[ChrisMad]

The VZR Model One has easily the best hifi bass I’ve ever heard from any headphones, including flagships. They nailed the whole “headphone that sounds like speakers” with their marvel of a transducer.

It’s a reference tuning that hits hard across all frequencies. Hifi Genre master & bass master. Overall the best most speakers like presentation with details and slam I’ve ever heard. The tuning is to die for.

Outstanding build and $ value for what you get.

I did a little reading of the few reviews I could find on the VZR headphones and I'm not sure if they should be in this forum thread, the reviews don't say that there is some kind of stunning low end, hard hitting bass

 

[yapp]

I should probably caveat that the VZR is not about exaggerating bass. It may not be for people into that. It’s about huge impact across the range, tight transients, imaging & a perfect reference tuning down to 20hz without any bloat whatsoever.

They’re probably clean enough for a bass boost but I am not at all tempted to even experiment in that direction. A first.

Any sound leakage from the VZR? If you press the cups together while playing, could you hear the music?

 

[AlwaysForward]

I did a little reading of the few reviews I could find on the VZR headphones and I'm not sure if they should be in this forum thread, the reviews don't say that there is some kind of stunning low end, hard hitting bass

FWIW Part Time Audiophile Review does, the rest are gamers

https://parttimeaudiophile.com/2021/02/08/vzr-model-one-headphone-preview/

And I quote: “massive bass punch”

 

[AlwaysForward]

Any sound leakage from the VZR? If you press the cups together while playing, could you hear the music?

Very minimal, no concern about annoyance to others

 

[plakat]

FWIW Part Time Audiophile Review does, the rest are gamers

https://parttimeaudiophile.com/2021/02/08/vzr-model-one-headphone-preview/

And I quote: “massive bass punch”

Lets just say that Part Time Audiophile has a quite different scale when measuring bass than this thread

 

[AlwaysForward]

Lets just say that Part Time Audiophile has a quite different scale when measuring bass than this thread

Makes sense, I’m of the opinion that most audiophiles have terrible calibration towards what “neutrality” is because they reference other gear more than live sound.

 

[ChrisMad]

FWIW Part Time Audiophile Review does, the rest are gamers

https://parttimeaudiophile.com/2021/02/08/vzr-model-one-headphone-preview/

And I quote: “massive bass punch”

I do not want it to sound bad, I'm interested in this model of headphones very much (I read for 2 days various materials about them, I'm also a gamer so for sure their 3D capabilities are very important) but so far I'm very skeptical about bass, I do not consider myself as a total bass-head, but if there is bass in music, it should be bass, not a fly farting under the pillow or banging a stick on a box, in my personal opinion, many ordinary headphones have no bass at all (due to their design), In the case of this model of headphones we have only a 40 mm driver, which according to the company is described as a "custom driver" and in marketing materials it is not given much attention (so probably it is something quite normal), I'll wait for more reviews or opinions from the forum, for now I think that they are probably a great choice for a gamer, but not necessarily for a music lover who needs good bass.

 

[AlwaysForward]

I do not want it to sound bad, I'm interested in this model of headphones very much (I read for 2 days various materials about them, I'm also a gamer so for sure their 3D capabilities are very important) but so far I'm very skeptical about bass, I do not consider myself as a total bass-head, but if there is bass in music, it should be bass, not a fly farting under the pillow or banging a stick on a box, in my personal opinion, many ordinary headphones have no bass at all (due to their design), In the case of this model of headphones we have only a 40 mm driver, which according to the company is described as a "custom driver" and in marketing materials it is not given much attention (so probably it is something quite normal), I'll wait for more reviews or opinions from the forum, for now I think that they are probably a great choice for a gamer, but not necessarily for a music lover who needs good bass.

Definitely update us if you ever try them! I live with them and fully disagree with your untested hypothesis but that’s just like my opinion man.

However, there is some compelling evidence that driver size & materials are not a predictor for performance. It’s all about the engineering and execution.

For example: planar is usually faster than dynamic but with the right design, the HD800 is a resolution monster.

Another good example is the ORA GrapheneQ. 40mm bass monster with incredible driver properties. The tuning is fun but I think they missed the mark. You can get a lot of performance from a DD with the right engineering. Regardless of size, what matters is the outputs.

Lastly we can agree that a DD will often produce a more visceral bass slam experience than a planar. But not always.

 

[plakat]

Makes sense, I’m of the opinion that most audiophiles have terrible calibration towards what “neutrality” is because they reference other gear more than live sound.

