[XGeneX88]

What amp/s?

I used Hifiman EF400 and Bifrost paired with Lyr+

 

[Schmackofatz]

I have never tried a headphone where EQ didn’t make it sound better. You’d need extreme luck to find something that can’t be improved by EQ.

Tomorrow morning Organic will be one of the first HPs I will check at CanJam. I have my DAP with me. If it passes my cymbal tests, if the vocals are close to Harman tuning and if I can drive it with mid gain of my DAP with half the volume, I will probably get one when I am back.

But HEDD is also bringing a new HP. It is supposed to be lighter but whether as comfortable, as easy to drive and as well tuned as Arya are the questions.

Did u bought it?

I tested today the LCD-X, LCD-2C, HE1000, Arya Organic, Focal Clear and I liked Arya Organic and LCD-X the most. Both excellent. I have to say that I had only approx. 45 Minutes time to test all these, which isn't long enough.

But, when I tested Arya Organic with HE1000, it was so difficult for me, as a Beginner, to differentiate the soundquality in a "analytic" way. I just know, which one I like more. But all of them were great. I just decide it, which I like the most with a feeling in my ears.

How do you test headphones, guys? Which factors/things u check when U test different headphones? And do you use always the same music for this?

 

[hanumanbob]

First you need to know what kind of music you will listen to and if possible bring a playlist. Things that you are VERY familiar with. And go with 3 or 4 tracks and the same one on every headphone. You need to clear your head between each one. So I'd not advise going from one to another back and forth in quick succession. And then plan which ones you're going to listen to ahead of time. AND know your budget. If you're just starting out you should get something in the $1000 range more or less and then live with it for a while before you upgrade. You can get great deals here rather than paying full price and in general there's a lot of knowledge on this forum.

 

[Lindholdt]

Did u bought it?

I tested today the LCD-X, LCD-2C, HE1000, Arya Organic, Focal Clear and I liked Arya Organic and LCD-X the most. Both excellent. I have to say that I had only approx. 45 Minutes time to test all these, which isn't long enough.

But, when I tested Arya Organic with HE1000, it was so difficult for me, as a Beginner, to differentiate the soundquality in a "analytic" way. I just know, which one I like more. But all of them were great. I just decide it, which I like the most with a feeling in my ears.

How do you test headphones, guys? Which factors/things u check when U test different headphones? And do you use always the same music for this?

I think you did the correct thing to do, just listen, and go with the one you feel is the best with the music you like to hear.
Personally I'm the opposite of @hanumanbob as I want to swap headphones as quickly as possible, the perfect setup for me is to be able to just remove one set and immediately put on another one. The auditory memory is very bad, and to me A/B-ing lets me hear the difference the best.
So try out both methods and see what works best for you.
Don't overthink it, and go with your gut feeling, that's my main advice though. Picking with the brain, rather than the stomach/heart, usually increases the chance of regret, for me.
Enjoy the process

 

[hanumanbob]

It also depends on how you'll be listening to them. Is it a quiet environment or not. Will you disturb others if they produce sound. This will determine whether an open or closed. If you have $1000 you really can't go wrong with Focal Clear, Meze 109 or the Organic. If you have about $2000 I would absolutely go for ZMF Atrium or Verite open or close as ZMF is the best company for quick response and service and the cans tend to hold their value for years so you can resell here. Also are you going to get into the hobby and try different things out? Or do you want to choose one and live with it for years?

 

[MrHaelscheir]

First you need to know what kind of music you will listen to and if possible bring a playlist. Things that you are VERY familiar with. And go with 3 or 4 tracks and the same one on every headphone.

A bit hard to be "very" familiar with an entire symphony, especially when you are cycling between 10s of different recordings and many other pieces, but that's just my personal listening practice. Even for the same headphone and EQ profile, I go by feel and subjective qualities when evaluating recordings. My reference is the sense of "realness" or "vividness" reminding me of live classical concerts. Some recordings can make your eyes light up in similar fashion to that first time you put on a headphone at the shop that surprised you with a lovely sound. Clarity, dynamic range (of the recording), fullness, spatial cues of the recording, balance. Otherwise, yes, one may be familiar with particular instrument timbres at least as rendered by one playback system that they like and then focus on those when comparing headphones for the same track.

