[SilverEars]

I've looked around the Deezer app and Googled a bit. Doesn't seem like Deezer has any bit-perfect, exclusive, WASAPI etc. option, at least for Windows. Lots of feature requests and complaints about it.

I had a trial once for Tidal and never returned. Recommendations and curated playlists were 99% hip hop stuff for me.

Sorry, I've gotten Deezer mixed up with Qobuz that has exclusive mode.

 

[KingKrush]

Sorry, I've gotten Deezer mixed up with Qobuz that has exclusive mode.

Thanks for confirming. Unfortunately, I can't try out Qobuz as it doesn't support South Africa. Neither does Amazon Music.

 

[minty1]

Which doesn't necessarily mean it's true

I'm curious to know if Youtube Music is normalized. I used to have normalized off on my Spotify but the volume would vary so much I turned normalize on. By doing so It felt like the songs became less dynamic because of the change in volume but I gradually got accustomed to the normalized sound.

 

[bbfoto]

Which doesn't necessarily mean it's true

Many tests by the leading designers & manufacturers of transducers would indicate it is true. To what degree with these particular drivers is unknown.

However, ANY traditional pistonic driver that is supported by a physical "spring-type" suspension will see some amount of change with "break in" after manufacturing. It usually doesn't take very long...a matter of hours to several days of moderate cone/piston movement. ~80 hours seems to be the accepted average for the soft parts to completely settle in to a relatively steady state.

Just one spec that can change quite a bit during "burn-in" is the Fs. This could and does affect the output/response of any driver in any type of enclosure, even the free air response. The response will be most affected when playing frequencies near, at, or below the resonant frequency of the driver, which is the low end limits of the driver itself.

Obviously, this means that low end response can/will change the most significantly, which is relevant to the GQ headphones being discussed here.

I bought an extra pair and plan to do an A/B test with my significantly "broken in" pair and a fresh out of the box pair. I have a studio headphone amp with multiple outputs and will level-match each output to a 1khz sine tone with my Fluke DMM to within 0.05 volts. I'm interested to learn the results either way.

Did you read the actual test results performed on multiple drivers by GR-Research that I posted above? That is just one of many, many speaker "burn-in" tests.

I'm not wanting to start a silly, long debate in this thread (there are plenty of others for that), but "burn in" is a well-known, tested, and documented reality with traditional loudspeaker transducers of any size.

 

[HipHopScribe]

Many tests by the leading designers & manufacturers of transducers would indicate it is true. To what degree with these particular drivers is unknown.

However, ANY traditional pistonic driver that is supported by a physical "spring-type" suspension will see some amount of change with "break in" after manufacturing. It usually doesn't take very long...a matter of hours to several days of moderate cone/piston movement. ~80 hours seems to be the accepted average for the soft parts to completely settle in to a relatively steady state.

Just one spec that can change quite a bit during "burn-in" is the Fs. This could and does affect the output/response of any driver in any type of enclosure, even the free air response. The response will be most affected when playing frequencies near, at, or below the resonant frequency of the driver, which is the low end limits of the driver itself.

Obviously, this means that low end response can/will change the most significantly, which is relevant to the GQ headphones being discussed here.

I bought an extra pair and plan to do an A/B test with my significantly "broken in" pair and a fresh out of the box pair. I have a studio headphone amp with multiple outputs and will level-match each output to a 1khz sine tone with my Fluke DMM to within 0.05 volts. I'm interested to learn the results either way.

Did you read the actual test results performed on multiple drivers by GR-Research that I posted above? That is just one of many, many speaker "burn-in" tests.

I'm not wanting to start a silly, long debate in this thread (there are plenty of others for that), but "burn in" is a well-known, tested, and documented reality with traditional loudspeaker transducers of any size.

