[Astral Abyss]

I snatched up the red-stained Manchurian Ash Verite Closed this morning from the ZMF November Sale. I still can't believe I was able to get a one-of-a-kind VC when I had every plan to buy the cheapest option available (Monkeypod B-Stock). Here's a snapshot of the one I've got coming to me:

Good choice! For some reason I want to reach out and squeeze them. ...not sure why...

 

[GDuss]

Hi Everyone, and apologies in advance for the long post. I’m happy to be joining this thread as my VC’s arrived about 10 days ago. They’ve been burning in since then, but I’ve also been listening for 1-2 hours per night so I’m probably not picking up on the changes that happen over time. Yeah, I could have just checked them out briefly in the beginning and not listened until after a few hundred hours, but they sounded awesome even on first listen, so why wait

I should say up front that I have had an Aeolus for about a year and a half, so I have some background with the ZMF sound. I won’t say too much about specific characteristics of their sounds as I’m not sure I have much to add to what has already been posted here and on other internet sites. In general, I agree with what others have said about both the Aeolus and VC. I will make some comments in a follow-up post about things I've noticed while getting used to them, but others have reported similar comments so it won't be totally new.

Big thanks go out to Zach and Bevin for several reasons. First, I visited them at the ZMF shop just over a year ago (at that time their shop was also known as their house ). They were amazingly welcoming. Zach did a tour of the entire process and explained every step along the way, and also introduced me to the various team members working that day. It’s an understatement to say how cool it was to talk to him about each of the steps, and see all the components in various phases of machining and assembly. I’ve said before on the Aeolus thread that almost everything I know about wood comes from ZMF-related discussions, so it was super fun to see the different cups with their respective woods in raw form and to talk about their characteristics. It was also great to see how they are finished, to see cable making in action, the setups for QC... There are just too many interesting things from that tour to list here.


(pics at the listening station from the tour last year, you may have seen their new shop in recent videos on youtube by @Darthpool )

At the end of the tour was the equally fun part, demoing the whole ZMF range. Bevin had everything set up and ready to go, several amps/DACs were warmed up, and a laptop with Tidal. To digress briefly, I’ve been into wine for many years, and I think one of the most helpful learning experiences with wine is to taste different styles side-by-side as it helps tremendously in learning the differences. The same is true for audio gear so this was invaluable in figuring out differences between the headphones. Zach and Bevin were gracious enough to let me stay for several hours of listening as they went about their work. I could have stayed the entire day but didn’t want to wear out my welcome. Nonetheless, there was enough time with the lineup to know that I liked the Verites (I could honestly be happy with any of their lineup). Before I left, I told them I would buy a Verite at some point in the future. Fast forward a year and here we are.

This leads me to my second reason for thanks going out to Zach and Bevin. The patience with the continual discussions, and long lists of questions, on exactly what to buy. These emails didn’t narrow down a final contender until a few months ago. It took much back and forth before I settled on the VC versus the VO, and then after that, to figure out what wood to get. All of these amazing stabilized wood VC’s people have posted are super impressive. And the LTD woods have all been stunning as well. But one of my design goals was to stay away from the heavier end of the weight range, and these LTD models generally use harder woods that have higher weights.

So where did this road lead? Eventually the option came up to do a set of VC in Koa. Admittedly I didn’t know much at the time about Koa (other than having seen the trees in Hawaii when I visited there; like I said, my knowledge of wood comes from ZMF) but from Zach’s description, it is a bit harder than Monkeypod and thus a bit heavier, but not likely to end up too far over 500 grams. After reading up on the history of Koa as a tonewood, and the list of musicians using Koa guitars, the decision was made. Almost a year after visiting ZMF, I put in the order, and just over 10 weeks later, they were here.



You’ve all heard this before, but the depth and chatoyance of the wood is impossible to capture in photos. This has always been true of my Aeolus and is even more true with these VCs. I’m not doing them justice, but hopefully you get the idea.

