[DeweyCH]

Man...I am totally with you. As I mentioned before, I too had a light touching of my left ear but it never bothered me. It is great that the more time you spend the more you find the Dynamics merit compared to VC. I know I said prior, that I enjoyed the Stellia (with proper cable) more than VC and the D9200 more than either of those two, strictly subjective. Since receiving the Kennertons they have been capitalizing my time. I have not swapped pads, pure stock and the Dynamics continue to grow and impress.

I have already committed to writing the GH40 review first (in my head), as I paid for the Dynamic I have no review obligations at all. That said, there is so much interest it would be a pity to not review them. If you read my D9200 review, I never set out to review them, I had way too many obligations, but I was moved and felt they deserved the exposure. I am there again.

We will see if I can obtain a Rognir for comparison.

Any interest in borrowing a set of LSA HP-2s to compare with the GH40? I have both but I'm not a very good reviewer.

 

[Gevi]

Any interest in borrowing a set of LSA HP-2s to compare with the GH40? I have both but I'm not a very good reviewer.

That would be fantastic

 

[Gevi]

Any interest in borrowing a set of LSA HP-2s to compare with the GH40? I have both but I'm not a very good reviewer.

I am interested in ordering the GH-40, curious to know how they compare

 

[tonedeafmelomaniac]

That would be fantastic

Totally agree.
Even brief comparison would be useful.

 

[DeweyCH]

Not to get all stream-of-consciousness on y'all but I've been playing Floyd all afternoon, and in "Money" there's a kind of jangly steel-string guitar off to the left that I don't think I've ever heard (or at least noticed) before. Very cool little thing the Rognirs brought me.

 

[DeweyCH]

OK, here's a brief comparison. I did one a while back, don't know that this'll be much better, but I'll give it a crack. First, a few pics of what I'm working with:

Setup is Tidal --> Bifrost 2 --> Lokius (disabled for this) --> Magnius XLR low-gain.

GH40 clamp is nice, seal is excellent. Very comfortable.
Listening to "Money," again, and immediately the difference between these and the Rognirs is obvious. The jangly steel guitar I noted a minute ago has lost a decent amount of its jangliness. Kind of to be expected given the difference in price. Clarity is nice, soundstage is shockingly wide for closed-back cans. Sax solo has good timbre, but not great, I suppose - some of the grindy vibraty sound of the reed against the mouthpiece is lost.

Tonal balance is very nice. Vocals are present, guitars have good presence as well, bass is clean but not as huge as I remember from the first time I tried these out. I don't think there's much of a vertical stage... everything is on a (very wide for closed-backs) fairly flat horizontal plane.

Treble is impressive. I really like how the cymbal sounds. Good and metallic without getting overly bright or piercing. Very realistic. Instrument separation is very good.

Switching to the HP-2.

Immediate thought is that the clamp is a lot lighter. I wouldn't headbang in them. I've never done the arm-bending that people recommend on these because the seal seems to be perfectly fine, they're definitely lighter on the ol' noggin.

Back to "Money," bass is a bit less present but the soundstage is nicely wide as it was with the GH40. Hard to say if one is wider... if one is, my nod goes to the GH40, but it's not a big difference.

Tonal balance seems off in comparison. Might be the whole brain burn-in/I just swapped these effect, but I like the tonal balance of the GH40 better. That said, the reed-against-the-mouthpiece stuff seems more timbre-y/vibrant/whatever you want to call it. Think that might be from the bigger drivers, hell if I know. Steel strings are a bit janglier, which I like, but the cymbal seems recessed. If you know the song, you know there's a constant tish-tish-tish on the cymbal for most of it, and that isn't coming out like it was with the GH40s.

I'm not gonna try to say what I hear is the Gospel truth, or one is better than the other, but there's my very brief comparison of these two horn-loaded headphones playing Pink Floyd's "Money." Hope this is reasonably interesting to someone.

 

[deafenears]

I have already committed to writing the GH40 review first (in my head), as I paid for the Dynamic I have no review obligations at all. That said, there is so much interest it would be a pity to not review them. If you read my D9200 review, I never set out to review them, I had way too many obligations, but I was moved and felt they deserved the exposure. I am there again.

We will see if I can obtain a Rognir for comparison.

@subguy812 , @Andykong was also running a tour of the Kennerton Rognir. Maybe another person to get in touch with.

 

[Gevi]

OK, here's a brief comparison. I did one a while back, don't know that this'll be much better, but I'll give it a crack. First, a few pics of what I'm working with:



Setup is Tidal --> Bifrost 2 --> Lokius (disabled for this) --> Magnius XLR low-gain.

GH40 clamp is nice, seal is excellent. Very comfortable.
Listening to "Money," again, and immediately the difference between these and the Rognirs is obvious. The jangly steel guitar I noted a minute ago has lost a decent amount of its jangliness. Kind of to be expected given the difference in price. Clarity is nice, soundstage is shockingly wide for closed-back cans. Sax solo has good timbre, but not great, I suppose - some of the grindy vibraty sound of the reed against the mouthpiece is lost.

