[ufospls2]

I know the ASR dudes would say I'm a victim of marketing, and price bias ("its expensive therefore its good" mentality.)

but

I've owned pretty much every flagship headphone available, and a lot of the lower level headphones from various brands as well. Abyss has been my favourite since I first bought a used pair of the original 1266. Other headphones have come and gone, but since I first tried them, I have always had an Abyss of some form in my collection. The Susvara is a hell of a headphone, it truly is, yet my AB-1266TC remains my favourite headphone I have ever tried or owned.

I know the measurements aren't "good." Yet I still reach for the 1266 TC over anything else when I really really want to have a listening session that I will enjoy.

I can be shown data till the cows come home, I just don't care. I like their sound.

 

[ra990]

Guys over there are talking about how they "avoid headfi like the plague". Why? Because you might actually encounter some first hand opinions from people who...GASP...have actually heard the headphones being discussed? What a wild concept, I know.

 

[seadog123]

I’ve been debating over possible headphones for some weeks now. They have to match well with my Chord Hugo TT2, preferably via the front H/P Jack. The Susvara was good, but I was at +9 on the volume & assumed I was at close to max volume, Focal Utopia was good, too bright/full on for me though, LCD4 was really, really good actually. Midrange heaven, wide soundstage etc

I almost caved in and got them, but the Abyss 1266 Phi TC keeps gnawing at my brain to buy them !

Deposit paid, now waiting for stock to arrive....... It was a blind purchase as no dealers anywhere near my city to try them out. I hope I’m not disappointed.

 

[lumdicks]

I know the ASR dudes would say I'm a victim of marketing, and price bias ("its expensive therefore its good" mentality.)

but

I've owned pretty much every flagship headphone available, and a lot of the lower level headphones from various brands as well. Abyss has been my favourite since I first bought a used pair of the original 1266. Other headphones have come and gone, but since I first tried them, I have always had an Abyss of some form in my collection. The Susvara is a hell of a headphone, it truly is, yet my AB-1266TC remains my favourite headphone I have ever tried or owned.

I know the measurements aren't "good." Yet I still reach for the 1266 TC over anything else when I really really want to have a listening session that I will enjoy.

I can be shown data till the cows come home, I just don't care. I like their sound.

As long as you enjoy your music via the gears, then they worth your hard earned money.

I have never bothered myself with measurement (not specification). We are listening to music, not pink noise with different frequency, loudness and separation.

The same "measurement" argument takes place on Meze Empyrean very often. With my collection and other TOTL CANs / IEMs owned previously, I can say that I enjoy most with the Empy, which is so musical and foot-tapped engaging.

 

[Sajid Amit]

I would love to hear more on how you regard the 1266s now in relation to the midrange issues. Do you think it is just a matter of adapting to its sound profile or is the May the secret sauce? How does the Susvara sound with the May for instance?

The first two times I listened to the 1266 Phi TC, I ran them off a Topping D90, RME ADI 2, and then the Metronome DAC as the DAC in the chain. The amps I tried where the iFi Pro iCAN and the GSX Mini.

On those occasions, I also have to disclaimer my test tracks had a lot of vocals-based tracks, some grunge / alternative rock (Seattle Grunge scene stuff, plus a lot of Chris Cornell solos), and some Stabbing Westward tracks (which have a lot of synths, etc). And lastly, I had a lot of jazz vocals.

I was used to the Susvara for these tracks. When A/B-ing with the Susvara, these tracks just sounded more "right" on the Susvara. The Susvara timbre was better, as well as the overall frequency response. These are tracks I have listened to since I was a kid, off CDs, in some cases, Vinyl, so I feel I "know" these tracks.

However, the third time I got the TC in, I listened to some classic rock, electronica, trip hop, and other bass-heavy genres. My track list included Nicholas Jaar, Daft Punk, some Bruce Dickinson, Crystal Method, as well as soundtracks like the Man of Steel soundtrack. This time, my chain was the May DAC to the iFi Pro iCAn and the May DAC to the Accuphase e380.

Also, this time, I spent a lot more time experimenting with the fit and placement of the cups.

End result: I was WOW-ed.

• The TC sound stage was more open sounding than the Susvara
• Its sheer physicality was breathtaking.
• I also felt the midrange sounded more natural and liquid off the May DAC, no question

I have ordered the TC already, so once it comes in, which will take a bit of time, I will surely do longer comparisons of the TC's pairing with other source gear.

