[jameswalker]

Hopefully you dont regret that decision! I was getting highly impatient toward the end but it was worth it. Have been happily using them for gaming and music and haven't looked back!

If I had to re-order them now, would I do so? Of course. 100%. Wouldn't have it any other way, now.

 

[Immortal]

Judging by this review it doesn't seem like an option.

I was also impatiently waiting for my order and thinking about buying something else, since my old headphones are worn out. But the waiting was worth it imo.


Btw I ordered the Brainwavz HM5 sheepskin pads. Will tell you if it is worth it.

I already read that review, but it's still just one review. There's another review in this forum (without a comparison to the kannons) that was pretty enthusiastic. I think I'll just put the kannons on hold and see what will happen. The "individual calibration" of the nuraphone is really interesting (although it may be implemented via software - not sure about this) and I prefer to read multiple opinions before spending 4-500$. Moreover I don't like to buy something without knowing when I'll receive it (and I don't mean the exact day, of course, but in this case we are talking about months!).

 

[FightinJim]

Hey everyone,

I just wanted to share the inside scoop on Kannon production. It's good news.

A batch of parts we've been waiting for has just arrived at our shop. With these parts in hand we will be completing the final assembly, QC, and packaging of our latest batch of Kannons over the next few days.

If everything goes normally, we can expect to see fresh shipping notices going out around this Saturday/Sunday.

Best,
FightinJim

 

[Vonsid]

Thanks for letting us know

 

[Immortal]

And that means that you complete the previous batch or, also, that the production/shipment process will be faster with the future orders?

Thanks

 

[kenshinesca]

Just wondering if these are much different than other haptic headphones out there such as the Sony Pulse Wireless or the Skull Candy Crusher Wireless? I mean while those can be had at 75-150.00 the taction is 500.00. I would be more inclined to buy the Taction if it was somewhere closer to what the kickstarter price was.

 

[jameswalker]

The skull crushers are on a totally different level to the kannons. It is like comparing 2 cars. A fiat 500 versus a bmw 3 series. Both are cars, but they couldn't be further apart. If you can afford the kannons, get them and don't look back!

 

[Immortal]

Just wondering if these are much different than other haptic headphones out there such as the Sony Pulse Wireless or the Skull Candy Crusher Wireless? I mean while those can be had at 75-150.00 the taction is 500.00. I would be more inclined to buy the Taction if it was somewhere closer to what the kickstarter price was.

same here! Or just something in the middle..

 

[ejacobsen]

Just wondering if these are much different than other haptic headphones out there such as the Sony Pulse Wireless or the Skull Candy Crusher Wireless? I mean while those can be had at 75-150.00 the taction is 500.00. I would be more inclined to buy the Taction if it was somewhere closer to what the kickstarter price was.

I own a set of SkullCandy's Crusher Wireless and I've heard the Kannons. The Kannons are far superior. The Crushers are almost un-listenable with the tactile feature turned on. The Crusher tactile implementation is (relative to the Kannons) low force, low bandwidth, low dynamic range and high distortion from earcup resonance. Terrible, really. So were the first Crushers (wired version). The Kannons, on the other hand, are much more powerful, and have higher bandwidth, higher dynamic range and low resonance distortion. So, while both attempt to add physical vibration to the lowest 2 octaves, the Crushers completely fail and the Kannon's succeed very well.

I have some Sony Pulses as well but haven't compared them yet. Also have 3 pair of different Pioneer earphones that come with tactile transducers on them. I had the old Panasonic back of the neck earphones with vibration, too. Kannons are significantly better than all of these.

The closest I've come to the Kannons with a simple DIY solution is to attach a Lofelt Basslet to each earcup. Basslets are $129 each new, so $260 + the cost of headphones is not really much of a money-saving option. Then one must deal with attachment details, resonance/distortion, interference, possible crossover integration, charging and, frankly, it's still a funny looking solution unless I were to dig into the earcups and install the Basslets inside which I'm not planning to do. But the results are very good. This DIY solution is not as nicely integrated as a finished set of Kannons, but far superior to the Crushers. When I have all 3 together in one place, I'll do some better comparative listening tests and frequency response, distortion and force measurements.

