[PeteSTRADAMUS]

Hmm, so you are using a Milo with the TT2?
That's interesting to hear.
Before deciding to buy the MScaler I heard it both via TT2 direct and also via Qutest and Milo and I decided not to buy the TT2 and instead keep my Qutest in combination with the MScaler.
That combination sounded more musical than the TT2 on its own to me.

In fact to me ALL Chord dacs need the Mscaler to really shine, even DAVE.
But I am interested to know why you feel the need to add a Milo to the TT2 if you don't have a Mscaler as well?
I would have thought that as far as power is concerned the TT2 would drive anything except electrostatic?
During my auditions of TT2 it could drive all the headphones at hand without problem but the actual SQ was as I said better even from a lesser dac like my Qutest with an Mscaler in the chain.
Cheers CC

Using the TT2 alone didn't sound as good as using the Milo with it. It gives the sound more power and makes the midrange a lot smoother and sound becomes tube-ish. I didn't like the TT2 and Milo with the LCD4. I preferred using my phones DAC with the Milo using the LCD4.

 

[GuyForkes]

Hi guys,

I’ve had this in as a home demo since Monday and wanted to share some impressions of my time with the HEDDphone.





When these were first announced I was pretty excited, another thing to add to my collection. Over the week I did quite a bit of listening and comparison to my other headphones, SR1A, Susvara & ADX-5000. My Abyss TC was sent for repair so any comparisons to it will be from recent memory.

When I first received them, two issues immediately stood out.

1. The headband was too small and the cups did not fully cover my ears. Took some effort to get them to fit. I hear this issue will be resolved by replacing the headbands.
2. The cable provided was terminated in a quarter inch. Given that these headphones are quite hard to drive, a balanced cable would have been nice. I use my headphones with the Pass XA25 stereo amp using an adapter. Since I didn’t have other headphones using mini-xlr connectors (i.e. no spare cable), I drove the HEDDphone directly from my Hugo TT2.
   The HEDDphone is heavy but comfortable (more so than the LCD4 or RAD-0). Still, I could only use it for about 2 hours at the time before the weight got to my neck.

My first thing that caught my attention were how closed in these were, they felt more like a closed back than any of my other headphones. This is not to say that the stage was small (exact opposite of the ADX-5000 which is extremely open sounding but with an intimate stage) as the HEDDphone did width and depth quite well , just not as well as SR1a or Abyss TC. Images were quite small though, I didn’t get that feeling like the sound was enveloping me like I get with my other headphones. However, they were distinct and well placed within the stage.

On speed (aka transients), the HEDDphone also did well, I THINK it is slightly faster than Susvara, but slower than Abyss TC and very obviously slower than SR1a. Dynamics though, were quite muted, I’m not really sure why because bass impact was sufficient by my standards.

On tonality, the HEDDphone is on the thicker & smoother side (think Audeze over Hifiman), with what I think are slightly elevated lower mids, making male vocals and cello sound very full, to the point where I felt it robbed these instruments of texture. For example, Leonard Cohen’s voice sounded smoother with his signature rasp being reduced slightly. I’m pretty used to the endless treble extension provided by the SR1a. In contrast, the treble on the HEDDphone is quite tame with decent extension. Timbre was pretty natural compared to my other headphones, I was expecting it to sound metallic given the driver tech but it did not.

Overall I found the HEDDphone to compete well against similarly price offerings such as Arya, ADX-5000 (I would trade mine for a HEDDphone in a heart beat) & HD800S. Heck, I’d take these over Ether 2 and Empyrean any given day. However, I will not be adding this to my collection and would still prefer the Utopia and LCD4.

 

[GuyForkes]

Also wanted to add that my ears get hot really quick (<30mins) on the HEDDphone

 

[DecentLevi]

Hi guys,

I’ve had this in as a home demo since Monday and wanted to share some impressions of my time with the HEDDphone.





When these were first announced I was pretty excited, another thing to add to my collection. Over the week I did quite a bit of listening and comparison to my other headphones, SR1A, Susvara & ADX-5000. My Abyss TC was sent for repair so any comparisons to it will be from recent memory.

When I first received them, two issues immediately stood out.