The Susvara on the May DAC sounds very "right". Again, the timbre, FR, which are the Susvara's strengths are represented very well. The May DAC is very resolving, as you would expect, and very spacious sounding. Things like reverb, trailing edge of tones, environmental cues, are just more evident. Tonally, I would not say the May is warm-sounding. It's very neutral, but notes have slightly, ever-so-slightly, softer edges, which people call an "analog" presentation.

But, of course, others have experimented with the TC with other gear, e.g., the SC cable, the Woo Amp, PrimaLuna amps, and the AIC Riviera/Egoista, with great results, so that's there. The other R2R DAC recommended with the 1266 Phi TC (the one DMS took to Linus, lol) is the Sagra DAC.

Hope this helps.

 

[Sajid Amit]

Guys over there are talking about how they "avoid headfi like the plague". Why? Because you might actually encounter some first hand opinions from people who...GASP...have actually heard the headphones being discussed? What a wild concept, I know.

Wow. That does sound ridiculous. The reason I like head-fi above all forums is that there are conflicting views here, so we avoid cultishness, compared to other forums! Lol.

 

[MayaTlab]

There is no way to take into account how an individual's head shape, ear physiology, and just the preferred orientation of the headphones and cups affect this.

The influence of an individual's morphology on FR tends to be, IMO, both under and over-appreciated. It's a fairly complex subject that I can only ever hope to understand partially, but there are a lot of misconceptions about it.
But to make it short, I think that it helps to chop up the FR spectrum into various parts :
- below 250-300hz : seal can very significantly affect bass response, particularly for headphones with a closed front volume or lack of deliberate venting. This is something Rtings is very useful for as they measure bass response on five actual humans.
- between 300-1khz : low variations across individuals and test rigs. This is the range where you can have the most confidence in measurements.
- between 1khz and 4-5khz : ear canal gain region. The general shape and individual features of third party measurements won't change that much, but the shape of your own ears can modulate it quite significantly.
- Above 4-5khz : lots of variations between individuals depending on positioning, ear shape, etc. Not only the magnitude but also the location of peaks / dips can change.
Add to that sample variation, pad wear, etc.
We can actually measure what the FR curve near someone's eardrum is, for example with a tool like this one : https://www.etymotic.com/auditory-research/microphones/er-7c.html
This study is IMO quit interesting on the subject of variance between listeners : https://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=16877

In regards to the 1266 a lot of the sharp ("high q") features in the 300-4000hz or so range (blue arrows) are very unlikely to magically disappear once on your head and their magnitude is largely audible. In general the range in green is likely to have the same features located at a similar frequency once on your head (with more potential for variation above 1khz or so).
The big dip between 6 and 7khz (red arrow) is very significant in terms of magnitude, and there's a good chance that it would manifest in some form once on your head. Perhaps with less magnitude, perhaps slightly shifted, but it's likely to be there one way or another.
In the purple area seal can have a significant effect. Difficult to know exactly how without testing the headphones for breach of seal, like Solderdude does on DIYaudio. For example here with the Sundara : https://diyaudioheaven.wordpress.com/headphones/measurements/hifiman/sundara/

https://crinacle.com/graphs/headphones/abyss-ab-1266-phi-cc/

All I'm saying is that third party measurements made on a rig like Crinacle's or Amir's are not precise enough to, let's say, anticipate whether a single individual would prefer a pair of HD600 over a pair of HD560S or vice-versa (not enough difference between them, particularly in the range where we can be the most confident about measurements), but they're largely precise enough that we can gather a lot of informations on headphones, particularly ones such as the 1266 where a lot of, let's say, interesting features with high Q and a significant magnitude happen in the range where we can be most confident about them (and it's no surprise that for the most part Crinacle and Amir's measurements are concordant in many ways).

 

[mammal]

I am currently very happy with my 10k budget being Chord Hugo TT 2 driving AB-1266 Phi TC. But as everyone, I am already wondering how much better would 15k or 20k budget sound. So for 15k budget, I tried Chord M-Scaler (my first impressions here, follow up after a week here) - to my ears, not enough improvement to warrant the jump in price. So, what else could I build for 20k (15k if you discount for AB-1266)? Most likely Chord Dave DAC with Formula S amplifier.

But then I thought, how could I replicate what HTT2 offers me, being all in one device? So I contacted my local dCS dealer and scheduled a home demo for Bartók. It has headphone outs, not as powerful as Formula S and after talking to Joe from Abyss, the amp is not as good as Formula S with Powerman, but still decent enough. In his words, best would be to pair Bartók with WA33, but that goes more into 30k budget (and no way to audition in Switzerland, as Mike from Woo Audio told me that they do not have any dealer here).

