[alvarg]

Also guys, if you are planning on buying the avantones. I will advise, burn in for a least 50 hours before listening, out of the box it has this very woolly/dull sound with a midbass that bleeds pretty badly into the mids and a very forward 1khz region, but after running mine on a 12 hour burn in track 3 times, I can pretty much disable eq entirely on these and it sounds tonally correct, I still eq a little bit of the bass out but only do to a preference of a slightly more neutral tone

 

[alvarg]

I'm still listsning. But this combo so far is very unique. The low end becomes neutral and very accurate. Yet textures, detail, the seperation between sub and mid bass is extremely impressive. But if you're looking for bass slam, you'll need EQ. But the low end, mids, treble, everything just sounds so seperated and doing their own thing. It's hard to describe

ooo so tempting,
playing why so serious joker theme on youtube @3:20 there is a high pitch sound then a sub bass rumble, now I've owned arya's, focal clears, etc and none of them produced that low note as cleanly as the avantone.

 

[Ettepet]

The piercing highs and sibilance was because you werent able to correct 4490hz, 6150hz and 8100hz? On your earlier post you tried the +5/5.5 db highshelf at 1.4khz but it was a bit to much? I'll have a mess around and see if I can come up with something

Not sure. I did a sweep just before my previous post, which I hadn’t done yet. There is a big dip around 10kHz, which you never get to fix just by EQ. And around 6-7kHz my Planars pan a bit (meaning left and right don’t behave the same so the direction of the sound shifts)

With all the differences in recording/mixing it is a tough job to be revealing and sounding “smooth”, so I tend to compare songs, headphones, with/without EQ etc to find what seems optimal. Happy for now though. I guess experience and varying choice of music will cause some further tweaking. And with these phones and dac/amp I know it will be fun!

I actually felt the bass presence of the planars was too strong, I prefer neutral so I reduced it a bit.

I was fully aware, but what I liked in the song is that you felt you were there, just like low bass rumble of wind in an outside recording can add to the experience (if your speakers/subwoofers can handle it). Most people prefer NOT to hear the full impact of a live Jazz performance in their living room (or phones). I find it a nice option if you CAN.

 

[mobbaddict]

Yes, I got the impression that part of the lowest bass and tactile feel is missing in Spotify. Maybe you can verify? I actually just restarted a Tidal trial because I wanted this song (among others) to sound like it should. (I restarted a Tidal trial because my first trial was through Apple and would result in a 30% more expensive subscription)

I tested this track and wasn't sure if I heard a difference. Maybe the sound was slightly more effortless with Tidal but it could be placebo... There is a live version of this song on Spotify which is very nice by the way, I found the bass even more impressive on the Avantone.

 

[HardstyleLoco96]

Slam is overrated, I listen to music in my car if I want to feel bass. trying to get headphones to do excessive bass will ruin some other part of the audio spectrum. even totl headphones will have this issue if played loudly with bass heavy music

100% agree

 

[HardstyleLoco96]

Not sure. I did a sweep just before my previous post, which I hadn’t done yet. There is a big dip around 10kHz, which you never get to fix just by EQ. And around 6-7kHz my Planars pan a bit (meaning left and right don’t behave the same so the direction of the sound shifts)

With all the differences in recording/mixing it is a tough job to be revealing and sounding “smooth”, so I tend to compare songs, headphones, with/without EQ etc to find what seems optimal. Happy for now though. I guess experience and varying choice of music will cause some further tweaking. And with these phones and dac/amp I know it will be fun!


I was fully aware, but what I liked in the song is that you felt you were there, just like low bass rumble of wind in an outside recording can add to the experience (if your speakers/subwoofers can handle it). Most people prefer NOT to hear the full impact of a live Jazz performance in their living room (or phones). I find it a nice option if you CAN.

That dip could be the 9k dip. Check Oratorys graph. It is a pretty big dip. But I'm not sure

 

[HardstyleLoco96]

ooo so tempting,
playing why so serious joker theme on youtube @3:20 there is a high pitch sound then a sub bass rumble, now I've owned arya's, focal clears, etc and none of them produced that low note as cleanly as the avantone.

The Avantone Planar has amazing lows. I've heard the Arya, Clears and heaps of others. The Planar can compete. With more power and burn in. They just keep getting better and better . It's basically a more grown up LCD-X. With my M500 & SH-9. I am falling back in love with the Planars. I would honestly cry if something bad were to happen to them, they just do everything so well

 

[Ettepet]

I tested this track and wasn't sure if I heard a difference. Maybe the sound was slightly more effortless with Tidal but it could be placebo... There is a live version of this song on Spotify which is very nice by the way, I found the bass even more impressive on the Avantone.