Final thanks to Bevin and Zach on all the personal touches included with the order, some of which incorporated elements of the email discussions leading up to the purchase. I’m not sure whether Bevin tried to match the Bocote Salire stand that I ordered to the Koa cups, but they look fantastic together (pics of those will happen at some point down the road). It’s very satisfying to be able to buy handcrafted headphones from such a wonderful team. I’m sure you all already know this.

Apologies again for the long rambling post here.

By the way, they sound fantastic. All this text and I didn't even talk about their sound. Clearly I would be a terrible reviewer .

 

[jarredp1993]

Hi Everyone, and apologies in advance for the long post. I’m happy to be joining this thread as my VC’s arrived about 10 days ago. They’ve been burning in since then, but I’ve also been listening for 1-2 hours per night so I’m probably not picking up on the changes that happen over time. Yeah, I could have just checked them out briefly in the beginning and not listened until after a few hundred hours, but they sounded awesome even on first listen, so why wait

I should say up front that I have had an Aeolus for about a year and a half, so I have some background with the ZMF sound. I won’t say too much about specific characteristics of their sounds as I’m not sure I have much to add to what has already been posted here and on other internet sites. In general, I agree with what others have said about both the Aeolus and VC. I will make some comments in a follow-up post about things I've noticed while getting used to them, but others have reported similar comments so it won't be totally new.

Big thanks go out to Zach and Bevin for several reasons. First, I visited them at the ZMF shop just over a year ago (at that time their shop was also known as their house ). They were amazingly welcoming. Zach did a tour of the entire process and explained every step along the way, and also introduced me to the various team members working that day. It’s an understatement to say how cool it was to talk to him about each of the steps, and see all the components in various phases of machining and assembly. I’ve said before on the Aeolus thread that almost everything I know about wood comes from ZMF-related discussions, so it was super fun to see the different cups with their respective woods in raw form and to talk about their characteristics. It was also great to see how they are finished, to see cable making in action, the setups for QC... There are just too many interesting things from that tour to list here.


(pics at the listening station from the tour last year, you may have seen their new shop in recent videos on youtube by @Darthpool )

At the end of the tour was the equally fun part, demoing the whole ZMF range. Bevin had everything set up and ready to go, several amps/DACs were warmed up, and a laptop with Tidal. To digress briefly, I’ve been into wine for many years, and I think one of the most helpful learning experiences with wine is to taste different styles side-by-side as it helps tremendously in learning the differences. The same is true for audio gear so this was invaluable in figuring out differences between the headphones. Zach and Bevin were gracious enough to let me stay for several hours of listening as they went about their work. I could have stayed the entire day but didn’t want to wear out my welcome. Nonetheless, there was enough time with the lineup to know that I liked the Verites (I could honestly be happy with any of their lineup). Before I left, I told them I would buy a Verite at some point in the future. Fast forward a year and here we are.

This leads me to my second reason for thanks going out to Zach and Bevin. The patience with the continual discussions, and long lists of questions, on exactly what to buy. These emails didn’t narrow down a final contender until a few months ago. It took much back and forth before I settled on the VC versus the VO, and then after that, to figure out what wood to get. All of these amazing stabilized wood VC’s people have posted are super impressive. And the LTD woods have all been stunning as well. But one of my design goals was to stay away from the heavier end of the weight range, and these LTD models generally use harder woods that have higher weights.

So where did this road lead? Eventually the option came up to do a set of VC in Koa. Admittedly I didn’t know much at the time about Koa (other than having seen the trees in Hawaii when I visited there; like I said, my knowledge of wood comes from ZMF) but from Zach’s description, it is a bit harder than Monkeypod and thus a bit heavier, but not likely to end up too far over 500 grams. After reading up on the history of Koa as a tonewood, and the list of musicians using Koa guitars, the decision was made. Almost a year after visiting ZMF, I put in the order, and just over 10 weeks later, they were here.



You’ve all heard this before, but the depth and chatoyance of the wood is impossible to capture in photos. This has always been true of my Aeolus and is even more true with these VCs. I’m not doing them justice, but hopefully you get the idea.