Tonal balance is very nice. Vocals are present, guitars have good presence as well, bass is clean but not as huge as I remember from the first time I tried these out. I don't think there's much of a vertical stage... everything is on a (very wide for closed-backs) fairly flat horizontal plane.

Treble is impressive. I really like how the cymbal sounds. Good and metallic without getting overly bright or piercing. Very realistic. Instrument separation is very good.

Switching to the HP-2.

Immediate thought is that the clamp is a lot lighter. I wouldn't headbang in them. I've never done the arm-bending that people recommend on these because the seal seems to be perfectly fine, they're definitely lighter on the ol' noggin.

Back to "Money," bass is a bit less present but the soundstage is nicely wide as it was with the GH40. Hard to say if one is wider... if one is, my nod goes to the GH40, but it's not a big difference.

Tonal balance seems off in comparison. Might be the whole brain burn-in/I just swapped these effect, but I like the tonal balance of the GH40 better. That said, the reed-against-the-mouthpiece stuff seems more timbre-y/vibrant/whatever you want to call it. Think that might be from the bigger drivers, hell if I know. Steel strings are a bit janglier, which I like, but the cymbal seems recessed. If you know the song, you know there's a constant tish-tish-tish on the cymbal for most of it, and that isn't coming out like it was with the GH40s.

I'm not gonna try to say what I hear is the Gospel truth, or one is better than the other, but there's my very brief comparison of these two horn-loaded headphones playing Pink Floyd's "Money." Hope this is reasonably interesting to someone.

This is great, thank you so much!
Could you also compare more GH-40 to Rognir Dynamic?
I more interested in soundstage and how they deal with big orchestra soundtracks in layering/instrument seperation.
Thanks again!

 

[eugene2]

John Massaria strikes again! Love the look of new headband cover.

 

[DeweyCH]

This is great, thank you so much!
Could you also compare more GH-40 to Rognir Dynamic?
I more interested in soundstage and how they deal with big orchestra soundtracks in layering/instrument seperation.
Thanks again!

I can later, sure. I'll say now that the Rognir Dynamic runs circles around the GH40 in both layering and separation, but I'll try to do a back to back when I have some time

 

[ardbeg1975]

Anyone stocking up on Kennerton ear pads et al? Reading the news, I fear “winter is coming”.

 

[John Massaria]

Hello John, I just looked at the photos again, and saw them. Did the green pads stock and come with the GH40? Or is that a new mod you did on them? If they arrived that way, wow...Thx.

That’s Kennerton stock images unchanged by me

 

[John Massaria]

Just got the "bass tuned" pads for the Rognir - aka the Rognir Dynamic pads from Kennerton. Kudos to excellent service, Russia to Vienna in two days.

Somewhat hard to pad "roll" because it's very fiddly switching from one set to another, but I like what I'm hearing. The bass pads are angled, so the comfort and overall quality feels to me nicer than stock version. As to sound, indeed the Dynamic pads seem to raise the mid-bass by a few DB while also being very controlled and tight. No muddiness whatsoever. I also feel vocals are foregrounded a little more, which to my mind is a good thing. Not sensing too much loss in detail. I think anyone who was concerned that the Rognir was too lean will likely be impressed with these pads. It's definitely nice to have two sets to alternate between different tunings for different moods, etc.

I need to order these what is model number please

 

[John Massaria]

John Massaria strikes again! Love the look of new headband cover.

Thanks for mentioning it- I only have three Rognir headband upgrades left and then I need to order more - I agree not only esthetically nice but functionally it silences any possible resonance in the headphone/band - huge thanks to Kennerton for making such an elegant solution

 

[jandrese]

Listening again to my Rognir Dynamics today after an extended session with my VCs. They really, really, really hold their own. Detail is on par. Soundstage is on par. Rognirs have a little more heft to the bass, but some glare to the treble. On that note too, I've gone ahead and swapped back from the ZMF Eikon lambskin pads to the stock Rognir Dynamic ones. The inside of the left cup juuuuuust barely brushes against my ear, but it doesn't bother me. Don't know why I had an issue with it before, but no issue now.

As far as drivability, these are pretty danged easy to drive. I've had success with them off the balanced XLR output of my Magnius and my SMSL SH-8, both of which put out pretty solid power but nothing insane. Right now the Magnius is at 9 o'clock on high-gain, with my Lokius enabled (a bit of mid-bass bump which was also on my VCs) and it's perfect listening loud with excellent headroom and dynamics.

These are punchy and clear. I like them more and more. Only issues I'm seeing are the left-ear cup-touching thing and the bit of treble glare. I'm starting to question my collecting habit and consider consolodating to 1-2 open-back and 1-2 closed-back cans, and it's getting harder to justify keeping the VCs over the Rognirs.

Pic tax:

Very interesting to read. I have ZMF Verite Closed and am considering the Rognir. I have the GH-50 JM Mk2 and quite enjoy them. I wonder if your amps are adequate to power the VC. I power mine with Schitt Lyr3, they seem to crave power and really only shine with power, which limits them to desktop use. The Rognir seems easier to drive. Anyway, thanks for sharing your impressions. It’s all double hard when pads make such a big difference in the sound of the VC and it seems maybe the Rognir as well.