First, some photos of these beauties
Hey all, sorry for the wall of text, but I've had a pair of Auteurs in for review recently, and wanted to get more information out to everyone before the pre-order starts in a few days. If this should be somewhere else, just let me know.
Auteur Review
About me:
I am a lifelong audio enthusiast. I started my journey on a Fisher-Price turntable at age two, moved on up through my parent’s home audio system, a CVS speaker/disc player, a Walkman, a few iPods, some Skullcandy headphones, some random cans from The Sharper Image, then to OG Beats, Bose speakers, to a Klipsch 2.1 system and in-ears, I kept on reattaching my head and picked up some Beyerdynamic DT 880s, then received a pair of HiFiMAN He-560s as a gift, and realized just how high the gear pinnacle really was. Since then, I have been trying out various headphones. I have kept my favorites around, and will be using them as a reference against which to share how I feel about the Auteur.
I love at least a few songs from pretty much all genres of music, but the bulk of what I listen to is experimental/indie rock/indietronica, classic rock, folk rock, hip-hop, trip-hop, spoken word, melodic EDM, and French and Spanish rock.
My Setup:
For this review, I will be running all headphones through my Oppo HA-1, both as a DAC and a headphone amp. I will also offer my feelings of the Auteur out of a Feliks Elise, running Tung-Sol 6336a power tubes and Tung-Sol 6SN7 GTB driver tubes. The Auteur pads vs. perforated Eikon pads will also be compared through the HA-1, but the former will be used for the rest of the review. Music will be run out of my custom-built PC over Spotify Premium via USB to the HA-1. I don’t listen to FLAC for the bulk of my music, and I am most familiar with the tracks to be mentioned, so they will be my reference. The highest quality in Spotify was selected, and volume matching was turned off (the settings I always use). Volume across headphone comparisons was matched as much as possible with a BFX digital sound meter sealed to the headphone cups in a cardboard enclosure. All headphone cables used were OFC 4-pin XLR, plugged into the balanced output of the HA-1, with a Neutrik-terminated ¼” adapter used to listen to the Auteurs through the Elise. I have had the Auteurs around for a few weeks for the sake of this review.
Comparisons:
I will be comparing the Auteurs to the ZMF Eikon, Sennheiser HD800, and Mr. Speakers Ether Flow. All of which I own, and have listened to for a few months at the least.
Test Tracks:
I will be comparing headphones primarily across these, but also other tracks. I don’t make mention of every track in every comparison. I’ve tried to select fairly popular songs across a spectrum of music that I like and am familiar with.
Natural Causes, by Emancipator on Dusk to Dawn
Viices, by Made in Heights on MADE IN HEIGHTS
House of Cards, by Radio Head on In Rainbows
Peace Train, by Cat Stevens on Tea for the Tillerman
Hey You, by Pink Floyd on The Wall
The Four Seasons, Violin Concerto in G Minor, Op. 8, No. 2, RV 315, Summer III, by Antonio Vivaldi, performed by Adrian Chandler
Tamacun - Remastered, by Rodrigo y Gabriela on Rodrigo y Gabriela (Deluxe)
Warm Foothills, by Alt-J on This is All Yours
Boomerang, by The Uncluded on Hokey Fright
Build and Comfort:
If you have ever owned a ZMF headphone, this section is almost unnecessary. ZMF construction is perhaps unparalleled in its marriage of organic beauty and robust build. The Auteur is no exception, and brings to the table a headphone even lighter than the Eikon, with which this new can shares its drivers. Tipping the scales at around 475 grams, the Auteur takes the weight distribution system and comfort of the Eikon and Atticus, and uses it to spread an even smaller mass across your head. Combined with an open-backed design which allows heat (and obviously sound) to escape, a ZMF ‘phone has never been more comfortable. For those unacquainted, these headphones use a spring steel band wrapped in padded leather, with a thick leather suspension strap below, to evenly distribute pressure. Caliper pressure on my sample could have been a touch higher, but I expect that this is due to their being pre-production, and using non-standard hardware. Pads are plush, and due to the perforations on both sets of pads used with the Auteur, contribute to its low-heat feel.
The cups on my sample are a beautiful dark wenge wood, which may or may not go into production at some point (I’m not being vague about any information that I have, I really don’t know). Zach has stated that he is planning various wood runs for the Auteur, but whether this will be one of them remains a mystery. The hardware on this headphone is similarly somewhat non-standard. I’m told the gimbal design will be updated ever-so-slightly, and that the chrome hardware covering the primary venting for the headphone will be replaced by brushed metal finishes, and will be color-matched to the sliders (in nickel and brass, I believe). These “windows” take their inspiration from French stained glass, and along with the wood cups, certainly give the headphone a refined and artisanal look and feel.
