[DemolitionMan]

Totally agree with your assessment. Thank you for breaking down the Verum's requirements and why. Appreciate the contrasting and counter balancing perspective to NTR's review.
Running mine via JDS Atom stack, as we previously spoke about. Look forward to future scaling via amps & cables as budget allows. Just listened to Donald Fagen's True Companion, his first post Steely Dan release, sounds awesome.
Can you PM me link to Naim clone?

 

[nonenone]

Going Off The Deep End (Or Building a Janky DIY cable):​

So at around the 5 week mark, as I mentioned in my last review post. I began to believe that the cable might be holding this headphone back. I reached out to AntiCable to build me a custom headphone cable, and received no response. Well... a few months prior I had randomly come across Tempo Electric and purchased pure silver 12 gauge wire to act as jumpers on my 19 year old speakers. I went this route because the cost was the same as buying silver plated OCC jumpers and there was potentially some great physics theory behind this (I did graduate studies in physics and actually remember running a calculation where we learned that almost all of the current flow happens on the surface of the conductor. This happens because the electrons want to be separated from each other - like charges repel.) So I connected these solid silver jumpers to my dual binding posts and What!! it was like I turned up the tweeter volume on the first speaker. Did it for the second, and for the first time in 19 years I was blown away by how much clearer my highs were coming across.

So... sitting around pondering the stock cable of the Verum One, having been rejected by AntiCable, I reached out to Joseph at Tempo and told him I was thinking of doing something bizarre. Initially I was going to go for 20ga silver wire, but he suggested 24ga silver wire instead because he felt it would be more flexible. Well I went with the 24ga 4N silver wire with a loose fitting Teflon jacket. I searched online and found a 6.3mm rhodium plated plug from Eidolic. I chose rhodium since I knew I would be plugging and unplugging often and I also couldn't find a 6.3mm silver plated plug. I also found some 3.5mm rhodium plated plugs on AliExpress (because I couldn't find any reasonably priced alternatives elsewhere). And I chose rhodium for the 3.5mm since I knew that I would be disconnecting my cable from the Verum One after each use and rhodium has high durability and better than nickel conductivity (but less than gold - pros and cons). I bought some 8% silver solder and pulled out my old soldering iron. This was probably the first time I had used the soldering iron in at least a decade.

Let me be clear, up until this point I hated anything DIY in audiophile. I figured, how the heck can DIY outperform anything that has been well engineered. Well, maybe more on that later, maybe not. We are now entering the "cable debate" and I fully expect that everything that follows will be read with great skepticism. Yep. Totally get it, and I lived in that world for 19 years since I became an audiophile. My friends out in STL owned a hifi shop and after store hours we would do listening. And I've sat through A/B of cables upwards of $40k just for interconnects and I was never blown away. As a former hifi salesperson, I've demoed and been demoed silver plated OCC wire, and pretty much don't like how that sounds, period. So no hard feelings from me if you believe that cables don't matter that much, I get it, and frankly had I not heard the difference on the Verum One, I might not have believed it either. So the debate is the debate and I have no intention of resolving that cable debate. The real purpose, of trying DIY out (for the first time ever) and for having this discussion was to see if I could make an improvement on my Verum One with an all in $65 investment. I figured that I already loved them and would buy them again, could I make them even better like what happened on my 19 year old speakers. Moving forward I will refer to the general theorcore wires for optimal sound quality as just "solid core."