If you want greater tactile impact and can't spend $500, the best solution I've found is a Subpac S2 behind a gel pad on my listening easy chair. The Subpac is really very good, even at its lowest levels. But the Subpac solution has more wires and plugs and isn't portable. (Yes their M2 and M2X are portable, but I don't like the hassle and inconvenience of strapping on a vest). So, a tactile enhanced headphone really is the most promising, simplest form factor for visceral bass.

As the tactile headphone offerings grow, they'll get less expensive and better. Someday, Taction will make a less expensive version and/or license their tech to headphone companies that will. Lofelt will license theirs as well. In addition, Lofelt is developing DSP libraries that work to optimize the subjective impression of tactile audio... this, I believe, will be strategically important in the long run.

 

[Erik Garci]

The closest I've come to the Kannons with a simple DIY solution is to attach a Lofelt Basslet to each earcup of a relatively light set of headphones (Aiaiai Tracks or Sennheiser HD2.20s). (Basslets are $129 each new, so $260 + headphones, so it's not really much of a money-saving option).

I have just one Basslet and strapped it to the top of the headband. I have not tried attaching it to the earcup. I think it would be too strange to have the effect on just one ear.

If you must have good tactile and don't want to spend $500, the best solution I've found is a Subpac S2 behind a gel pad on my listening easy chair. The Subpac is really very good, even at its lowest levels.

I have a Subpac S2, and I tried using the Subpac and the Kannon at the same time. The Subpac gives me a much more powerful sensation, so much that sometimes I could barely tell whether the Kannon vibrations were on or off. I think the Kannon is better at letting you hear the bass, whereas the Subpac is better at letting you feel it (albeit in mono).

 

[kenshinesca]

I own a set of SkullCandy's Crusher Wireless and I've heard the Kannons. The Kannons are far superior. The Crushers are almost un-listenable with the tactile feature turned on. The Crusher tactile implementation is (relative to the Kannons) low force, low bandwidth, low dynamic range and high distortion from earcup resonance. Terrible, really. So were the first Crushers (wired version). The Kannons, on the other hand, are much more powerful, and have higher bandwidth, higher dynamic range and low resonance distortion. So, while both attempt to add physical vibration to the lowest 2 octaves, the Crushers completely fail and the Kannon's succeed very well.

I have some Sony Pulses as well but haven't compared them yet. Also have 3 pair of different Pioneer earphones that come with tactile transducers on them. I had the old Panasonic back of the neck earphones with vibration, too. Kannons are significantly better than all of these.

The closest I've come to the Kannons with a simple DIY solution is to attach a Lofelt Basslet to each earcup of a relatively light set of headphones (Aiaiai Tracks or Sennheiser HD2.20s). (Basslets are $129 each new, so $260 + headphones, so it's not really much of a money-saving option). Then one must deal with attachment details, resonance/distortion, interference, possible crossover integration, charging and, frankly, it's still a funny looking solution unless I were to dig into the earcups and install the Basslets inside which I'm not planning to do. But even then, this DIY "solution" results in perhaps 60% of the Kannon experience and 0% of the refinement.

If you must have good tactile and don't want to spend $500, the best solution I've found is a Subpac S2 behind a gel pad on my listening easy chair. The Subpac is really very good, even at its lowest levels. But the Subpac solution has more wires and plugs and isn't portable. (Yes their M2 and M2X are portable, but I don't like the hassle and inconvenience of strapping on a vest). So, a tactile enhanced headphone really is the most promising, simplest form factor for visceral bass.

Someday, Taction will make a less expensive version or license their tech to companies that will. Lofelt will license theirs as well. And as the tactile headphone offerings grow, they'll get less expensive and better. But as of today, Taction really has engineered the best tactile-enabled headphones you can buy.

I personally haven't heard the Skullcandy Skull Crushers just knew they had haptic feedback. The Sony pulse wireless were pretty impressive to me. Still felt kind of fake but a neat trick for sure. I think Haptic feedback on headphones is something we're going to see more and more of. Nurophones just came out a while ago don't know how those compare but they sure have a unique design.

Thanks for the thoughtful response as well as other options.