Final thanks to Bevin and Zach on all the personal touches included with the order, some of which incorporated elements of the email discussions leading up to the purchase. I’m not sure whether Bevin tried to match the Bocote Salire stand that I ordered to the Koa cups, but they look fantastic together (pics of those will happen at some point down the road). It’s very satisfying to be able to buy handcrafted headphones from such a wonderful team. I’m sure you all already know this.

Apologies again for the long rambling post here.

By the way, they sound fantastic. All this text and I didn't even talk about their sound. Clearly I would be a terrible reviewer .

Incredible post! Thanks for sharing.

 

[Roasty]

Hi Everyone, and apologies in advance for the long post. I’m happy to be joining this thread as my VC’s arrived about 10 days ago. They’ve been burning in since then, but I’ve also been listening for 1-2 hours per night so I’m probably not picking up on the changes that happen over time. Yeah, I could have just checked them out briefly in the beginning and not listened until after a few hundred hours, but they sounded awesome even on first listen, so why wait

I should say up front that I have had an Aeolus for about a year and a half, so I have some background with the ZMF sound. I won’t say too much about specific characteristics of their sounds as I’m not sure I have much to add to what has already been posted here and on other internet sites. In general, I agree with what others have said about both the Aeolus and VC. I will make some comments in a follow-up post about things I've noticed while getting used to them, but others have reported similar comments so it won't be totally new.

Big thanks go out to Zach and Bevin for several reasons. First, I visited them at the ZMF shop just over a year ago (at that time their shop was also known as their house ). They were amazingly welcoming. Zach did a tour of the entire process and explained every step along the way, and also introduced me to the various team members working that day. It’s an understatement to say how cool it was to talk to him about each of the steps, and see all the components in various phases of machining and assembly. I’ve said before on the Aeolus thread that almost everything I know about wood comes from ZMF-related discussions, so it was super fun to see the different cups with their respective woods in raw form and to talk about their characteristics. It was also great to see how they are finished, to see cable making in action, the setups for QC... There are just too many interesting things from that tour to list here.


(pics at the listening station from the tour last year, you may have seen their new shop in recent videos on youtube by @Darthpool )

At the end of the tour was the equally fun part, demoing the whole ZMF range. Bevin had everything set up and ready to go, several amps/DACs were warmed up, and a laptop with Tidal. To digress briefly, I’ve been into wine for many years, and I think one of the most helpful learning experiences with wine is to taste different styles side-by-side as it helps tremendously in learning the differences. The same is true for audio gear so this was invaluable in figuring out differences between the headphones. Zach and Bevin were gracious enough to let me stay for several hours of listening as they went about their work. I could have stayed the entire day but didn’t want to wear out my welcome. Nonetheless, there was enough time with the lineup to know that I liked the Verites (I could honestly be happy with any of their lineup). Before I left, I told them I would buy a Verite at some point in the future. Fast forward a year and here we are.

This leads me to my second reason for thanks going out to Zach and Bevin. The patience with the continual discussions, and long lists of questions, on exactly what to buy. These emails didn’t narrow down a final contender until a few months ago. It took much back and forth before I settled on the VC versus the VO, and then after that, to figure out what wood to get. All of these amazing stabilized wood VC’s people have posted are super impressive. And the LTD woods have all been stunning as well. But one of my design goals was to stay away from the heavier end of the weight range, and these LTD models generally use harder woods that have higher weights.

So where did this road lead? Eventually the option came up to do a set of VC in Koa. Admittedly I didn’t know much at the time about Koa (other than having seen the trees in Hawaii when I visited there; like I said, my knowledge of wood comes from ZMF) but from Zach’s description, it is a bit harder than Monkeypod and thus a bit heavier, but not likely to end up too far over 500 grams. After reading up on the history of Koa as a tonewood, and the list of musicians using Koa guitars, the decision was made. Almost a year after visiting ZMF, I put in the order, and just over 10 weeks later, they were here.