I know most of you prefer having separate streamer, upsampler, dac and amp, but I am more of a type "all-in-one" if possible. I am a Chord fan, so this is not to discount what Dave can offer (only heard it at CanJam with Audeze LCD-4). I am also aware, that Bartók is more known for its DAC than headphone amplifier, but as with everything, I won't know how good it is unless I test it myself.

So, any of you running AB-1266 from Bartók? Are you satisfied, or did you end up getting an amplifier down the line anyway? Thanks!

 

[genefruit]

I am currently very happy with my 10k budget being Chord Hugo TT 2 driving AB-1266 Phi TC. But as everyone, I am already wondering how much better would 15k or 20k budget sound. So for 15k budget, I tried Chord M-Scaler (my first impressions here, follow up after a week here) - to my ears, not enough improvement to warrant the jump in price. So, what else could I build for 20k (15k if you discount for AB-1266)? Most likely Chord Dave DAC with Formula S amplifier.

But then I thought, how could I replicate what HTT2 offers me, being all in one device? So I contacted my local dCS dealer and scheduled a home demo for Bartók. It has headphone outs, not as powerful as Formula S and after talking to Joe from Abyss, the amp is not as good as Formula S with Powerman, but still decent enough. In his words, best would be to pair Bartók with WA33, but that goes more into 30k budget (and no way to audition in Switzerland, as Mike from Woo Audio told me that they do not have any dealer here).

I know most of you prefer having separate streamer, upsampler, dac and amp, but I am more of a type "all-in-one" if possible. I am a Chord fan, so this is not to discount what Dave can offer (only heard it at CanJam with Audeze LCD-4). I am also aware, that Bartók is more known for its DAC than headphone amplifier, but as with everything, I won't know how good it is unless I test it myself.

So, any of you running AB-1266 from Bartók? Are you satisfied, or did you end up getting an amplifier down the line anyway? Thanks!

Specs say 1.4w into 32ohms. TT2 is 2.7 front and 10.8 rear. Might sound great but it does have less power than the TT2.

 

[mammal]

Specs say 1.4w into 32ohms. TT2 is 2.7 front and 10.8 rear. Might sound great but it does have less power than the TT2.

That's exactly what I am worried about. Yet, Abyss on YouTube said it sounds just fine with AB-1266. And Joe confirmed the same with me via email. I won't know until I try. I am aware that it won't be even close to what TT2 outputs (according to Rob, it is 1.72W SE and 6.9W XLR at 50 Ohm).

 

[genefruit]

That's exactly what I am worried about. Yet, Abyss on YouTube said it sounds just fine with AB-1266. And Joe confirmed the same with me via email. I won't know until I try. I am aware that it won't be even close to what TT2 outputs (according to Rob, it is 1.72W SE and 6.9W XLR at 50 Ohm).

That's exactly what I am worried about. Yet, Abyss on YouTube said it sounds just fine with AB-1266. And Joe confirmed the same with me via email. I won't know until I try. I am aware that it won't be even close to what TT2 outputs (according to Rob, it is 1.72W SE and 6.9W XLR at 50 Ohm).

If it does have enough power for you, then DAVE enters the equation. Spec at 32ohms matches Bartok. From Chord page. 1% THD 6.8v RMS with 33Ω (1.4w)

 

[mammal]

If it does have enough power for you, then DAVE enters the equation. Spec at 32ohms matches Bartok. From Chord page. 1% THD 6.8v RMS with 33Ω (1.4w)

So I have been thinking about this and did further research. According to Rob, at 50 Ohm Dave outputs 0.926W. However, I think we have been looking at dCS Bartók's specs wrong. I found in their manual (page 11) the following chart.



Before seeing this, I assumed that if their specs say "1.4w into 32ohms" then it will be lower at 50 ohm, but it seems not to be the case. The power output grows up to 2.7 W roughly for like 60 ohm, where it peaks. However, for AB-1266 it seems to be around/almost 2 W, as it is rated around 50 Ohm. If this is true, then Bartók is as powerful as HTT2's front SE (1.72W), but of course not as powerful as HTT2's rear XLRs (6.9W). Many folks on HTT2 thread have said that they do not hear any difference going between HTT2's SE and XLR, as long as they volume match. I do have the same adapter, so I have tested this myself and I think for EDM music, there is a slight difference in XLRs being a bit more dynamic. But if Bartók really outputs 2W for AB-1266, then it might as well be enough for me. Let's see!

