[deafanddumb]

When I ordered my Alpha Dogs at the end of August I hadn't seen Jude's video or read anything about them. It was some positive comments about the Mad Dogs that had taken me to the Mr Speakers website. I was after a good closed back headphone to pair with my forthcoming CEntrance HiFi-M8. Delivery on the Alpha Dogs indicated that I should have them about the time my HiFi-M8 was due to arrive. Dan shipped my Alpha Dogs just before he flew off to Japan for the Headphone Festival. The Alpha Dogs arrived last Monday.

I plugged the Alpha Dogs into HiFi-M8 using the same settings I'd been using with my HD600's and selected the last track I'd played on my iPod Classic, Dire Straits - Rome and Juliet. Initial impressions were of a quieter, leaner but quite detailed and spacious sound. Not quite what I was expecting and not much in way of bass. Okay, need to play something different, Nik Bärtsch's Ronin - Live, that'll tell me what these phones about.
Yep, that's more like it, we definitely have bass and it goes deep. A nice clear and spacious sound too. I played a few more things that left me with the feeling that the overall sound balance was a little light somewhere in the midrange but decided that might be due to the HiFi-M8 which was still quite new. I decided to continue listening on my main rig.

Moving to my main rig confirmed that what I was hearing was due mainly to the HiFi-M8 and not the Alpha Dogs. I found the Alpha Dogs very smooth and easy to listen to, fuller and more even sounding though perhaps not quite so spacious sounding as on the HiFi-M8. How did they compare to my other headphones? I only made a brief comparison to my LCD-2's but that was enough to convince me that two are quite different.
I think the Alpha Dogs are closer in character to my HD800's than they are the LCD-2's and they are perhaps closer still to my HD600's. Up until yesterday I'd have put the HD800's comfortably ahead of the Alpha Dogs along with the HD600's. The LCD-2's remaining something of a wild card.

Yesterday I swapped the Chord DAC that I usually use with my main headphone rig for my Metrum Octave Mk2. To put it simply the Alpha Dogs have amazing synergy with this DAC. Everything just sounds right with this combination.

What you hear with the Alpha Dogs is very dependant on what comes before them.  

... and for that reason the easier to drive Audeze LCD-XC will win a few more friends.

 

[MattTCG]

  MattTCG, mind posting pics of the Alpha Dog in the Pelican? One of the ways I could imagine affording the AD is if I move it becomes my home and office rig. 

 
I don't have any pics of the AD in the case. The Pelican comes with an exterior ring of foam and then two book sized blocks of grab and tare foam. Both the top and bottom have corrugated foam glued in permanently. 
 
You can remove one of the book sized foam blocks and drop the AD right in. It would have some wiggle room though. If you want to take the time to pluck the two blocks of foam you could taylor it to fit the AD perfectly. 

 

[Craigster75]

  Pretty much only listen to EDM nowadays but HE-500 or Alpha Dogs... so hard to choose! What do you guys think would be better?
I am loving the bass of the Mad Dog 3.2 (even unamped) - it's basically perfect. 
What would be the better headphone?

I don't know that EDM plays to the Alpha Dog's strengths.  I would recommend the Sig DJ for that.

 

[MattTCG]

This is with one foam block inserted.

 

[hans030390]

Made some slight edits to my post and added a bit at the end.

 

[LoveKnight]

Thanks the peak around 9-10Khz is really common in many headphones, do not know why because I am not a sound engineer.

 

[jazzman7]

  Thanks the peak around 9-10Khz is really common in many headphones, do not know why because I am not a sound engineer.

 
Although the tonality is totally different from the Alpha Dogs (and I know -- I've heard both), the V-MODA M100 has a peak at 10kHz, and the designer of the M100 explained the crowdsourced design process involving user-adjustable EQ.   Basically, from this and your comment, one could make the argument that a small peak at around 10kHz in headphones is preferred by a lot of people. 
 
Another source of info on this would be Sean Olive at Harmon, who compares frequency response of headphones and loudspeakers.  I don't know if the 10kHz peak shows up in those studies, though.