1. The headband was too small and the cups did not fully cover my ears. Took some effort to get them to fit. I hear this issue will be resolved by replacing the headbands.
2. The cable provided was terminated in a quarter inch. Given that these headphones are quite hard to drive, a balanced cable would have been nice. I use my headphones with the Pass XA25 stereo amp using an adapter. Since I didn’t have other headphones using mini-xlr connectors (i.e. no spare cable), I drove the HEDDphone directly from my Hugo TT2.
   The HEDDphone is heavy but comfortable (more so than the LCD4 or RAD-0). Still, I could only use it for about 2 hours at the time before the weight got to my neck.

My first thing that caught my attention were how closed in these were, they felt more like a closed back than any of my other headphones. This is not to say that the stage was small (exact opposite of the ADX-5000 which is extremely open sounding but with an intimate stage) as the HEDDphone did width and depth quite well , just not as well as SR1a or Abyss TC. Images were quite small though, I didn’t get that feeling like the sound was enveloping me like I get with my other headphones. However, they were distinct and well placed within the stage.

On speed (aka transients), the HEDDphone also did well, I THINK it is slightly faster than Susvara, but slower than Abyss TC and very obviously slower than SR1a. Dynamics though, were quite muted, I’m not really sure why because bass impact was sufficient by my standards.

On tonality, the HEDDphone is on the thicker & smoother side (think Audeze over Hifiman), with what I think are slightly elevated lower mids, making male vocals and cello sound very full, to the point where I felt it robbed these instruments of texture. For example, Leonard Cohen’s voice sounded smoother with his signature rasp being reduced slightly. I’m pretty used to the endless treble extension provided by the SR1a. In contrast, the treble on the HEDDphone is quite tame with decent extension. Timbre was pretty natural compared to my other headphones, I was expecting it to sound metallic given the driver tech but it did not.

Overall I found the HEDDphone to compete well against similarly price offerings such as Arya, ADX-5000 (I would trade mine for a HEDDphone in a heart beat) & HD800S. Heck, I’d take these over Ether 2 and Empyrean any given day. However, I will not be adding this to my collection and would still prefer the Utopia and LCD4.

Weird how we heard this beast of a heddphone in such an opposite way. Given my experiences with it so far were only under meet conditions (although there were fairly quiet moments in the room and tried it on at least 4 different systems). I heard a very 3D like soundstage; not in an artificial way, but as if things can come from afar and whiz closer to you, and a very linear, even modestly bright sound signature akin to the Utopia which others compare it to. Aside from possible preference / hearing difference, I would possibly attribute the performance issues down to a possible lack of amping (unsure how much drive the Hugo TT2 has), and the tonal balance could well be either from unit variation or recent final design changes. I'd encourage you to try it from a powerful tube amp and see how it shines.

 

[Tekunda]

GuyForkes, as a Susvara owner surely you can give us a better impression than just that you think the Heddphone "are slightly faster than the Susvara".

 

[Hellraiser86]

Weird how we heard this beast of a heddphone in such an opposite way. Given my experiences with it so far were only under meet conditions (although there were fairly quiet moments in the room and tried it on at least 4 different systems). I heard a very 3D like soundstage; not in an artificial way, but as if things can come from afar and whiz closer to you, and a very linear, even modestly bright sound signature akin to the Utopia which others compare it to. Aside from possible preference / hearing difference, I would possibly attribute the performance issues down to a possible lack of amping (unsure how much drive the Hugo TT2 has), and the tonal balance could well be either from unit variation or recent final design changes. I'd encourage you to try it from a powerful tube amp and see how it shines.

As I already said 3 sites before:

Don’t know about pairing but there is more than enough power
TT2 has 1.5 watts into 300 ohm.

 

[aminus]

I'll tell you the reason for all the discrepancies in the impressions regarding tonal balance: source gear.

Last weekend, while I had the HEDDphone to mess around with in the store, I began to realize something. Out of the Matrix X-Sabre Pro, I noted a slight oddness in the lower midrange that I remarked about in my review. I assumed this was just a FR artifact or an inherent part of the HEDD's tuning, until I tried it using my WM1A as a source into the same amplifier as earlier. The HEDD's lower midrange oddness was gone, and I would almost class its midrange tonal balance as slightly upper midrange tilted. This led me to realize that the HEDDphone is actually picky with what it synergizes with, not because it's extremely resolving, but because it has a rather precarious tonal balance that can be tipped in the wrong direction fairly easily.

What does this imply? The HEDDphone absolutely needs tonally lean sources. Anything too thick will emphasize the lower mids and bring out the tonal oddness in the area, whereas a leaner source will be able to mask it seamlessly enough.