Immediate Listening Impression:​

Yes. The answer is yes. There was a difference. Admittedly not a massive difference, but there was a clearly audible and significant difference. And it changed the way I looked at the Verum One headphone. One of the first albums I wanted to hear up front was my original mastering CD of Star Wars. I had listened to this same album about a week prior pre solid core. When I put it on, I started to cry when I got to Leia's theme. Something was uniquely different and much better than before. What was going on? The instruments actually sounded... different, better, more tonally accurate with better timbre. I was hearing more detail in the orchestra. Many regard this original recording to be inferior to the remaster of the 90s (which I also own). But using the solid core headphone cable from the Schiit Hel to the Verum One. It sounded lots better in all ways. There was zero downside. And then I started noticing that the bass was both a little bit tighter and fuller sounding. Very very weird for a person who fundamentally didn't believe in DIY and silver wire. Put on another album to see if I was imagining things and I heard the exact same sonic effects:

• slightly tighter and punchier bass
• more tonally correct mid-bass and mids
• gentler yet more detailed highs

After an hour and on into the next 2 weeks:​

I decided to let this burn in for a couple of hours but noticed that after an hour things had already gotten better. So I started rolling albums. This cable replacement for sure made the Verum One sound better on every genre. Classical became even more enjoyable as the solid core cable seems to remove top end sibilance yet provide more detail. Instruments sounded more and more real. Jazz music was incredible. It was already excellent on the Verum One, but oh yeah baby... So I started putting on some of the more difficult genres. I decided to give everything a real run for the money. Run the Jewels 3. Where this album had some top end harshness on the stock cable, now that was mostly gone, and bass was tighter and more impactful. Vocals had a sort of "correction" to them that sounded more real to me rather than sounding a bit processed.

The next album to really open my eyes was an album of Franck organ works. Okay, let me restate something from the first review. The Verum One is a full range headphone. BUT... how full range depends on everything upstream. With the solid core cable, holy cow, the organ was sounding sublime. I was hearing the beginning and end of the organ. At one point I kept thinking someone was hitting the floor or the table I was working at, and I kept looking around to find the cause. After about 10 minutes of being disturbed by this odd sound, I finally realized it was the Verum One. I was hearing the footwork!! Oh my. Bass was dramatically improved over solid core. And this is every album I played. Same thing over and over again.

One of my all time favorite popular albums is Sting's Soul Cages. I had to hear this. When I played it, yes all the same things held true. But more importantly I was hearing things in the album that I had not previously heard before. And this is an album I have played hundreds of times over on multiple hifi systems. It isn't the best recorded album, but I treat it as a reference because I just love the music. So for me to hear things on this album I've never heard before, instruments in the background that I didn't even know about? Well thank you Verum One headphone.

As the next 2 weeks went on, I was blown away by album after album. Classical was even better. Jazz was exquisite. Much more of my popular rock etc music sounded better. And last but certainly not least, electronic music was elevated. Perhaps one of the more annoying aspects of electronic music is the top end. And frankly, this is one of the major reasons I don't like most headphones, because the top end is usually a bit high and that exaggerates a lot of the ear piercing aspects of electronica. As I mentioned the Verum One already has an excellently smooth top end response. But solid core via the Verum One, really cut back that top end glare even more, adding a gentleness and higher degree of clarity than with the stock cable. It was near unbelievable. How could a shoddily assembled DIY be doing this? It made no sense.

Going solid core creates more "problems":​

Wrestling with my disbelief on what I was hearing and getting blown away by nearly every album was starting to make me thing of doing something else. I wondered... what if I made myself a cheap $25 24ga solid core silver RCA for my main system? There's no way that it would sound better than my $400 Chord interconnects. No way... So I made it on a whim, and yeah... I heard soundstage for the first time ever on my speakers. So this then leads to the next upgrade. I was already using a multibit Panasonic portable CD player from 1991 with line out for my headphone setup. And it was a 1V 3.5mm out going into the Hel 3.5mm input. So I made myself a solid core 3.5mm to 3.5mm interconnect.

Okay, the solid core headphone cable to the Verum One was an audible but not massive upgrade. But good enough to get me going on this journey. Swapping in the solid core 3.5mm to 3.5mm, however, was indeed a massive upgrade on the Verum One. And doing some A/B with the stock cable I was able to convince myself that the solid core 3.5mm to 3.5mm was actually more important than the solid core headphone cable.

