not some distortion number or placebo effect. It's also tested using a IEM coupled, where the tip selected are meant to seal will little gap, removing as much of a potential noise pollution. The differences measured are at 1-2db depending on the mode the DACs are in, not 0.1db which can be linked to measurement error. That said there's lot of other factors that will affect the sound in real life especially in this case of IEM, just how they insert would have changed the sound. So whether one can claim the difference is due to the DAC rather then the IEM moving around is also debated in a real listening test. There's also the track, and if the track does not have distinct sound in those region, you probably won't hear it all. All that said, this is base on what I know. Maybe there is no difference to most.
@@ZPProductions And what did you do to assure the positioning of the microphone and IEM did not shift between samples? And did you actually level match the acoustic output?
@@scottwheeler2679 yup. It’s level matched. Using a noise generator in REW, they are matched to 77db. The iem are coupled into the iec711 with a square type tip. Repeated test has yielded less then 0.1db difference variation in generated wave form. Additionally both DAC are linked to the HM1 which allows switchable dacs with independent volume control. Swapping dacs to test the volume control quality yielded difference below 0.1db. This allowed both dac to connect to amp with matching output volume for measurement to be carried out. During the actual test, nothing moves, only mouse clicks and button clicks in the amp.
