[ThanatosVI]

I believe there has been quite a bit written in previous posts comparing to the Empyrean and the Elite. Not so sure about the Sol P. That headphone is quite a bit more rare.

Thank you, I will read up on a few past pages then

 

[geoffalter11]

Thank you, I will read up on a few past pages then

For sure. Lots comparing to the Elite. Go back like 8-10 pages and then right around page 80 there starts to be more comparisons.

 

[geoffalter11]

What cables are y'all liking with the Caldera? The Audio Sensibility Silver Statement is a perfect compliment. I would highly recommend the ZMF Silver Cable with this headphone. Detail is really a strong point. Not just quantity, but quality. I am hearing background talking between band members, moments where they are voicing their own pleasure, or their cues to each other. Stuff I haven't heard before with ZMF headphones. Not sure the silver cable is what is bringing out that level of detail. Two different thoughts jumbled into one. But, the silver gives the treble a boost that brings everything together with a bit more focus and bite.

 

[geoffalter11]

I feel like I need to keep writing! The Caldera is absolutely blowing me away. It is a holy **** type of sound! . This headphone has absolutely no distortion. Sounds come from every direction, with intention! It just sounds so easy, yet powerful, subtle, dynamic, and full of life.

In French cooking there is a technique for how to pan roast a steak. You start in cast iron with a smoking hot pan, sear the outside until crusted, flip over and then stick into a 450 degree oven and cook until the steak is 120 degrees. You pull it out and then you stick in a nub of butter a smashed yet still unpeeled piece of garlic and a sprig of thyme. Back onto the flame and you tip the pan, the butter foams and browns and you baste the steak until it is finished to your desired temperature. For me that is 128-135 degrees depending on the cut. You rest it on a platter in a warm spot with the juices and garlic and thyme on top and then serve. Either whole or sliced against the grain.

Why do I bring this up? Because when that steak is cooked properly with perfect technique it tastes blissful. Powerful, subtle, perfect texture, dynamic, and alive. It tastes how the Caldera sounds! I can't live in a world without either sensibility. They are one in the same for me. The Caldera is evoking these types of feelings.

Ok, off my soap box and back to listening...

 

[geoffalter11]

Last post of the night... @goldwerger referenced bluegrass in his amazing review. Here is one of the world's best pickers doing his best song...

 

[Alenotta]

What cables are y'all liking with the Caldera?

I'm using a WyWire Platinum and it is fantastic. This cable has pretty incredible effects on all the headphones I've tried it on. It also made my VC and Empyrean come to life in new ways. Very fast and dynamic. Pairs well with Caldera.

 

[geoffalter11]

I'm using a WyWire Platinum and it is fantastic. This cable has pretty incredible effects on all the headphones I've tried it on. It also made my VC and Empyrean come to life in new ways. Very fast and dynamic. Pairs well with Caldera.

Thank you for your response. I am absolutely loving the Audio Sensibility Silver Statement I generally use with my LCD-4z. The Platinum is a great cable... I am not surprised by your results.

 

[Alenotta]

I feel like I need to keep writing! The Caldera is absolutely blowing me away. It is a holy **** type of sound! .

It is the only headphone I think I've ever listened to for like 5 min and was like...ok here is my money. It was just so good I wasn't analyzing the sound for compromises. The tuning felt tailored to me.

I'm in the process of swapping out my chain to what I think/hope will be a great complimentary system for Caldera. Breaking in a Gustard R26 which sounds fantastic already with my Liquid Platinum. Ordered the Cayin 300b mkii which is on the way now. Hoping for a real mind blowing moment later this week.

 

[geoffalter11]

It is the only headphone I think I've ever listened to for like 5 min and was like...ok here is my money. It was just so good I wasn't analyzing the sound for compromises. The tuning felt tailored to me.

I'm in the process of swapping out my chain to what I think/hope will be a great complimentary system for Caldera. Breaking in a Gustard R26 which sounds fantastic already with my Liquid Platinum. Ordered the Cayin 300b mkii which is on the way now. Hoping for a real mind blowing moment later this week.

Sounds like a great chain once you have everything implemented. Congrats! Looking forward to your impressions once you have everything up and running. The 300B should be awesome. Such a unique sound. I need a 300b amp at some point.

Tonight was my first jaw dropping listen with the Caldera and my tube amp. I am definitely a bit giddy tonight.

 

[Monsterzero]

In French cooking there is a technique for how to pan roast a steak. You start in cast iron with a smoking hot pan, sear the outside until crusted, flip over and then stick into a 450 degree oven and cook until the steak is 120 degrees. You pull it out and then you stick in a nub of butter a smashed yet still unpeeled piece of garlic and a sprig of thyme. Back onto the flame and you tip the pan, the butter foams and browns and you baste the steak until it is finished to your desired temperature. For me that is 128-135 degrees depending on the cut. You rest it on a platter in a warm spot with the juices and garlic and thyme on top and then serve. Either whole or sliced against the grain.

It's one AM here and now I'm hungry....thanks dude!

 

[SlothRock]

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.