Listening Impressions:
Bass:
Given that the Auteur shares a driver with the Eikon, one might expect a similar bass experience. However, sub bass with the Auteur was much more nuanced and balanced than it is with the Eikon (more on this comparison later). The Auteur’s bass in general felt spatially extended and textured, and had seemingly boundless room to play. The bass response was well behaved, and sounded flat across the mid and sub bass. Bass was not overly reserved; even through the Auteur pads, bass felt impactful, tightly controlled, and uncompressed. Don’t worry about only hearing where the bass is supposed to be, the Auteur can reach deep, and played back 20 Hz tones to ear-trembling effect. Overall, the bass response of the Auteurs was well integrated, and had a naturalness of decay yet to be experienced on ZMF headphones.
Mids:
The midrange of the Auteur felt airy, natural, and just barely on the warm side of neutral. Female vocals were enjoyable to listen to, and had well-articulated transient edges. The guitar pairing in Tamacun was well layered, and dynamic, although I want that song to sound faster no matter what system it is playing out of, the speed is just addictive. Cymbal crashes and taps, guitar strumming, and Cat Stevens voice all played around each other nicely in Peace Train, with the frequency response across the midrange giving no preference to specific instruments, beyond what I am familiar with in the recording. Vocals sounded forward, and guitar notes were able to echo and decay around the soundstage, and were well-placed. Perhaps I’d like to hear just slightly more meat behind low male vocals, but I’m really not sure, as this varies a fair amount between tracks, and I expect recording quality. The midrange felt quite close to where I want it.
Treble:
The cascade of violins in Summer 3, and their speed and finesse, were delightful out of the Auteurs through my HA-1, although these notes did sound more three dimensional and natural when listened to out of my OTL amp, but more on that later. Xylophone chiming in the opening to Boomerang rang out cleanly, yet maintained the intentional grain of the song, and did not come through as overly bright. While mid-treble did sound slightly elevated, it was not peaky, but rose and fell gently, adding a bit of sparkle to the notes sitting atop the warmer lower octaves. But even this tonal choice seemed to contribute to the overall natural timbre of the Auteur. Maybe it was the wood housing, or the gentle transition in loudness between frequencies, but these headphones felt coherent throughout.
Imaging and soundstage:
Transient edges sounded exceedingly natural through the Auteur, which helped to create a believable acoustic image. Upon listening to any random track, the soundstage of which the Auteur is capable may or may not reveal itself. Rather than making most songs sound artificially distant, the meat of most tracks sounded nearby, and well separated; only when recordings were actually staged with space was the impressive depth and dimensionality of these cans revealed. In House of Cards for example, several decay and reverb effects throughout the song took on an ephemeral quality as they ricocheted around my head, but guitar notes started off much closer to me. Listening to Strive, by Amber Rubarth, instrumentation was so well separated and far out of my head that I had to check that my speakers weren’t playing. Listening to the series of percussive shakes and tapping in Viices had me waiting to see where around me the next sound would come from. The image that the Auteurs created was somewhat of an ellipsoid, with its longest axis being the width of the image, although depth and height were also substantial. Soundstage size does not rival that of the HD800, but I don’t think Zach intended it to, and, more importantly, at no point did I want it to. Image specificity and the coherence of the music made the space in which it played satisfying and believable.
Solid State (HA-1) vs. Tube (Elise)
To begin with, I can only speak to the experience of using my HA-1 versus using my Elise (with the currently installed tubes) with the Auteur. There are tube-like solid-state amps, and neutral tube amps. I don’t want to try to classify either of my amps sound profiles here, but I like them both, and they each gave their own flavor to the Auteur.
My notes thus far have been referring to the experience of the Auteur out of the Oppo HA-1, so I won’t go repeating myself, and will try to characterize where tube sound differentiated itself in interesting ways.
As you might expect, the Auteurs sounded a bit more euphonic through tubes. Warmth was not the most prominent way in which this displayed itself, however. Instead, the various parts of each song blended into each other more readily. The image was slightly smaller than what I heard on the HA-1, but this may be just because the edges of sounds received gentle smoothing. Oddly, this did not interfere with relative placement of sources in the image much, if at all. The lower mids and mid bass were warmed up a bit and textured, but were far from sounding syrupy. This was especially true of guitar strumming. Violin notes sounded perhaps more natural, but I preferred the sharper character I heard out of my HA-1, especially in a track like Summer III. The differences were there with tubes, but they really did not make or break the experience for me. If you prefer tubes in general, the Auteur responds well to them, and likewise for solid-state amps.
