Deders
100+ Head-Fier
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Looking forward to trying this out
Audeze Mobius review / impressions
- Thread starter Heavyboxer
- Start date
Thanks for the replies. I understand they are self explanatory in most cases but I'm just giving feedback as if I was a totally clueless user like my 70 year old father trying to use this headset and often times the "HQ" apps for headsets, keyboards, mice should/are the one stop place for typical usage instructions as well as configure, so it's nice to see the app going further in that direction from what it started with. There should be little reason to head to the website manually once this headset goes even more mainstream (looking forward to seeing more reviews on the Orbit S version).
If i run into the problem again, or find reproduction steps on the HQ exit (without crash) I'll send an email. As I've stated in the past. I literally feel/receive pain from the color blue (extreme photophobia), so I have to limit my exposure often times to the ranges of blue, this includes while gaming. So the HQ app isn't exactly something I can have in my eye line all the time. I'll try keeping it minimized but it'd also be nice if it went to taskbar if you ever change the icon from black/white. I'm happy windowsblinds (windows/os level reskinning) hasn't caused conflict with the HQ app as well.
GalaxyMaster
Head-Fier
A bit late but as promised, here are my impressions/notes on the new firmware.
Positives:
- Audio balance is much improved. Whereas the bass used to be biased towards the left channel it now seems to be pretty much centered. There is also significantly more bass, especially sub-bass. There also used to be an imbalance in treble towards the right channel, and that seems to be gone as well. I used to prefer the music preset but with this firmware flat has become my favourite eq. It has about the same amount of bass as the music preset had, but it also has accentuated treble, resulting in a slight V-shaped sound which I quite like. I would definitely like to see some comparative measurements to see what has changed. @KaiSc, is that something you could do?
- The channel balance on the gaming eq presets has been fixed. Previously they were about 2dB too much left-biased, that is now gone.
- The new '3D On' mode seems to work well from my brief testing. It's not something I'd use personally but it has been much requested and it's finally here.
- Head gestures. They are a thing now. I haven't tested it extensively but it does seem to work pretty well. It's not something I'd use personally but I can definitely see its use cases. Note that for the head gestures to work the Audeze HQ app must be open (as expected). It also seems you have to re-enable head gestures every time you restart the app, though your bindings are saved.
- Supposedly improved the low battery warning. I haven't had the chance to test this but if it is correct this is a nice improvement. Previously when it gave you the warning it meant you only had a few minutes left before the battery died.
Negatives:
- A new bug has appeared where if you scroll too soon after pressing the mic volume dial to change eq, nothing will happen. In other words, there seems to be a timeout after pressing the button before you can make a change. I did not encounter this problem on previous firmwares and it does not happen with the next/previous track commands (same procedure but on other dial).
- Some bugs that have previously been reported have not been fixed including:
-- A bug where if you switch to Bluetooth mode and back to USB without playing any audio there will be an echo-like effect on surround content. I have reported this a while back and I was told this might be fixed in this firmware update. I guess that didn't happen. @KMann, if you need more information for diagnosing this problem I'd be happy to help.
-- Some general problems with the Waves NX virtualization. I was told not to expect any changes with this and that's exactly what happened, but it's definitely still something I'd like to see improved. More specifics of what I'm talking about further below.
-- When switching to hi-res mode from either stereo or 7.1 mode, audio is distorted in a weird way until you switch your eq preset. The same thing happens when doing the reverse (going from hi-res to 7.1 or stereo).
- Obviously there is a problem with the installation procedure, which Audeze is currently investigating. Not a negative of the firmware itself but deserves to be mentioned none the less.
- There still seems to be some slight imbalance particularly in the lower frequencies on some of the gaming presets. The ballistics and racing presets have this the most. It kind of feels like a pressure on the right ear when listening to pink noise. It's pretty minor and not noticeable in regular use, but it's there.