Amazing review and just what I needed since I'm a Susvara owner who would also say the Susvara is my favorite by quite a large margin. This seals it for me - once the Caldera Closed is released, I'm going to be a day one purchase (if it performs/sounds similar, which I imagine it will). Sounds like it will be the perfect closed back compliment to the Susvara with a much weightier bass and more attack while retaining more neutral tonality in the mids which I love.

 

[jgwtriode]

I'm using a WyWire Platinum and it is fantastic. This cable has pretty incredible effects on all the headphones I've tried it on. It also made my VC and Empyrean come to life in new ways. Very fast and dynamic. Pairs well with Caldera.

Love Alex's wire. I use it all through my system. The best wire I have tried!

 

[geoffalter11]

It's one AM here and now I'm hungry....thanks dude!

Welcome!!!

 

[jinxy245]

I've listened to the Caldera Loaner I have on hand for only a couple of hours....this headphone is beguiling (in the best possible way). As been said before it marries so many qualities from other ZMFs and has it's own unique presentation....this is going to be a tougher than usual write up for me I think.

Assuming of course I can remember to write down things that pop out at me...I just want to listen & forget to write. Always a good sign.

 

[robo24]

A week with the Caldera now, some random observations (edit: all of this is with the suede pads). One thing that has become very apparent--its clarity and resolution are so outstanding that it becomes very easy to listen more loudly than I normally would with other headphones.

Most other headphones become unpleasant once I get to certain volumes and even if not distorted at all, just feel "too much" and I realize I'm listening too loudly. With the Caldera, it doesn't really happen because everything is so distinct, clear, and separated and I'm finally understanding what people mean when they go on about a headphone having excellent layering. I put on my Stax SR-009, which has a wide soundstage and is very detailed, but I realized it's like everything is sort of pushed onto the same plane and ultimately comes across as kind of flat in comparison. The Caldera are far more 3D, like the bass presence is there and kind of surrounding me like from a subwoofer, and when other voices and instruments come in, there is a much greater sense of where they're coming from with much greater variation in depth and height. All of this clarity and detail also emulates some of that electrostatic ethereal and airiness but I'd never describe these as airy headphones.

There is also this contradictory experience where even little sounds come across both incredibly delicately while simultaneously having weight and dimension. I've certainly heard things like lip movement in more quiet tracks or when there is only or predominantly vocals on many higher end headphones, but it's like I can also visualize the tongue touching and coming off of the roof of the mouth. The Carpenters high res version of "Close to You" is a great example of this. Things like singers drawing in breath are also there to hear on many tracks if listened for. All these little details aren't distracting, but they're there if you want to concentrate on them.

Background singers, whose voices seem indistinct and blended normally on other headphones, sound both "right" but also I can hear individual singers when I concentrate on it. Even more impressive are things like audience clapping instead of that loud general clapping noise which can be indistinct, I can hear individual clappers, things like someone clearing their throat, or in studio recordings during quiet periods hearing things like a chair creaking or moving slightly. It's hard to believe all this information has been there in my music files all along, just hiding or lost. A number of times I've had to remove them to make sure those little noises aren't coming from somewhere else in my house.

Having all the Beatles releases, including those with alternate takes and versions of many songs, I've had songs come on where I assume it must be one of those alternate versions. I look and nope, same album or single versions I've heard for decades. It's just that I'm hearing everything that's actually there in each track with such distinctness and form that it comes across as versions I've not heard before. Especially with the pre-Rubber Soul albums which have always come across as having some of that AM radio sound, the music just has so much more to it than I realized and I'm appreciating those older albums more.

I also understand much more now what people mean when they talk about headphones sounding veiled. It's like a thin shroud has been removed from everything and my other headphones seem veiled to some degree in comparison, and none that I own have I ever thought of as veiled.

Another surprise is how forgiving they are on lesser recordings. Not as much as the Atrium, but more than the Verites. Also been surprised more than once, especially with some older dance songs I imported from CDs many years ago when 128Kbps AAC seemed sufficient and never bothered to re-import as flac or 320Kbps AAC, that they're such low resolution files. At the same time, some of those older imports that don't sound as good it's very obvious that they're low res.

I've seen some comments that the Caldera is difficult to wrap one's head around or describe properly and I get that too. There is just a LOT going on here. While I've thought of $4k and up pricing as kind of crazy, I now realize that indeed there is yet another step above even $2500 TOTL dynamics in what headphones are capable of. And ZMF is able to come in under those prices. Even so, to my ears it feels like more of a jump than it is from their $1500 to $2500 models, contrary to the expectation of diminishing returns when spending another grand to get that last 1 or 2% toward some goal of perfection. If I need to recoup funds there's no question I'd sell off 2 which together cost more than the $3200 initial Caldera pricing before I'd let go of the Caldera. While I'm one who generally prefers a lot of variety over having one thing that's "the best" I'm starting to understand that other thinking too, how some people get to certain summit-fi models as their ideal and just let go of everything else as sort of a "what's the point?" feeling. Not that I'm letting much go from my collection anytime soon, but for now I'm still having trouble listening to anything else because I really want to hear all my music with the Caldera.