Full Solid Core:​

So now I'm what I'd consider fully solid core. All the signal wire that was stranded was now replaced with solid 24ga silver wire in a loose (air gapped) Teflon jacket. I was impressed with the Verum One before, but on full solid core, the Verum One began showing it's true potential. This is a very very good headphone. And frankly, the guy making it is selling it for too little money. But in a way, the price is appropriate since he isn't a massive company. So let me say this, if this headphone were to be made by Audeze or Dan Clark, I don't see how it could be sold for $350. But that's the headphone selling business, and I'm not in that, so let me not say anymore on that topic.

Below are some of the impressions I have with a fully solid core setup driving the Verum One:

• The sound has to be some of the most accurate tonally and timbrelly I've ever heard short of some very expensive speakers. Having been to hundreds of symphony concerts, maybe a hundred jazz performances, I feel very comfortable saying this.
• The top end has incredible detail and nuance which can often shock you as you will hear details at a level you've never heard before.
• And probably most importantly, the bass suddenly arrived. Electronic music was very enjoyable. So clearly the cheap 3.5mm to 3.5mm I was using was cheap garbage compared to the $15 DIY cable I had assembled.

On one recording of a quartet, I kept hearing weird sounds that I had never before heard. I listened closely and realized that I was hearing the occasional foot stomp of one of the players, the occasional out breath of another, and I could hear slight paper movement. It was a real head shaker. This level of awakening was album after album after album. I hear effectively zero sibilance at this stage. Playing through my electronica collection at random was joy after joy now. I now had the bass I was looking for.

And this is where I have to claim that this headphone turns crap into gold. I wanted to push the limits, so I began grabbing some of my most offensive recordings. Recordings that are either very poorly done and/or that have annoying things happening elsewhere in the mix. Example, I dropped some Aphex Twin Ventolin EP, which I love, but must admit has a number of "ear murder" tracks. Wow, wow, wow. Crap turned to gold. I put on a janky jazz album from Duke Ellington, and it suddenly sounded amazing. I put on some NIN and Soundgarden (more ear murder) and there was no ear murdering happening. What the heck?? I can't even think of an album that sounded poorly on this solid core backed Verum One.

Verum One scale hard:​

I haven't done this kind of scaling exercise with other headphones, but the Verum One headphone have the capacity to pass through an absurd amount of detail. All of my niggles with this headphone, ranging from wanting more bass and a slightly annoying cable, were now gone. This is a headphone that can and will rise to the occasion. It is a headphone that responds to nuance across the frequency spectrum, playing every sound from the faintest to the minute. It is a audiophile headphone on a budget. It is a headphone that you can "upgrade" by focusing on the upstream gear. The better the upstream, the better this headphone sounds. To date, no distortion.

In the pre solid core days I had actually ordered myself a Schiit Vali 2+ because I wanted to spice things up on the Verum One. After solid coring everything upstream from the Verum One, I canceled my Vali 2+ backorder and started looking at a headphone amp that could really drive at 8ohms. I just wanted to see if there was more for this headphone to give. Answer: yes, there is actually even more that this headphone can do. Like I keep saying, this headphone scales, and it sca

 

[arpinnurmela]

Here is the link to the Naim Headline clone that I purchased:
AliExpress Naim Headline clone

There are other sellers of this, and other configurations. There are separates, other all-in-one configurations. Most of them are designed for 220V. This was the only company that responded to my request for a 110V model. They've since added a 110V selection option. So I payed a few dollars more for this listing relative to the other all-in-ones.

If you do a search for "Naim amplifier" or "Naim headphone" you should be able to find multiple listings.

 

[arpinnurmela]

Is this soundstage on a headphone?​

At this point I think I've pretty much got everything on my headphone system burned in. Several hundred hours in the bank. At somewhere around the 200 hour mark I think my Naim clone mellowed out some (but not all) of its right there attitude or edginess and resolution went even deeper on it. So sitting and listening to this setup, with all solid silver air gapped wiring I want to describe what I think seems to be some soundstage.

