[Kammerat Rebekka]

Regarding juice and what it takes to drive these badboys?
Well you will need 0.57 VRMS and 10.15 mW to get to a 100 dB. That is LOUD.

Always remember: ‘With great power comes great r..errm volume!’ You cannot force extra juice into a can without increasing the volume.

 

[Mad Lust Envy]

i wonder if my FiiO E10K will be enough for this HF580? i tried E10K with AKG K701 once and it was dissapointment, right now i use it with Pro 82 and it works great with this sweet bass boost/ Im kinda far away from this OHMs stuff and how it works
I just saw people say that they gonna be power hungry so im not sure.. I just always wanted to try any planar headphones and this is good chance.

I think it's time for you to upgrade from that small device.

 

[heavyharmonies]

I found that as is, my LG V30 struggles to drive these; very little headroom. However, once you trip the V30 into high impedence mode via the adapter trick, it does fine and dandy.

 

[Roderick]

The real question is whether it beats HE-4XX,

That is indeed a relevant question. I can't answer that as I don't have HE-4XX. I however have HE400 and HE400i so in couple of days I can answer how Takstar compares to those two. It should give some idea.

Anyhoo... Here is the fr measurement. Black is pleather pads, red is fabric pads.

Having seen the graphs for Sendy and Audio Research it does seem that the drivers have weird characteristics. Good news is that Takstar does not measure as bad as Sendy Aiva's. However with certain positions there are "nulls" in the measurement which usually mean peak with extensive ringing, as do other sharp drops.

These are not overly bassy as someone suggested. Hifiman is just a bass shy for a planar. Coming from Audeze's bass quantity is just right.

I'll write more when the time is due. So far all I can say these sound weird. Weird but good. There is truckloads of reverbs and it does sound allmost as if there is some sort of time delay dsp in action. I'ts like enabling "concert hall mode" on a player. Very, very strange.
build quality is equal to old hifimans

I hate all these twist, lock, grab, turn pads. Good thing you can exhange the pads just by pulling them off and inserting on old frame.

 

[peter123]

It's really nice to see some impressions coming in on these. After being extremely impressed with the Pro80 I was equally disappointed with the Pro82 so it's hard to know what one should expect from Takstar......

 

[Miiksu]

Good, good. Now I need to order these. Seems fun for while.

 

[Roderick]

It's really nice to see some impressions coming in on these. After being extremely impressed with the Pro80 I was equally disappointed with the Pro82 so it's hard to know what one should expect from Takstar......

My sentiments exactly. Hi2050 and Pro80 were something so solid that pro82 was bit of a lackluster.

For what it's worth my wife's first impressions were that hf580 sounds like cotton, fluffy. It lacks an edge so to speak.

I'm not sure if I agree with her but she has tested about 200 headphones, so she has some idea even though she is just collateral damage of my hobby.

About the earpads. Funny how those measure the same. But the cloth is quite thick and pleather is perforated. So both pass through a lot of air. traditional pleather or airy velour should cause more drastic effects.

 

[Kammerat Rebekka]

That is indeed a relevant question. I can't answer that as I don't have HE-4XX. I however have HE400 and HE400i so in couple of days I can answer how Takstar compares to those two. It should give some idea.

Anyhoo... Here is the fr measurement. Black is pleather pads, red is fabric pads.

Having seen the graphs for Sendy and Audio Research it does seem that the drivers have weird characteristics. Good news is that Takstar does not measure as bad as Sendy Aiva's. However with certain positions there are "nulls" in the measurement which usually mean peak with extensive ringing, as do other sharp drops.

These are not overly bassy as someone suggested. Hifiman is just a bass shy for a planar. Coming from Audeze's bass quantity is just right.

I'll write more when the time is due. So far all I can say these sound weird. Weird but good. There is truckloads of reverbs and it does sound allmost as if there is some sort of time delay dsp in action. I'ts like enabling "concert hall mode" on a player. Very, very strange.
build quality is equal to old hifimans

I hate all these twist, lock, grab, turn pads. Good thing you can exhange the pads just by pulling them off and inserting on old frame.

You had me at weird.

 

[Ctritical Bill]

For what it's worth my wife's first impressions were that hf580 sounds like cotton, fluffy. It lacks an edge so to speak.

