[goldwerger]

This is a great soundtrack. I imagine on your system it sounds incredible!

Seriously, pure happiness

 

[geoffalter11]

I switched the Caldera over to the R28 for a try out. Still unsure how it pairs with the R28. It is stuck in between medium and high gain. Medium gain leaves a bit of dynamic punch out, high gain is almost too much. So, back to my Cembalo Spring 1 where everything is just fine and the Caldera and I can share the same space for a moment or two... or 120!

 

[geoffalter11]

I love this headphone and it hasn't even fully opened up yet. I can still feel restraint in the drivers, albeit very little. But, it is there. It really likes current. I am still playing with the best ways to use it with my system.

I have demoed or owned the 4z, Elite, Final D8K Pro, Diana V2, Susvara, and the LFF Code X for high end planars. It is every bit as good as all of them. Currently, the 4z is the only one of those in house, and they all have their strengths and weaknesses. I can't tell yet what the Caldera does better or worse, but to the conversation above on the Caldera vs Elite, I'd take the Caldera every day of the week. I don't like the planar tuning that mimics that E-Stat sound that has become a big part of the resolution wars at the top end of the planar world. The Caldera has more than enough resolution, and it still has tonal density and instrument weight that ZMF has always done well with their dynamics.

My two favorite planars for the past couple yrs have been the D8K Pro and the LCD-4z. I absolutely love my 4z. The Caldera sits in that world proudly. Vocals are still not fully developed. It is missing the bite I was expecting and that I know this headphone is capable of. Whether it will arrive due to me just learning the headphone and adjusting to its tuning, or if there are hours of playing needed.

How much time do y'all feel the Caldera needs to sound its best? If this was discussed earlier in the thread, I apologize for asking again. I really don't want to go back right now and read all 82 pages.

 

[ckhirnigs113]

Interestingly enough, most Elite owners remark about it being “resolving enough” or “detailed enough” while not at the levels of some of the other TOTL planars. I have never thought of myself as someone who seeks out insane levels of detail. At least it’s never been my top priority. My favorite headphones before the Elite were the Auteur and Verite Closed. Obviously I have a soft spot for the ZMF house sound.

I usually listen in the evenings as a way to relax, so the Elite being “smooth” and “polite” hasn’t bothered me in the least, but I could see how someone might prefer a more dynamic sound that grabs your attention every time you listen.

I appreciate the feedback on the comparison between the Elite and Caldera. It was very helpful. I still really want to get a chance to hear the Caldera. I don’t think I’m ready to spend $3K+ for the demo though. That’s what I keep telling myself at least!

 

[dfiled]

I recently sold my Feliks Euforia and purchased the Ampsandsound ovation v2 in anticipation of getting the caldera (it was recommended by Justin). It is quite low power. So hearing that the caldera loves current is making me wonder if I made an expensive mistake.

 

[goldwerger]

I recently sold my Feliks Euforia and purchased the Ampsandsound ovation v2 in anticipation of getting the caldera (it was recommended by Justin). It is quite low power. So hearing that the caldera loves current is making me wonder if I made an expensive mistake.

My observation was that it was driven very well with 0.5 Watt @ 60 ohm which is about similar to the Ampsandsound ovation v2 (I believe?). The synergy will be more important here imho

 

[geoffalter11]

My observation was that it was driven very well with 0.5 Watt @ 60 ohm which is about similar to the Ampsandsound ovation v2 (I believe?). The synergy will be more important here imho

I agree. My Icon HP8 drives it beautifully. I just prefer it on my Spring 1. Whereas I prefer the OG and Atrium on my HP8.

It isn’t a loudness thing for me and Justin may very well be right that it makes for great synergy with the Caldera.

 

[antdroid]

This is just going to be "a couple days of use" set of impressions and some measurements. Don't consider this a full review.

First, off I received this demo from Zach the other day and I had posted my first impressions after just an hour of play. I will say that the "spiciness" that I was hearing seems to have waned off a little bit with the default Caldera leather pads that came attached with the unit. The Suede pads smooth it out even more, though with those pads, there is a small bit loss of some of the intricacies and agile-transient response I hear with the normal pads. I also tried the thin cowhide pads, but I did not like them much for my own tastes/music, and basically put them away after I measured them afterward.

For those who are interested in pad measurements, I'll post those at the end here, along with a comparison to the Susvara, which is my favorite, and normal headphone I use when I want to listen to music on headphones at home.