Is this an excuse or handwave for what's more or less a tonal flaw on the HEDDphone? No. Does this discount your personal impressions on how the HEDDphone plays with your gear? No. This is merely an explanation as to how there are 50 different impressions on the HEDDphone's midrange tonal balance, and how a potential buyer can make the most out of building a setup around it.

 

[Quickanddirty]

Northern Germany: Art and Voice in Hannover has a demo unit since yesterday! And they got PLENTY good amps to try with. In respect of the latest posts I guess the Qeststyle Twelve Master could be a great pairing. Maybe the Quad PA one + too.

Anyway, I'll get there tomorrow and will report some impressions later on.

 

[Pale Rider]

Appreciate the impressions people are sharing so far. I was #16 on Headphones.com’s pre-order list. Since the first batch of 20 was scaled back to 15, I just missed the first shipment. So I will be waiting a little longer to try them out.

 

[PeteSTRADAMUS]

As I already said 3 sites before:

Don’t know about pairing but there is more than enough power
TT2 has 1.5 watts into 300 ohm.

I tried using the TT2 out of the 6.3mm connected in the front with the lcd4 and that barely drove those cans. It sounded like crap. Are you referring to the connection in the back?

 

[johnjen]

As I type this I am and have been listening to a pair of HEDDphones since yesterday.

I will be comparing them to my 800-Jmod's (see sig line) and my initial 'once over lightly' impression is they compare rather favorably to my 800's.
Some things favor one HP and other aspects favor the other.

I do need to give them more time (or is it my head?) to get used to each other.

But overall they have many of the same sonic characteristics, ones that I favor anyway.
And they are power hungry, but not excessively so.

As for being in the princess leia look alike HP contest, they carry their weight and bulk rather well, and this coming from an 800 owner where light weight and ergonomic design were prime design and purchase considerations.

Well, I must say I am impressed.
They are stable on my head and not obtrusive, as in they don't draw all THAT much attention to themselves (at least that I can see when I'm wearing them), despite their weight/bulk, and this applies to using them for many hrs at a time (6-10).

Thus far the bass is almost as good as my Gen-6 tweaked 800's.
And by almost as good, I'm talking about the extension into the extreme bottom end from ≈15Hz and up, but it is still too early to make a determination one way or the other.

And while it does seem very subtle, either my head or these HEDD's are, if not breaking in, are smoothing out and relaxing their sound signature as they get playing time together.

And as they continue to settle in I'm hearing more and more subtleties and inner details, so I'll rack up some hrs and see where they take me.

JJ

 

[Hellraiser86]

As I already said 3 sites before:

Don’t know about pairing but there is more than enough power
TT2 has 1.5 watts into 300 ohm.

I tried using the TT2 out of the 6.3mm connected in the front with the lcd4 and that barely drove those cans. It sounded like crap. Are you referring to the connection in the back?

Yes it is the balanced output on the back which has the power. I just checked it. The front just has just 288mw into 300 ohm

 

[GuyForkes]

Yes it is the balanced output on the back which has the power. I just checked it. The front just has just 288mw into 300 ohm

Working backwards, that's 2W into 42ohms, enough to drive it to 120db. I failed to mention as well that I did try the HEDDphone at the local store on a variety of amps (Cayin iHA-6, Cayin HA-300, Mass-Kobo Model 394) for about 2 hours, on balanced. Basic characteristics of the HEDDphone remained the same.

 

[Christer]

I'll tell you the reason for all the discrepancies in the impressions regarding tonal balance: source gear.

Last weekend, while I had the HEDDphone to mess around with in the store, I began to realize something. Out of the Matrix X-Sabre Pro, I noted a slight oddness in the lower midrange that I remarked about in my review. I assumed this was just a FR artifact or an inherent part of the HEDD's tuning, until I tried it using my WM1A as a source into the same amplifier as earlier. The HEDD's lower midrange oddness was gone, and I would almost class its midrange tonal balance as slightly upper midrange tilted. This led me to realize that the HEDDphone is actually picky with what it synergizes with, not because it's extremely resolving, but because it has a rather precarious tonal balance that can be tipped in the wrong direction fairly easily.

What does this imply? The HEDDphone absolutely needs tonally lean sources. Anything too thick will emphasize the lower mids and bring out the tonal oddness in the area, whereas a leaner source will be able to mask it seamlessly enough.

