[halldors78]

Did you charge the headphones first when you got them?

No they had some charge on them, but I work at sea and they are at home now,looking forward to try them again. Worked fine with Bluetooth, and then the sr25 couldn't power them but with the amp they sound great and then you can really power them up the way you can't with Bluetooth, blasted some Opeth and the latest Overkill, looking forward to try them with my new Fiio m15s that's on the way, and have a whiskey or two.

 

[Magic77]

You can, but for some reason, it's extremely power-hungry and it doesn't really sound that good somehow... connected to my almost $10k system that I run my 1266 TC from... It sounds best to me connected to my phone over LDAC Bluetooth.

Yes, they do seem to need lots of power. I have a Schiit Lyr and I have to turn it up to the 2 o’clock position to get a good level. Maybe they need lots of break-in, not sure. I just might return them, hope I don’t have to ship them back to China!

 

[monkey4054]

Yes, they do seem to need lots of power. I have a Schiit Lyr and I have to turn it up to the 2 o’clock position to get a good level. Maybe they need lots of break-in, not sure. I just might return them, hope I don’t have to ship them back to China!

My guess is that they are designed to be used primarily on the go over Bluetooth and the drivers are heavily reliant on the built-in DSP and amplifiers inside the earcups to sound best. But yes, unsure why they are so difficult to drive. Wonder if anyone knows the sensitivity and impedance of the drivers?

 

[Marksu]

My guess is that they are designed to be used primarily on the go over Bluetooth and the drivers are heavily reliant on the built-in DSP and amplifiers inside the earcups to sound best. But yes, unsure why they are so difficult to drive. Wonder if anyone knows the sensitivity and impedance of the drivers?

My Heavys came with about full charge. I don't see any reason why you wouldn't charge your headphones even if you mainly intend to use it with AUX cable.

There are couple of ways to use the Heavys with AUX cable.

Pure passive:
In this mode you turn the headphones off and the electronics inside do nothing. I have no problem running the headphones as loud as needed with my amp. (Cheap 30€ Douk Audio U3, it's great value for the money )

But for me this mode again needs at least some EQ. You can hear it's not optimized to be listened without the internal electronics.

Active mode:
In this mode you turn ON the headphones, but turn Off the Bluetooth. Now you got the internal DAC and EQ doing it's work. You have separated volume control on the headphones volume knob and your source and you can get plenty loud here.

The sound is about the same as with Bluetooth, but of course now you have cleaner source without the lossy Bluetooth codec. But it will use your Heavys battery and the external amp you got is more of a pre-amp really.

Active + Hellblocker:
The same as Active, except you switch on the ANC (Hellblocker), so the sound profile again changes slightly.



The sound is completely different with Passive and Active modes. I'm sure Heavys are on no way optimized for the Passive AUX use and to get the best out of it you would need to apply EQ specific to the Passive mode.

As monkey4054 there said, since the Heavys are quite different headphones than your usual Passive headphones (8 drivers total instead of 2) I think it's very hard or even impossible to get the best sound out of it in pure Passive mode. I would imagine that since Heavys are built to be mainly used with the internal DAC/AMP/EQ combo the control of the drivers is optimized with such electronics that it just can't work properly passively.

It would be interesting to see the frequency response of the pure passive mode without any electronics helping, of course that still doesn't tell the whole truth but gives some idea of how it differs to the active modes.

 

[Sword of Damocles]

It would be interesting to see the frequency response of the pure passive mode without any electronics helping, of course that still doesn't tell the whole truth but gives some idea of how it differs to the active modes.

I have one channel measured this way, so I can post you the result (spoiler: doesn't look that good) when I get back home. The Heavys I tested didn't include an AUX cable and my similar cable from Bose headphones only played sound from one side. The cable didn't either go all way in or there is a problem with the connector.

 

[Marksu]

I have one channel measured this way, so I can post you the result (spoiler: doesn't look that good) when I get back home. The Heavys I tested didn't include an AUX cable and my similar cable from Bose headphones only played sound from one side. The cable didn't either go all way in or there is a problem with the connector.

Thanks! Yeah it would be interesting to see it.

There has been a lot of discussion about the AUX cable in Heavys Telegram channel. It seems to be very hard to find suitable 3rd party cable that would fit in. Apparently some Sennheiser AUX cable would fit perfectly once you trim the locking ring off from the base of the connector.

 

[Magic77]

My guess is that they are designed to be used primarily on the go over Bluetooth and the drivers are heavily reliant on the built-in DSP and amplifiers inside the earcups to sound best. But yes, unsure why they are so difficult to drive. Wonder if anyone knows the sensitivity and impedance of the drivers?