I've heard plenty about supposed headphone "burn-in" over the years, and as you say this isn't the place to rehash this debate. I will say that manufacturers have an interest in people believing in burn-in, since the results are seemingly always positive or neutral, so I take what they say with a grain of salt

 

[bbfoto]

It sounds like the ORA is a particular signature that takes some adjusting to get used to? Some of my favourite headphones (Yamaha YHD-1) required me to go through a similar "deprogramming" before I came around to their 'way of thinking'. Perhaps it is also the case here.

The GQs are a different beast for sure. Being closed-back is also a factor. But it all depends on what you are used to. Many people are not used to hearing music with little to no distortion, or w/o an over-hyped response.

My particular set doesn't have any overemphasis or harshness in the treble like some reviewers have stated. I would actually prefer if they had just a tiny bit more high-end response in the upper "air" frequencies. Cymbals, snare drums/rim shots, and saxophones don't quite have the "bite" that I experience when playing them in real life.

Thought I'd share something weird I've discovered, at least in my own subjective capacity:

After being curious as to whether the music streaming service I'm using makes a difference to my listening experience, I compared all the services I have access to with my GQs.

I have Apple Music thanks to the Apple folks in the family with a family plan, YouTube Music thanks to the Googlers in the family, Deezer with a trial I started earlier this year and Spotify which I've always maintained a personal subscription for thanks to the quality of its recommendations.

• Deezer was last for me. Tracks are utterly lifeless imo. Everything feels soft and far, far away.
• Surprisingly, given its solid performance with my M50x, Apple Music is second last. Even without EQ, most stuff has a slightly distorted quality to me. I'm not in with the cool audio terms, but the lows seem to lack precision and the highs are almost screechy. I don't like it at all.
• Spotify next up. Sort of the baseline I guess. No major complaints or compliments.
• I have been blown away by how outstanding YouTube Music sounds. It's immediately apparent every time I switch back to it that tracks have so much more 'life' and dynamism, from rock to classical. The new Superblood Wolfmoon single from Pearl Jam is meh on other services and a headbanger on YouTube Music. I've been comparing mostly classical and there's no contest when YouTube Music produces such a pleasing low-end with cellos, double basses etc. Sometimes I feel like the instrument is nearby with how the vibration of the strings comes through, on particularly good recordings. I have felt that sensation zero times outside of YouTube Music with my GQs.

Apparently the DAC in my Asus U7 is okay, but perhaps the poor built-in amp is playing a big part here. I wouldn't know.

And of course, I haven't tested any lossless/HD services or account tiers. Seems pointless to me without ensuring there aren't bottlenecks elsewhere.

Interesting. Thanks for your impressions. As others have stated, there are A LOT of variables that can affect this outcome even before the music gets to the DAC/amp stage. I agree regarding the use of a bit-perfect playback mode whenever possible, especially for any type of A/B comparison.

I've heard plenty about supposed headphone "burn-in" over the years, and as you say this isn't the place to rehash this debate. I will say that manufacturers have an interest in people believing in burn-in, since the results are seemingly always positive or neutral, so I take what they say with a grain of salt.

I somewhat agree with you, as some of the "manufacturer-recommend" burn-in times are LONGER than their return period for the product, LOL. That's just pure unethical.

But, again, burn-in is not "supposed". It might only be a very miniscule amount with most drivers, but it is still happening. It's been consistently tested and documented many times (as per the www.gr-research.com link I previously provided) and is the accepted norm with fresh/raw drivers of traditional design. Again, the overall effect will depend a lot on the implementation, and what range of the driver's usable bandpass is called on.

I don't start to design, test, and build my loudspeaker crossover networks for my DIY home & studio monitor speaker builds until I have measured each driver after a ''break in'' period and find no further significant changes in the measured specs.

But this is exactly why I want to test my burned-in GQs with a fresh, out-of-box set. Might be interesting...or not.

 

[Seazer]

I'm curious to know if Youtube Music is normalized. I used to have normalized off on my Spotify but the volume would vary so much I turned normalize on. By doing so It felt like the songs became less dynamic because of the change in volume but I gradually got accustomed to the normalized sound.

