Final Audio Design Sonorous / Pandora IV – initial impressions
I picked up a pair of these headphones recently as part of a trade deal – since reading about the unique dynamic and balanced armature setup in an over-ear headphone, these have been at the top of my list of over-ears to try out to see if I can find a closed-back companion to my current headphone of choice, the Audioquest Nighthawk. When they came up on the FS boards, I jumped at the chance to try out FAD’s unusual take on a “traditional” dynamic headphone and to see if the hype was deserved or not.
About me: newly minted audiophile, late 30s, long time music fan and aspiring to be a reasonably inept drummer. Listen to at least 2 hours of music a day on my commute to work – prefer IEMs for out and about, and a large pair of headphones when I have the house to myself and a glass in my hand. Recently started converting my library to FLAC and 320kbps MP3, and do most of my other listening through Spotify or Tidal HiFi. I am a fan of rock, acoustic (apart from folk) and sarcasm. Oh yeah, and a small amount of electronica. Not a basshead, but I do love a sound with some body to it. My ideal tuning for most IEMs and headphones tends towards a musical and slightly dark presentation, although I am not treble sensitive in general. Please take all views expressed below with a pinch of salt – all my reviews are a work in progress based on my own perceptions and personal preferences, and your own ears may tell you a different story.
Tech specs
Sensitivity: 105dB
Cable: 1.5m
Impedance: 8 Ohm
Driver Unit: 50mm dynamic driver + balanced armature driver
Weight: 410g (approx.)
(graph taken from Innerfidelity website)
Unusual audio technology
In a departure from the “usual” over-ear headphone designs used by other manufacturers in this price range, Final Audio Design have gone for something a little more unusual, combining a large 50mm dynamic driver with a purpose built balanced armature driver (more commonly found in higher end in-ear headphones) that sits on the inner of the headphone rim. They pair this dual-driver setup with something they call a “Balancing Air Movement” mechanism (or BAM for short). The BAM mechanism is designed to balance air pressure within the speaker housing at the front and rear of the diaphragm, which aims to increase the 3D soundstage and help with bass extension and tone. The rest of the headphone is designed with similar attention to detail, with the Balanced Armature driver being made from a special permalloy to allow for greater magnetic permeability and the speakers themselves utilising a narrower gap between the pole piece and the yoke (the “piston” arrangement that moves the driver back and forth) to increase the magnetic flux density. This is capped off (literally) with the use of an aluminium backplate as part of the BAM design to regulate air pressure and reduce unwanted vibrations in the housing, allied to a rigid ABS plastic outer shell (the same plastic they use in high end camera lenses) to further dampen vibration. The design cues used here are along similar lines to other headphones or IEMs I have enjoyed (Cardas A8, Audioquest Nighthawks, Flare R2A), which all aim to reproduce music with as little unwanted distortion due to pressure variance or casing vibration as possible. It may be a coincidence that I like all the headphones I have heard so far that concentrate on these areas, but I suspect that the advances the various manufacturers are making in this field will slowly become standard over the years, as the sound they all produce is generally pure, well extended and distortion free, so it seems like Final Audio may well end up being acknowledged as another notable pioneer in this particular branch of headphone design as the years go on.
Unboxing / package contents
As these were acquired as part of a trade, the original packaging was sadly absent. I was provided with the contents of the normal package, which are the headphones themselves (obviously), one thick rubberised headphone cable with a straight 3.5mm jack connector and an additional pair of ear pads.