Auteur Pads vs. Perforated Eikon Pads
This section will be brief, as there is not much to say. The perforated Eikon pads add a bit of weight and warmth to the lower octaves over the Auteur pads. Pad swapping certainly makes a difference, but when the change is largely pad depth and angling, the changes are less dramatic than a change in material or venting might bring about. As I understand it, pre-order Auteurs (I’m not sure about others) are going to be shipping with both sets of pads, so it is really up to you to decide your preference. The Auteur pads are certainly more neutral, but if you prefer the more classic warmth of the ZMF house sound, then take the perforated Eikon pads for a spin.
Headphone Comparisons:
Auteur vs. Eikon
This is perhaps the easiest comparison to make. The Auteurs are made with the same driver as the Eikons, by the same ear, after all. That said, the differences are likely larger and more diverse than you might expect. The Auteurs sound more ‘open’, but what does that mean? To start with, the Auteurs have a more even bass response than the Eikons. This does mean some of the deep reverberating rumble of the Eikons is missing, but it is replaced by an extremely satisfying bass response that feels more real, and doesn’t leave the mids feeling somewhat recessed like they did on the Eikons. Bass transient response and decay is also better on the Auteurs. While the edges of notes aren’t quite as fast, the transitions between them are much better resolved, and communicate the nuance of the music more completely. The treble of the Auteur takes cues from that of the Eikon, but smooths some of the peaks, largely through gentler transitions, ample decay, and an overall more balanced midrange to stand in support of them. The Eikon certainly has its place as a deeply satisfying closed can, and one which has earned a place in my heart, but the Auteur is the technically superior headphone, sacrificing very little for all the gains that it makes.
Auteur vs. HD800
The Auteurs make no attempt to be as aggressively detailed as the HD800. This is not to say that the Auteurs obscure information, rather, they allow you to explore at your leisure. Where the HD800 spreads a song thin over a huge surface so that each piece can be picked apart and examined, the Auteur creates a smaller, more dense sound, that contains a wealth of information to discover. In terms of perceived frequency response, the Auteur is dramatically more impactful, with more substantive and low-reaching bass, lusher mids, and better-balanced, if less sparkly, highs. The HD800 is dominant when it comes to image specificity and scale, and does a better job at providing sharp edges to track components. I am repeating a characterization of the HD800s made before, but compared to the Auteur, I can’t help but see them as an intellectual curiosity, and a tool. They are a marvelously resolving headphone, but sometimes I want to listen to music for the whole that it is, rather than inspect all of its nooks and crannies all the time. The Auteur allows music to flow in a much more organic way, without sacrificing the detail of the HD800, but makes these details a choice to engage with.
Auteur vs. Ether Flow
The Ether Flows are coherent, not overly bright, have solid bass, and their image is well-defined without being gigantic. These are probably the headphones that I own which are most similar to the Auteurs in terms of summed experience. Certainly, the timbre and general sound of the Eikons resembles that of the Auteurs quite strongly, but due to the open nature of the latter, and their overall more balanced character, they match more closely the experience of the Ether Flows.
The comparison then, is that much more difficult. Neither of these headphones makes any real errors in frequency response, and choosing between them comes down to preference, largely. The Ether Flows sound slightly more diffuse than the Auteurs, where the Auteurs have more dynamism to their sound across the spectrum. At the same time, this feature of the Ether Flows makes parts of the mix feel more blended, in songs that benefit from this. Portions of the bass and treble do sound quick out of the Ether Flow, but this seems more to be due to the relative volume of these frequencies compared to the low-mids of the headphone, as opposed to the actual speed of the Ether Flow’s response overall. The Auteur sacrifices some of this forced precision to paint a more cohesive image across the spectrum. Bass on both headphones is very solid, with the Auteurs able to reach lower, and providing a smoother transition into the lower mids. The Ether Flows also have a notch that was somewhat obvious on guitar-laden tracks like Tamacun, especially given the speed of the song, where the Auteurs outshined them on multiple fronts. The Ether Flows however do provide a slightly wider soundstage, and so better specificity and separation when listening to distant sounds. The treble on both of these headphones falls short of the extreme detail and brightness of the HD800 (for better or worse), but both do a fantastic job rendering elements in these octaves, with the Ether Flows having a slightly sharper sound than the Auteurs, again for better or worse.
Closing Thoughts
Unsurprisingly, the Auteur sounds like an open-backed Eikon, but what that means exactly, and the level of coherence that ZMF has put out are anything but a repackaging. Perhaps the greatest accolade I can give the Auteurs is to say that each time I listened to them in the background, I grew upset with myself that I would do anything but give the Auteurs my undivided attention. Unlike with the HD800, I was not being forced to listen, but enticed into a deeply satisfying experience. I strongly recommend that you try out these headphones at the very least. The combined musicality, aesthetic, and build quality that they provide is unrivaled. Thank you to Zach for lending me the Auteurs to review. It’s been a joy to have them around, and I will be sad to see them return to their home (for now).