Is this an excuse or handwave for what's more or less a tonal flaw on the HEDDphone? No. Does this discount your personal impressions on how the HEDDphone plays with your gear? No. This is merely an explanation as to how there are 50 different impressions on the HEDDphone's midrange tonal balance, and how a potential buyer can make the most out of building a setup around it.

Interesting to read your observations again.
I probably won't be in Singapore until February, March possibly for Canjam, missed it for live concerts instead last year.
But if you are auditioning the HEDD at Zeppelin would you know if they have any Chord dacs like H2 Qutest or TT2 or still a Dave/HMS?
In my experience the most neutral and most resolving dac combo I know of is the Dave /HMS with a high quality headphone amp.
If you get a chance to audition the HEDD via any of those three I suspect you will get a more accurate idea of what the HEDD may be capable of than your Sony DAP?
No offence intended just a suggestion
I know some people can get very sensitive when criticising the HIFI they own.
I am playing hi res acoustic music via a slight compromise down from DAVE or TT2 myself.
I am using a Qutest /HUGO MScaler and a Benchmark headphone amp when listening via my HD800 or HEKV2.
But is better than any DAP I've auditioned.
Even Sony's heavy as a brick, top of the line DAP can't quite keep up with those imho.
But it is a lot more expensive than the Q/HMS.
I am very curious to hear if the HEDD can seriously compete against a DAVE/HMS/WA33 combo with the Susvara and non compressed large scale classical hi res recorded music.
Cheers CC

 

[xtr4]

I'll tell you the reason for all the discrepancies in the impressions regarding tonal balance: source gear.

Last weekend, while I had the HEDDphone to mess around with in the store, I began to realize something. Out of the Matrix X-Sabre Pro, I noted a slight oddness in the lower midrange that I remarked about in my review. I assumed this was just a FR artifact or an inherent part of the HEDD's tuning, until I tried it using my WM1A as a source into the same amplifier as earlier. The HEDD's lower midrange oddness was gone, and I would almost class its midrange tonal balance as slightly upper midrange tilted. This led me to realize that the HEDDphone is actually picky with what it synergizes with, not because it's extremely resolving, but because it has a rather precarious tonal balance that can be tipped in the wrong direction fairly easily.

What does this imply? The HEDDphone absolutely needs tonally lean sources. Anything too thick will emphasize the lower mids and bring out the tonal oddness in the area, whereas a leaner source will be able to mask it seamlessly enough.

Is this an excuse or handwave for what's more or less a tonal flaw on the HEDDphone? No. Does this discount your personal impressions on how the HEDDphone plays with your gear? No. This is merely an explanation as to how there are 50 different impressions on the HEDDphone's midrange tonal balance, and how a potential buyer can make the most out of building a setup around it.

I agree with Animus.

I had the opportunity for a quick demo and below is my impression, copied from FB.

First impressions ;

1) Comfort & Fit
It's very comfortable despite the weight. Weight distribution is very good.
Pads are also quite plush to offset the clamping force, thus still quite comfortable on the head. Only disappointment is the headband extension is very limited, so if you have a fairly large head, this batch isn't for you.

2) Sound
Music used;
Adele - When We Were Young
Eagles - Hotel California (Hell Freezes Over Live Edition)
Rebecca Pidgeon - Spanish Harlem

Sources;
2a) AK Kann Cube
Mids are slightly forward with good separation. Bass hits hard while the treble is slightly subdued. Overall tone seems to be on the warmish, laid-back side. Staging isn't very wide for an open back but quite immersive with pretty good 3D imaging but sometimes can hear some overlaps especially in the midbass to mids region.

2b) AK SP2K + Cayin HA-1A
Mids aren't as forward but both ends of the spectrum extends further with more energy in the treble and bass slamming harder with nice decay. Even with the tubes, tonality is only slightly warm from neutral. Staging has also become wider without losing too much 3D info while separation is more defined between instruments.
Much prefer this synergy to the AK Kann.

3) Conclusion
HEDDphone is a very impressive first product from a company that mainly specializes in speakers. My brief experience with the HEDDphone gives me the impression that it is very transparent and depends a lot on system synergy to provide the best experience to the end user. What you hear at the demo may not be what you hear at home with your own gear, so I would highly recommend that you at least try to audition with your own gear to enable a more realistic experience.
Great value for its capability.

Thanks for reading