Generally speaking, when I listen to a lot of my classical recordings, I get a nice sense of the recording space. It's not like the kind of soundstaging I get on speakers where I can place instruments left and right and depth. But I do hear depth in the recordings. I can hear reverb of the recording room and different minutiae from the players in the orchestra that help me remember what it was like to be in a symphony hall hearing those things before COVID. The Verum One create a sort of sonic bubble around my head that extends out maybe one foot or so.

This level of resolution provided by the Verum One is fairly incredible and I've come to not say love it, but I've come to find myself relaxing when I hear it. As both a lover of audiophilia and live performances, the Verum One help me to go beyond just the music, the details, and invite me into the experience. I find myself less focused on things like timing and cohesiveness and thinking more about people playing music together. The little noises you hear, the occasional jacket swish of the conductor, and how all of that comes together sometimes perfectly and sometimes imperfectly to create a final experience. I guess some of the excitement of hearing this kind of resolution has passed, because I hear pretty much on every classical recording I have. I'm hearing into not just the recording but the experience. For sure, at times this makes the Verum One a fairly distracting listening experience, so working while listening on these might cause your mind to stray as you are taken back to some live performance experience.

Live recordings of any kind (jazz, classical, rock/pop concerts, live PA electronica) all get this clear sense of space that is more than just the recording. And that feels like soundstage to me, floating on my head. Put on a low processed studio recording from a rock band, and you get that same sense of space. It feels like you're inside the recording studio. You can almost hear the carpet and sound absorbing panels, sometimes you will hear the confinement of the studio, or the expansiveness of the studio. And at that point the Verum One playback experience shifts you away from just the music and now you have some insights into the band and how they were set.

With some really detailed electronica, I'm thinking Future Sound of London, The Orb, John Sheffield, or a few albums by Aphex Twin, I get that same sense of extension. Not of an actual recording space, but rather a sonic field that definitely extends out beyond the headphones to again around the same size a foot or so around my head. So in this sense, I'm getting the same "size" of "soundstage" that I get on my live recordings.

It's not that holographic imaging that speakers can create. It's more, in your head literally and figuratively. At this point, I have to be mindful of what I'm selecting to play if I'm working on something that requires concentration. It's almost too much pleasure to listen to the Verum One. This aspect was never something that I was aiming for in a headphone setup. I'm not sure what I exactly wanted when buying these, but this kind of experience really wasn't on my mind. But it is a persistent sonic quality of the Verum One that has been continually revealed as I improved every last element of my upstream.

 

[dougms3]

Have you tried a balanced cable or plan to ?

 

[arpinnurmela]

Have you tried a balanced cable or plan to ?

I have not even tried balanced. The main reason is that my source is an unbalanced line out from a CD player. I am curious about it, but not enough to replace my current setup.

 

[arpinnurmela]

More Too Much Writing for a headphone, or my continued journey with the Verum One

Holy Cow. Holy Moly. I listen to the Verum One mostly during the week excepting Fridays, upon which I usually take a 3 day break from the headphone. I keep my VerumS secure in a well-cushioned gun box that my brother bought for it. Inside I keep the headphone and my custom solid silver cable detached and spun around the headphone. And reminder. I'm talking about a solid silver wire. No strands. F that stuff. And as a reminder, about a month back the wire broke, because it was the very first wire I ever made and it has frequent use. I've gotten so much better at soldering that now my wire stays together for far longer. But yes, my janky silver cable broke. And I really needed to hear the Verum One. So I pulled out my stock cable, thinking... "it seriously can't be that far off." And I felt confident going into the listening session that this would be the case. You see the last time I had heard the stock cable, I was using a Hel (1) and the solid silver was better but it wasn't extremely better. So I felt confident that I was going to hear my Verum One at around 70-80% of its potential. Boy was I wrong. I was hearing somewhere in the ballpark of 40-60% of what they were capable of. So I switched albums immediately, it was that rough. And then the second album was even worse (on the lower end of 40). So I put on a third album, different genre again, and I was getting around 50. But, wow, the Verum One were just not performing at all anywhere near what I knew they could. In fact it was so bad, that despite my severe laziness, I immediately pulled out my soldering iron and took 5 minutes to repair the my headphone wire. I donned the Verum One once more, tentatively preparing myself to be let down. Nope... back to 100. Totally incredible difference. Far far greater than would reasonably be expected. Total clarity and musical beauty. And as I played through each album that had just minutes before failed, all order in the universe had returned.