Build quality and ergonomics
The first thing you think when looking at the Sonorous IV is that it is a serious piece of audio gear. The classic design motifs from the Final Audio Design range are all present and correct, with the main headphone parts being made of jet-black ABS plastic or shiny stainless steel. The cabling follows the same design, with a reassuringly thick and memory-free headphone cable sheathed in black rubber and shiny stainless steel connectors at either end, and a similar steel y-splitter completing the picture, finished with a locking mechanism on the end of the headphone connectors that fixes the cable firmly into place with a twist of the cable. The “Final” logos on the side of the headphone itself and the model name on the connecting joints of the headband are similarly classy, being printed in glossy black over the matt black underneath to give an almost brandless image on first glance. This is the sort of headphone that Patrick Bateman would be seen sporting while giving discourse about Genesis albums in “American Psycho” – chic, stylish and murderously serious. Another serious aspect of the headphones is their weight, with the stated weight of 410g reading a little lighter than they actually feel when they are sitting on your head. When my girlfriend first saw these, she commented how nice they looked – when she first saw them on my head, she commented that they are definitely “a man’s headphone” as they looked so huge. When she first tried them on, after relocating the displaced discs in her neck, she settled on her final verdict of “a big man’s headphone”. The comfort level is actually surprisingly good, but there is no getting away from the fact that these are a seriously weighty piece of gear, more inclined to use indoors than wandering around the streets. Considering the weight, the clamping force of the headphones is actually reasonably neutral, with enough force to keep the earpads firmly fixed to your head but not so much that your skull is flexed inwards in the process. The pads themselves come in two variations – my pre-owned set had the “low resistance” pads (read: thinly padded) and a set of Shure after-market pads with firmer foam which replaced the usual thicker Final Audio pads that come as standard. Both are actually pretty comfortable for me, with the low resistance pads offering a slightly comfier fit without leaving my ears touching the driver housing. The headband is made of black pseudo-leather and filled with very comfortable foam, so rests on top of your head very easily without leaving a tell-tale “hotspot” after prolonged wear. Overall, these are a solidly built and reasonably comfortable headphone if you intend to use them sitting still, and a large Doctor Who costume prop if you are planning on using them out and about.
Sound quality
Test gear:
LG G Flex 2 (via Neutron Player)
iBasso DX90 (with Cayin C5)
Sansa Clip+ (Rockboxed)
Microsoft Surface Pro 2 (straight from the output jack)
Main test tracks (mainly 320kbps MP3 or FLAC/Tidal HiFi):
Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats – S.O.B. / Wasting Time
Blackberry Smoke – The Whipporwill (album)
Slash – Shadow Life / Bad Rain (my reference tracks for bass impact and attack, guitar “crunch”)
Slash & Beth Hart – Mother Maria (vocal tone)
Sister Hazel – Hello, It’s Me (bass quantity and quality)
Richie Kotzen – Come On Free (bass tone)
Elvis – various
Leon Bridges – Coming Home (album)
Daft Punk – Random Access Memories (album)
Sigma - various
Rudimental – various
Rodrigo y Gabriela – various
Mavis Staples – Livin’ On A High Note
Don Broco – Automatic
Foy Vance – The Wild Swan
General impressions on the sound signature
The overall signature of these cans is unsurprisingly not a million miles away from the “house sound” people describe in the Final Audio Design IEM range – silky smooth, well detailed and packed with emotion. The overall tone is a mildly warm version of neutral, with slightly elevated bass and a sharp treble definition thanks to the hidden BA driver that helps push the soundstage out a lot further than you expect from a closed back headphone. The mids can sometimes feel a little recessed, but this is apparent more with male than female vocals. Swapping earpads does have a small effect on the sound signature – after some experimentation, I have settled on the low resistance pads as my preferred choice as they bring the mids forward a bit and dampen down some of the boominess in the bass, so the majority of observations below are based on this pad set-up.
Highs
The highs in this headphone are at least in part handled by a small BA driver positioned on the inside of the earcup, roughly in line with the opening of your ear. This is a pretty unusual setup for an over-ear headphone, but one that works very well in terms of how the Sonorous handles the high notes. The treble is fresh and crisp, with great definition and plenty of air for a closed headphone. The note weight isn’t overly thick, but carries a sharp edge without stepping over into harshness or sibilance. Electric guitar is well presented, with the high harmonics sounding clear and distinct, and possessing a good portion of crunch to dole out when required to sit alongside the shimmer. Speed of the treble is excellent, as you would expect from a BA-driven output, with the Sonorous IVs handling the high speed interchange of notes on “World On Fire” by Slash with ease, driving the track along at a furious pace. Listening to Myles Kennedy sing, his soprano wail comes through strongly, without stripping out the emotion underneath or grating on the ear. Cymbals and hi-hats crash and shimmer well, with a metallic tinge that gives them a good sense of authenticity. Extension is excellent, with the notes soaring up as high as needed without running out of steam (or at least, to the limits of my hearing, which is probably slightly less impressive). The sharpness of the treble never feels too overpowering, but does add a nice sense of space and “air” in the top range, which again is atypical of this type of closed-back design, so kudos to the audio engineers at Final Audio for managing to achieve this in such an effortless fashion. Detailing is also good in the high frequencies, with the crisp treble bringing things like the breathing of the vocalist and in-room echoes into focus behind your eyes when you listen. Due to the clean and pure nature of the treble, these can be slightly more apparent than in some darker-tuned headphones I have been listening to recently, but not so much that it distracts from the main body of the music it is accompanying.
