Audeze Mobius Review / Preview - Head-Fi TV

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Jul 30, 2018 at 5:37 PM Post #3,361 of 7,693
Yes, I do. When I turn on my O2 I hear nothing from my HD650. They are completely black. And every single setup I have had in the past 15 years have been like that. I expect the same from any headphone in 2018.

We're not talking about "any" headphone here. We're talking about an "active" (i.e. on board amp) headphone with DSP electronics, power supply, DAC etc less than 1 inch from your ears. My headphone amp certainly keeps my other headphones very quiet, as I expect it to.

Guess you'll be returning yours. I have other great headphones and gear for critical music listening. For $200, I'm thrilled that these will suit my intended use for them....watching surround movies on my HTPC at night while my family is asleep.
 
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Jul 30, 2018 at 5:38 PM Post #3,363 of 7,693
After some testing I will have to restate what someone has said a bit above me.

These "cinematic" headphones, made for gaming, music, etc, are unusable for games and movies. The hiss is far too present to play any game or movie with even room noise/casual conversation/etc. And completely forget any horror or thrillers. I have less of an issue with music, but the hiss does intrude on classical pieces or quieter acoustic pieces.

Stuff like borderlands, or other action heavy games may be fine but slinking off into a quiet forest in an rpg will leave you focused on the hiss. Ditto a tense horror game, dramatic story game, etc.

This is still so upsetting because they sound fantastic and the virtual surround is nearly perfect and this one issue is going to completely ruin these for me, it is exceedingly frustrating and I hope Audeze adds a warning to future purchases. I was burnt with the N90Q, this burns even more
This is so sad to hear. :disappointed_relieved: I haven't received my pair yet. Hopefully there will be a change that can be made to firmware or somewhere else to fix this.
 
Jul 30, 2018 at 5:41 PM Post #3,366 of 7,693
Like someone else mentioned. Have you tried charging them completely?
Yes, fully charged, with and without USBC cable, bluetooth and analog. Same constant level hiss regardless of source.

Edit: to the one guy that keeps asking if we were impressed. Yes the virtual surround sound was impressive. What's more impressive is that audeze would release a headphone that sounds like it's driven from a bargin bin tube amp.
 
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Jul 30, 2018 at 5:46 PM Post #3,367 of 7,693
Yes, fully charged, with and without USBC cable, bluetooth and analog. Same constant level hiss regardless of source.

Edit: to the one guy that keeps asking if we were impressed. Yes the virtual surround sound was impressive. What's more impressive is that audeze would release a headphone that sounds like it's driven from a bargin bin tube amp.
Well my question cannot be addressed to you, since your headphones seems to be defective. Hopefully Audeze can replace them quickly.
 
Jul 30, 2018 at 5:46 PM Post #3,368 of 7,693
Eh, what is active headphone? Most audiophiles here use some sort of DAC (dedicated USB or a soundcard like Asus Xonar), dedicated amplifier, and then headphones. The only difference here is that Mobius managed to integrate all of these components (DAC, AMP, Headphones) into a single package. I don't think hissing should be acceptable from an audiophile headphone in 2018.
Isn't that what makes an active speaker an active speaker? So wouldn't you consider that an active headphone then because of the built in amp? It's like the JBL LSR30X series. It hisses because of the amp they put in it.
 
Jul 30, 2018 at 5:59 PM Post #3,369 of 7,693
Isn't that what makes an active speaker an active speaker? So wouldn't you consider that an active headphone then because of the built in amp? It's like the JBL LSR30X series. It hisses because of the amp they put in it.
Every piece of sound equipment, especially with amplifier in the path, is going to have some kind of noise floor. My primary desktop headphone rig has an active amplifier in the path - an Objective O2, and it has inaudible noise floor. My living room speakers are being driven by an active Marantz amplifier, and again, they have inaudible noise floor unless I crank up amplifier volume knob way above what I would consider comfortable listening levels. In this case, it seems that Audeze failed to produce quality amplifier that has low noise floor. In my opinion that is a failure.

Now, it is still early, I still hope that this is either an isolated issue in the early batch or something that can be solved/remedied. However, this is a very concerning development, and I really hope Audeze can find a way to address it.
 
Jul 30, 2018 at 6:00 PM Post #3,370 of 7,693
So my excitement is down to exactly 0 right now. Such a shame that they've made a gaming headset and had to join in on the gaming world meta of releasing broken games. It doesn't really matter if they can fix it with updates, releasing broken products should never be accepted.
 
Jul 30, 2018 at 6:01 PM Post #3,371 of 7,693
I'm not as optimistic as the rest of you regarding the hiss being fixed. I think it's more likely that the SoC or amplifier they're using for the audio functions is hissy and there's little they can do about it. There were reports of hiss when the Mobius was initially demoed and they said something along the lines of they'd try to reduce it.

It's not acceptable on something that is priced like this.
 
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Jul 30, 2018 at 6:09 PM Post #3,374 of 7,693
Yeah, the LSR305 hiss is so subtle. At a normal distance from the speakers, in a standard room with a PC running, it's hard to notice.

Yeah it's not bothersome indeed. But you put closed headphones on me while I play CS and put hiss in my ears when I need dead silence, sorry it's a borked product.
 
Jul 30, 2018 at 6:29 PM Post #3,375 of 7,693
Let's give Audeze a little time to react to this. I expect them to address this issue soon enough.
A hardware flaw can only be remedied by changing the hardware itself. That's true but lets see how Audeze handles this.

Since all the latest preview units at can jam and in reviewers hands didn't exhibit this behaviour I'm still hoping it's a crosstalk issue between Mic and headphones or something along those lines that might be fixed via firmeware.

If it turns out to be a more serious problem.... Well even though Audeze will probably loose money on Mobius I expect them to fix that issue period. The latter Option would include more annoying waiting times though and I don't think everyone will happily play along.

Worst case: the hiss is there to stay until the next revision. If that happens Audeze might loose me permenantly as a customer.
 
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