Over each weekend I walk past my Naim clone and think about the complete perfection and beauty of my Verum One setup. And somewhere around Sunday, I start thinking, maybe, just maybe, I'm exaggerating how good these are in my head. And then Monday comes. I sit down, choose an album to get into the groove with. And straight head shake. The Panasonic to Naim to Verum One combination is absolutely phenomenal. BUT... friends, I cannot claim this majestic sound quality short of the silver wire, jacks and connectors I'm using. Just the single 80 micron silver plated jack alone made an incredible difference over the gold plated jack it replaced. That single jack took the entire setup to another level. And remember. I've also opened up my Naim clone and replaced all the stranded wire with air-gapped solid silver inside teflon. And what I can tell you is that all of this effort has created a headphone system that never lets me down on any recording ever. Period. End of story.

Today I was listening to Aphrodites Child 666. An album that for many exists as a horrible recording, a belief that I held as well for a long time. But on my PanaNaimVerum setup, that album has absolute beauty and I don't hear a trash recording. I hear a tape recording transferred to digital. This setup truly does transform crap to gold, or should I say crap to silver.

I've done quite a bit of experimentation around solid core wire theory over the past 6 months. I've experimented with copper and silver and have found copper to be nearly as good as silver. Silver has some specific advantages that can make it sound better, but it's dependent on a number of factors. Over on another forum I finally decided to offer my solid core knowledge via PM. If you need some help taking your system to the next level, but love what you already have, I have a feeling I might be able to help you make it even better. Send me a PM. I'm ready to help.

 

[Kammerat Rebekka]

I absolutely adore that Aphrodite’s Child album
One of those rare doubles that never sounds dull. It also packs one of the finest female orgasms caught on tape (Meg Ryan eat your heart out!). Irene Papas going all out.
Matter of fact…it’s been so long since I last span that..I need to go find my own copy. Thanks for the reminder

 

[arpinnurmela]

KR, glad you brought up the orgasm. It was the best I’d ever heard it. At a whole different level. Prior listens on the Hel Verum were detailed but it was damn near visceral playing over my PanaNaimVerum. I had never heard her vocalizations so rich and textured.

 

[arpinnurmela]

Calling Out the Fit And Finish​

I’m doing some intro and outro material for my book listening to the VerumS. And I had a small dose of my brownies. The VerumS are amazing. They have almost no weight, don’t overweight a single portion of my head, the cushions feel like magical pillows piping Nick Drake Bryter Layer directly into my consciousness.

The Verums not only kill on SQ and tone, but on comfort as well. I mostly bought them for the stellar reviews that they received regarding their audio qualities. Quite honestly, from day one they astonished me in another way. They are, for me, the most comfortable headphone I've ever donned. This Verum guy absolutely nailed comfort. And it makes no sense given the size of the headphone, but the minute you place them on your head, they just sort of blend into another appendage on the head. The clamping pressure is simply perfect on my head. Firm without ever being tiring. Often times, I'll just disconnect my cup jacks and keep my headphones on while I'm searching for the next CD to play. Or if I need to be situationally aware, I can hit pause, and sometimes for a ten minutes or so I might have no music on just because I'm listening to my kids play. The headband is just beautifully comfortable and evenly distributes all the weight of the headphone across my head. Regarding the cups... I've read a number of complaints about how he didn't use wood or metal or something else. The reason he chose the cup materials was to ensure that the headphone remained as light as possible. When I lean forward the headphone stay put and it feels like they don't even move a millimeter (although I'm sure that they do). I do think there is also a bit of magic in his choice of the screw that adjusts the height of the headphone. The screw design gives an additional rigidity to the upper frame and perfectly prevents slop movement when you turn or lean your head. And this sense of stability really adds to that bizarre feeling of the headphone sort becoming one with your head. And for the extreme SQ that you get with this headphone, it's like drinking a scotch in a fine chair (not Barnes, me) and just melting into the chair. Regarding overheating, a common problem that I have with most other headphones, I don't have any overheating with the VerumS. I will get a bit of warmth on my ears after 1.5 hours or so, but the warmth has never been irritating, and like I said I usually have this problem after 20-30 minutes on other over-ears. The headphone never feels hot or warm regardless of the hours worn.