Mids
The 50mm dynamic starts taking up the slack here, and the mids thicken up a little from the treble as a result, with a more or less neutral tone. On certain male vocals and instrumentation, the mid range can feel slightly recessed, but this isn’t apparent on all tracks. One thing the tuning does seem to highlight is the emotion present in the music, which I believe is a hallmark of the Final Audio tuning gurus according to various reviews of their in-ear range I have read previously. Unusually, the emotion doesn’t come with any heavy colouration of the sound, but seems to dwell mainly in the vocal ranges, with a true depth of note coming off the delivery of each line which can draw you in to the music quite easily. Perhaps Final Audio Design have discovered the EQ frequency for the “soul” of a piece of music? All I know is that for an otherwise neutral sounding presentation, these cans are able to present songs in a way that conveys a sense of emotion not usually present with this type of tuning. Texture of the mid-range is good, with the large dynamic drivers picking out plenty of fringe detail in the sound without losing too much of the “meat”. Acoustic guitars and string instruments sound excellent, with the cello work on the Foy Vance track “Unlike Any Other” sounding spectacular – a sandpaper-like texture running through each bow stroke that brings the instrument and the bow playing it almost into the same room. Speed of the driver is again exemplary, with fast acoustic passages striking the right balance between resonance and decay to leave artists like Rodrigo y Gabriela sounding note-perfect. Due to the slight recession of the mids, on particularly “busy” tracks some of the separation can get lost and make the midrange sound a little congested, but in general the Sonorous IV handles most things with ease. Electric guitar also sounds good if sometimes lacking that final piece of body that a truly great rock riff deserves, which is a side-effect of the tuning lacking a bit of lushness in the main body of the songs sometimes. Another point to note with the mids is the lack of any audible crossover – however the BA driver has been incorporated into the overall tuning, there is no audible “seam” in the mid or high range to help you identify exactly where it takes over, leaving the overall sound feeling very cohesive.
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Bass
Dropping into the lower frequency range, the bass put out by the big 50mm driver is quite taut and quick, with decent presence and good extension. This is only slightly warmer than neutral to my ears, so is by no means thin, but definitely isn’t the final word in slam or quantity. That isn’t to say it leaves the sound feeling thin or flat, with plenty of definition and a touch of warmth complementing most songs nicely. Sub-bass is well represented, and the border between the mid-bass and lower mids is policed more strictly than the US-Mexico border, with no bass sneaking under the barbed wire into the middle ground. Running my usual bass testers through this, “Bad Rain” by Slash extends low and rasps in the right places and “Hello, It’s Me” fills the soundscape with beautifully rendered basslines, full of texture and precision. As part of the overall presentation the Sonorous provides, the bass fits in beautifully – it is only when comparing to other similar headphones that the relative lightness of the bass presence is highlighted, which can leave you wanting just a little more with some songs to really make the music sing. It is certainly something the driver is capable of – feeding these cans “Get Lucky” by Daft Punk provides more than enough bass for most listeners to be bouncing along to the beat, so it is a shame that this side of the headphone can’t be coaxed out more often.
Soundstage/separation
Final Audio make reference to the BAM design in this headphone bringing out the 3D sound, and for a closed headphone, the soundstage is certainly a lot larger than you would expect. While it doesn’t rival a true open-backed can, the sound definitely extends outside the boundaries of your head, with good spatial positioning and placement of instruments and decent depth. To my ears, there appears to be a slight upwards slant to the sound, with the bass centred lower down and the vocals coming slightly down towards me. The sharper nature of the treble does well isolating micro-details from the recording room, giving a better than average impression of where the performers are standing/sitting in relation to the vocals in the centre. Separation is excellent, with multiple guitar parts from thick rock tracks like Metallica’s version of “Whiskey In The Jar” being easy to pull apart, without leaving the song feeling disjointed as a result. This is aided by the size of the soundstage, which in the main leaves a good sense of space between instruments unless there is a heavy concentration in the mildly recessed mid-frequencies, which can compact things slightly. Overall, for a closed back headphone, the depth and width is impressive.