Yes, I totally agree with that. The bass is overly soft and highs lacking sparkle.

 

[DiederickFritz]

cotton earpads? is this fr?

 

[Joong]

Yes, I totally agree with that. The bass is overly soft and highs lacking sparkle.

The tension of the membrane might be too tightened.
In this scenario, the burn in might be a solution.
The inirial tension under humidity loading or other envirinmental loading like temperature can be overly generated or due to the quality control issue for initual tension tolerance.

When tention is big enough, the bass becomes soft or reduced.

 

[volly]

That is indeed a relevant question. I can't answer that as I don't have HE-4XX. I however have HE400 and HE400i so in couple of days I can answer how Takstar compares to those two. It should give some idea.

Anyhoo... Here is the fr measurement. Black is pleather pads, red is fabric pads.

Having seen the graphs for Sendy and Audio Research it does seem that the drivers have weird characteristics. Good news is that Takstar does not measure as bad as Sendy Aiva's. However with certain positions there are "nulls" in the measurement which usually mean peak with extensive ringing, as do other sharp drops.

These are not overly bassy as someone suggested. Hifiman is just a bass shy for a planar. Coming from Audeze's bass quantity is just right.

I'll write more when the time is due. So far all I can say these sound weird. Weird but good. There is truckloads of reverbs and it does sound allmost as if there is some sort of time delay dsp in action. I'ts like enabling "concert hall mode" on a player. Very, very strange.
build quality is equal to old hifimans

I hate all these twist, lock, grab, turn pads. Good thing you can exhange the pads just by pulling them off and inserting on old frame.

Thanks for the pics @Roderick! I was worried about how much they would care about dampening and ringing they would try to solve before release but from the pictures and diagrams, they show very little of that! @Roderick, is there any foam inserted behind the back of the driver or is it fully open behind the grill?

 

[heavyharmonies]

Yes, I totally agree with that. The bass is overly soft and highs lacking sparkle.

I can agree with this assessment. Hopefully it opens up through use. In the interim, I've found that slight V EQ at both far ends of the spectrum works nicely. Basically, in Peace at least, flat EQ and only adjusting the first 2 and last 2 sliders opens up the sound quite nicely. Gives it a bit of treble sparkle and bass oomph, while leaving the majority of the frequency spectrum untouched.

I was able to spend about 3 hours today comparing with my Audeze Mobius and Sennheiser 58X. Keep in mind, that the Takstar have at most 4 hours on them thus far, so hardly broken in at all. The sound characteristics are very similar to the Mobius, but with wider soundstage. Very hard to identify causality though, as the Takstar is powered by my Marantz HD-DAC1 and the Mobius uses its own internal DAC/amp. Thus far, I prefer the Takstar to the Mobius.

Versus the Sennheiser 58X is a different animal though. Even with EQ on the Takstar, there are tracks where I prefer the Sennheiser... more lively impactful sound. A prime example of "dynamic sound" vs. "planar sound". I can see how some people don't like planars as being overly clinical or dry compared to dynamic drivers.

Still, given that the Takstar and Sennheiser 58X are essentially the same price, the pair makes for a lovely contrasting set of cans at a whopping total of $300-320 out the door.

Jury is still way way out on the Takstar though. I'm not a modder, so the extent of change I'll hear is through pad change and/or burn-in.

Rubbery twisty cable is [CENSORED] annoying though...

 

[Ctritical Bill]

I have the cloth pads on now and probably about 4 hours total usage.
The bass is now definitely better, tightened up and allowing the mid-range to come through more. I think, as has been said previously, more burn-in will help but they are not bad at this stage, no glaring faults.

 

[Joong]

Ideally natural frequencies should be outside band of audio frequency beyond one octave.
However in really case, I think the membrane has them within audio band so that there are rings or negative influences from those nearby natural frequencies which are generated by the mass and tension of the membrane.
I think the membrane can be relaxed by the impressed vibration of audio pressure and recover the designed sound quality.
Those kind of abnormally might be from high differentials over the thermal expansion or from chemical loading like humidity if the membrane is made out of hydrophilic materials then material can be more or less stressed on its equilibrium point.
We might give it more time, which is not necessarily active powered burn-in but simply adjusting time for chemical stress releasing time.