[Yeezybop]

Hi,

I'm in the market for some full size cans, however I am really sensitive to channel imbalances so this is going to be a strong deciding factor in my choice(s)

Which manufacturer trends to be the most meticulous with driver matching on their TOTL headphones?

I know Sennheiser are renown for this but I've seen some dodgy measurements from the HD800s with obvious audible discrepancies in the low end.

Likewise just having a browse this morning and Dan Clark seem to match each driver to 0.5db across a fairly wide FR range

Any advice would be appreciated

 

[DeweyCH]

ZMF does a meticulous job of channel matching. I think it's a reasonably big part of why their lead times are so long.

 

[Yeezybop]

ZMF does a meticulous job of channel matching. I think it's a reasonably big part of why their lead times are so long.

That's great news as the Eikon was right at the top of my list. Thank you.

 

[FastAndClean]

Hifiman in general are very good

 

[jonathan c]

Grado…even down to MOTL…

 

[TheMiddleSky]

it's not always about the driver; the pad shape, pad size, and our head shape will determine the channel matching. Also, with some small head size, bigger headphones tend to harder find the sweet spot.

So far I think the easiest to achieve dead centre imaging is Abyss Diana (with the latest pad version), and of course, Grado headphones. Both relatively not big headphones, and have "fix" pad.

ZMF, while great at matching the drivers, could lead problem with their pad, by installing manually, and we need to aware that pad may rotate itself the more frequency we use the headphone (could shift a tiny bit centre image).

 

[MayaTlab]

Which manufacturer trends to be the most meticulous with driver matching on their TOTL headphones?

It's very important to note that there potentially is a difference between driver matching per se, and effective channel balance once a pair of headphones is on your own head.
My pair of K371 may have perfectly matched drivers for all I know (it probably doesn't but let's accept that fiction for the argument's sake), it doesn't matter if the resulting balance is poor because of other factors (pads tolerances, yoke / earcup / pad design, acoustic design sensitive to small variations across a few variables such as leakage sensitivity, my own head not being perfectly symmetrical, etc.).

I know Sennheiser are renown for this

I've been quite interested in measuring my own headphones in situ, on my own head, and while this is not a proper methodology to assess channel balance in terms of manufacturing tolerances, it's a way to get some idea of channel balance in terms of on-head behaviour, and as a general trend the few Sennheiser passive, open headphones I have are indeed the best behaved in terms of effectively delivering a decent channel balance once they're on my head.
Among closed back headphones the AirPods Max have been fairly decent so far in that regard for me, but for closed back headphones, even ANC ones with a feedback mechanism ensuring a constant response below 800Hz or so, it can depend quite heavily on how they couple with your own anatomy.