 

[koolas]

Comfort

Strangely enough and despite the extra weight, I’ve found the Alpha Dog to be a bit more comfortable than the Mad Dog. I’m not sure if this is due to how the new cups work with the headband and how they sit on the head differently, if it’s due to the different headband bending compared to my Mad Dog (though I did my best to match how the headband was bent on the AD and my MD), if it’s due the slightly different pad fit with the new baffle, or if I’m just fooling myself. As I said, yes, they’re a bit heavier than the Mad Dog, but the weight seemed to be better distributed across my head. At the very least, they’re fairly comparable in comfort. The HE-500 is noticeably heavier, and it hurts my head much faster when you combine that with its barebones headband.

That said, I would not consider any of these headphones as being top-notch when it comes to weight and comfort. If you’re coming from lightweight, comfortable headphones, you might not find the Alpha Dog extremely comfortable. I generally have to use additional cushioning on any T50RP variant (assuming it uses the stock headband in some form) and the HE-500 due to the weight, fit, and the discomfort they otherwise cause me rather quickly. If my somewhat treble-sensitive ears are any indication, it would not be far-fetched to assume my head is more sensitive than others, haha.

Yeah... They are quite heavy... I'm certainly feeling my neck after few days of trying them out Also the clamping is kinda strong, so it doesn't go unnoticed. But I can clearly say that at least I can't complain about my ears being too big, because they fit perfectly and pads are super soft like nothing else that I posses (or ever possessed). My colleague from work just asked me if he can buy these pads alone. I just wonder what other headphones would they fit, and how would they change the signature.

Sound

Thanks to a bit of help from a couple rough and initial measurements for the Alpha Dog, one provided here by Dan and the other provided by someone else on another part of the internet that I won’t go into details about, I was able to quickly identify the peaks were around 5-6KHz and 10KHz. That’s probably not exact, but it’s close enough. The peak around 10KHz is fairly common with the T50RP, but it did feel more exaggerated to me on the Alpha Dog. However, my main problem seemed to be with the 5-6KHz peak. That was the biggest contributor to the harsh sound.

Just read that, and based on your opinion I added following option to mplayer -af equalizer=0:2:0:0:0:0:0:-4:0:-2 on my N900 (to be precise I'm using Pan Am connected to N900 via USB). With this -af option I'm boosting 62.5Hz by 2dB and reducing 4kHz by 4dB and 16kHz by 2dB. I wish I could use parametric EQ instead, but I don't know if mplayer supports that somehow.

An an effect sound is laid back and more distant. The Pan Am it self is amazing, as it converted soundstage-less headphones (Momentum) into ones that have broad soundstage. You can imagine what it does to Alpha Dogs! This EQ setting makes soundstage bigger, and EDM becaomes more pleasant to listen. However I listened to Debussy (http://www.head-fi.org/t/688164/claude-debussy-the-composer-as-pianist-the-caswell-collection-volume-1) and I really liked no EQ. I also liked no EQ when I listened to Sibelius violin concerto. I found harshness of violin something deeply involving as I could hear every detail of every string being pulled.

 

[jerg]

   
Although the tonality is totally different from the Alpha Dogs (and I know -- I've heard both), the V-MODA M100 has a peak at 10kHz, and the designer of the M100 explained the crowdsourced design process involving user-adjustable EQ.   Basically, from this and your comment, one could make the argument that a small peak at around 10kHz in headphones is preferred by a lot of people. 
 
Another source of info on this would be Sean Olive at Harmon, who compares frequency response of headphones and loudspeakers.  I don't know if the 10kHz peak shows up in those studies, though.

10kHz is where the 'bite' of the treble is. IMHO having a gentle hump centered around 10kHz is more than okay, as it is smooth enough that nothing sounds off/sharp, yet it is emphasized enough that you get the excitement factor of the treble details, so it doesn't sound boring. 
 