 

[genefruit]

So I have been thinking about this and did further research. According to Rob, at 50 Ohm Dave outputs 0.926W. However, I think we have been looking at dCS Bartók's specs wrong. I found in their manual (page 11) the following chart.



Before seeing this, I assumed that if their specs say "1.4w into 32ohms" then it will be lower at 50 ohm, but it seems not to be the case. The power output grows up to 2.7 W roughly for like 60 ohm, where it peaks. However, for AB-1266 it seems to be around/almost 2 W, as it is rated around 50 Ohm. If this is true, then Bartók is as powerful as HTT2's front SE (1.72W), but of course not as powerful as HTT2's rear XLRs (6.9W). Many folks on HTT2 thread have said that they do not hear any difference going between HTT2's SE and XLR, as long as they volume match. I do have the same adapter, so I have tested this myself and I think for EDM music, there is a slight difference in XLRs being a bit more dynamic. But if Bartók really outputs 2W for AB-1266, then it might as well be enough for me. Let's see!

The chart is showing the difference between balanced and unbalanced. DCS seems to be missing an opportunity to state the balanced out values in the specs. Good eye and I look forward to hearing your experience with it.

 

[mammal]

The chart is showing the difference between balanced and unbalanced. DCS seems to be missing an opportunity to state the balanced out values in the specs. Good eye and I look forward to hearing your experience with it.

Yeah I agree, I wish they better documented their specs, I think it would be more welcoming for those who have more power hungry headphones. But their page 12 goes into the details a bit more, I guess a lucky find.

 

[paradoxper]

The influence of an individual's morphology on FR tends to be, IMO, both under and over-appreciated. It's a fairly complex subject that I can only ever hope to understand partially, but there are a lot of misconceptions about it.
But to make it short, I think that it helps to chop up the FR spectrum into various parts :
- below 250-300hz : seal can very significantly affect bass response, particularly for headphones with a closed front volume or lack of deliberate venting. This is something Rtings is very useful for as they measure bass response on five actual humans.
- between 300-1khz : low variations across individuals and test rigs. This is the range where you can have the most confidence in measurements.
- between 1khz and 4-5khz : ear canal gain region. The general shape and individual features of third party measurements won't change that much, but the shape of your own ears can modulate it quite significantly.
- Above 4-5khz : lots of variations between individuals depending on positioning, ear shape, etc. Not only the magnitude but also the location of peaks / dips can change.
Add to that sample variation, pad wear, etc.
We can actually measure what the FR curve near someone's eardrum is, for example with a tool like this one : https://www.etymotic.com/auditory-research/microphones/er-7c.html
This study is IMO quit interesting on the subject of variance between listeners : https://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=16877

In regards to the 1266 a lot of the sharp ("high q") features in the 300-4000hz or so range (blue arrows) are very unlikely to magically disappear once on your head and their magnitude is largely audible. In general the range in green is likely to have the same features located at a similar frequency once on your head (with more potential for variation above 1khz or so).
The big dip between 6 and 7khz (red arrow) is very significant in terms of magnitude, and there's a good chance that it would manifest in some form once on your head. Perhaps with less magnitude, perhaps slightly shifted, but it's likely to be there one way or another.
In the purple area seal can have a significant effect. Difficult to know exactly how without testing the headphones for breach of seal, like Solderdude does on DIYaudio. For example here with the Sundara : https://diyaudioheaven.wordpress.com/headphones/measurements/hifiman/sundara/

https://crinacle.com/graphs/headphones/abyss-ab-1266-phi-cc/

All I'm saying is that third party measurements made on a rig like Crinacle's or Amir's are not precise enough to, let's say, anticipate whether a single individual would prefer a pair of HD600 over a pair of HD560S or vice-versa (not enough difference between them, particularly in the range where we can be the most confident about measurements), but they're largely precise enough that we can gather a lot of informations on headphones, particularly ones such as the 1266 where a lot of, let's say, interesting features with high Q and a significant magnitude happen in the range where we can be most confident about them (and it's no surprise that for the most part Crinacle and Amir's measurements are concordant in many ways).

dumb.

Unlikely / likely without a meaningful execution of measurements as foundation, this entire crowd is pure conjecture. Amir can't be bothered unless special time permitted to at least provide double-measurements for some partial affirmation.

This is why this ASR movement is horsedonk. Good enough is good enough even if it's rather poor. What the ****.

At least with SBAF, you can encompass some long-standing experiential-learning-curve. Purrin at least tries.