I have a Schiit Loki mini hooked up to my Asgard 3, and turning up the EQ gives these a boost and then they don’t sound too bad. But, I still have to crank up the volume. I contacted heavys and asked about the impedance, still waiting for a response. I did try them with Bluetooth with my iPad but they are just not loud enough.

 

[boxcpl]

I purchased the helm audio bolt dac/amp and was not able to get enough power from my phone.

Ended up using poweramp with the following and hellblocker on.

 

[Marksu]

I have a Schiit Loki mini hooked up to my Asgard 3, and turning up the EQ gives these a boost and then they don’t sound too bad. But, I still have to crank up the volume. I contacted heavys and asked about the impedance, still waiting for a response. I did try them with Bluetooth with my iPad but they are just not loud enough.

Have you tried the wired active mode?

AUX cable and power on but Bluetooth off.

That way you can turn up the Heavys volume knob to max and still turn even more volume from the Asgard 3.

 

[Magic77]

Have you tried the wired active mode?

AUX cable and power on but Bluetooth off.

That way you can turn up the Heavys volume knob to max and still turn even more volume from the Asgard 3.

I just tried it, but I get nothing but distortion. With the EQ they don’t sound too bad, but still need more power.

 

[Marksu]

I just tried it, but I get nothing but distortion. With the EQ they don’t sound too bad, but still need more power.

I just tested the Heavys connected directly with the AUX cable to Apple USB-C --> 3.5mm DAC/Dongle that I have connected to my Windows 11 PC.

So when connecting directly to Apple dongle I can crank up the volume to max on windows and to ~ 95% on Apple music app and it sounds as loud to me that I could ever listen to I didn't hear any distortion. I then powered on the headphones, so it uses the internal DAC and not much change in volume. So quite the same volume.

I then connected my Douk Audio U3 Mini to the Apple dongle and Heavys to U3. Now I can crank up the volume to insane levels and i'm nowhere not even halfway to max volume here.

Sure the Apple dongle gives maybe 15mW, the Douk Audio U3 Mini should give ~ 1000mW, so yeah there is a huge difference here. But in both passive and active mode the Heavys are insane loud when you have enough power on the amp.


Edit:

I also tested my another cheap and cheerful Chinese DAC/AMP AIYIMA DAC-A2. That is great little DAC/Headphone Amp I use on my gaming PC. It's supposed to give ~ 150mW of power and that is plenty for Heavys. I can turn up the volume to waay higher than I want (I want to keep my hearing).

That little device is also nice since it has Bass and Treble knobs so I can tweak the Heavys Bass a little and it sounds already much better with that.

 

[Sword of Damocles]

Thanks! Yeah it would be interesting to see it.

There has been a lot of discussion about the AUX cable in Heavys Telegram channel. It seems to be very hard to find suitable 3rd party cable that would fit in. Apparently some Sennheiser AUX cable would fit perfectly once you trim the locking ring off from the base of the connector.

Here we go! I selected right channel only as like-for-like comparison. The DSP is clearly needed especially for the mids and treble.

 

[Magic77]

Has anyone returned their Heavys?Just wondering if they have to be shipped back to China, I hope not. I contacted them, but they are not getting back to me about a return.

 

[davidb3ck]

I just tested the Heavys connected directly with the AUX cable to Apple USB-C --> 3.5mm DAC/Dongle that I have connected to my Windows 11 PC.

So when connecting directly to Apple dongle I can crank up the volume to max on windows and to ~ 95% on Apple music app and it sounds as loud to me that I could ever listen to I didn't hear any distortion. I then powered on the headphones, so it uses the internal DAC and not much change in volume. So quite the same volume.

I then connected my Douk Audio U3 Mini to the Apple dongle and Heavys to U3. Now I can crank up the volume to insane levels and i'm nowhere not even halfway to max volume here.

Sure the Apple dongle gives maybe 15mW, the Douk Audio U3 Mini should give ~ 1000mW, so yeah there is a huge difference here. But in both passive and active mode the Heavys are insane loud when you have enough power on the amp.


Edit:

I also tested my another cheap and cheerful Chinese DAC/AMP AIYIMA DAC-A2. That is great little DAC/Headphone Amp I use on my gaming PC. It's supposed to give ~ 150mW of power and that is plenty for Heavys. I can turn up the volume to waay higher than I want (I want to keep my hearing).

That little device is also nice since it has Bass and Treble knobs so I can tweak the Heavys Bass a little and it sounds already much better with that.

Have you tried it for gaming? I wonder if these would make a decent gaming headphone

 

[Roderick]

Have you tried it for gaming? I wonder if these would make a decent gaming headphone

I don't know how it would work for competitive gaming but for single player stuff it's very nice because of unique spatial presentation. Propably good for movies too.