This is an easy answer from my perspective. Here you go:
1) I don’t like to EQ. It bothers me when I pay over a thousand dollars for a headphone and I still need to EQ my purchase in order for it to sound good/acceptable. That’s fine for the cheaper lines, but once you get into the kilobuck range, manufacturers need to try harder.
2) It bothers me when a headphone manufacturer can’t also make their headphones comfortable and not too clampy. I’m sorry but it doesn’t matter how good a headphone sounds if you never want to wear it (cough, Abyss, Rosson Audio, cough).
3) It bothers me when a headphone is very expensive but has shoddy build quality. Yes, let’s put that Porsche engine inside the body of a Prius, said no one ever. The LCD 5 costs over $4000 and STILL uses glued on earpads. Sorry, unacceptable. And why can’t Grado make detachable cables? And don’t even get me started on Hifiman.
4) I don’t like headphones that have too much upper mid energy and/or too much treble energy. These types of tunings can wow you at first, but quickly become very fatiguing over time.
5) I don’t like headphones that have too little bass. They tend to sound thin and soulless. Bass is the rhythmic driving force of the music. It should be heard and have an impact on the listener.
6) I am not a fan of headphones that have a claustrophobic soundstage. A vast canvas gives the artist much more room to portray their masterpiece. Let the bird out of the cage and it might sing to you with a vigor you’ve never heard before.
So what am I going on about? Simple. All of the previous headphones that I have owned have at least one of the faults listed here, if not multiples of them.
ZMF is different. ZMF headphones, in stock form, are already tuned exceptionally well to sound natural or can be easily altered with pad rolling and mesh rolling.
ZMF headphones are very comfortable to wear, regardless of weight, and their earpads are super comfortable as well. In spite of that, ZMF offers headband accessories to further enhance wearing comfort and there is a plethora of earpad choices as well.
ZMF build quality is legendary for a reason. They’re built to last, come with a lifetime warranty on their drivers, use only premium materials, look ridiculously awesome, and are crafted with equal parts of love and artistry. They sound as good as they look and look as good as they sound. Their earpads can be easily swapped because they’re not glued on or held on by flimsy plastic nodules.
ZMF spends painstaking hours to tweak their tuning to sound natural, and never boring or ear-piercing painful. I really wish more manufacturers cared more about their stock tuning (cough, Audeze, Beyerdynamic, Abyss, Grado, Ultrasone, Audio Technica, cough). Sorry had to clear my throat.
All ZMF headphones have BASS. Sure it may not be enough for bass heads, but it is never lacking. It’s also not just about quantity. ZMF has quality bass. Look at the frequency response of the Verite open, Auteur, and Atrium. The bass goes all the way down to 20hz with almost no roll off! You usually only see that with planars or closed backs. You almost never see that with dynamic open back models. Zach is a sub bass wizard
And finally soundstage. ZMF may not have Sennheiser 800/800S soundstage vastness, but it’s never narrow or cramped. Even their closed back offerings sound more open than one would expect. And the Atrium takes staging to a whole new level in my opinion. I do not find myself wishing for more stage. I am not pining for or missing my old, beloved 800S that I bought and sold three times. I will not buy it for a fourth time.
So that is why I put ZMF above all of the others. It is the total package. It is a complete recipe. And where on God’s green earth are you going to find better customer service than Zach and Bevin? Good luck with that.
“Mess with best, die like the rest.”
