-HaVoC-Tzu-
100+ Head-Fier
I was fortunate enough to sample the THx Panda last night in San Francisco.
Here is my review:
Here is my review:
Correct, there's no audio over USB-C, so the connection to your phone/laptop is BT.
Given the headphone measures the same THD + FR in active and passive mode (only HP on Earth with the same THD) you're not losing anything by switching to Bluetooth provided the chipset in your laptop can manage aptxHD.
See, my take on lossless via iOS is really an Apple issue. They barely support lossless on their platform, certainly less than Android does. And they don't make it convenient either, when they most definitely could with a minimal development effort. For all we know, Apple might make it even harder in the future because the vast majority of Apple users don't care about lossless and they love to close gates in the name of convenience.
Ok so mad respect for the transparency:
I do feel the counter argument is lacking. Yes, the data shows that users care for battery hygiene but does that relegate USB-Audio as mutually exclusive? I have to wager “no”
Napkin math; let’s say the typical Lithium Ion Battery has 300-500 charge cycles. And that charging from over 50% to max capacity results in less than 1 cycle: by leaving my theoretically USB capable headphones plugged into my laptop while I’m at work, I’m using less than 1 cycle per day.
Net net, it’s the same or potentially better to plug in via usb for hygiene/longevity. The other two use cases which are implemented:
-Wireless: poorer sound, more battery use
-Wired: minimal drain yet must bring traditional rig in bag/backpack. Advantages = negated. Battery use vs USB = push (vs possible USB advantages by keeping battery topped off)
So an audiophile headphone was made that only realizes its “full system on the go” with Android/Windows users.
This was clearly developed with a special intent. An innovative one. One that I absolutely crave.
However, this product is half baked by having it’s onboard system hamstrung, imho.
The designers made sure to include every single codec to the chipset and completely forgot that users just don’t want to buy/carry DAP/Dongles and missed the opportunity to actually solve the problem and maximize the performance of the included platform.
This platform had so much potential. Am extremely disappointed in the execution here. There should be a hard look at product management.
A great product manager would have seen this potential and innovated in a way that changed what people value. Don’t just follow. Set the tone for the conversation.
Thanks for your response! You hit on some fun topics that I don't often get to discuss with the community.
It's the standard approach for product managers, to think real hard and guess what the community wants. People don't know what they want until you show them right? Unfortunately for traditional product managers, that's not true in most cases. This is why most new products fail. Think about all the BT headphones to release in the last five years, 1000s, how many have staying power as a community recommendation? ~10.
People know what they want, they're just bad at telling you. To really understand what people want, you have to listen.
DROP's approach, Community-Centered Design, is about listening to what a section (usually a big one for us because we're a business) of the community wants in terms of experience (wireless audiophile sound), developing a hypothesis (we could combine high bandwidth codecs, AAA, and PM tech, to create this system), refining that hypothesis with validation groups composed of representative community members (their activity indicates alignment with the broader community value system), and finally, releasing a product that delivers an experience which is aligned with the community value system.
Your desire to use Panda's chipset over USB, as a replacement for the on-board electronics in your laptop/device is noted, and given that's not the experience we built Panda to deliver, I don't think you should buy a Panda, it's not what you want. Sounds like you want a Helm Audio DB12 Cable to use with your headphone of choice.
To answer "but you could have...", sadly no. Beyond the issues described above, we'd have to add an entire USB DAC section to Panda, which would make the housing non-trivially larger and would increase the retail price to a point where it's interesting to a much smaller audience.
I was fortunate enough to sample the THx Panda last night in San Francisco.
Here is my review:
Sure.Got the two sentence summary for those of us who are limited on time?
Probably a big mistake for audiophile listeners, who want to be able to push power to a planar. Just lost interest in the Panda.
That's quite a strange FR for over-ear headphones IMO. I don't recall seeing another graph with that much flatness for that much of the spectrum...
I'd like to reiterate this again just in case people get the wrong idea because there's very little ear resonance peak. This is a raw, uncompensated graph.