 

[AmraTheLion]

To the people that are already using the Kannons: Do you sometimes hear a slight buzzing or rattling when you listen to a dialogue or even listening to someone in voice chat, when there is no other sound than the voice? It is very faint and only in the right ear, but I can notice it.

If you have time please check it out. The only example that I found is this scene, especially when Sansa is speaking starting at 1:15. I have my volume setting on 10 and Taction setting on 8 connected to a Fiio E10K on maximum volume with high gain and windows volume on 35.

MAJOR SPOILER FOR SEASON 7 Game of Thrones, be careful, if you didn't watch it yet ... to avoid spoilers by the thumbnail and video title of the preview I put a space between the link. Copy and paste it without to watch.

https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=l3hTmUKR7LI


Does someone else have this problem?

 

[Immortal]

I also find that it doesn't work quite as good as I had hoped for Hardstyle genre that is my favorite, for the reason the Kannons seem to be giving a very various feedback of bass depending on the frequency it's centered at, the kickdrum in Hardstyle roughly tend to peak between 40 - 80Hz or so as it is pitched around various frequencies. Kannons seems to love 50Hz or so, but already say 70-80Hz the feedback is barely there.

Example track that pitches the bass at a very wide range:


The deeper pitched kick has full nice force (set at lvl 7) but then not much goes on at all when it pitches up. Listening this track with the M-Audio Q40 for example it stays constant here in felt kick response between the various pitched bass frequencies so the impact is a bit less than on Kannons at the deeper pitches but a bit more impactful at the upper pitched bass frequencies. So this haptic response seems to work best for EDM style tracks where kickdrum remains constant.

hey! after 2 months with the kannons, do you still think these are not good for hs?
what kind of songs or kicks are not completely enjoyable?

Here's a list of songs that I'd like to know if you like them with the kannons or not

First of all, the famous kick in "ctrl-alt-delete" by noisecontrollers.... then:
TNT&Isaac - Digital Nation (we all love reverse bass)
Andy SVGE - Gravity (there's a good separation after the drop? The highs are good or hissing?)
Dj Duro - Cocaine MF (interested about the drops - rip showtek btw lol)
Radical Redemption - Brutal 6.0
bonus:
DBSTF - Above average (different kicks)

Of course, I mean... if you want and if you have the time! Because I read that you are really into hardstyle (also mastering tracks) and your opinion is really important to me

Thanks!

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

I don't really use Kannons for hardstyle for the reason I prefer consistent results but I checked out the ones you said:

Ctrl+alt+delete - it varies depending on pitch a bit, it sounds good in the intro/outro and the deepest pitch of climax and then progressively gets weaker sounding when it pitches up in the climax part.
TNT&Isaac - Digital Nation - Sounds okay throughout, obviously won't be any issue with any reverse bass kicks as they are never pitched. The climax kick also doesn't pitch up so it's fine there as well
Andy SVGE Gravity - Doesn't work that well with Kannons, too much varying result and overall it's not that much of a haptic response. Highs are pretty smooth on the Kannons which obviously will mask any excess "white noise" or so but will seem like it will be slightly missing treble in some others
DJ Duro - Cocaine MF - Works fine overall, no complaints
DBSTF - Above Average - works pretty okay, only during climax part there's a slight variety but not too big

Overall it doesn't really matter what kick it is but if it's pitched or not and you can just check with audacity which frequencies they peak at, generally 40 - 55~60Hz or so will provide consistent feedback but above that it usually starts declining in how much of the response you actually feel on your skin. I listen to euphoric hardstyle personally where pitching is more frequently used (in RAW style it's barely used or very sparsely anyway). I'm currently debating whether or not I should sell them as I don't find as much use of them as I'd like, they are nice for portable use as it's hard to get proper bass feeling response portably but Kannons do so even without any additional amping/bass boosting abuse. But 90% of my time I listen at the computer and then it's 90% of the time euphoric hardstyle and I also don't get as much time to play games or watch movies as I'd like so it's hard to find useage for them.