Isolation
These are billed as a closed back headphone, but in practice they are more “semi-closed” – they isolate quite well from external sounds, but are prone to enough leakage to easily let someone 6 feet away identify what track you are listening to. This rules out library and public transport, as the isolation isn’t up to transit standards and the sound pouring out of the ABS cups would probably provoke some form of violent reaction from people in the immediate vicinity if left long enough
Amping
The rated impedance of 8 ohms is spectacularly low for an over-ear headphone of this size, leading to a can that could probably be driven by Miss Daisy or an old fashioned string and paper cup telephone, never mind a dedicated headphone amplifier. This is borne out in real life testing, with my humble LG phone able to produce some truly ear-bending volume without needing to phone a friendly amp. While the headphones do respond to better sources (my DX90 sounds particularly sweet through these), additional power isn’t really a requirement to get these singing at full capacity.
Comparisons
Audioquest Nighthawk – I have written a review of these headphones recently where I pointed out that they are more or less perfect for my tuning preferences, and unfortunately the Sonorous IV haven’t changed that opinion, although they have given me some food for thought. In terms of bass, the Nighthawk has a clear advantage in quantity, with similar speed and clarity and excellent extension. The bass feels more full bodied with the Nighthawks, compared to the leaner and more muscular presentation of the Sonorous. Texture is also slightly better on the Nighthawk, with a better “feel” to the notes rather than the more clinical presentation of the Sonorous. Through the mids, the Nighthawks gives a more forward and warm midrange – the Sonorous offers a cooler alternative, with both ‘phones well matched for extracting the “soul” out of the vocals. Treble is sharper on the Sonorous compared to the thick and clear high notes on the Nighthawk, which may appeal to the more treble-hungry listener. Detail is similar on both, but perception of detail is slightly more prominent on the Sonorous due to the sharper tuning. Soundstage is won by the Sonorous, with the sharper treble tuning and additional BA driver adding more air and width to the presentation. Comfort is won at a canter by the Nighthawk, with the unusual suspension system and lightness of the components leaving you feeling like you have a set of feathers strapped to your head, rather than the plastic dumbbells you feel you are carrying around whenever you strap on the Final Audio cans. Overall, the Nighthawk is still a special headphone to me and wins on too many of my own personal requirements for the Sonorous to supplant it in my listening rotation, but if I was looking to listen to something with a broader soundstage and sharper high notes, the Sonorous would be a more than worthy alternative.
Fostex TH-600 – I acquired this a few days after writing up this interview as a trade deal for the Sonorous, so a direct A/B was not possible. Therefore these comparisons are from recent memory only, so please treat them as such. On initial listen, the Fostex presents a sound that is a little more detailed than the Sonorous, with better instrument separation and placement. Peripheral sounds and micro details are easier to pick out of the overall soundscape, without overpowering the main music, leading to an impression of more going on in some tracks I know well. The extra detail also helps to avoid a feeling of congestion, with the soundstage still feeling distinct and not overcrowded on the Fostex no matter how much instrumentation is on it. Width of soundstage is similar, with both outperforming the “standard” closed can expectations and sliding sound outside the imaginary confines of your head. Bass is slightly more pronounced on the Fostex – it is close, but seems to just have the extra pinch of volume that is occasionally lacking from the Sonorous for me. Mids are a little more dry and lean on the Fostex, with a similar presentation in terms of distance from the listener. The Sonorous tuning provides a bit more “soul” to vocals and string instruments, with the Fostex presenting a more clinical but still enjoyable sound. Treble is on the sharper end on both of these headphones, with the Fostex having a slightly more laid back treble presentation than the more in-your-face Sonorous, but detail levels and air are similar for both. Overall it is a close comparison between both, with the Fostex leaving an impression of being slightly more technically capable in terms of detail and resolution, but the tunings not being a million miles away from each other.
Overall conclusion
I was looking to listen to something “a little different” when I picked up the Sonorous IV, and the combination of BA driver, BAM technology and their house tuning have certainly given me that. These are a hefty, refined headphone that would be excellent for fans of a neutral sound with just enough bass warmth and treble sharpness to bring some soul to the technicalities underneath. These cans excel with string instruments and bringing the emotion out of vocals, and can be worn for hours on end with the right type of music playing through them. Comfort wise, they are good but a bit too heavy for those of the thinner-necked persuasion, but for those who can wear them, they provide a classy and stylish alternative to the more consumer or utilitarian styles of the other major headphone players. All in all, these are a smooth, slick headphone, and while they leave me wanting a little more in certain areas to really make them great, for most people they would be a very good choice for an at-home over-ear.
