[ThanatosVI]

Or, racing seats inspired.....

Which looks incredibly similar to gaming chairs

 

[adrianm]

I’ve tried a lot of the weird stuff for synthetic 3D, including live sound, DIRAC and others, and decided they all took more away than they added, but for overall sound quality when you process it through your audiophile gear to me it still sounds better.

I came from the Audigy line of sound cards to dedicated Dac/amp in my sig, even for gaming.

I've also tried a lot of stuff before settling on this. Gsx takes the sound as true 7.1 and has a great algorithm for creating virtual surround. For 200 euros + 300 euro headphones ( Beyerdynamic mmx 300) it blows away the setup in my signature for positional audio. Inside buildings you can hear people taking the stairs above and below you. Depth is much better than any stereo or virtual surround setup. Even in PUBG it was great for pinpointing snipers. Horrible for music though. And you can't turn off the microphone compression since it's intended for E-sports arenas.

 

[FYFL]

Which looks incredibly similar to gaming chairs

So now you know when “gaming chair” manufacturers got the idea. Lmao

 

[ericx85]

Hmm Stealth feels muffled/soft compared to Empyrean? That is alarming because, to me, the Empyrean is the most muffled flagship in existence - even direct from DAVE. I am hoping that it is related to amp pairing rather than inherent Stealth signature.

I think its mainly the fact that the Empyrean has that 10khz flare someone else mentioned showing the measurement. Certain songs had a sizzle to them while sometimes sounded like a clearness to it, often was a painful glare. I've gotten used to it and thats why I'm thinking the stealth feels a little softer. I do want to try another amp as well. Been tempted to to exchange the Stealth for an Elite, but from what some have said, I dont think that glare has been completely ironed out in them. There is 0 glare in the Stealth and its slowly growing on me. Someone also asked what dac im using and its the holo may. Main reason I got the a90 as my amp was the ease of switching between my powered speakers and headphones at the desktop.

 

[DarginMahkum]

I think its mainly the fact that the Empyrean has that 10khz flare someone else mentioned showing the measurement. Certain songs had a sizzle to them while sometimes sounded like a clearness to it, often was a painful glare. I've gotten used to it and thats why I'm thinking the stealth feels a little softer. I do want to try another amp as well. Been tempted to to exchange the Stealth for an Elite, but from what some have said, I dont think that glare has been completely ironed out in them. There is 0 glare in the Stealth and its slowly growing on me. Someone also asked what dac im using and its the holo may. Main reason I got the a90 as my amp was the ease of switching between my powered speakers and headphones at the desktop.

That >10kHz energy is still there. To tell you the truth, I like more energy in that region - more than the Harman neutral, like D8000 Pro.

 

[ericx85]

Hmm im wondering if its that bump from 8 to 10 that irked me. I thought I liked the energy too, hell maybe its an issue with my chain. Some songs just pierced my ears with the treble/sibilance while others were perfectly fine. The elites at least smoothed out that transition it looks. I'll have to find a place to demo the Elites.

 

[Alcophone]

New family member, who dis?

 

[Icenine2]

Made it to Chicago FedEx in one day and there it sits. I've been waiting here for sig and finally they let me know no go.

 

[mrspeakers]

I'm open to amp suggestions if anyone wants to throw them my way. Would prefer solid state since Im really not looking into falling into the tube swapping rabbit hole lol.

The isolation is great, better than I expected or at least hoped for. Not as isolating as ANC obviously, but its enough to deal with background noise. For a while I was considering the Noire just to have a closed back when I needed the isolation but glad I held off on it to go for this. Just on day 2 so far so going to keep burning these in. Im not the greatest at reviewing headhphones, but there aren't many being posted about the stealth and figured id give my 2 cents at least.

We like the Chord TT2 or Hugo 2, they're just super pairings.

Re: ANC, that does a better job below 500hz, e.g. rumble on a plane, but isolation such as we use has the edge with crying babies and announcements.