I spent a good chunk of my first day and half listening to the Caldera on my iBasso DX240 DAP with Amp 8 MK2. I used a 4.4mm to XLR adapter and listened to it on that, as well as just listening to it on the single-ended output. I found the Caldera to have no issues with this portable source. I then took the Caldera for most of last night and today and plugged it into my normal listening setup of the Holo Spring 3 KTE and Bakoon AMP-13R through my Roon Core dedicated server PC. This opened up the quality quite a bit, with more depth, and improved resolution, and just opening up the overall sound in general. In my photo, I also have the new SMSL DO200 MK2 DAC, which was also sent to me for a review, and I've listened to it briefly with the Caldera, but I prefer the more engaging Holo Spring 3 in general.

I also compared it to the Hifiman Susvara on both source setups, and same general opinions on the source synergy. Susvara, as you know, needs quite a bit of current to get it to drive correctly, and just to get it loud. For reference, I had to double the volume output on high gain on my DAP to get it to the same listening levels.


Caldera General Impressions

I had a nice email exchange with Zach the other night sharing some music suggestions back and forth as we found out we share some common fondness for progressive bluegrass and indie folk music. For those who are interested in what type of music this is, I recommend checking out the Country Coffeehouse playlist on Spotify (I ported this playlist over to Qobuz/Roon for my listening here), and check out bands like Crooked Still or Andrew Bird, or stuff like that. I also listened to a bit of piano jazz music from artists like Bill Laurence, GoGo Penguin, and Tingvall Trio.

For this type of music, I really like the tuning that the Caldera brings with the more forward upper mid-range and treble, that I think sometimes is missing some prior ZMFs. The Atrium is another one that I think does this really well. Of course, making this go too forward can make it nasally sounding and I think the Caldera can hover that line on the default pads, with the Suede pads smoothing this out a little more as I mentioned before. The cowhide thin pads that I briefly tried remind me of of how Verite sounded when I owned it, but it's been a long time now since I parted ways with it, so take that with grain of salt.

The Caldera, to me, is fairly neutral sounding, with an elevated bass region that provides more body and meat to the bones than, say, my Susvara and other Hifiman planars. In this comparison, Hifiman-house sound is thinner and more focused on speed and attack, where I find the Caldera is more focused on being powerful and thicker, with a sound that has that traditional ZMF sound on the dynamics, but with the added agility and attack that the planar drivers typically bring. For the most part, this headphone reminds me of a Hifiman with a warmer and more bass emphasized sound. I prefer it over typical Audeze sound, and to me, it brings together the best of both worlds -- an Audeze-like low end mixed with the mid-range and treble of a typical upper-tier Hifiman (i.e. not too bright, but smooth sound of the Susvara, HE6-series, etc.)



In a direct comparison to the Susvara:

The Susvara is still beating the Caldera in resolution and speed. While the Caldera is meatier and thicker with a more balanced sound, I do find the Susvara to be overall smoother, with a more ethereal sound that is little more refined. The Caldera has more "dynamic driver" qualities to me than the Susvara does, if that makes sense. Both of these have quite similar general sound balance outside the slightly more elevated bass response of the Caldera.

I think the Caldera has a good soundstage and also good layering and depth. The Susvara is stretches a little wider and deeper. It has a more grand sound than the Caldera. I enjoy both for different needs. For orchestral and jazz music, I like the Susvara a lot. For rock and this progressive country music I talked about earlier, I like the Caldera quite a bit too. Both do all these genres well in my listening experiences so far.

I haven't compared the Caldera directly to my Sennheiser HD580 and HD600 yet, but I can see some similarities here too, in terms of tonality, but with a better soundstage and resolution. The Caldera kind of fits somewhere between the Susvara and those two for me in overall qualities (though leaning closer to the Susvara for some of the very critical listening things like detail retrieval).

Anyway, I don't know where I am going with this anymore. I don't think the Susvara and Caldera are necessary competitors, though it's hard not to compare them. For my personal tastes and enjoyment, I can see both being very good compliments to each other.

More to come.



Measurements

Now for the measurements I took. I use an IEC-60318-4 coupler with a flatplate and ear pinna that somewhat simulates the GRAS 43AG, however it is still a clone. I have a compensation file that I use to make it as close to that as possible and I've been very happy with how my FR graphs have turned out over the past couple years that I've used this over-ear system.

This first graph is of the three pads that came with this unit. The blue line is the default Caldera pads, while the red is the Suede (thick), and the green line is the Cowhide.




This second graph is a comparison to the Hifiman Susvara, in yellow. I removed the cowhide pad from this comparison as it measures a bit differently. I don't want to go too deep in the squiggle interpretations, but I hope you take a read through my audio listening experience above before really going over the graphs. Remember the lines are normalized to a specific frequency (in this case, 800Hz), and you need to look at the lines relative to themselves too as a whole response (i.e. Caldera bass may not show that its more elevated in this graph, but in my listening experience, it definitely has a warmer and thicker sound -- which maybe attributed to the less elevated treble range, when compared to the Susvara)





Matched at 1KHz -- (you'll see the bass levels are show it higher on the Caldera than the Susvara with similar treble levels)




Feel free to ask me any questions you have on either my impressions, squiggles or both. I'll post something more formal later when I have more time on these headphones, but this is probably going straight towards the top or near the top of my ranking list at this point. I really like what I am hearing here.

