[aminus]

Alright, I'm a mere snobbish neophyte who knows nothing about this hobby and whose assumptions are completely incorrect as a result of an excess of an utter generalizations meant to appeal the majority of Head-Fi readers who have not had the opportunity to try the hundred-or-so pairs of headphones which are truly worthy of consideration amidst this hobby. Have a good TOD.

(Curious thing, though. Nobody has mentioned the Jecklin Float QA which in my honest opinion approach the best design that can be achieved in Head-Fi. Just a slight observation.)

You missed the point, but if your poorly veiled sarcasm makes you feel better, so be it.

 

[johnjen]

BIG snip…

And may I also mention that the driver flex found on here is due to the sealed front volume that is required for these to achieve bass extension, as well as the light mass of the driver. snip

This flexing and accompanying 'noise' is mentioned in the Quick start guide, to wit…

"Diaphragm crackling
The Air Motion Transformer squeezes air out of multiple Kapton® folds, allowing to move air signicantly faster than any traditional dynamic, planar magnetic, or electrostatic driver. Due to this principle, you may sometimes notice quiet crackling sounds while adjusting the HEDDphone® to your ears. This happens when air pressure is applied to the diaphragm and does not affect the driver‘s performance. The crackling won’t appear when you have found your ideal listening position."

JJ

 

[joseph69]

I got one of the first fifteen from Headphones.com. I would not call them soft sounding at all. Very similar to my Utopia. With deeper bass and more of it. Also wider sound stage than the Utopia. I actually prefer them to my Utopia. Not as wide as Abyss or HD800s, which I also own. But more natural staging compared to the 800. They will remain in my headphone stable for the foreseeable future.

Is the above post regarding the HEDD with both, the GS-X & WA5LE?
Or do you prefer them out of one more than the other?

 

[Rayzilla]

...

NVM

 

[jmills8]

There is so much bullshitting going on in this threat. Heddphones can be endgame. An LCD-4Z is not overpriced, worth every cent and an incredible endgame experience that leaves almost everything in the dust that exists in audio including all speakers in existence. I had 17 stereo setups in my life up to 100k in value. I've been doing high-end audio and sound engineering for 30 years. If you want soundstage or width then buy speakers. Headphones are for detail retrieval, transients, plankton, bass slam without room modes, dry precise sound and an in your face engaging experience. This is their purpose. Every sound engineer will tell you so. All this bla bla on headfi and trying to put something in headphones that they will never be. The heddphone is so bulky because they wanted to create a wide sound stage. What a useless idea. This is not why you should buy headphones. If I want to fly, I won't buy a bike.

I found the LCD-4Z very comfortable but not great sounding. Sound was nice , but I wanted great not nice.

 

[JLoud]

Is the above post regarding the HEDD with both, the GS-X & WA5LE?
Or do you prefer them out of one more than the other?

Opinion holds with both amps. But I do prefer the HEDDphone with the WA5. Increases sound stage and smooths treble. I am sensitive to treble and prefer it a little dialed back.

 

[Beagle]

The diaphragm cracking is noted in the small informational included in the heddphone

That can't be good over time..

 

[SantinoSan]

That can't be good over time..

Dynamic driver IEMs do it commonly and is not an issue.

 

[joseph69]

Stax do it too.

 

[masteretch]

I found the LCD-4Z very comfortable but not great sounding. Sound was nice , but I wanted great not nice.

A mystery to me...

 

[xtreme4099]

The thing about being certain about how a particular set of headphones sound, and its already been stated before, is that ever important audio chain, the 4z may sound dark on certain setups and not others, heard it a few months ago and would consider it a bit darker than the utopia i had next to it on a hugo2.

Ill hold my words until we have another audio meet and i have all these readily handy, and a fresh audio memory to start making more concrete comparisons from a variety of amplifiers.

My own comments on the heddphones comes having 3 different headphone amplifiers, and 2 dacs with me at the moment, there are certain sonic aspects that carry over into all of them and thats what im basing my own sonic experiences on.

 

[JaZZ]

There is so much bullshitting going on in this thread. (...) I had 17 stereo setups in my life up to 100k in value. I've been doing high-end audio and sound engineering for 30 years. If you want soundstage or width then buy speakers. Headphones are for detail retrieval, transients, plankton, bass slam without room modes, dry precise sound and an in your face engaging experience. This is their purpose. Every sound engineer will tell you so. All this bla bla on headfi and trying to put something in headphones that they will never be. The heddphone is so bulky because they wanted to create a wide sound stage. What a useless idea. This is not why you should buy headphones. If I want to fly, I won't buy a bike.

