Hydrored
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Apr 19, 2016
- Posts
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- 54
Carbon fiber headband is an amazing add, i can now listen for hours. So happy I had to post
Carbon fiber headband is an amazing add, i can now listen for hours. So happy I had to post
Got the chance recently to test the 2016 versions and I find that the so-called improvements are not worth it for me.
I should've known better not to buy into the typical head-fi hyperoble.
Maybe the highs are a little smoother, maybe that's just confirmation bias—it's certainly not big enough of a chance to not doubt it.
What is beyond doubt, at least to my ears, is that the newer version misses some of the impact and visceral bass that made me fall in love with the x in the first place.
I'd stay clear if you don't have the chance to audition them and compare them yourself.
idk, if they're making the bass more neutral I'd say good for them. They have enough trouble competing with HD800 for neutrality and soundstage, so why not iterate in that direction?
I would hope Audeze has enough sense to not try to make them sound like the HD800. My 2014 LCD-X has a lot less faults than my HD800. I would not call the HD800 neutral at all. It's a very bright headphone.
I still regularly listen to the LCD-X, not so much the HD800.
I'm beginning to see the difficulty of the word 'neutrality.' I'm inclined to think that it means 'my preferred amount of bass and treble' or 'the amount of bass and treble that my sub community deems neutral.' @DavidMahler declared HD800 the neutrality king in his epic battle of the flagships, and so I cite his opinion in lieu of asserting my own as regards judgments of neutrality. (Compared to K1000, for instance, HD800 is dark.)
My point is just it wouldn't be death for Audeze to add a bit of air to aid instrument separation, a bit wider soundstage, and improved imaging capabilities. As I say, iteration, not revolution. And indeed, I see no reason for Audeze not to offer a range of sound signatures. HD650, after all, is diametrically opposed to HD800 sonically.
can Utopia produce Sub Bass?I see what you're saying. I have come around to understanding and agreeing with Tyll's opinion in his article on the Focal Utopia, Elear, and briefly on the Ether Flow. He basically says the new crop of headphones do not have any major faults. We would instead differentiate amongst them on subtle presentation choices.
Neutral (I'll use that word) upstream gear, meaning amps and DACs that do not add better bass response or clean up treble harshness, etc., would be the sought after tools. Today we play games trying to fix one fault (such as HD800 6k Hz peaks, harshness, and lack of bass response or LCD-X lack of sufficient treble response) by using another fault (a darker or brighter amp or various tubes that add euphonic distortion).
The Utopia is leading us in that direction. If I had to define neutralit, I'd say go listen to the Utopia. All the regions of frequency response are represented equally. It's not bright, or dark, or mid-centric: It's neutral.
My earlier comment regarding the HD800 vs the LCD-X represents my preference on what faults I consider to be better than other faults. I welcome the day when manufacturers of headphones, amps, and DACs cannot create TOTL gear with major faults or in other words, neutral.
can Utopia produce Sub Bass?
I see what you're saying. I have come around to understanding and agreeing with Tyll's opinion in his article on the Focal Utopia, Elear, and briefly on the Ether Flow. He basically says the new crop of headphones do not have any major faults. We would instead differentiate amongst them on subtle presentation choices.
Neutral (I'll use that word) upstream gear, meaning amps and DACs that do not add better bass response or clean up treble harshness, etc., would be the sought after tools. Today we play games trying to fix one fault (such as HD800 6k Hz peaks, harshness, and lack of bass response or LCD-X lack of sufficient treble response) by using another fault (a darker or brighter amp or various tubes that add euphonic distortion).
The Utopia is leading us in that direction. If I had to define neutralit, I'd say go listen to the Utopia. All the regions of frequency response are represented equally. It's not bright, or dark, or mid-centric: It's neutral.
My earlier comment regarding the HD800 vs the LCD-X represents my preference on what faults I consider to be better than other faults. I welcome the day when manufacturers of headphones, amps, and DACs cannot create TOTL gear with major faults or in other words, neutral.
I think in order to measure neutrality it needs to be done directly against a songs freq analysis then matched against how the headphones produce that song, done across a broad spectrum of songs. This would give consumers a greater insight into the headphones without even listening to them.
Tyll etc could do this with measurements, 5 songs 5 different genres the freq analysis of the songs vs the freq response of the headphones, not that hard to do eg
Sweeping and white noise both produce the same results, with sweeping possibly being more accurate since only one frequency is being played at any given time, being easier for the diaphragm to cope with. White noise would be more representative of the stresses put on the transducer while playing back or recording the complex sounds present in most music.
Cool that Ozone has a feature like that, which solves the how question, but why still remains. I dont understand how tuning to a specific song yields any advantages over using white noise, especially for monitoring, when you want to hear exactly what is in the recording, and not the coloration of the speakers/cans let alone coloration from the last piece you tuned to.
One super easy way to do a direct comparison on a song by song basis would be to just play back the file through whatever speaker or headphone is being tested, and record with an absurdly flat responding mic (like the DPA 4006) and then run a comparison on the two files to find the deviation percentage.
But, this conversation is better suited for a producing/general forum instead of derailing this thread.