"They aren't trying to follow a curve, they are trying to create the most musical, enjoyable and fun headphone that you want to continue to pick up over and over" - bingo!

Awesome writeup, Geoff! (and nice to see all the amp we've talked about here in the pictures)

Well written as usual! Dispassionate enthusiasm!

Thank you both

Hi, quite detailed review. Bravo!
Just, please, elaborate a bit more on your "Like most TOTL planars today, vocals remain upfront in the mix." Would you share like which ones and unlike which others?
And this finding of yours is quite surprising to me - I am following the Caldera discussions and I see others sharing that vocals with Caldera are quite quiet to them. No challenge to you, just I am trying to figure out why that difference in experiences.

Superb review, my man! Sounds like the Caldera has all the elements for rendering good music.

@Sharppain that paragraph I went and back forth with. I don’t hear the vocals as recessed or quiet but mid-forward. The LCD-4z, P-SE, Susvara, LCD-5, HEKse, Diana V2, D8K Pro are the Planars I was referring to. They are the ones I’ve heard and they all share a similar quality. Mid-Forward Vocals. My experience has been that this has become a trademark of the planar tuning. This of course can be heard differently by different ears with different chains. But, that has been my experience. Soundstage size can give a false impression of where an instrument or voice sits within the mix. To my ears, Caldera is without question tuned for Mid-Forward Vocals.

Thank you for your addirinal impressions.

@Sharppain you are welcome. Please take into account that these are my impressions. They are not gospel. This is what I hear. I definitely do not hear pushed back or light vocals with the Caldera. In fact, the opposite. They are right where they should be, in my opinion.

I think that many hear the midrange as recessed, but it is just different from his other headphones. It is extremely linear through the presence region and the ADS provides more front to back staging depth which gives the Caldera a different tuning. I felt it was recessed until I started to understand what was going on inside that beautiful ear cup and then I changed my mind. If I would've wrote this review 6 weeks ago my opinions would have been different. A wise man told me that I need to be patient and learn the headphone fully as my first impressions won't always hold up. Sometimes they do, but in this instance, my feelings about the Caldera changed a lot as I spent more and more time with them.

Thanks for taking the time to write such a thorough review. Such an enjoyable read with coffee and blueberry muffin my wife baked this morning. (America’s Test Kitchen Recipe with Wyman’s Frozen Wild Blueberries). Another valuable perspective as I get closer to purchase time for either Caldera or Atrium. Hoping I can get to CanJam NYC to finally hear them myself. I’ll probably end up walking out with a VO instead of Caldera/Atrium after all my fretting over which ZMF I will finally choose to compliment to my OG Auteur! Not a bad conundrum to be faced with.

Thank you @Badlands

Good luck on your quest to partner your Auteur OG. I, myself partnered it with an Atrium. That headphone has my .

Hi, Geo, I fully understand it is your impressions. I asked for other headphones in order to set a benchmark for me.

Thanks for a terrific review--very detailed yet entertaining. Appreciate those food/cooking references, as always...also the various headphone & amp comparisons. I found the comp with your Code X especially intriguing.

Beyond all the observations & comparisons, you also describe the feeling of being a ZMF customer--a real part of enjoying any of these headphones.

"Was it needed? No! Did I love it? Yes!" (enthusiasm!)

That's some praise for Atrium! I haven't heard a ZMF yet...

@CT007 do you mean the Caldera? This review spoke very little about the Atrium.