Notes:
- At first I thought the background hiss might have been reduced, but after some thought I can't think of a way that could happen. AFAIK the hiss is caused by electrical noise by the DAC and other components which is then amplified. The gain is fixed in hardware and thus a firmware change shouldn't be able to reduce the hiss. I would like to hear other people's thoughts on this.
- I haven't tested the microphone extensively and I don't know if there are any changes. I haven't heard any complaints from others though, so I suppose that's a good sign.
- A new 'Link Mode' button has been added to the sound profiles tab in Audeze HQ. As has been stated earlier in this thread this is a new experimental feature that they can't tell us more about right now. Since the button is located in the sound profiles tab I would speculate this feature would allow you to link directly to the DSP to allow you to use a custom EQ. This is of course speculation but it is what would make the most sense to me.
Some general problems with Waves NX (not changed with this firmware):
- First and foremost what I like to call an unnatural increase in the head-shadow effect. In short this causes sound to become too directional, meaning they sound further to your left or right than they actually are. I've talked about this extensively before and it is something Audeze is aware of.
- Listening to highly-correlated noise-like sounds through multiple channels results in what I like to call 'aliasing'. In other words if you listen to the same pink noise signal through multiple channels at the same time (for example the front left and right channels), as you turn your head you will hear some distinct steps of tonality change in the higher frequencies. These shifts are very sudden and quite distracting. I believe this to be caused by strong destructive and constructive interference in the Waves NX algorithm. I know this is a very difficult problem to solve but it does impact some of my regular use cases.
I play a lot of racing simulators, and the cockpit sounds of those games often include quite a bit of noise. When I play those games in 7.1 mode, as I turn my head I get those same sudden tonal changes which are quite distracting. Because this problem only occurs in very specific situations I don't think this is a very big deal in general, but it is still something I'd like to address and hopefully see improved. I can provide some audio files where you can easily hear this effect if you'd like to hear this for yourself.
Final thoughts:
Overall this is quite a nice firmware update. Some new features, much improved audio quality, some bugs fixed and the new issues that did arise are not very significant. Great job Audeze!
Positives:
- Audio balance is much improved. Whereas the bass used to be biased towards the left channel it now seems to be pretty much centered. There is also significantly more bass, especially sub-bass. There also used to be an imbalance in treble towards the right channel, and that seems to be gone as well. I used to prefer the music preset but with this firmware flat has become my favourite eq. It has about the same amount of bass as the music preset had, but it also has accentuated treble, resulting in a slight V-shaped sound which I quite like. I would definitely like to see some comparative measurements to see what has changed. @KaiSc, is that something you could do?
- The channel balance on the gaming eq presets has been fixed. Previously they were about 2dB too much left-biased, that is now gone.
- The new '3D On' mode seems to work well from my brief testing. It's not something I'd use personally but it has been much requested and it's finally here.
- Head gestures. They are a thing now. I haven't tested it extensively but it does seem to work pretty well. It's not something I'd use personally but I can definitely see its use cases. Note that for the head gestures to work the Audeze HQ app must be open (as expected). It also seems you have to re-enable head gestures every time you restart the app, though your bindings are saved.
- Supposedly improved the low battery warning. I haven't had the chance to test this but if it is correct this is a nice improvement. Previously when it gave you the warning it meant you only had a few minutes left before the battery died.
Negatives:
- A new bug has appeared where if you scroll too soon after pressing the mic volume dial to change eq, nothing will happen. In other words, there seems to be a timeout after pressing the button before you can make a change. I did not encounter this problem on previous firmwares and it does not happen with the next/previous track commands (same procedure but on other dial).
- Some bugs that have previously been reported have not been fixed including:
-- A bug where if you switch to Bluetooth mode and back to USB without playing any audio there will be an echo-like effect on surround content. I have reported this a while back and I was told this might be fixed in this firmware update. I guess that didn't happen. @KMann, if you need more information for diagnosing this problem I'd be happy to help.