I think many audiophiles ideals are still rooted in a time of analog instruments (and as far as I know in former times not even most organs were that big to produce really deep bass except for a select few). Even with Jazz deep bass doesn't matter that much (though there are exceptions, and some Jazz bassists love their deep notes), but with modern electronica deep bass with interesting structure not even became possible, but even a focus point.

I fully understand that nobody needs their Mozart string quartets to rattle their bones. If it does, there certainly is something quite wrong. If, on the other hand, Prodigy doesn't move some serious air volume, there is also something not aligned with how things should be. I heard they once even cancelled a show due to volume restrictions...

Which directly leads me to the disconnection between product demos at shows and real world use cases... at shows modern electronic music tends to be ignored more or less completely. But I digress...

 

[plakat]

(...) but if there is bass in music, it should be bass, not a fly farting under the pillow or banging a stick on a box, in my personal opinion, many ordinary headphones have no bass at all (due to their design), (...)

Absolutely.

Definitely update us if you ever try them! I live with them and fully disagree with your untested hypothesis but that’s just like my opinion man.

However, there is some compelling evidence that driver size & materials are not a predictor for performance. It’s all about the engineering and execution.

For example: planar is usually faster than dynamic but with the right design, the HD800 is a resolution monster.

Another good example is the ORA GrapheneQ. 40mm bass monster with incredible driver properties. The tuning is fun but I think they missed the mark. You can get a lot of performance from a DD with the right engineering. Regardless of size, what matters is the outputs.

Lastly we can agree that a DD will often produce a more visceral bass slam experience than a planar. But not always.

I also have a certain dislike against 40mm drivers... which has no grounds in physics even, its just a feeling. My personal sweet point are 50mm drivers, 45mm is nice, 70mm seems to introduce more problems than it solves (Sony Z7, Z1R). On the other hand I very much like the APM and its bass representation -- and that one uses a 40mm driver. It's bass is much more satisfying than with the Shure Aonic 50 and its 50mm driver (though that one does have a nice musicality to it). The Club One did very well in that department as well, again with a 40mm driver. I always liked the clean deep bass representation on the Beyerdynamic DT1350, which uses something like a 30-35mm driver. Long story short: I don't actually see a correlation between driver ability and size. Yet I prefer 50mm, which, incidentally, my all-time favorite M-100 uses. I think the reason is just that: emotional.

I also prefer dynamic drivers to planar magnetic systems, though that is rooted in a direct correlation between technology and how well the result matches with my preferences. I think a system with well executed dynamic drivers serves my needs (and wants) just better than any planar I've heard so far.

In summary I think its not easy to derive much just from technological descriptions (even FR graphs are more of an indication than a judgment).

I just recently stocked up on M-100s, so I have no intention of adding other headphones at the moment. I'd be interested to test this model, but the gamer design doesn't appeal to me so I'd rather not buy it. I also have reservations against revolutions -- those are few and far between, speaker physics are not that new that we can expect major steps every few years (months?). Apple sure did amazing things with both the original HomePod (still happy that I bought two...) and the APM, so having someone from Apples acoustics team design a new headphone is sure interesting. But no other company can put so many resources behind a development, and its normally not a single person defining that whole development.

So while I'm a bit skeptical regarding any revolution in the making, I understand that you found a headphone you love. Which is always nice, and understandably makes one a messenger of that product -- especially if its underrepresented here. I'd be happy to give it a listen, the Club One was a good tip after all, but that'll have to wait until it becomes readily available in Europe I guess.

 

[AlwaysForward]

Yeah I have the APM and Club One as well. Excellent bass on them.

I think Fractal Audio was just Cliff building the Axe-FX For a long time. I agree that apples resources and product culture are special but similar to drivers, there are always small teams of exceptional engineers doing their thing.

Heck. Dan Clark? ZMF? Rosson?

 

[plakat]

Yeah I have the APM and Club One as well. Excellent bass on them.

I think Fractal Audio was just Cliff building the Axe-FX For a long time. I agree that apples resources and product culture are special but similar to drivers, there are always small teams of exceptional engineers doing their thing.

Heck. Dan Clark? ZMF? Rosson?

Of course, limitless resources do not guarantee a good end product. Though Apple manages quite well in that regard, they seldom get sidetracked by too much money available for experimentation. But Apple is always a bad comparison, since their development culture Is hard if not even impossible to match due to practice and resources. This is not to say that small shops can't produce something good, even excellent. Dan is a prime example (I don't get that ZMF vibe though, but that may well be a personal thing). Another example would be the ex-AKG team now at Austrian Audio, creating excellent drivers from scratch after leaving the much more resourceful Harman/Samsung company. 44mm btw.