I like Lindholdt prefer faster (and reasonably volume-matched) A/B setups (even investing in a switchbox to facilitate a complete headphone and EQ switch within 7 seconds) as this better allows me to find those cases where I think I hear some quality in one headphone and end up finding the same in the other (e.g. "detail" or the width of the trajectory of the pencil in Yosi Horikawa's "Letter"), else having that quality disappear entirely. Let's say fast A/Bing should reveal the truly "night and day" differences that are worthwhile.

@Schmackofatz

While perhaps not something a beginner should be concerned about, in the case of one's being willing to explore the rabbit hole of EQ, I've found in practice that some qualities in one headphone that you don't find in another such as "sweetness" can upon closer inspection end up lying within the frequency response as well as differences between published measurements of a test head and how the headphones interact with your own ears (see https://www.head-fi.org/threads/mez...eadphone-official-thread.959445/post-17549413 (post #4,665); this also covers how the EQing down of perceived peaks can unlock exquisite clarity and maybe spaciousness). Likewise, I've mainly found subjective differences in imaging or soundstage size to be merely related to the size of the earpads and the distance of the drivers from your ears, plus some tonal effects like having a dip between 1 kHz and 3 kHz. Imaging accuracy I'd say depends on how well-matched the frequency responses of the left and right drivers are, such matching not always correlating with price. Comfort and earpad feel can also have quite a bearing even between headphones EQed to similar frequency response and that have similar amounts of space around your ears (e.g. my Arya Stealth and Meze Elite). Comfort can also be a complete deal-breaker for some headphones that can otherwise sound quite great or have excellent EQing potential (e.g. my recent experience with the Stax SR-X9000 which I have been saving up for).

I personally already knew that I liked neutral sound or the best I could get a hold of at the time (I've now gone as far as purchasing Genelec 8341As and measuring my HRTF outside so I can listen to my best approximation of perfectly flat speakers in an anechoic room (post #61)), but understandably, you might still be looking for the sound signature that you prefer. Even then, I would lean against headphones that dip too much of any part of the frequency response as it is better to later EQ a region down than to try to fill a big dip as that might drive the headphone into audible distortion, and likewise demand more power out of your amp. If ever you do choose to EQ, I would look for a "minimum-phase" implementation, which I believe Equalizer APO is, whereby I've measurably found that it can correct some phase errors (post #5,152) when flattening the response. Likewise, I would favour the headphone that is known to have the lower distortion. Otherwise, though it probably barely matters in practice, one test that I've found seems to be independent of frequency response is the qualitative sharpness and decay of transients as played in http://pcfarina.eng.unipr.it/Acustica-samples/Dirac.wav (a single sample sticking out at 48 kHz sample rate); to me, a truly "fast" headphone would have this file sounding exquisitely sharp and incisive with a very quite and/or fast decay possibly consistent with a clean Cumulative Spectral Decay graph.

 

[Tachyon88]

Did u bought it?

I tested today the LCD-X, LCD-2C, HE1000, Arya Organic, Focal Clear and I liked Arya Organic and LCD-X the most. Both excellent. I have to say that I had only approx. 45 Minutes time to test all these, which isn't long enough.

But, when I tested Arya Organic with HE1000, it was so difficult for me, as a Beginner, to differentiate the soundquality in a "analytic" way. I just know, which one I like more. But all of them were great. I just decide it, which I like the most with a feeling in my ears.

How do you test headphones, guys? Which factors/things u check when U test different headphones? And do you use always the same music for this?

Imo the best way is to listen to them one at a time for a few weeks then switch. You don't need to hyper analyze anything either this way, just listen to whatever you're going to listen to anyways. The contrast of going to a different headphone after a few weeks makes the differences more stark.

