[polymathic]

I've been very happy with the SA50's sound and comfort, but as I spend hours with headphones on I decided to buy many of the quality ANC headphones out there to test. Did extensive listening the last couple of days with APMs. Definitely prefer the SA50 sound. Less harsh in high frequencies. More clarity and space. More neutral--some instruments on some tracks were overemphasized on then APMs. Much of the music was classical and jazz on Tidal. I also found some voices on podcasts having a little too much attack on the APMs, something that never is an issue with the SA50. On the other hand, transparency mode and ANC are much better on APM. Microphones for calls are both good in quiet environments but unconvincing with background noise (nothing comes close to Bose 700 for mic and background noise).

 

[nunomeneses]

I've been very happy with the SA50's sound and comfort, but as I spend hours with headphones on I decided to buy many of the quality ANC headphones out there to test. Did extensive listening the last couple of days with APMs. Definitely prefer the SA50 sound. Less harsh in high frequencies. More clarity and space. More neutral--some instruments on some tracks were overemphasized on then APMs. Much of the music was classical and jazz on Tidal. I also found some voices on podcasts having a little too much attack on the APMs, something that never is an issue with the SA50. On the other hand, transparency mode and ANC are much better on APM. Microphones for calls are both good in quiet environments but unconvincing with background noise (nothing comes close to Bose 700 for mic and background noise).

Thank you very much for the input! Appreciate that a lot!

What about when comparing with h95? For classic and jazz I understand you preferring aonic because they breath clarity and detail but what about classic rock or something like grunge?

 

[Ettepet]

I've been very happy with the SA50's sound and comfort, but as I spend hours with headphones on I decided to buy many of the quality ANC headphones out there to test. Did extensive listening the last couple of days with APMs. Definitely prefer the SA50 sound. Less harsh in high frequencies. More clarity and space. More neutral--some instruments on some tracks were overemphasized on then APMs. Much of the music was classical and jazz on Tidal. I also found some voices on podcasts having a little too much attack on the APMs, something that never is an issue with the SA50. On the other hand, transparency mode and ANC are much better on APM. Microphones for calls are both good in quiet environments but unconvincing with background noise (nothing comes close to Bose 700 for mic and background noise).

Did you use DSP? (Balanced Tone + Slight)

 

[nunomeneses]

so the battle begins

 

[Blinxat]

momentum 3 is looow resolution. Also heavily sounded. Have not heard APM. Aonic 50 is nicely balanced, focus seems to be on the midrange.

 

[Bytor123]

momentum 3 is looow resolution. Also heavily sounded. Have not heard APM. Aonic 50 is nicely balanced, focus seems to be on the midrange.

What does 'heavily sounded' mean?

 

[MayaTlab]

What does 'heavily sounded' mean?

I'm going to guess : lots of bass.
The reality is a little bit more complicated than that. Both headphones are very significantly deviating from various targets and can hardly be called balanced or neutral :

https://crinacle.com/graphs/headphones/graphtool/

https://www.rtings.com/headphones/graph#12049/4012/1585

 

[Ettepet]

I'm going to guess : lots of bass.
The reality is a little bit more complicated than that. Both headphones are very significantly deviating from various targets and can hardly be called balanced or neutral :

https://crinacle.com/graphs/headphones/graphtool/

https://www.rtings.com/headphones/graph#12049/4012/1585

The Aonic is mostly neutral. That rtings’ graph is a disgrace to their site. The Aonics don’t shine when they’re doing ANC. “Well they’re sold as ANC headphones..” Or their version: “ANC Max was their default setting, so we only measured that”. They don’t measure televisions only in their default settings.

In a time when people are being bombarded with basy curves and DSP corrected sound the Aonics deliver exceptionally decent, relatively flat and neutral uncorrected wireless sound. If needed the ANC can filter out low frequency noise, but otherwise depends on passive noice cancelling, which luckily is pretty decent.

 

[MayaTlab]

The Aonic is mostly neutral. That rtings’ graph is a disgrace to their site. The Aonics don’t shine when they’re doing ANC. “Well they’re sold as ANC headphones..” Or their version: “ANC Max was their default setting, so we only measured that”. They don’t measure televisions only in their default settings.

In a time when people are being bombarded with basy curves and DSP corrected sound the Aonics deliver exceptionally decent, relatively flat and neutral uncorrected wireless sound. If needed the ANC can filter out low frequency noise, but otherwise depends on passive noice cancelling, which luckily is pretty decent.