Oh ya, it’s my main use of Stealth. I play mostly Apex Legends for FPS and previous to stealth I considered the CX maybe the very best gaming headphone on the market, but Stealth again stepped up and took the crown.

the imaging and separation gives not only pinpoint accuracy to action around the map, but the new level of separation and lack of distortion allows for a subtlety of sounds (at great distance the clear understanding of footsteps heading towards/away from you and in which direction and/or at what height above below you they are heading) is just world class.

bass impact of explosions are amazing and the high register of firing weapons is never shrill or sibilant.

11/10 for gaming.

Hellblade Senua's Sacrifice sounds amazing, they edited it in binaural explicitly for headphones. Whether the game is of interest or not is another question, but the SQ is tops.

 

[Icenine2]

We like the Chord TT2 or Hugo 2, they're just super pairings.

Re: ANC, that does a better job below 500hz, e.g. rumble on a plane, but isolation such as we use has the edge with crying babies and announcements.



Hellblade Senua's Sacrifice sounds amazing, they edited it in binaural explicitly for headphones. Whether the game is of interest or not is another question, but the SQ is tops.

Hi setting on Hugo TT2?

 

[JLoud]

Dan, how does the Stealth compare to the Voce in terms of detail and speed? I have the Voce and a BHSE, would be running the Stealth on a WA33.

 

[Alcophone]

@mrspeakers Is the adhesive used for the pads 3M VHB by any chance?

 

[DarginMahkum]

New family member, who dis?

Congrats! How do you like it so far?

 

[mrspeakers]

Dan, how does the Stealth compare to the Voce in terms of detail and speed? I have the Voce and a BHSE, would be running the Stealth on a WA33.

It's not easy answering a question like this because neither term is supported by common measurements and there's a subjective difference in the voicing particularly due to VOCE having a flat measured response from 100-1k whereas the harman has a distinct curve, this causes VOCE to have a warmer midrange which can have a tendency to change detail perception.

That said, I think they're reasonably comparable on detail. Speed is hard as IMHO 2/3 of what people call "speed" is usually a high frequency spectral tilt and/or underdamping. To me speed and damping can't be separated and for this reason for me the measure of speed is really separation between notes, and they're both comparable to my ear.

@mrspeakers Is the adhesive used for the pads 3M VHB by any chance?

It's a Japanese equivalent.

 

[Alcophone]

Congrats! How do you like it so far?

Mixed feelings so far. I think it deserves some burn in and getting used to, and tinkering with cables and amps before saying more (a SparkoS Aries made its way here just now as well). For now I'll stick to what I don't expect to change with burn in or increased familiarity.

I can say that everything sounds kind of new and different, which is fun. There's sound around you, and you have something on your head, but those two things don't necessarily seem to be related, the sound seems to come from slightly beyond where the headphone is. Until there's sufficient sub bass, then you can feel the housing vibrate a bit, similar to what the HD660S does. The Ether C Flow are harder to impress in that regard, possibly due to the higher clamping force dissipating the energy more quickly or more mass, not sure.
There's an unfamiliar delicacy to the sound, which feels more like a qualitative improvement than just a quantitative one, in other words it's sufficiently more resolving to reach a new level for me.

Now those are very early impressions, based on maybe an hour of listening, using Spotify Premium, Bifrost 2, Wireworld Eclipse 8 XLR interconnects into a Gustard H20 with SparkoS opamps and using a 4-pin XLR Lavricables 20 core silver headphone cable, just for context.

Comfort seems great, though (again, no prolonged sessions yet). You just... put it on your head. It took me a while to figure out how to put the Ether Flow on just right for comfort, but not with these.

As suspected, it looks and feels more premium in person, no complaints about cheapness of any kind here. I like the recessed cable jacks, and I hope Hirose connector clones don't cause issues, it's a tight fit. That bass port looks sophisticated, too, heh.

It came very well packaged. I think it's a missed opportunity to use such a large, fancy box, though. Obviously you want to keep the box if you need to ship it back for repairs or if you want to sell it. Since it folds down so nicely, the box could have been much smaller and waste less space in my apartment.

It's a Japanese equivalent.

Interesting. It smelled familiar. I hope it stops off-gasing, I had to get rid of products that use 3M VHB before because that stingy chemical odor just wouldn't stop even after weeks, irritating my throat.

It's not super strong here, I just caught a wiff of it when I took them off. It's not the headband, that just smells like leather.

Edit: it might be the suede part of the earpads instead.