I was talking about the 20-40Hz sounds in the song, not the “nicely composed live performance” thing of the live recording. I described it just now as something that helps you feel “present”, like hearing the pressure of the wind in an outside recording. The live version doesn’t have anything like that. Because of the +3dB below 70Hz I could hear that low “energy” clearly. There were already so many others “pressence” cues (slaps, echoes) that it almost felt overwhelming.

 

[HardstyleLoco96]

I was talking about the 20-40Hz sounds in the song, not the “nicely composed live performance” thing of the live recording. I described it just now as something that helps you feel “present”, like hearing the pressure of the wind in an outside recording. The live version doesn’t have anything like that. Because of the +3dB below 70Hz I could hear that low “energy” clearly. There were already so many others “pressence” cues (slaps, echoes) that it almost felt overwhelming.

The Planar has some of the best low end I've heard in a headphone. Yes it might not hit the hardest, rumble like crazy, or have slam and impact like some bass head headphones. But the QUALITY. Some of the best quality I have ever heard. I do the 3+ db low shelf at 70hz. I just feel it helps so much with the sub bass by giving it just that touch more oomph and for the sub detail and texture to shine through. And it does so so so beautifully. Never over powering. But hearing, feeling the sub bass detail while the mid bass is so damn clean and clear and absolutely no mud and bloat. F@CK. It's beautiful. . I love it. Not even the Focal Clear, Aryas and LCD-X has low end this clean and detailed. Yes the LCD-X and Clear can hit harder, but sometimes that slam can take away the overall quality. And I am not saying the Planar has weak low end, no, no, no. It can certainly kick. It's just done masterfully. Like I said, some of the best quality low end I've ever heard.

 

[mobbaddict]

I was talking about the 20-40Hz sounds in the song, not the “nicely composed live performance” thing of the live recording. I described it just now as something that helps you feel “present”, like hearing the pressure of the wind in an outside recording. The live version doesn’t have anything like that. Because of the +3dB below 70Hz I could hear that low “energy” clearly. There were already so many others “pressence” cues (slaps, echoes) that it almost felt overwhelming.

Yeah I got your point, but also found the bass nice in the live recording. Maybe not as deep but strangely real.

 

[Ettepet]

That dip could be the 9k dip. Check Oratorys graph. It is a pretty big dip. But I'm not sure

Yes, and you tried to correct it, but that is futile. Something causes this dip, and that should be modified to correct it and make it also sound proper. A resonance peak can be EQ’ed away but will never sound proper because the resonance is still going on, reduced in volume.

I believe frequencies very close to a “null” should also not be raised by EQ. The null itself can not be raised unless by the sound energy breaking something or letting stuff resonate or distort in that frequency range by pure force.

So without any idea/means to do anything about the cause I just notice it is there and let it be (for the time being).

 

[Ettepet]

Yeah I got your point, but also found the bass nice in the live recording. Maybe not as deep but strangely real.

Was the low rumble and were the pressence cues (slapping, echoes) the same in Spotify as in Tidal? I felt that it wasn’t, like it was morphed or filtered away to an extend, hence my question to you. It isn’t all that important unless you try to save on subscription costs.

 

[alvarg]

The Avantone Planar has amazing lows. I've heard the Arya, Clears and heaps of others. The Planar can compete. With more power and burn in. They just keep getting better and better . It's basically a more grown up LCD-X. With my M500 & SH-9. I am falling back in love with the Planars. I would honestly cry if something bad were to happen to them, they just do everything so well

do you agree they are quite dull, bloated pre burn in?

 

[alvarg]

Not sure. I did a sweep just before my previous post, which I hadn’t done yet. There is a big dip around 10kHz, which you never get to fix just by EQ. And around 6-7kHz my Planars pan a bit (meaning left and right don’t behave the same so the direction of the sound shifts)

With all the differences in recording/mixing it is a tough job to be revealing and sounding “smooth”, so I tend to compare songs, headphones, with/without EQ etc to find what seems optimal. Happy for now though. I guess experience and varying choice of music will cause some further tweaking. And with these phones and dac/amp I know it will be fun!


I was fully aware, but what I liked in the song is that you felt you were there, just like low bass rumble of wind in an outside recording can add to the experience (if your speakers/subwoofers can handle it). Most people prefer NOT to hear the full impact of a live Jazz performance in their living room (or phones). I find it a nice option if you CAN.

which song is it lacking?

 

[alvarg]

also im not sure people are aware of this, but every headphone if designed for human hearing will have a dip between 8-10khz of some kind it is suppose to be there, excessive dips like -20db no, but at least -6db to sound normal, often headphone companies make mistakes in their sound design by spiking around 9khz, which has the tendency to sound overly sharp or thin, the arya has a spike at 13khz so it avoids this issue, but its younger brother ananda which I owned for a while had a spike at 9khz and it often ruined what would be perfectly normal sounding songs, had the peak not been present.