[biglazymoose]

Will do. I will have a bunch of ZMF impressions to post soon (breaking in a new Aeolus), but my Auteur is in with Zach getting a facelift currently. I will be interested to see how much of a difference the eikon perforated suede make, as I found the pad rolling options to be subtle with the Auteur. The Aeolus, on the other hand, is clearly VERY susceptible to pad rolling, a true chameleon of a headphone.

Awesome. Well its a good thing I have an Aeolus with extra pads ordered then.

That's what I figured. User Vtory over there commented about Universe Suede pads on his Auteur and said:

Actually, there's a bunch of posts about the effect of different pads. Vtory's posts are especially useful since he had a Blackwood Auteur.

Thread is entitled:

ZMF Auteur - An open back ZMF

Check it out

Hmmmm. Thats weird. Not bright at all to me. I’m pretty sensitive to treble I think. Hmmmm I’ll have to order some Eikon perf leather and see.

Thanks I’ll check out that thread. This was the first one I found for Auteur

 

[LCMusicLover]

...Hmmmm. Thats weird. Not bright at all to me. I’m pretty sensitive to treble I think. Hmmmm I’ll have to order some Eikon perf leather and see...

So, less bright than Auteur pads? Interesting. I guess it really is Your ears/My ears.

 

[biglazymoose]

So, less bright than Auteur pads? Interesting. I guess it really is Your ears/My ears.

Or I'm just clueless which is a possibility. I'll order some Eikon pads lol.

 

[gLer]

Or I'm just clueless which is a possibility. I'll order some Eikon pads lol.

Wait, did someone say the Auteur is bright? Not even with Auteur pads is that the case. It’s at least a touch warm of neutral, but mostly neutral, with a smooth, punchy weight to it. Then again mine is African Wenge. The Teak I heard was a touch spritely. Source matters too.

 

[jgwtriode]

On some material I found the Auteur Blackwoods to be just a touch bright and hard in the upper mid to treble.
But I remedied that by cutting holes in and wrapping HD650 inner pads around the drivers providing diffraction blankets on the baffles.
I know that shouldn't make a difference with the pads covering things up...but you can still hear reflection coming
off the baffles without them. Yes it surprised me too. A moment of serendipity and insight made me think of doing this after looking at loudspeaker baffles.
Its not huge but it even makes a difference with imaging, staging, layering and presence of the sound!
Now I find even on brighter recording no sense of edge of brightness at all plus the other benefits.


Happy Listening,

jgwtriode

 

[omniweltall]

On some material I found the Auteur Blackwoods to be just a touch bright and hard in the upper mid to treble.
But I remedied that by cutting holes in and wrapping HD650 inner pads around the drivers providing diffraction blankets on the baffles.
I know that shouldn't make a difference with the pads covering things up...but you can still hear reflection coming
off the baffles without them. Yes it surprised me too. A moment of serendipity and insight made me think of doing this after looking at loudspeaker baffles.
Its not huge but it even makes a difference with imaging, staging, layering and presence of the sound!
Now I find even on brighter recording no sense of edge of brightness at all plus the other benefits

Pics please?

 

[LCMusicLover]

Wait, did someone say the Auteur is bright? Not even with Auteur pads is that the case...

Gently disagreeing here. JMHO, my chain, my source, my ears of course...

I hear my Blackwood Auteur (with perf Auteur pads) as slightly bright of neutral, close to Utopia in terms of tonality. Nowhere near T1g2, but a bit brighter than HEKv2, which I hear as neutral. I will say it depends -- changing my chain can move Auteur tonality a fair amount. Not as bright with Laz Ref cable and Amperex PQ or Siemens CCAs in my LP. Brighter with Silver Dragon and Brimar CV-2492s in LP.

 

[gLer]

Gently disagreeing here. JMHO, my chain, my source, my ears of course...

