[Vonsid]

Anyone received a shipping notification this past weekend ?

 

[flashmp3]

For my recent hiphop/trap lovers if you want to test the subbass here you go :



This song is insane in terms of subbass.........some notes are close to the limit of audible sound (around 20hz). It plays nasty on the JVC SZ2000 or on my home SVS PB1000 subwoofer

 

[Vonsid]

To those still waiting, got a shipping notification for my pair ordered Last September.

 

[Immortal]

To those still waiting, got a shipping notification for my pair ordered Last September.

about time!

 

[2tall3ne]

Ordered mine on Feb 9th 2018, got it 1st March 2018. Not a bad turnaround. Located in Houston.

 

[Immortal]

Since folks are asking about the sound signature of the Kannons I thought it would make sense to post some measurements. So... here goes.

The mids and trebles are balanced (flat) within 4dB from high bass (120 Hz) right on up to 4kHz.

The acoustic bass response depends on position of the Taction knob. It can range from rolled off (Taction off) to flat (2), to a bass emphasis of +15dB at max. The listener gets to set the bass emphasis to suit taste and the program material.

For reference, the green dashed line is the H&K tuning curve proposed by Sean Olive, Todd Welti, and others at Harmon Kardon. It is based on having a few hundred people tune cans to their preferred equalization. If that's your cup of tea, you get something pretty close with Kannons set to about 2.5.

So, that's the acoustics.




The other thing - the KEY THING that's happening when the Taction knob is adjusted - is that the amount of motion sent to the user's skin changes. Two is very subtle. Four-to-seven is where most sustained listening happens. Ten - my god. I don't know what we were thinking. With a setting of ten, and the right program material - you can get religion. You can reduce yourself to a quivering mass of jello trembling before the almighty bass power of this headphone.

Sorry, this is supposed to be a technical report by the CTO...

So, anyway, what we're looking at in the plot below is a detail zoomed in on bass frequencies (10 to 100 Hz, on the x-axis). On the y-axis, we're now talking about something totally new - the velocity of the headphone cushion parallel to your skin.




The thing to notice is that the response lets you feel all bass frequencies equally within +/- 3dB from all the way down to 15 Hz on up to 85 Hz, and then it rolls off as notes goes higher, letting the acoustic bass gradually take over as frequency goes from 85 Hz on up to 200 Hz.

Nothing that has come before has been able to do this. Period. Nothing. Not even close.

For comparison, consider the same type of velocity measurements made on a commercially available headphone (Headphone-C) that uses an off-the-shelf tactile transducer that has about one-fifth the peak force of the Taction Transporter in the Kannons.

Because the transducer in Headphone-C is limited on power, it uses resonance to "ring-up" to perceptible level of motion, like pushing a person on a swing until they are going high enough. Because this can only happen at the resonant frequency of the system, there is an unfortunate tactile emphasis on one note. Bass at 53 Hz is felt very well. All the other bass notes are felt much less or not at all.



There are some other problems in non-Kannon stuff. When a tactile transducer is oriented so that it plunges the earcup against the side of the head (versus Kannons which move the ear cup forward and back) this creates a VERY LOUD SPOT in the acoustic frequency response. It's better than nothing if you love bass, but it can be a bit like having your head inside a one-note kettle drum. This kind of loud spot can shows up in measurements made by other folks, like Tyll Hertsen over at Inner Fidelity.




It's just that since folks were asking about sound signature, I wanted to get some objective measurements out into the world about how the Kannons are different.

The curves above tell the story, or just ask someone who has tried them. The quality of the bass response of the Kannons is just radically better than anything that's come before.

So the differences in a nutshell are -- More power. Full tactile range. Cleaner acoustics.

Best,
Fightin'Jim
CTO - Taction Technology

PS -- Timing is another key differences between the Kannons and anything that has come before. But to keep things manageable let's touch on that in a separate post.

I was looking at this measurements and even from there you can see a drop from 50Hz to 80Hz. If you consider the first graph there are about 6dB from these 2, and that's something that you can hear for sure.
Of course they're all in the range between +/- 3dB as described, but from your average intensity 50Hz is at +3dB while 80-85Hz is at -3dB.
Could you close this gap with an equalizer or it's something different because it's something related to the tactile transducer? Could the transducer be calibrated differently?
Still undecided whether to buy them or not....unfortunately I cannot test them before!

Ordered mine on Feb 9th 2018, got it 1st March 2018. Not a bad turnaround. Located in Houston.

That's really good to know!
I hope they can expand their market, scale all the production, lower the costs of the kannons and propose new models!

 

[Vonsid]

Just got my pair, few questions: how much time does it take for a full USB charge (like from a computer) vs a sector power plug charge ? Can't use that one as i don't have a US to EU adapter now. Else i'm gonna try to charge it with my phone adapter, anyone dit it without issues ? I guess the indicator turns green when fully charged ?

 

[Kingston12]

Ordered mine on Feb 9th 2018, got it 1st March 2018. Not a bad turnaround. Located in Houston.

My order from 11th Jan has been dispatched. It took two days to get across the US and over to London, but it is now stuck with UK customs who have a big backlog due to the bad weather we had over here last week.

Hopefully, I'll get the Kannons before the end of this week.

