[wavoman]

With terrific support from beyerdynamic in both the U.S. and Germany, we obtained a Headzone Home unit with headtracking to test at the NJ Head-Fi meet. (Held July 26, 2008).

Our interest in this stemmed from the mind-blowing demos given by Smyth at CanJam 08, of their SVS product -- a system for virtualizing a room full of speakers using headphones (Stax, to be exact). An advanced DSP unit supplies the magic.

After Can Jam some of us saw that beyerdymaic was selling a headtracking unit with DSP in Europe ... more or less directed at the same goal: virtualizing speakers with headphones.

So we got Headzone Home to try!! This unit is just now for sale in the U.S.

Note this is not the Headzone Pro unit. The Pro is the direct competitor to the Smyth system, and is aimed at recording engineers. The Home unit is for DTS and Dolby surround-sound movies/video, and (perhaps) also 2-channel audio. (There is also a gaming version of Headzone).

All beyer Headzone units use population-average HTRFs, while Smyth measures individual HRTF's using in-ear microphones and a physical speaker set-up (which the Smyth unit then imitates, i.e., virtualizes). The beyer Headzone unit let you design a virtual speaker room (size and dryness) which they then attempt to virtualize in your headphones (no physical speakers needed).

The Headzone Home unit is essentially plug-and-play. Just feed it digitally (redbook PCM or Dolby or DTS). [No PCM 24/96 allowed, btw]. Twiddle some knobs to define your listening room, don the headphones (DT 880's with the headtracking device built-in), face the unit with the headtracking receiver on top, and you are good to go.

It works for music video superbly well. See the next post for our NJ met reactions.

For 2-channel audio, most of us think the beyer home DSP lends a gimmicky veneer to the sound, to all music except a single vocalist. The coolness of surround-sound did not compensate for the less than stellar SQ. The Smyth approach is much better at this (at the "expense" of needing real speakers and being measured in the room with those speakers -- not a high bar for most of us).

I do not believe beyer is aiming at 2-channel audio listeners with this Home model. We'll review the Pro unit when we get it. See next post for more.

The unit is beautifully built and rock solid. I will give some url references to photos from the NJ meet in a subsequent post.

 

[wavoman]

NJ Head-Fi meet reactions to the Headzone Home:

1. With DTS surround sound DVDs of rock concerts (we had Queen, Heart, The Eagles, more), it was sensational. Totally fun to watch (on a killer Samsung HD monitor connected via HDMI to an Oppo universal player) and listen (on the included 250-Ohm DT880's with the headtracker). Thanks to Mike Smyth for suggesting we try this!

The surround effect was near perfect, and the headtracker worked. There are some small DSP artifacts which beyer tells me has been corrected in v.2 of the firmware. Will follow up with beyer and report.

2. We have not yet tried it with regular movies that are surround-sound dependent, like Blood Diamonds etc. Will do.

3. With the DSP turned off, i.e., BYPASS mode, it is a very capable SS DAC and HP amp. mallidan and I proved this carefully. But with 44.1 and 48 PCM digital (coax or tos) as the only 2-channel audio input (plus Dolby and DTS), and SE HO along with digital pass-thru (via tos only) as the output choices, it is a bit limited in application.

4. For room virtualization with 2-channel redbook CDs it works, but the effect did not really please me or anyone at the NJ meet. Everyone played with the virtual room size and wet/dry setting of the listening room, but it still sounded gimmick-like on most music no matter how we fiddled. The soundstage was there, for sure, but it sounded a tad "off". This is why MD1032 thought the HP amp was not capable -- the DSP messes with the perceived SQ (and also adds "pop" artifacts, again beyer says these are fixed).

The only exception was a single female vocalist with a piano player accompanying. There the effect gave me goose-bumps. The piano was way outside my head, deep stage right, and the vocalist (the sensational Nah Youn Sun) stayed locked dead center (so I heard her only in my left ear when I turned my head fully right, and in my right ear when I turned my head fully left). Amazing.

Conclusion so far: this unit (and the new Oppo) will find a resting place in my TV room (not my 2-channel audio listening room) for solo DVD watching when the wife has gone to sleep and told me to keep the volume down, and for HP use when the wife is watching The View or Project Runway off the Windows MCE. (Since that ties up the music source and speakers, I can now pop a redbook CD into the Oppo and listen thru the HeadZone with closed cans like the 770's or even non-beyer's like my Pro 750's). One unit does both. Perfect.

Now we need to try the Headzone Pro unit for 2-channel audio room virtualization, to see if it can give the Smyth the run for its money, even using non-individual population-average HRTFs. It will also be good to re-test the HOME unit with new firmware.

I honestly believe beyer intends the model I tested to be used for movies. They also sell one for games. I think for listening-room virtualization, they intend you to use the Pro. My current problem is the pro takes analog input (and I don't want to do that) and firewire digital input: converting S/PDIF to firewire is a pain (expensive pro units meant for field recording). Any help on that score would be appreciated!

EDIT: beyerdynamics has just announced that the next version of the PRO will have AES/EBU input, so that ends the firewire problem.

 

[flashnolan]

Nice review. ^^

 

[Cecala]

Any updates?

 

[HDMan]

reviving an old thread here.
 
does the bypass mode still allow for surround sound imaging 5.1, or is it simply for stereo?