-- Some general problems with the Waves NX virtualization. I was told not to expect any changes with this and that's exactly what happened, but it's definitely still something I'd like to see improved. More specifics of what I'm talking about further below.
-- When switching to hi-res mode from either stereo or 7.1 mode, audio is distorted in a weird way until you switch your eq preset. The same thing happens when doing the reverse (going from hi-res to 7.1 or stereo).
- Obviously there is a problem with the installation procedure, which Audeze is currently investigating. Not a negative of the firmware itself but deserves to be mentioned none the less.
- There still seems to be some slight imbalance particularly in the lower frequencies on some of the gaming presets. The ballistics and racing presets have this the most. It kind of feels like a pressure on the right ear when listening to pink noise. It's pretty minor and not noticeable in regular use, but it's there.
Notes:
- At first I thought the background hiss might have been reduced, but after some thought I can't think of a way that could happen. AFAIK the hiss is caused by electrical noise by the DAC and other components which is then amplified. The gain is fixed in hardware and thus a firmware change shouldn't be able to reduce the hiss. I would like to hear other people's thoughts on this.
- I haven't tested the microphone extensively and I don't know if there are any changes. I haven't heard any complaints from others though, so I suppose that's a good sign.
- A new 'Link Mode' button has been added to the sound profiles tab in Audeze HQ. As has been stated earlier in this thread this is a new experimental feature that they can't tell us more about right now. Since the button is located in the sound profiles tab I would speculate this feature would allow you to link directly to the DSP to allow you to use a custom EQ. This is of course speculation but it is what would make the most sense to me.
Some general problems with Waves NX (not changed with this firmware):
- First and foremost what I like to call an unnatural increase in the head-shadow effect. In short this causes sound to become too directional, meaning they sound further to your left or right than they actually are. I've talked about this extensively before and it is something Audeze is aware of.
- Listening to highly-correlated noise-like sounds through multiple channels results in what I like to call 'aliasing'. In other words if you listen to the same pink noise signal through multiple channels at the same time (for example the front left and right channels), as you turn your head you will hear some distinct steps of tonality change in the higher frequencies. These shifts are very sudden and quite distracting. I believe this to be caused by strong destructive and constructive interference in the Waves NX algorithm. I know this is a very difficult problem to solve but it does impact some of my regular use cases.
I play a lot of racing simulators, and the cockpit sounds of those games often include quite a bit of noise. When I play those games in 7.1 mode, as I turn my head I get those same sudden tonal changes which are quite distracting. Because this problem only occurs in very specific situations I don't think this is a very big deal in general, but it is still something I'd like to address and hopefully see improved. I can provide some audio files where you can easily hear this effect if you'd like to hear this for yourself.
Final thoughts:
Overall this is quite a nice firmware update. Some new features, much improved audio quality, some bugs fixed and the new issues that did arise are not very significant. Great job Audeze!
Last edited:
lucidpretender
New Head-Fier
Great write-up GalaxyMaster!
- Joined
- Jun 20, 2010
- Posts
- 2,779
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- 2,139
"Audio balance is much improved."
Have had my Mobius since they launched and were despatched to the UK. Have used them virtually every day for anything between 4 to 10 hours per day on usb to pc for watching streams movies etc and to a lesser extent music, Have LCD'x for that, and of course gaming. They have been flawless every day but a really wonderful addition is the new App ability to assign keystrokes etc to head movements in game. Leaning your character just by tilting your head in the desired direction of lean is so intuitive and it frees two buttons that can now be rebound to additional tasks. I play mostly Tarkov and DayZ with a Razer Orbweaver and those two extra buttons are just so dam useful. Well done Audeze for this implementation.
l0wmotion
New Head-Fier
"Audio balance is much improved."
My balance is going to the left now - after the update.