 

[jameswalker]

Mine were held in UK customs for quite a while

 

[Kingston12]

Mine were held in UK customs for quite a while

I guess that was before the snow as well? Mine are at Parcelforce in Coventry awaiting the customs sign off. They told me that their normal turnaround time is 2 days, but that the adverse weather means it would be longer.

I guess I'll just have to wait it out, it's just a bit disappointing how long they take to arrive once in the UK compared to the speed which they have come halfway across the world!

 

[jameswalker]

Yes last year before the snow; it was there well over a week at Coventry. Then a lovely import fee!

 

[Immortal]

Just got my pair, few questions: how much time does it take for a full USB charge (like from a computer) vs a sector power plug charge ? Can't use that one as i don't have a US to EU adapter now. Else i'm gonna try to charge it with my phone adapter, anyone dit it without issues ? I guess the indicator turns green when fully charged ?

first impressions?

 

[Vonsid]

first impressions?

Please note that i'm just an audio enthusiast, and not an expert compared to a lot of people on these boards. I mainly bought them for gaming and movies/shows watching. So this being said, i tried them a few hours playing on PC (to Nioh if there are any gamers around) and it without a doubt added something to the experience. It's immersive to "feel" those giant monsters's feet hit the ground when they rush at you. I also owned the Skullcandy crusher Wireless and the haptic feedback is much more controlled and less messy. I also own a subpac S2 but it's too much trouble to set it up every time i game on my chair and then to put it back on my couch from where i watch TV, so i'm glad i bought the Kannons for gaming. I'll use both for movies and see how they pair. But what really surprised me is that the haptic feedback and vibration is always of the same intensity, even if you set up the volume to a very low level. That's what Taction team was meaning by "preserving your hearing" i guess. I like this because on my Skullcandy's, the power of the haptic feedback was really taking a blow at low sound volumes. So far i like them, even if i liked less the 90 euros import tax i had to pay, specially when added to the current maximum price because i bought out of Kickstarter, + the shipping fee to EU. So at the KS price they are a no-brainer, but now, if you consider all the taxes and fees, it's a lot of money. For the music part, i'll let others speak.

 

[Eselyx]

Please note that i'm just an audio enthusiast, and not an expert compared to a lot of people on these boards. I mainly bought them for gaming and movies/shows watching. So this being said, i tried them a few hours playing on PC (to Nioh if there are any gamers around) and it without a doubt added something to the experience. It's immersive to "feel" those giant monsters's feet hit the ground when they rush at you. I also owned the Skullcandy crusher Wireless and the haptic feedback is much more controlled and less messy. I also own a subpac S2 but it's too much trouble to set it up every time i game on my chair and then to put it back on my couch from where i watch TV, so i'm glad i bought the Kannons for gaming. I'll use both for movies and see how they pair. But what really surprised me is that the haptic feedback and vibration is always of the same intensity, even if you set up the volume to a very low level. That's what Taction team was meaning by "preserving your hearing" i guess. I like this because on my Skullcandy's, the power of the haptic feedback was really taking a blow at low sound volumes. So far i like them, even if i liked less the 90 euros import tax i had to pay, specially when added to the current maximum price because i bought out of Kickstarter, + the shipping fee to EU. So at the KS price they are a no-brainer, but now, if you consider all the taxes and fees, it's a lot of money. For the music part, i'll let others speak.

I'm currently using Skullcandy Crusher Wireless and I'm thinking about upgrading to Kannons.

1) What country are you living in? (concerning import tax)

2) I know you're not an expert, but how would you compare them sound wise to the Crushers? Not necesarilly judging which is better, just differences. (Since I actually really like the Sound of the Crushers, even though I've tested more expensive "audiophile" headphones, which, in my opinion, had a way less pleasing sound than the crushers (without taking the bass into consideration))

 

[Immortal]

Please note that i'm just an audio enthusiast, and not an expert compared to a lot of people on these boards. I mainly bought them for gaming and movies/shows watching. So this being said, i tried them a few hours playing on PC (to Nioh if there are any gamers around) and it without a doubt added something to the experience. It's immersive to "feel" those giant monsters's feet hit the ground when they rush at you. I also owned the Skullcandy crusher Wireless and the haptic feedback is much more controlled and less messy. I also own a subpac S2 but it's too much trouble to set it up every time i game on my chair and then to put it back on my couch from where i watch TV, so i'm glad i bought the Kannons for gaming. I'll use both for movies and see how they pair. But what really surprised me is that the haptic feedback and vibration is always of the same intensity, even if you set up the volume to a very low level. That's what Taction team was meaning by "preserving your hearing" i guess. I like this because on my Skullcandy's, the power of the haptic feedback was really taking a blow at low sound volumes. So far i like them, even if i liked less the 90 euros import tax i had to pay, specially when added to the current maximum price because i bought out of Kickstarter, + the shipping fee to EU. So at the KS price they are a no-brainer, but now, if you consider all the taxes and fees, it's a lot of money. For the music part, i'll let others speak.

Yes, price is the main reason why I haven't already ordered them! 90 € is what I would have expected (499$ -> approx 410€ + VAT and import tax -> approx 499€) and it would be better if, at least, you can select the adapter according to the country you live in. Have you connected them directly into your pc/smartphone or did you use an external DAC? My main use will be music and movies!