Meze Audio POET - Official impressions and discussion thread

[Resolve]

Driver speed and excursion force are two very important aspects that aren't measured by a sign wave. Talking about speed and time domain effects is no less useful than relaying your own subjective experiences about timbre.

Anyway, I don't really agree that reviews being predictable based on FR is a growing problem, or even a problem at all. Listening preferences don't tend stray THAT drastically among most people, and there’s plenty of data to support that. Timbre is also generally the most important metric among the majority of listeners. So yes, a headphone with a FR as wonky as the Audivina can't realistically be expected to result in evenly split reviews. It's going to result in most reviews coming out against it, with an expectedly small number of outliers that enjoy it. Yes we're all different, but we most of us aren't lightyears apart from each other.

These properties are actually measured by FR, that's literally what FR measures. And before you say CSD or IR... time domain information is just a worse view of FR, since headphones are minimum phase. Unless you can show excess group delay, fixing a peak in FR will necessarily delete whatever feature you see there in the time domain.

 

[Reputator]

These properties are actually measured by FR, that's literally what FR measures. And before you say CSD or IR... time domain information is just a worse view of FR, since headphones are minimum phase. Unless you can show excess group delay, fixing a peak in FR will necessarily delete whatever feature you see there in the time domain.

How does sine wave measurements tell you how fast a driver is? Now I'm really curious.

By extension, could a driver then be EQ'd to have greater speed? In other words, could I achieve the same instrument separation, a result of fast response, that a prototypical e-stat has out of a dynamic driver?

Or from another standpoint, could I tell a driver has the speed of an e-stat if I was only shown its FR graph?

 

[Resolve]

How does sine wave measurements tell you how fast a driver is? Now I'm really curious.

By extension, could a driver then be EQ'd to have greater speed? In other words, could I achieve the same instrument separation, a result of fast response, that a prototypical e-stat has out of a dynamic driver?

Or from another standpoint, could I tell a driver has the speed of an e-stat if I was only shown its FR graph?

So yes, there are several things going on here. In the technical respect, 'speed' refers to how fast the driver can move, which is measured by frequency response, particularly with how high in frequency it can go. The faster it moves the more high frequency extension.

But that's not how audiophiles typically refer to the subjective quality 'speed'. However that too is something that can be described in terms of FR. I'm reminded of a recent conversation where a colleague was referring to common mistakes people make when reading graphs, which is that they're not commonly interpreted as 'time events', and they should be. In this sense, massive overbearing bass will likely cause things to sound 'slower' and flat, linear or well controlled bass will like cause things to sound 'faster'. And in that respect, if you train yourself to interpret FR this way, you can get a sense of this subjective quality just by looking at the graph.


But I also don't want to overinflate that, because how a drum strike comes across... This isn't uniquely down to the way it's handled by the low frequency performance of the playback equipment, since those tones span a range of frequencies.

With respect to EQ, yes you 100% can EQ these effects regardless of driver type if you know what you're doing. With that said, you need to know what the FR is at your eardrum or be comfortable doing a lot of additional subjective listening work to get there. And no, EQ profiles are not sufficient for this.

 

[waveSounds]

Bold of you to assume I'm capable of feeling things...


But since you asked, it makes me feel... Beguiled. Or maybe it's the music doing that, I don't know.

Truly? Or did you measure a slightly elevated heart rate whilst listening and assign a feeling to it?

 

[razoredge]

How does sine wave measurements tell you how fast a driver is? Now I'm really curious.

By extension, could a driver then be EQ'd to have greater speed? In other words, could I achieve the same instrument separation, a result of fast response, that a prototypical e-stat has out of a dynamic driver?

Or from another standpoint, could I tell a driver has the speed of an e-stat if I was only shown its FR graph?

'speed' is a bad word for describing headphone drivers, IMHO. If we are being technically correct, 'speed', measured in meters/second, really only applies meaningfully to objects that are moving linearly. The planar magnetic drivers in Meze headphones can reproduce signals up to 100 kHz with extreme fidelity. For things that vibrate, it is more meaningful to talk in frequency terms. For things that rotate, it is more meaningful to talk in angular momentum terms. So on and so forth. Anything we can hear (20 Hz - 20 kHz) is like child's play from the perspective of the diaphragm moving back and forth in a planar headphone. What audiophiles typically mean by 'speed' (I think) is how well they can hear higher frequency tones - which translates to how loudly they can hear sounds in the higher range of frequencies relative to lower registers (back to FR). We only add to the confusion when we use words that are badly defined (or in some cases not defined all, and in worse cases that are not even definable - like 'musicality').

 

[Dragonmilenario]

Is it being implied in this thread that when analyzing the acoustic quality of headphones, it isn't as important to actually put them on your head, or am I missing something ?