Finish on my Verum One has been simply perfect. Everything has a solid feel and very little play. My pair look as perfect as they did on day one. The finish stands up well to handling, setting down, and picking up. The metal looks very beautiful with a comfortable sand-blasted look. The gloss on the cups looks new. I have a feeling that any version of the Verum One would look equally excellent.

Pillowy comfort and beautiful best describe the fit and finish. If either of these things or both are high on your headphone priority list, then I'd tell you to just buy the Verum One. The $350 is worth it just to acquire these excellent headphones. BTW My Nick Drake ended a few minutes ago, and yes I'm still wearing them.

P.S. I'd love to do a headphone meetup, but I don't do social media at all so I don't really know how I would do it. If you could clue me in, I'd appreciate it. I'm in the Sacramento area.

 

[arpinnurmela]

To Date, No Distortion​

It took me about a month with my Naim clone to where I was comfortable maxing out the volume. The Panasonic SL-S303 only outputs a 1V signal and I'd bet that the Naim clone was biased for 2V. So this no doubt gives me some clearance. The Naim clone puts out 0.5W at 8 ohms. I've played around with some ridiculous low bass effect electronica maxing them out, and nothing. Zero distortion. And for whatever it's worth, I'm deeply sensitive to distortion, and get real pissy real fast when I hear any distortion on my other systems. No distortion to be heard. When I played them on the Schiit Ass 3 (low gain only because I couldn't tolerate the distortion I was hearing on high gain) I was able to also max out the volume. Based on some current limiting I was able to deduce that the Ass could theoretically put out 650mW into 8 ohms, but with the Ass dial at max, no distortion to be heard at all with the SL-S303 as source. (I'd also like to note that the Ass was notably less powerful than the Naim clone on the VerumS.) For some music I'm not able to max out the Naim clone dial just due to the volume level, but with electronica like Audion or Plastikman, max volume, ridiculous bass presence (literal head vibration) and no distortion.

BTW, if you like electronica, please check out Jon Sheffield, Calves Halves and Shore Hoses. My friend and I accidentally discovered this guy in a cafe in Columbia Missouri one night. He was doing real-time crafting of electronica and it sounded like pre-recorded tracks due to the complexity. Check these two albums out. Calves Halves is one of my all time favorite electronica albums. On the VerumS his mixing is delicious, sliding smoothly across my head as he pans the sound effects. And even the slightest balance adjustments are heard as smooth as you could possibly ask. Bass effects are perfection as they blend perfectly into the tracks. And while this album was likely mixed on monitors and designed for small room playback, on the VerumS its pure electronica magic.

 

[arpinnurmela]