I feel like this probably attributed to most of the perceived changes in sound between the services. Also in theory Deezer hifi should sound better than Spotify since it streams higher quality files similar to Tidal

 

[Seazer]

The GQs are a different beast for sure. Being closed-back is also a factor. But it all depends on what you are used to. Many people are not used to hearing music with little to no distortion, or w/o an over-hyped response.

My particular set doesn't have any overemphasis or harshness in the treble like some reviewers have stated. I would actually prefer if they had just a tiny bit more high-end response in the upper "air" frequencies. Cymbals, snare drums/rim shots, and saxophones don't quite have the "bite" that I experience when playing them in real life.



Interesting. Thanks for your impressions. As others have stated, there are A LOT of variables that can affect this outcome even before the music gets to the DAC/amp stage. I agree regarding the use of a bit-perfect playback mode whenever possible, especially for any type of A/B comparison.



I somewhat agree with you, as some of the "manufacturer-recommend" burn-in times are LONGER than their return period for the product, LOL. That's just pure unethical.

But, again, burn-in is not "supposed". It might only be a very miniscule amount with most drivers, but it is still happening. It's been consistently tested and documented many times (as per the www.gr-research.com link I previously provided) and is the accepted norm with fresh/raw drivers of traditional design. Again, the overall effect will depend a lot on the implementation, and what range of the driver's usable bandpass is called on.

I don't start to design, test, and build my loudspeaker crossover networks for my DIY home & studio monitor speaker builds until I have measured each driver after a ''break in'' period and find no further significant changes in the measured specs.

But this is exactly why I want to test my burned-in GQs with a fresh, out-of-box set. Might be interesting...or not.

Yeah my impressions (not burnt in yet) are they it could definitely use more air on the top end, and the bass is strong but lacks definition. It sounds simultaneously too loud and too soft because of this lol. I will check again after burn in. Also doing a sine sweep on these (in aptx [not HD] bluetooth mode) something happens when the sine sweep passes around 8k. Its like a tiny pitter patterning you can hear, it kinda sounds like rain. It disappears at around 11k if I remember correctly, before showing back up at 11.5k all the way up to 20k.

I'm using this website here https://www.szynalski.com/tone-generator/

 

[darkfireblade25]

^What particular Frequency Graph are you referring to?

I'm referring to the one seen on their user manual that can be downloaded on their website.

 

[SilverEars]

I'm referring to the one seen on their user manual that can be downloaded on their website.

This is different from the campaign page graph. Why? Why does this one have a peak? I thought the graphene is suppose to make the response smooth? At least that's what we were told on the campaign page.

 

[Beagle]

Perhaps these sound similar to the Sonus Faber Pryma?

 

[darkfireblade25]

This is different from the campaign page graph. Why? Why does this one have a peak? I thought the graphene is suppose to make the response smooth? At least that's what we were told on the campaign page.

there's another one that looks like this:

no idea what the difference is, but I think that the one I posted before has the most accurate representation of what I'm hearing

 

[SilverEars]

there's another one that looks like this:


no idea what the difference is, but I think that the one I posted before has the most accurate representation of what I'm hearing

HTR stand for Harman Target Response? Looks like a rough estimated compensated response curve. There should be more of a difference at the left and right of the 3.5k peak on the compensated result.

I recall a video of measurements with Tyll trying to explain how to read measurements, and they more or less had the above kind of response. Not sure if it's difficult to fill in the Harman hump. It seems like full-sized headphone drivers are difficult to control precisely.

Check out the gray measurements at the bottom each measurements, the raw uncompensated. See how unrefined they look?

 

[Seazer]

there's another one that looks like this:


no idea what the difference is, but I think that the one I posted before has the most accurate representation of what I'm hearing

That line isn't the frequency response, it shows how far above or below the frequency response is from the reference Harman target response they used is

 

[PockyG]

Did anyone notice a difference in sound quality after bending the headband to fit your head better? The drivers being placed so high up on the baffle seemed to have messed up my initial impressions straight out of the box when I could barely fit them on my head. Seems better balanced now with a lot more mids present.