SoundHelmet
100+ Head-Fier
I'm confused. I thought FLAT eq basically meant NO eq . Does the firmware change this
GalaxyMaster
Head-Fier
That has never been the case. It is a misunderstanding that the Flat eq has no eq at all. AFAIK it intends to keep the natural tonality of the headphones, while still compensating for differences between the left and right earcups. Because of the controls and logic boards on the left and the battery on the right there are significant acoustic differences between the earcups. It is necessary to compensate for those differences with eq, and those compensations have always been applied to the Flat preset. One of those differences was the bass response, especially the sub-bass. The measurements in the (now outdated) rtings review show this clearly. I feel they have mostly boosted the right channel to match the left, resulting in more bass overall. Link to rtings review: https://www.rtings.com/headphones/reviews/audeze/mobius
GalaxyMaster
Head-Fier
I haven't really noticed audio balance being more shifted towards the left since the update, but I guess it's possible that's the case. I'm pretty sure the overall shift is pretty minor and your brain should be able to adjust to it after a while. From what I've gathered there is some unit-to-unit variance regarding the left/right channel volume balance on the Mobius, but in most cases that's pretty minor. I guess with the updated audio tuning Audeze measured a bunch of units and took the average. Something I've asked for since a long time ago is a user-adjustable audio balance slider, configurable through the Audeze HQ app. I haven't heard of any plans to implement such a feature, but it could still happen in the future.
Shiga
New Head-Fier
When will the firmware update be available to download again on the website? could anyone send it to me?
Also, did this fix that bug where having 7.1 could make it seems like 3d was enabled, producing double noises in many games?
If I remember correctly, someone from audeze said this update was going to fix it.
Also, did this fix that bug where having 7.1 could make it seems like 3d was enabled, producing double noises in many games?
If I remember correctly, someone from audeze said this update was going to fix it.
GalaxyMaster
Head-Fier
I'm not sure what you mean by that, but it sounds like it may be the same bug which I mentioned in my write-up. I was told this should've been fixed in this firmware, but it hasn't. If you encounter the double-sound issue again, try this: unplug the Mobius to put it in Bluetooth mode, turn it off, wait a few seconds, plug in the USB cable, wait a few more seconds and then turn it on again. If we're talking about the same issue it should be gone after you do that.
I'm sure someone could send you the firmware file, but I really wouldn't recommend you do the update at the moment. In the best case, you'll have your update a few days to a few weeks earlier, in the worst case, you'll brick your Mobius. It's really best to wait at least until we have some sort of ETA.
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Meanstreak242
Head-Fier
Has anyone had an issue with bluetooth after the update? It doesn't seem to want to go into pairing mode. If I turn it on and off about 5-6 times, sometimes even plug it into usb and then turn it off, or a combination of them I can get it to go into pairing mode. (And it works fine until I turn it back off for the day.) A lot of the time double hitting the power button just doesn't do anything.
Other than this, the update is great. 3d on mode is something I was hoping you'd put in since you mentioned it on a beta firmware a while back. I work odd hours, so if I want to watch a movie late night when I get home from work, I pretty much have to use these. (Pair to an Nvidia Shield.)
Other than this, the update is great. 3d on mode is something I was hoping you'd put in since you mentioned it on a beta firmware a while back. I work odd hours, so if I want to watch a movie late night when I get home from work, I pretty much have to use these. (Pair to an Nvidia Shield.)
GalaxyMaster
Head-Fier
Pairing should be a one time thing. After that the Mobius will automatically connect to the last device you used it with. You can also connect to the Mobius from another device that you have paired with previously.
You heard it - I measured it:
The L/R frequency response difference for all but one EQ presets is greatly reduced in the V5 firmware.
Unfortunately Ballistics now has a clearly audible L/R frequency response difference in the bass range.
This was not the case in former firmware.
I guess an oversight that can easily be fixed.
Although not mentioned there seems to be some fixes in the 3D drift compensation / recentering in 3D-Manual and 3D-Auto mode which works nicer now.
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