I disagree. The ability to reproduce an impressive soundstage has become an important criterion to me since quite a while, and some of the best headphones excel in this respect.

There are different mechanisms at work when it comes to the perception of a soundstage through headphones. The distance between driver and ear alone does nothing, as long as it doesn't allow some parasitic near-field reflections to play this part, which isn't a wanted effect (from a purist's perspective). Or, in the more ideal case, allow the decoding function of the pinna to take effect – which would require a dinstinctly low level of above-mentioned near-field reflections. Now sound waves firing from a ~90° angle toward the ear aren't able to reproduce a realistic spatial imaging of a music event, after all the involvement of the pinna alone makes for a more natural sonic impression (compared to an IEM). So an attempt to at least approach a frontal impact by correspondingly angling the drivers has a very positive effect in my experience – and fortunately the Heddphone has taken care for this feature.

And there's another factor with at least equal importance for a believable soundstage, and not just with headphones: resolution. The best headphones are able to reveal minute differerences with the distance of the instruments – through the spatial cues within a recording, primarily the proportion between direct sound and related reflections. The HE1000se is a master in this discipline. Apart from its extremely low moving mass it is as open as it gets, standing for a low amount of inner reflections (which would mask the spatial cues important for the perception of depth).

There's hope that the Heddphone can rival it, but the huge (leather) earpads and the comparitively closed design make me rather pessimistic. It may excel in other areas, though.

 

[Beagle]

I believe and define the 'soundstage' as the effect of recreating the stereo image that is in the recording. Loudspeakers and headphones can do this but they each do it differently. For example, a vocal or snare drum that is in the center will sound like it is between the speakers, perhaps right there or a bit back, depending on mic placement.

On a set of headphones, the same vocal or snare can sound between the ears or above the head. You can usually 'see' and hear the image as a semi-circle going from one ear, above the head and back to the other ear. But again, it varies, depending on the recording. If you position the speakers further apart or place the drivers further from the ear surface, you can enhance this effect.

 

[JaZZ]

Yes, the localization of the sounds through headphones is rather arbitrary, a passably believable spatial imaging as with speakers is impossible. After all crossfeed helps a lot to fix the worst irritative effects of speaker-based recordings (→ low-frequency channel separation). However, even with binaural recordings I never get sounds from in front of me – that rather happens with normal (crossfeeded) recordings, although rarely. Nevertheless, a soundstage does exist wit headphones, although it doesn't image a correct soundfield, just passably correct proportions – in the ideal case.

 

[sean-xenos]

..... And there's another factor with at least equal importance for a believable soundstage, and not just with headphones: resolution. The best headphones are able to reveal minute differerences with the distance of the instruments – through the spatial cues within a recording, primarily the proportion between direct sound and related reflections. The HE1000se is a master in this discipline. Apart from its extremely low moving mass it is as open as it gets, standing for a low amount of inner reflections (which would mask the spatial cues important for the perception of depth).

There's hope that the Heddphone can rival it, but the huge (leather) earpads and the comparitively closed design make me rather pessimistic. It may excel in other areas, though.

I bought my HE-1000 SE at roughly the same time that I listened to the prototype of the HEDDphone in Berlin.
In my opinion the HE-1000 SE has more resolution and can reproduce higher dynamics.
On the other hand I found the HEDDphone one of the least fatiguing headphones I have ever heard. May be not the highest resolving, not the deepest bass slam, but very musical and it sure has a natural and sufficient soundstage. It didn't give me the "Wow" that some other High End headphones gave me, but some of these "Wows" are rather related to sounding that gets fatiguing in the long run.
Another thing is that a comparison to the LCD 4Z or the HE-1000 SE (or even the Susvara) or the Abbyss is not quite fair given the huge difference in price. This is a 1800 € / $ headphone. And HEDD Audio has not produced headphones for years like Audeze or Hifiman. It's their first... The development and production of a true TOTL headphone, the Highest End (or ultimate) needs experience and know-how, it's not realistic to expect that in a first model for 1800 €