Regarding the numbers mentioned above: I also prefer 18" to 15" for PA subs, and 12" to 15" for PA tops, 12" for home subs over all other sizes. So those numbers do carry some meaning for me, but its not necessarily rational thinking Regarding headphone drivers 40-50mm seems to be the usual spectrum due to various limitations for smaller/larger drivers, but there's not much to derive from driver size alone. OK, physics tells us that the larger driver will move more air at the same excursion. That simple fact doesn't take into account any of the other tuning parameters though, not even maximum linear excursion.

For PA its a bit simpler, since there only output levels near maximum are relevant (in most cases): having less excursion leads to a cleaner sound, so the bigger driver tends to work better. But that doesn't take into account the other characteristics like thermal limits etc. I'll stop before this becomes a scientific paper...

 

[ChrisMad]

what still worries me (in the context of this thread on the forum) in the case of VZR Model One is something that is the cherry on the cake - the "acoustic lens" (or whatever they call it in marketing), I mean the driver is not very big and at the same time a large area of it is covered by the "lens"

so I'm worried about how it affects the impact and quality of bass, it's also a pity that the driver is described only as a "custom driver" so it probably means in practice something like "we bought a large batch cheaply from the Chinese along with their headbands so we'll use these parts because it's profitable for us)".

Of course, I could be wrong (and even I would like to be wrong in this case) and my fears could be wrong (not being a sound expert)

 

[GREQ]

what still worries me (in the context of this thread on the forum) in the case of VZR Model One is something that is the cherry on the cake - the "acoustic lens" (or whatever they call it in marketing), I mean the driver is not very big and at the same time a large area of it is covered by the "lens"



so I'm worried about how it affects the impact and quality of bass, it's also a pity that the driver is described only as a "custom driver" so it probably means in practice something like "we bought a large batch cheaply from the Chinese along with their headbands so we'll use these parts because it's profitable for us)".

Of course, I could be wrong (and even I would like to be wrong in this case) and my fears could be wrong (not being a sound expert)

Just for clarity, the 'acoustic lens' is not a marketing thing.
That part of the driver that covers the diaphragm is not just a protective layer with holes: itis critical in tuning and 'shaping' the sound of any and all dynamic drivers.
Hope that clears things up a bit.

 

[AlwaysForward]

Of course, limitless resources do not guarantee a good end product. Though Apple manages quite well in that regard, they seldom get sidetracked by too much money available for experimentation. But Apple is always a bad comparison, since their development culture Is hard if not even impossible to match due to practice and resources. This is not to say that small shops can't produce something good, even excellent. Dan is a prime example (I don't get that ZMF vibe though, but that may well be a personal thing). Another example would be the ex-AKG team now at Austrian Audio, creating excellent drivers from scratch after leaving the much more resourceful Harman/Samsung company. 44mm btw.

Regarding the numbers mentioned above: I also prefer 18" to 15" for PA subs, and 12" to 15" for PA tops, 12" for home subs over all other sizes. So those numbers do carry some meaning for me, but its not necessarily rational thinking Regarding headphone drivers 40-50mm seems to be the usual spectrum due to various limitations for smaller/larger drivers, but there's not much to derive from driver size alone. OK, physics tells us that the larger driver will move more air at the same excursion. That simple fact doesn't take into account any of the other tuning parameters though, not even maximum linear excursion.

For PA its a bit simpler, since there only output levels near maximum are relevant (in most cases): having less excursion leads to a cleaner sound, so the bigger driver tends to work better. But that doesn't take into account the other characteristics like thermal limits etc. I'll stop before this becomes a scientific paper...

I completely agree with you on all of these examples & that physics are the main thing. I also think that there’s a bit of a curveball in CrossWave’s technology around how it disperses the sounds more akin to real life than direct firing headphone drivers.

I think the question to ponder is “can you make a driver sound larger by changing how the air arrives at the ear”

My anecdotal experience is that these sound massive & have experience peers more akin to the 100mm LCD Drivers than even 50mm Dynamic comparisons.

Just for clarity, the 'acoustic lens' is not a marketing thing.
That part of the driver that covers the diaphragm is not just a protective layer with holes: itis critical in tuning and 'shaping' the sound of any and all dynamic drivers.
Hope that clears things up a bit.

Great point! Have you had a chance to try these? Would love to hear additional forum members chime in if they have!