[johnjen]

Yes!
hahahahahahahaahahahahahaa
And I'll be able to be more illustrative after a bit.

JJ

 

[joseph69]

Hope whatever it is can be adapted to the current model.

 

[JLoud]

I'm hoping it can be implemented on existing HEDDphones. I have one of the first ones shipped. I would like a little more extension on the headband. They fit me, but just barely. Still I am enjoying them immensely.

 

[omniweltall]

Yes!
hahahahahahahaahahahahahaa
And I'll be able to be more illustrative after a bit.

JJ

I tnought you meant sonically, JJ.

 

[johnjen]

Well yes, that too.
hahahahahahahaha

JJ

 

[Beagle]

The moniker, 'game changer' certainly seems to fit them well.
JJ

I hate the term "game-changer". It's meaningless. The game never changes.

 

[Quickanddirty]

I hate the term "game-changer". It's meaningless. The game never changes.

Seems you haven't heard the Hedd!

 

[phthora]

I hate the term "game-changer". It's meaningless. The game never changes.

Normally, I would agree with you. But, look, they're releasing a headphone with an entirely different kind of transducer. If this thing is commercially and critically successful or even if other companies see the potential there and start developing their own AMT headphones, then by golly it seems like that would change the game to me.

The term "game-changer" is definitely overused and nearly always a bunch of hype, but if anything is going to qualify as such, it would be the headphone that makes a new transducer type catch on. We might not know for years if the HEDDphones have changed the game, but it seems reasonable to speculate that it will. Here's hoping anyway.

 

[Beagle]

The game doesn't change. You still put headphones on your head and listen to them.

If someone designs a new baseball bat made out of Australian wood, are there now 4 outs instead of 3?

 

[jmills8]

The game doesn't change. You still put headphones on your head and listen to them.

If someone designs a new baseball bat made out of Australian wood, are there now 4 outs instead of 3?

 

[phthora]

The game doesn't change. You still put headphones on your head and listen to them.

If someone designs a new baseball bat made out of Australian wood, are there now 4 outs instead of 3?

To extend your metaphor... One could imagine how a change in the wood used for bats might significantly alter the amount of homeruns hit in a given game. That's a pretty substantial change to the game. Same game in this sense that the rules are the same, but certainly the game is not played the same way, nor strategized the same, nor experienced the same by fans, nor would certain stats mean the same as they used to, etc., etc.

A new and commercially viable transducer type has the same sort of potential to change people's experience of music, expectations about performance, understanding of value at certain pricepoints. Not to mention the kinds of applications this transducer could have that we can't really predict.

Yes, we still put them on our heads and listen to music, but that is overly reductive. It's like saying the iPod wasn't a gamechanger because people still just plugged something into something else and got sound. I'm not trying to sell this headphone as a revolution or anything, but it's perfectly reasonable to speculate and get excited about how these might change headphones going forward. And that's the whole point. They could very well change the headphone 'game' in the future, even if they don't change the way that sound is physically experienced.

 

[vlach]

To extend your metaphor... One could imagine how a change in the wood used for bats might significantly alter the amount of homeruns hit in a given game. That's a pretty substantial change to the game. Same game in this sense that the rules are the same, but certainly the game is not played the same way, nor strategized the same, nor experienced the same by fans, nor would certain stats mean the same as they used to, etc., etc.

A new and commercially viable transducer type has the same sort of potential to change people's experience of music, expectations about performance, understanding of value at certain pricepoints. Not to mention the kinds of applications this transducer could have that we can't really predict.

Yes, we still put them on our heads and listen to music, but that is overly reductive. It's like saying the iPod wasn't a gamechanger because people still just plugged something into something else and got sound. I'm not trying to sell this headphone as a revolution or anything, but it's perfectly reasonable to speculate and get excited about how these might change headphones going forward. And that's the whole point. They could very well change the headphone 'game' in the future, even if they don't change the way that sound is physically experienced.

Very well said and i agree it is 'potentially' a game changer.

 

[JLoud]

After about a week with my new HEDDphone I'm starting to get a feel for it. I prefer it on my Woo WA5 over the GSX mk2. Tubes seem to expand the sound-stage and smooth out the upper treble. I prefer a smoother treble response so I may be in the minority on preferring tubes. These remind me of my Utopia but I have to go on memory as I sold them a while back. I liked the Utopia, but that slight metallic sheen to the treble always bothered me. The HEDDphone doesn't seem to have it. Also sound-stage is larger. About the same precision though.

 

[JLoud]

These are also very revealing of source. Not picky really, just revealing. Makes it fun to listen to differences between my amps.

 

[gefski]

The Heddphone made the rounds at our Seattle meet on Saturday. DACs most often paired with were Bifrost2, YggdrasilB, and Convert 2. Amps varied from Asgard3 through SS and tube to @johnjen’s beautiful (looking and sounding) built from scratch PurpAmp.

Other reference cans for comparison were Empyrean, a couple HD800 jmods, and Stellia. I’ll throw out the Stellia because it has an “unfair advantage” for meet conditions. I’ve listened to many good closed backs before, but, I now realize, never a great one. It hugely isolates the listener from so much ambient noise, yet still has a wide open, natural transparency.

Anyway, here is what the HEDD did for me: Allen Toussaint’s piano was in room. Touch, texture, tonality, and swinging. “Air piano” at the table was unstoppable. Patricia Barber sibilance test showed up as completely natural. Sonny Landreth’s ‘Grant Street’, played appropriately loud, was not painful. Charles Lloyd’s ‘The Water is Wide’ was just right woodiness trading off with John Abercrombie’s guitar, brushes and soft background mumbling. Opus 7’s massed voices easily took me to hearing them in the Cathedral. Lightnin’ Hopkins’ ‘Bud Russell Blues’ seemed hot and sultry, even though it’s winter.

The jmod 800s were, on most tracks, quite similar. Certainly in the same conversation. Switching to the Empyrean initially was warmer than either, but within a minute or so its detail retrieval made me forget the other cans and settle in to the music.

The “weight whiners” must have weak necks; even for my pencil neck it was nicely distributed and comfy.

Overall, it’s very impressive for a new product to be this enjoyable and mistake-free. Looking forward to further listening, but no rush. And I’ll hold off on calling it a “staggering” value. Senn’s 800/800S, also under $2k, has been successfully playing in the $3k -$6k sandbox for years.

YMWV of course.