You’ve all heard this before, but the depth and chatoyance of the wood is impossible to capture in photos. This has always been true of my Aeolus and is even more true with these VCs. I’m not doing them justice, but hopefully you get the idea.

Final thanks to Bevin and Zach on all the personal touches included with the order, some of which incorporated elements of the email discussions leading up to the purchase. I’m not sure whether Bevin tried to match the Bocote Salire stand that I ordered to the Koa cups, but they look fantastic together (pics of those will happen at some point down the road). It’s very satisfying to be able to buy handcrafted headphones from such a wonderful team. I’m sure you all already know this.

Apologies again for the long rambling post here.

By the way, they sound fantastic. All this text and I didn't even talk about their sound. Clearly I would be a terrible reviewer .

Lol somehow I enjoyed reading that post even more so because there was no mention of sound.. Nicely done, sir.

 

[AudioPowerHead]

Hi Everyone, and apologies in advance for the long post. I’m happy to be joining this thread as my VC’s arrived about 10 days ago. They’ve been burning in since then, but I’ve also been listening for 1-2 hours per night so I’m probably not picking up on the changes that happen over time. Yeah, I could have just checked them out briefly in the beginning and not listened until after a few hundred hours, but they sounded awesome even on first listen, so why wait

I should say up front that I have had an Aeolus for about a year and a half, so I have some background with the ZMF sound. I won’t say too much about specific characteristics of their sounds as I’m not sure I have much to add to what has already been posted here and on other internet sites. In general, I agree with what others have said about both the Aeolus and VC. I will make some comments in a follow-up post about things I've noticed while getting used to them, but others have reported similar comments so it won't be totally new.

Big thanks go out to Zach and Bevin for several reasons. First, I visited them at the ZMF shop just over a year ago (at that time their shop was also known as their house ). They were amazingly welcoming. Zach did a tour of the entire process and explained every step along the way, and also introduced me to the various team members working that day. It’s an understatement to say how cool it was to talk to him about each of the steps, and see all the components in various phases of machining and assembly. I’ve said before on the Aeolus thread that almost everything I know about wood comes from ZMF-related discussions, so it was super fun to see the different cups with their respective woods in raw form and to talk about their characteristics. It was also great to see how they are finished, to see cable making in action, the setups for QC... There are just too many interesting things from that tour to list here.


(pics at the listening station from the tour last year, you may have seen their new shop in recent videos on youtube by @Darthpool )

At the end of the tour was the equally fun part, demoing the whole ZMF range. Bevin had everything set up and ready to go, several amps/DACs were warmed up, and a laptop with Tidal. To digress briefly, I’ve been into wine for many years, and I think one of the most helpful learning experiences with wine is to taste different styles side-by-side as it helps tremendously in learning the differences. The same is true for audio gear so this was invaluable in figuring out differences between the headphones. Zach and Bevin were gracious enough to let me stay for several hours of listening as they went about their work. I could have stayed the entire day but didn’t want to wear out my welcome. Nonetheless, there was enough time with the lineup to know that I liked the Verites (I could honestly be happy with any of their lineup). Before I left, I told them I would buy a Verite at some point in the future. Fast forward a year and here we are.

This leads me to my second reason for thanks going out to Zach and Bevin. The patience with the continual discussions, and long lists of questions, on exactly what to buy. These emails didn’t narrow down a final contender until a few months ago. It took much back and forth before I settled on the VC versus the VO, and then after that, to figure out what wood to get. All of these amazing stabilized wood VC’s people have posted are super impressive. And the LTD woods have all been stunning as well. But one of my design goals was to stay away from the heavier end of the weight range, and these LTD models generally use harder woods that have higher weights.

So where did this road lead? Eventually the option came up to do a set of VC in Koa. Admittedly I didn’t know much at the time about Koa (other than having seen the trees in Hawaii when I visited there; like I said, my knowledge of wood comes from ZMF) but from Zach’s description, it is a bit harder than Monkeypod and thus a bit heavier, but not likely to end up too far over 500 grams. After reading up on the history of Koa as a tonewood, and the list of musicians using Koa guitars, the decision was made. Almost a year after visiting ZMF, I put in the order, and just over 10 weeks later, they were here.