 

[dfiled]

My observation was that it was driven very well with 0.5 Watt @ 60 ohm which is about similar to the Ampsandsound ovation v2 (I believe?). The synergy will be more important here imho

Which amp are you referring to?

 

[robo24]

I recently sold my Feliks Euforia and purchased the Ampsandsound ovation v2 in anticipation of getting the caldera (it was recommended by Justin). It is quite low power. So hearing that the caldera loves current is making me wonder if I made an expensive mistake.

I don't know where the Pendant stands in comparison to the Ovation, but the Pendant on the 8ohm jack sounds quite a bit better than on the Ragnarok 2 XLR jack and that's a powerful amp. Volume is set much higher than the ZMF dynamics which I use on the 100ohm jack, but it can still get louder than I'd ever listen to.

 

[goldwerger]

Which amp are you referring to?

The decent (but not great) headphone amp built as add-on to the Bricasti M3h DAC. I wrote about it in my Caldera first impressions (https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/authors/goldwerger.546676/reviews). It did a pretty good job, and power wasn't any issue (even if I wouldn't think it was the best option by a mile). I am making an educated guess only based off that, guessing that at this level and up, the quality of amplification will start to matter more than quantity. I probably wouldn't go below that level though. As I noted, the headphones did scale wonderfully with a power amp. So there's that.

 

[Alenotta]

Interestingly enough, most Elite owners remark about it being “resolving enough” or “detailed enough” while not at the levels of some of the other TOTL planars. I have never thought of myself as someone who seeks out insane levels of detail. At least it’s never been my top priority. My favorite headphones before the Elite were the Auteur and Verite Closed. Obviously I have a soft spot for the ZMF house sound.

I usually listen in the evenings as a way to relax, so the Elite being “smooth” and “polite” hasn’t bothered me in the least, but I could see how someone might prefer a more dynamic sound that grabs your attention every time you listen.

I appreciate the feedback on the comparison between the Elite and Caldera. It was very helpful. I still really want to get a chance to hear the Caldera. I don’t think I’m ready to spend $3K+ for the demo though. That’s what I keep telling myself at least!

The Elite is great. I like my Empyrean for that slightly more relaxed sound and comfort. Caldera is its own thing. Definitely demo it when you can, and don't feel FOMO with your Elite!

 

[goldwerger]

The Elite is great. I like my Empyrean for that slightly more relaxed sound and comfort. Caldera is its own thing. Definitely demo it when you can, and don't feel FOMO with your Elite!

That is good advice, both ways

 

[helljudgement]

It is quite low power.

At 60 Ohms and 95db it is very efficient definitely not a headphone that will require gobs of power to drive. Very similar specs to the d8k pro and if that is anything to go by it should sound just fine as I ran that off my DNA Starlett which has very similar power output as the Ovation. Don't let it dampened your spirits with doubt before it arrive.

 

[geoffalter11]

I should clarify my comments on saying the Caldera loves current. The headphone is not difficult at all to get to acceptable volume on any of my amps. My R28 has 8 watts into 40 ohms. Plenty of power. My HP8 maxes at 700mw, and has 3 impedance matching settings that enables the amp to push all 700 milliwatts at the right time into the right load. My Spring 1 shows specs of 153mw into 62 ohm, but has 25db of gain and has enough power to drive any headphone on the planet at 9 on the volume knob. So, what did I really mean? I am finding the Caldera to be a typical planar in the sense that it may be easy to drive to acceptable volume levels easily, it definitely likes power and the more you give it, the better control I am experiencing over the drivers. Better bass solidity, more open and articulate midrange, and the treble becomes more subtle and shimmery without any hint of sibilance. All 3 of my amps sound great with the Caldera. But, the Spring 1 sounds best, by a large margin thus far. I could happily live with the HP8 and Caldera, it sounds awesome. However, I have a true unicorn amp in the Spring 1 that was built for planars and it gives current to this headphone at the right time which is why I made the comment I made.

I hope this clarifies. The Caldera is very interesting and different from the Atrium. A welcome respite as the Atrium has owned my headspace for the past few months.

Vocals are improving exponentially. This headphone is very source dependent. It is resolving enough to pick up changes in the mix and changes in how the music was recorded. I have listened to the same song on 3 different recordings and the vocals are in a different place within the mix on all three versions. That is some serious chops for a headphone to pick up that type of subtlety. I am really enjoying the Caldera thus far. It is starting to become more cohesive, which improves PRaT and overall enjoyment.