Lutoslawski Concerto for Orchestra (1954)​

This is an analog EMI recording from 1978 remastered in 94 for CD. The Polish Radio National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Lutoslawski himself. Playback over the VerumS gives only the slightest bit of tape noise in only the quietest passages. Sound reproduction feels like I'm sitting a bit above the stage perhaps just over the Lutoslawski. It's sounds like there were four or six mics used in the recording. The wind and brass sections sound like they would if were sitting about the height of a side balcony somewhere in the middle. String sections get fantastic reproduction and you can clearly distinguish the cellos and violins from right to left even when they are playing together. Violin sections in the middle clearly emanate from the middle. When I close my eyes it sounds like I'm in a smaller venue than a typical orchestral hall. It sounds like there are high ceilings in the venue because I can hear that slight time delay one gets from higher ceilings that aren't completely damped out. On some of the more intense passages, the recording sounds a bit bright, so my guess is that this was a result from either the remastering or from the original tape mix. I believe this to be the case because the pizzicato passages are up a bit in their intensity from what one would hear in a live performance, indicating some clear mastering choices. Bass pizzicato comes in at what feels like the correct intensity relative to the performance and have clear isolation on the right, with clear reverb on the left. The piano can be placed almost perfectly in the mind, towards the back of the orchestra off to the left. The flute section is clearly behind the center violin sections and have a nice sonic presence like I would expect from a live performance. When the full string orchestra comes in, there is no smearing occurring, and I'm able to make out the different string sections in the space of the recording. In a particular passage, the bass sections on the right and left seem to be playing different melodies at the same time. Even during the louder passages, I'm able to clearly make out the reverb from the piano notes being held by the pianist's foot. And when the drums are played the VerumS are able to accurately reproduce that thudding from the back of the orchestra and the subsequent gentle reverberation of that thud throughout the venue.

Now don't get me wrong, I never bought headphones to attain this level of visual accuracy, nor do I listen to classical music purposefully trying to ascertain any of what I've written above. The main reason I wanted to create a post about this piece of music, is that all of what I'm describing comes across naturally on the VerumS. It takes little effort to pick out this sonic information. Instead, I just naturally hear it in my mind thanks to the accuracy of the VerumS. So not only do I get to enjoy the contemporary musical journey that Lutoslawski gives both in composition and direction, but I'm simultaneously able to discern all of this other venue and recording information. In this way, the VerumS have completely exceeded my purchase goals. And more importantly, in a time in which concert halls are closed for most of the year, I'm able to feel, in a fairly legitimate way, that live performance again. It can be at times distracting on a very very good recording like this Matrix series from EMI. But it is part of the pure joy of music that the VerumS are able to reproduce for me.

 

[arpinnurmela]

John Tejada - Parabolas​

I'm a big fan of Tejada. Been fortunate enough to see him perform three times. His albums epitomize that house sound version of electronica. The kind of sound you can sit back in a comfortable chair on a rainy day and just listen. On many headphones it can have that sort of intimate sound close to the skull or a thick enveloping feel like a rocking car stereo. But on the VerumS Tejada takes on an effortless and expansive quality. Far more like how a real hifi system would reproduce his music. All the bump you need at any volume you choose. Nothing ever getting out of line sonically to hurt your ears. Throughout the album Tejada plays with fades and sweeps, gently though, rarely is he extreme about any of his "handy" work. The album is beautifully mastered and has no odd artifacts due to an over gained signal clipping into red. (BTW he keeps that also under tight control at his events, plays right on the edge without going into amp distortion.) So I find myself always giving the volume knob a bit of a bump between each track while listening to a Tejada studio album. And similar to first album "Little Green Lights and Four Inch Faders" his music often has a massaging characteristic that the VerumS are thankfully able to reproduce on my head. Usually I have to get my Tejada massage in the car and be a little sad I'm not getting it as much as I'd like on my main hifi system... But on the VerumS it sounds and feels like the music just pulses and moves on and through my head. Sounds delicately placed throughout, bass comfortably bumping along, louder after each track. And yet the VerumS never punish me like what sometimes happens in a car stereo environment or more V skewed frequency response headphones that I'll leave unnamed. So when I see his album get suggested, I gladly reach for his album and relax into my work.

VerumS, not just amazing for classical, but almost purpose built for fantastic electronica. But honestly, I haven't heard a genre sound bad on these beauties.

 

[Jluftig]

Oh. So, the guy who loves the Verum One keeps it in a gunbox. That make sense, considering what we know about the troll/craftsman who makes it.

 

[DemolitionMan]

Oh. So, the guy who loves the Verum One keeps it in a gunbox. That make sense, considering what we know about the troll/craftsman who makes it.

Have anything to contribute regarding the Verum One sound quality, frequency response or build quality?