I will look out for future products though for sure (closed versions though), what I'd like to see improved compared to these kannons:

- Pads (they don't fit properly for me) and therefore sound isn't either the best. Switching to Shure 840 headphone sparepads I get much nicer sound quality (balanced frequency response and improved soundstaging)
- I'd like to see replaceable cables between the controller and headphone (because it's a very unfitting length for stationary use and possibly the option to choose left or right side for the cable (I'd personally prefer left rather than right, I guess there's a reason that statistically more headphones are left sided than right)
- Improve the consistency of the tacticle response so it works decently in the 40 - 80Hz range and not just 40-55~60Hz range
- Sound quality: make the response more fast without reverberations around certain frequencies (dampening inside cups would probably fix this) and a very slight highs boost to make it better balanced (just finding the perfect pair of pads with the suitable foam material to mask the driver is probably enough as it's close as it is).

 

[Immortal]

I don't really use Kannons for hardstyle for the reason I prefer consistent results but I checked out the ones you said:

Ctrl+alt+delete - it varies depending on pitch a bit, it sounds good in the intro/outro and the deepest pitch of climax and then progressively gets weker sounding when it pitches up in the climax part.
TNT&Isaac - Digital Nation - Sounds okay throughout, obviously won't be any issue with any reverse bass kicks as they are never pitched. The climax kick also doesn't pitch up so it's fine there as well
Andy SVGE Gravity - Doesn't work that well with Kannons, too much varying result and overall it's not that much of a haptic response. Highs are pretty smooth on the Kannons which obviously will mask any excess "white noise" or so but will seem like it will be slightly missing treble in some others
DJ Duro - Cocaine MF - Works fine overall, no complaints
DBSTF - Above Average - works pretty okay, only during climax part there's a slight variety but not too big

Overall it doesn't really matter what kick it is but if it's pitched or not and you can just check with audacity which frequencies they peak at, generally 40 - 55~60Hz or so will provide consistent feedback but above that it usually starts declining in how much of the response you actually feel on your skin. I listen to euphoric hardstyle personally where pitching is more frequently used (in RAW style it's barely used or very sparsely anyway). I'm currently debating whether or not I should sell them as I don't find as much use of them as I'd like, they are nice for portable use as it's hard to get proper bass feeling response portably but Kannons do so even without any additional amping/bass boosting abuse. But 90% of my time I listen at the computer and then it's 90% of the time euphoric hardstyle and I also don't get as much time to play games or watch movies as I'd like so it's hard to find useage for them.

I will look out for future products though for sure (closed versions though), what I'd like to see improved compared to these kannons:

- Pads (they don't fit properly for me) and therefore sound isn't either the best. Switching to Shure 840 headphone sparepads I get much nicer sound quality (balanced frequency response and improved soundstaging)
- I'd like to see replaceable cables between the controller and headphone (because it's a very unfitting length for stationary use and possibly the option to choose left or right side for the cable (I'd personally prefer left rather than right, I guess there's a reason that statistically more headphones are left sided than right)
- Improve the consistency of the tacticle response so it works decently in the 40 - 80Hz range and not just 40-55~60Hz range
- Sound quality: make the response more fast without reverberations around certain frequencies (dampening inside cups would probably fix this) and a very slight highs boost to make it better balanced (just finding the perfect pair of pads with the suitable foam material to mask the driver is probably enough as it's close as it is).

First of all, thank you!

How can I see the peak using audacity (that I just downloaded)? Let's say that for me is 60% euphoric, 20% early or nu-style and 20% raw, and what are you writing concerns me a little bit. I mean, I was right in the middle of the red stage when Gravity premiered at the Defqon endshow and I know that is impossible to recreate what I felt there, but I hoped that the kannons would have been great for that song. The problem is "just" consistency or also quantity and quality of the bass? I mean, the bass presence that you feel at 80 Hz could be the same that you feel at 55hz if you just increase the taction controller? Sorry if this seem just silly, but I haven't tried the Kannons so I really don't know what to expect from an haptic transducer.
I'd really like to try kannons before buying them, because I don't know what to expect! Actually I'm using Philips A5/Pro (with FiiO Q5) and overall I really like them (except for the comfort), but I'm looking for something more bass oriented for hardstyle and movies (without lose quality on mids and highs, if possible)