 

[Reputator]

'speed' is a bad word for describing headphone drivers, IMHO. If we are being technically correct, 'speed', measured in meters/second, really only applies meaningfully to objects that are moving linearly. The planar magnetic drivers in Meze headphones can reproduce signals up to 100 kHz with extreme fidelity. For things that vibrate, it is more meaningful to talk in frequency terms. For things that rotate, it is more meaningful to talk in angular momentum terms. So on and so forth. Anything we can hear (20 Hz - 20 kHz) is like child's play from the perspective of the diaphragm moving back and forth in a planar headphone. What audiophiles typically mean by 'speed' (I think) is how well they can hear higher frequency tones - which translates to how loudly they can hear sounds in the higher range of frequencies relative to lower registers (back to FR). We only add to the confusion when we use words that are badly defined (or in some cases not defined all, and in worse cases that are not even definable - like 'musicality').

The example I gave for the effect of speed in the post you quoted does not mention high frequency response amplitude. I won't address the points on semantics as I see that being largely a strawman attempt to diffuse or redirect the discussion to an easier or irrelevant point to make.

 

[razoredge]

So yes, there are several things going on here. In the technical respect, 'speed' refers to how fast the driver can move, which is measured by frequency response, particularly with how high in frequency it can go. The faster it moves the more high frequency extension.

But that's not how audiophiles typically refer to the subjective quality 'speed'. However that too is something that can be described in terms of FR. I'm reminded of a recent conversation where a colleague was referring to common mistakes people make when reading graphs, which is that they're not commonly interpreted as 'time events', and they should be. In this sense, massive overbearing bass will likely cause things to sound 'slower' and flat, linear or well controlled bass will like cause things to sound 'faster'. And in that respect, if you train yourself to interpret FR this way, you can get a sense of this subjective quality just by looking at the graph.


But I also don't want to overinflate that, because how a drum strike comes across... This isn't uniquely down to the way it's handled by the low frequency performance of the playback equipment, since those tones span a range of frequencies.

With respect to EQ, yes you 100% can EQ these effects regardless of driver type if you know what you're doing. With that said, you need to know what the FR is at your eardrum or be comfortable doing a lot of additional subjective listening work to get there. And no, EQ profiles are not sufficient for this.

whole heatedly agree with what you said here. Some of these issues stem from people not understanding how sound is actually generated in instruments. In your drum example, the initial attack (not just in drums but anything that is played by a striking action such as pianos and guitars) contains all possible frequencies - like a chirp. It is only after this initial energy is absorbed that the membrane (or string) can vibrate and resonate to give us its characteristic or typical sound. I think it is a misconception that 'attack' only lives in certain narrow frequency ranges - though it is true that if a chunk is missing, it could be noticeable in how attack sounds (but probably to a much smaller extent than audiophiles make it out to be). so, yes, a good proportional response at 10 kHz is required to reproduce the sound of a kick drum well!

Going back to the Poet, @Resolve you mentioned that sloping electrical impedance. Did you try running it on a higher impedance source like a tube amp? and if so, did you find your treble issues to go away with that?

 

[Kevintj604]

Just got an email from Headphones dot com. They announced that their pre-order allotment of Poet's have completely sold out. Nice to see Antonio and his team find another winning formula in this new product. It's rare for a manufacturer that releases a new product every year be this consistent.

 

[UnderwaterB0i]

This feels like a marketing masterstroke from Meze. Do they always do the review embargo then have everyone release theirs on release day? That, along with releasing right before CanJam NYC seems like a surefire way to drive sales.

 

[Kevintj604]

This feels like a marketing masterstroke from Meze. Do they always do the review embargo then have everyone release theirs on release day? That, along with releasing right before CanJam NYC seems like a surefire way to drive sales.

Yes. They send out a lot of review units and send them out early. Most reviewers have them in hand weeks before the launch embargo. This encourages a flood of reviews the day of the product launch which im positive helps in sales.

A lot of us will make a purchase decision blindly because of hype so a review embargo really helps if there's so many videos on the same day of launch.

Meze has timed their product launch on CanJam weekends for a few years now which also help drive sales.

 

[C_Lindbergh]

Not a huge fan of the design? And I've always thought that Meze make the most gorgeous headphones in the business. Hopefully it sound much better, might pick one on the used market eventually.

Shame about not including a balanced cable though...One shouldn't need to get a new cable if you pay top dollar for a headphone.

 

[razoredge]

The earpad opening for this is 4.5mm narrower than my 109 pro in the x axis. I’m worried about my ears touching the pads (which I find very annoying). Any Liric 2 owners care to comment on that aspect?

 

[BLacklWf]

A lot of healthy discussions here.

First, @Resolve, why don't you conduct a test on your channel. 5-10 audiophile over 40 and see if they can hear 18hz sweep?

Second, @MezeTeam, thanks for including a beautiful cable. But.. don't you think it was a waste to terminate with 6.3mm? Just who in the world uses 6.3 these days?? Maybe a cheap marketing study, but I doubt anyone who spends $2,000 on a pair of headphones. What a waste.

 

[Resolve]

First, @Resolve, why don't you conduct a test on your channel. 5-10 audiophile over 40 and see if they can hear 18hz sweep?

Again, I've no idea where this 18khz thing is coming from. I specifically said 12-13khz is where the upper frequency boost kicks in on this headphone, at least for me.