When ANC is turned off (which is basically the only way I listened to them as I found both ANC implementations problematic anyway) they don’t sound that much different from how they measure to me. The resonant peaks in the trebles are all still there (ANC shouldn’t affect frequencies above 1000hz much anyway) and the resonance in the bass between 100 and 200hz as well. That resonance actually made them unnaturally « one note bassy » to me on the tracks that happened to excite this frequency, while on others the bass response was anemic.

The A50 would benefit greatly from some DSP based EQ to correct these flaws. Let’s hope Shure will be able to port the EQ on the headphones themselves.

Neutral is the last word I’d use to describe them (or most BT over-ears I’ve listened to in 2020 for that matter, they’re all quite poorly tuned IMO).

 

[Ettepet]

When ANC is turned off (which is basically the only way I listened to them as I found both ANC implementations problematic anyway) they don’t sound that much different from how they measure to me. The resonant peaks in the trebles are all still there (ANC shouldn’t affect frequencies above 1000hz much anyway) and the resonance in the bass between 100 and 200hz as well. That resonance actually made them unnaturally « one note bassy » to me on the tracks that happened to excite this frequency, while on others the bass response was anemic.

The A50 would benefit greatly from some DSP based EQ to correct these flaws. Let’s hope Shure will be able to port the EQ on the headphones themselves.

Neutral is the last word I’d use to describe them (or most BT over-ears I’ve listened to in 2020 for that matter, they’re all quite poorly tuned IMO).

From my experience the ANC frequency response is far off from the passive (wired/uncorrected) sound. Passive also the trebles are not entirely flat, no, and it accentuates a sort of grainy mid-trebble. The bass rolls of at some point, but there is no bump between 100 and 200Hz when run passive, at least not on both my units. When played loud some female voices can seem a bit shouty. This does not occur so much at 80% volume, which is one of the reasons I don’t often play them louder. I switched off “Normalize Volume / Audio Level” so I don’t need to touch the volume level usually.

 

[MayaTlab]

From my experience the ANC frequency response is far off from the passive (wired/uncorrected) sound. Passive also the trebles are not entirely flat, no, and it accentuates a sort of grainy mid-trebble. The bass rolls of at some point, but there is no bump between 100 and 200Hz when run passive, at least not on both my units. When played loud some female voices can seem a bit shouty. This does not occur so much at 80% volume, which is one of the reasons I don’t often play them louder. I switched off “Normalize Volume / Audio Level” so I don’t need to touch the volume level usually.

I only really listened to them wireless, with ANC turned off. Running sweeps or playing single tones it’s very easy to spot the resonances, it isn’t like they’re that discreet.
I can’t listen to them past 50% on my iPhone (sound normalisation off) on most tracks without feeling hurt by the trebles response.

 

[BigZ12]

I got the Shure Aonic 50 today.
When using it for phone calls, the ones I talk to say there's a fairly high static noise present. Very annoying. The same noise is present when I tried calling from Messenger with my HTPC (so it's not the phone)
Faulty device, or known issue?

 

[Ettepet]

I only really listened to them wireless, with ANC turned off. Running sweeps or playing single tones it’s very easy to spot the resonances, it isn’t like they’re that discreet.
I can’t listen to them past 50% on my iPhone (sound normalisation off) on most tracks without feeling hurt by the trebles response.

I mainly used sweeps to find troublesome frequency ranges. My ears don’t have a problem with the sound and the only sibilance I heard was in the recording, which it didn’t overemphasize.

I recently bought the (wired-only) Avantone Pro Planars and the RME ADI-2 DAC SF which both are also quite neutral but on a much higher AQ level. The RME arrived today.

 

[Ettepet]

I got the Shure Aonic 50 today.
When using it for phone calls, the ones I talk to say there's a fairly high static noise present. Very annoying. The same noise is present when I tried calling from Messenger with my HTPC (so it's not the phone)
Faulty device, or known issue?

From what I know the Aonics have good mic sound when it is relatively quiet, but not so good in a noisy environment. Dealing with noisy environments electronically the Aonic is not so good. This is Shure’s first attempt at these type of headphones. They probably need to included several more mics and a lot of DSP software to become comparable to the big players in the ANC department.

 

[BigZ12]

How do I reset them to factory defaults?
The instructions in the user guide does not work?!
"Turn off the headphones and plug into a charger. Press and hold, 7 seconds."

When turning the heaset on again, it still automatically connects to the Avantree DG60 dongle I use with my HTPC.
So I guess it's not reset properly?