I hear my Blackwood Auteur (with perf Auteur pads) as slightly bright of neutral, close to Utopia in terms of tonality. Nowhere near T1g2, but a bit brighter than HEKv2, which I hear as neutral. I will say it depends -- changing my chain can move Auteur tonality a fair amount. Not as bright with Laz Ref cable and Amperex PQ or Siemens CCAs in my LP. Brighter with Silver Dragon and Brimar CV-2492s in LP.

Yep I guess it depends on your hearing, taste, and what you consider ‘bright’. My ‘other’ headphone is the HD800 SDR, and in my system with a healthy dollop of SonarWorks, I don’t find it bright either, so coming off the HD800 the Auteur is definitely not bright to my ears. DT990, AKG812, un-EQ’d stock HD800...those are bright headphones!

 

[jgwtriode]

Pics please?

Here you go. HD 650 inner pad diffraction blankets. Tacked with tape....have not made them permanent in case I ever want to just remove them....So far no way!

Happy Listening,

jgwtriode

 

[omniweltall]

Here you go. HD 650 inner pad diffraction blankets. Tacked with tape....have not made them permanent in case I ever want to just remove them....So far no way!

Nice clean job!

 

[jgwtriode]

Not quite as much as I'd like but it's plenty functionally right! I would like to see Zach play with this and develop it further! But tweaking is fun and sometimes really does make a difference! I also use mad scientist tuners and mpingo discs on my cables which makes some improvements as well but not nearly as much as this mod!

Happy Listening,

jgwtriode

 

[LCMusicLover]

Yep I guess it depends on your hearing, taste, and what you consider ‘bright’. My ‘other’ headphone is the HD800 SDR, and in my system with a healthy dollop of SonarWorks, I don’t find it bright either, so coming off the HD800 the Auteur is definitely not bright to my ears. DT990, AKG812, un-EQ’d stock HD800...those are bright headphones!

I hear you. T1g2 is my reference ‘bright’ headphone. I’m sure there are others even brighter, but T1 was more than enough for me. I don’t eq, nor mod beyond pad & cable rolling...and tubes for my LP.

I recently got some RAD-0 and their tonality is closest to Auteur of all my planars.

Bottom line, I hear Auteur as brightish coming from Ether 2, Ether Flow Open, Empyrean and even HEKv2, although HEK is really close, and I hear Utopia as a little brighter still. At the same time, I guess you come from the other direction and hear the opposite. I think we’re really meeting in the middle.

~aside~ Funny how many disagreements about the character of equipment end up being rooted in inconsistent interpretation of seemingly shared vocabulary:

‘Oh, you mean brighter than Nightowls.’ ‘Oh, you meant not as bright as HD-800s.’

I wonder if there is a headphone which a majority of relatively experienced listeners would agree was neutral?

 

[Geezer Rock 001]

I am at an estimated 75 hours of head time and burn in and have settled on the Eikon pads. Tonight I listened to Cat Stevens and Tom Rush and it was a Wow session.

The past two years a lot of very good headphones have passed through my collection. I cannot recall one that has been as detailed, cohesive and pleasing as this Padauk Auteur.

I don't know how Zach tunes them to be so accurate and entertaining, but his work on the Auteur and the Aeolus really hits all of my hot buttons!

Thanks Pharmaboy for the gentle push in the right direction.

 

[wenbinbin2010]

Double-posting here and the headphone picture thread, but I couldn't resist. Cocobolo and brass is an absolutely stunning combo...sadly I had to move on from these Auteurs since I now have a Cocobolo Verite. FWIW, I thought the Cocobolo wood sounded more lush/dark than the Teak Auteur I had previously. In fact, if I hadn't gotten the Cocobolo Verite, I would have been completely happy with the Cocobolo Auteur, they were very comparable.

 

[Preachy1]

Those are gorgeous! Wish I knew you were selling those when I bought mine in Teak. I love the Teak, but they are vanilla compared to those.