More often than not though, the emphasis at or around 10kHz is more of a peak (and often with ringing accompanying the peak), and that tends to be bad. Sibilance, lack of treble smoothness, lack of coherency, 'fake' details, you name it.
 
From all the measurements of AD I've seen thus far, it does appear to have more or less the former of the two. Not the gentliest of humps, but humps nonetheless.

 

[kstuart]

Regarding EQ settings...
 
Each person's ears are physically different (I shouldn't have to post lots of silly pictures of ears to make that point).
 
This means that each person hears a different balance of frequencies. (Which is one of the reasons that people have different musical taste.)
 
So, it is reasonable to say " I prefer a cut of 2db at 3khz on these headphones " but not correct to say " These headphones have a boost of 2db at 3khz ".
 
And it is therefore not a good idea to simply use someone else's EQ settings, simply because their review writing makes it sound like they are thorough...

 

[hans030390]

I think I made it very clear that everything I said was entirely based on my preferences and that it wouldn't necessarily apply to everyone. However, I did use the two measurements floating around on the net to help narrow down what areas in particular were bothering me. I did not find the measurements to be an exact match to what I heard, but they were close enough to help. I'd say I was about as thorough as you can get in that process for someone limited on time (have them for 3 days on top of working a night shift job).
 
That said, there is no harm in trying out someone's suggestions before knocking it just because we don't all have exactly the same ears. You also can't leave out the many similarities our ears share among us all. We all are humans after all...I assume.

 

[jerg]

There HAS to be a good degree of agreement (though never perfect) in terms of frequency sensitivity in healthy human hearing from individual to individual, otherwise the whole hi-fi industry would be a lie.

 

[koolas]

I just changed my mplayer setting to "-af equalizer=0:0:0:0:0:0:0:-2:0:-1", because I like more treble. I'm actually not sure if I do prefer this -2dB @ 4kHz and -1dB @ 16kHz, or pure flat. Currently listening to John O'Callaghan - Subculture, and with eq sound is more punchy I could use these screws though, but I'm quite not sure if I want to touch them... Anyone tried that maybe?

 

[koiloco]

This argument about treble peak is kind of funny/interesting when I look at it from the other side of the fence.  When mixing and mastering, especially for vocal, it's very common to cut a bit between 3k to 4k depending on the voice/gender to avoid some very easily audible annoyances in this frequency range,especially after multiple compression stages.  At the same time, during the final stage of mastering, it's also not uncommon to boost a bit in the high frequencies to give the mix a little more air and opening it up, often at 8-10 or around even 12k depending on the type of music and the track composition overall.  So, from this angle, if a pair of HPs has some more boost around these frequencies, it might not a good thing.
If the mix is flat/not boosted/neutral in the first place then these HPs would do wonder at giving the music a little extra kick/presence/air.  IMO and experience, the majority of music I've listened have some sort of frequency boost in low and high in their mix.
 
The essence of my post is that "adjust/EQ/buy the HPs/Amp/DAC so that they best fit your taste/preference" cuz you would rarely know what the point of neutral is and you have too many components in the chain to judge.  Enjoy your music! not your HPs.
 
Just something to ponder upon...

 

 

[jazzman7]

   
The essence of my post is that "adjust/EQ/buy the HPs/Amp/DAC so that they best fit your taste/preference" cuz you would rarely know what the point of neutral is and you have too many components in the chain to judge.  Enjoy your music! not your HPs.
 
Just something to ponder upon...

 

Totally agree on electronic or synthesized sound, and for studio recordings.  When listening to music made (mostly of) acoustic instrument sounds portraying a simultaneous performance (a lot of constraints, I know), I have a reference, which is what the class of instrument sounds like unamped in such a group -- that is, a trumpet should sound trumpet-like, and not french-horn like (silly example but you get the point).  That is what I want to recreate in my headphones when I listen to music like that.  And in fact, when I get a headphone that accurately portrays those instruments, I believe I can start even hearing the room in which the recording is made, which again is better for me.  But I guess that could still be called my preference.