 

[nunobrazuna]

The bright treble of Arya Organic is very easy to correct.

I EQ in Roon only 3 parametric points and I am in heaven.

Great soundstage and image, very good warm but tight bass, no harsh in treble.

Human voice is natural without sibilance.

 

[Fertamblez56]

I have Arya with the new black cable from just a few months back, so last version before organic. Was anybody able to change the warm/dark character of the phones by changing headphone cables? I like the details, musicality, timbre etc otherwise.

Been using it with my Asgard 3/Bifrost 2 w/o upgrade card and no doubt the combo can be a bit sludgy. However I think it might be the phones. Would others not say the Aryas are warm, dark? They're not nearly as clear as my Focal Elex. I didn't like the warm/dark sound with HD6XX either.

Been considering Arctic cables or something to try to get rid of the mud. Any pointers would be helpful, thanks.

 

[BlueA]

I'm really curious about the Organic but it seems there's a large consensus around elevated brightness.
Buying an expensive headphone then pads and cables to tame excess seems at odd.

Maybe it was specifically tuned for Hifiman amps?

Has anyone been exposed to too much trebles when using an EF400/600 or seranade?

 

[hanumanbob]

The Organic has the biggest soundstage, clarity and definition of anything in its price range. The treble is forward but that is also what adds to its vibrancy. Changing pads, cables, amps is quite common here on this forum. But it's probably pads that will make the biggest difference. Dekoni lambskin will dampen the treble if that is what you are after. Nothing is perfect and you have to choose the items that are most important based on the music you want to listen to, The organic is especially great for classical and jazz. But then reading about sound is probably not a great way to decide if you are going to like a headphone. Unfortunately this often means either owning several or buying and selling until you find what you like and this can be time consuming and expensive but that is what is also fun.

 

[BlueA]

I do own a lot of headphones and in-ears and as much as I love tip/cable/dap rolling it seems at odd that you need to care about it before having the headphone...
This just confirm that it is specially hot and need to be taken care of from source to outside components.

For anyone that has the option my question is does Organic been tuned for R2R?

 

[TooFrank]

I have Arya with the new black cable from just a few months back, so last version before organic. Was anybody able to change the warm/dark character of the phones by changing headphone cables? I like the details, musicality, timbre etc otherwise.

Been using it with my Asgard 3/Bifrost 2 w/o upgrade card and no doubt the combo can be a bit sludgy. However I think it might be the phones. Would others not say the Aryas are warm, dark? They're not nearly as clear as my Focal Elex. I didn't like the warm/dark sound with HD6XX either.

Been considering Arctic cables or something to try to get rid of the mud. Any pointers would be helpful, thanks.

FWIW: My experience (= to my ears) with Arya v2 is that the Integra cable from Arctic indeed opened the sound compared with the stock (at that time) cable....

 

[Fertamblez56]

FWIW: My experience (= to my ears) with Arya v2 is that the Integra cable from Arctic indeed opened the sound compared with the stock (at that time) cable....

Wow, Integra are totl. That's a hefty chunk of change for these phones. How'd you like the copper/silver thing going on? I've only ever had one or the other.

 

[MindBreak]

Wow, Integra are totl. That's a hefty chunk of change for these phones. How'd you like the copper/silver thing going on? I've only ever had one or the other.

Arya Stealth kind of change a little depending on your source chain. I currently have them paired with a Bifrost 2/64 + Soloist 3XP, and I just picked up this cable https://corpsecable.com/collections...-cable-for-focal-elear-clear-elex-4-pin-xlr-1 and I was using an Audiophile Ninja cable prior to that (which cuts the brightness).
I do own an Asgard 3, but I am lending it to a friend at the moment. From what I remember the Asgard 3 cuts some of the brightness from the Arya. I wouldn't describe the Arya as warm/dark though (amp dependent I would guess). While I do believe cables make a difference, I am wondering if it is just the amp pairing not being to your liking?!