You’ve all heard this before, but the depth and chatoyance of the wood is impossible to capture in photos. This has always been true of my Aeolus and is even more true with these VCs. I’m not doing them justice, but hopefully you get the idea.

Final thanks to Bevin and Zach on all the personal touches included with the order, some of which incorporated elements of the email discussions leading up to the purchase. I’m not sure whether Bevin tried to match the Bocote Salire stand that I ordered to the Koa cups, but they look fantastic together (pics of those will happen at some point down the road). It’s very satisfying to be able to buy handcrafted headphones from such a wonderful team. I’m sure you all already know this.

Apologies again for the long rambling post here.

By the way, they sound fantastic. All this text and I didn't even talk about their sound. Clearly I would be a terrible reviewer .

Great post. Thanks for sharing.

You are probably one of the luckiest among us to have the chance to tour Zach and Bevin’s workshop before their relocation and to demo all their headphones side-by-side. And even luckier now to be among the first to have a VC in koa. Congrats !

 

[ckhirnigs113]

@GDuss I’m about to go from an Aeolus to the Verite Closed as well. I actually sold my Aeolus in anticipation of ZMF November to raise funds for a VC. I was lucky enough to purchase the red-stained Manchurian Ash one-off prototype today.

How would you compare the two? Would you consider the VC an upgrade or just different from the Aeolus?

 

[GDuss]

Incredible post! Thanks for sharing.

Thanks. Zach and Bevin give all of us a lot to write about.

Lol somehow I enjoyed reading that post even more so because there was no mention of sound.. Nicely done, sir.

I didn't really have anything original to say about the sound. Like @Monsterzero said, he had the difficult job of writing about the VC first. At this point, I'd just be copying what he and others have said.

Great post. Thanks for sharing.

You are probably one of the luckiest among us to have the chance to tour Zach and Bevin’s workshop before their relocation and to demo all their headphones side-by-side. And even luckier now to be among the first to have a VC in koa. Congrats !

I think I'm lucky to have visited before the world went off the rails. I'm sure all of us, including Zach and Bevin, look forward to doing tours and demos again.

 

[GDuss]

@GDuss I’m about to go from an Aeolus to the Verite Closed as well. I actually sold my Aeolus in anticipation of ZMF November to raise funds for a VC. I was lucky enough to purchase the red-stained Manchurian Ash one-off prototype today.

How would you compare the two? Would you consider the VC an upgrade or just different from the Aeolus?

You're getting an awesome looking set of VC's. I saw those on the website, congrats. Can't wait to see more photos of them.

I can't say the VC are an upgrade from the Aeolus. They're different. Having just gone through the process that you are about to do, my suggestion is to not expect the VC to be an upgrade from the Aeolus. Just look at them as different, appreciate what they do and how they are distinct from the Aeolus, and I think you'll be happy. I'm not sure it's possible to be disappointed in making this transition to the VC, so don't worry about that.

@Pharmaboy recently made this really fantastic table in the VO thread comparing the Aeolus and the VO. I think much of that table applies to the VC. Check it out. And I think he'd tell you the same thing, the Aeolus and VO are both great, just different.

 

[ckhirnigs113]

Thanks @GDuss! I’ll check out the post you’re referring to over in the Verite thread. I would have kept the Aeolus, but I came to the conclusion that I need a closed-back at my house. I’ve got young, noisy kids and a wife that doesn’t want to hear the music I’m listening to while she tries to go to sleep.

 

[GDuss]

Thanks @GDuss! I’ll check out the post you’re referring to over in the Verite thread. I would have kept the Aeolus, but I came to the conclusion that I needed a closed-back for headphone listening at my house. I’ve got young, noisy kids and a wife that doesn’t want to hear the music I’m listening to while she tries to go to sleep.

I've been appreciating the isolation of a closed-back headphone more than I thought I would. Except for the part where I can hear noise in tubes that wasn't so obvious before. First-world problems for sure.

