I am a little surprised that some high end headphones incorporate 'slam'. @Sajid Amit in his table shows the Abyss AB-1266 phi TC to have a strong attack. I thought they would all be like the Hifiman Susvara Ie. going for TDC in attack for flagships.
I am a little surprised that some high end headphones incorporate 'slam'. @Sajid Amit in his table shows the Abyss AB-1266 phi TC to have a strong attack. I thought they would all be like the Hifiman Susvara Ie. going for TDC in attack for flagships.
Yup, for me, the TC has the hardest slam among flagship HPs I like.
The others you mentioned and the HE6 also possess punch and slam that I find quite enjoyable.
In general, though, worth mentioning that it’s not just the “slam” you hear or feel in the lower frequencies, often associated with drums, but when HPs have that “dynamic” quality about them, you get an overall more tactile presentation across frequencies (which also impacts the bite of electric guitars, the snap of an upright bass guitar, the crash of cymbals, and so on).
A Focal Clear, for example, has this in far greater proportion than an Arya or an Auteur, both of which I enjoy.
In general, though, worth mentioning that it’s not just the “slam” you hear or feel in the lower frequencies, often associated with drums, but when HPs have that “dynamic” quality about them, you get an overall more tactile presentation across frequencies (which also impacts the bite of electric guitars, the snap of an upright bass guitar, the crash of cymbals, and so on).
Yes, there must be more than just inaccuracy or exaggeration. I suppose until you've actually experienced over a period of months at home the subtleties of the 'slam' of a £4-6K flagship headphone. It's intriguing for those of us who have never come across this that for this amount you might be getting anything that deviates from maximum sound quality. It would be interesting to compare a music track of just a plain drum and one which has been rendered a bit more alive and exciting in the recording studio with a headphone that 'slams'. I can only use my mind and my imagination.
A lot of you over complicate things, slam is just a lack of compression or the headphone being more dynamic without distorsion. Will require a suitably powerful amp to achieve. More compression = less slam.
I can hear this easily as I play live instruments, irl there is loads of slam I promise, to transfer the same to cans requires quality cans and amps. The same goes for full range speakers/amps of course. If the recording is compressed in excess nothing can make it slam.
I agree with what the first response in the thread said. I've also had the Arya and I wound up not liking them due to sounding so dead. I now use the Borealis and I can confirm, it's very real. I feel like it's very noticable in chuggy guitar riffs in metal, especially. I mean like you said it's across the board, it's just more obvious in some places more than others.
Hmm, so far i have called it dynamic, but impact sounds better to me, because for example the Hifiman Arya got plenty of dynamic, in terms of quiet to loud tones, but the impact of for example hihats/drums is nowhere near some other headphones like Focal Clear/Audeze LCD-Line with the same harman target curve as target (so with EQ applied) and also level matched.
This for me personally, makes for me the Hifiman Lineup completely useless for music that needs impact to feel alive or how a string swing should feel like to me.
For example, if you have ever played drums and stand in front of it, you can feel the vibration, or the impact of the air coming towards you from big frontfire subwoofer. For me this is impact, how hard tones feel like listening to music.
The Hifiman Susvara for example is different, it got this impact and feels alive, but its loosing on soundstage and tallness compared to the arya or v2.
A lot of you over complicate things, slam is just a lack of compression or the headphone being more dynamic without distorsion. Will require a suitably powerful amp to achieve. More compression = less slam.
I can hear this easily as I play live instruments, irl there is loads of slam I promise, to transfer the same to cans requires quality cans and amps. The same goes for full range speakers/amps of course. If the recording is compressed in excess nothing can make it slam.
A lot of the supposedly more dynamic headphones agreed upon by subjective listening happen to have higher amounts of distortion than the ones that are of very low distortion.
As an example, the Abyss just completely falls apart at really high SPLs.
slam is just a lack of compression or the headphone being more dynamic without distorsion. Will require a suitably powerful amp to achieve. More compression = less slam.
My headphones don't seem to me to compress the sound, so by your logic they should slam pretty hard. But I find them to be very natural and don't have accentuated attack.
My headphones don't seem to me to compress the sound, so by your logic they should slam pretty hard. But I find them to be very natural and don't have accentuated attack.
So if I recorded a drum only at a constant level, a hard slamming headphone won't have any effect ?
Constant level is not the same as compressed, compressed in it's extreme means the weakest sounds are brought up to exactly the same level as the strongest. There is no dynamics anymore, and of course no slam.
A lot of music is very compressed already on the record, but yes the headphones can compress even more and so does speakers, to swing near full dynamics requires very high quality amp/cans.
To the former speaker, more distortion should mean less slam yes as distortion is a type of compression too. Distorting equipment can sound louder though, as there is a broader spectrum present than when perfectly clean.
Right, I was confusing a constant level with compression. So if we compressed the drum's waveform severely then it loses its attack properties which would counter a headphone that emphasises them.
Thought I would chime in on this subject:
What others have said already I definitely agree with, that slam, macro contrast, dynamics, whatever you want to call it, you may be able to find it in measurements. But the problem is we don't really know exactly what it is. Because you have planars that extend all the way down to 10 Hz, but don't hit as hard as Focal and ZMF dynamic drivers. I think it's a combination of many factors, magnet strength, voice coil design, driver material, earcup seal, damping. Ultimately I think it's the amount of air being pushed by the driver, driver excursion. Also, double sided magnet planars for the most part have better dynamics than single sided designs, so magnet structure and strength I'm sure have a large role to play. Perhaps we can start by measuring the maximum distance a driver can move back and forth, and compare that against other headphones. I would love to see that data.
have heard the Focal Utopia (with oratory EQ, could not listen to it without eq) last week and it didn't have much slam compared to the HD800S/Audeze LCD-2 (with oratory EQ).. The Sendy Audio Peacock (not with Harman Target but ifi audio signatures Bass Shelf) slams even harder. ZMF Auteur is also good. Hifiman Arya/1000V2 doesn't have any slam at all in my experience no matter the EQ.
I agree with you that it may have something to do with the amount of air pushed, like standing in front of a big loudspeaker, where the music just feels very different compared to a smaller one, because you can "feel it". So, to me, it feels physical.
Interesting thought…it steers me towards
“Force = Mass x Acceleration”. Could it be that slam is maximised: (i) when the mass of pushed air is maximised (ii) or when the acceleration of that pushed air is maximised (iii) or both ?
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