 

[cdanguyen08]

Hi Everyone, and apologies in advance for the long post. I’m happy to be joining this thread as my VC’s arrived about 10 days ago. They’ve been burning in since then, but I’ve also been listening for 1-2 hours per night so I’m probably not picking up on the changes that happen over time. Yeah, I could have just checked them out briefly in the beginning and not listened until after a few hundred hours, but they sounded awesome even on first listen, so why wait

I should say up front that I have had an Aeolus for about a year and a half, so I have some background with the ZMF sound. I won’t say too much about specific characteristics of their sounds as I’m not sure I have much to add to what has already been posted here and on other internet sites. In general, I agree with what others have said about both the Aeolus and VC. I will make some comments in a follow-up post about things I've noticed while getting used to them, but others have reported similar comments so it won't be totally new.

Big thanks go out to Zach and Bevin for several reasons. First, I visited them at the ZMF shop just over a year ago (at that time their shop was also known as their house ). They were amazingly welcoming. Zach did a tour of the entire process and explained every step along the way, and also introduced me to the various team members working that day. It’s an understatement to say how cool it was to talk to him about each of the steps, and see all the components in various phases of machining and assembly. I’ve said before on the Aeolus thread that almost everything I know about wood comes from ZMF-related discussions, so it was super fun to see the different cups with their respective woods in raw form and to talk about their characteristics. It was also great to see how they are finished, to see cable making in action, the setups for QC... There are just too many interesting things from that tour to list here.


(pics at the listening station from the tour last year, you may have seen their new shop in recent videos on youtube by @Darthpool )

At the end of the tour was the equally fun part, demoing the whole ZMF range. Bevin had everything set up and ready to go, several amps/DACs were warmed up, and a laptop with Tidal. To digress briefly, I’ve been into wine for many years, and I think one of the most helpful learning experiences with wine is to taste different styles side-by-side as it helps tremendously in learning the differences. The same is true for audio gear so this was invaluable in figuring out differences between the headphones. Zach and Bevin were gracious enough to let me stay for several hours of listening as they went about their work. I could have stayed the entire day but didn’t want to wear out my welcome. Nonetheless, there was enough time with the lineup to know that I liked the Verites (I could honestly be happy with any of their lineup). Before I left, I told them I would buy a Verite at some point in the future. Fast forward a year and here we are.

This leads me to my second reason for thanks going out to Zach and Bevin. The patience with the continual discussions, and long lists of questions, on exactly what to buy. These emails didn’t narrow down a final contender until a few months ago. It took much back and forth before I settled on the VC versus the VO, and then after that, to figure out what wood to get. All of these amazing stabilized wood VC’s people have posted are super impressive. And the LTD woods have all been stunning as well. But one of my design goals was to stay away from the heavier end of the weight range, and these LTD models generally use harder woods that have higher weights.

So where did this road lead? Eventually the option came up to do a set of VC in Koa. Admittedly I didn’t know much at the time about Koa (other than having seen the trees in Hawaii when I visited there; like I said, my knowledge of wood comes from ZMF) but from Zach’s description, it is a bit harder than Monkeypod and thus a bit heavier, but not likely to end up too far over 500 grams. After reading up on the history of Koa as a tonewood, and the list of musicians using Koa guitars, the decision was made. Almost a year after visiting ZMF, I put in the order, and just over 10 weeks later, they were here.



You’ve all heard this before, but the depth and chatoyance of the wood is impossible to capture in photos. This has always been true of my Aeolus and is even more true with these VCs. I’m not doing them justice, but hopefully you get the idea.

Final thanks to Bevin and Zach on all the personal touches included with the order, some of which incorporated elements of the email discussions leading up to the purchase. I’m not sure whether Bevin tried to match the Bocote Salire stand that I ordered to the Koa cups, but they look fantastic together (pics of those will happen at some point down the road). It’s very satisfying to be able to buy handcrafted headphones from such a wonderful team. I’m sure you all already know this.

Apologies again for the long rambling post here.

By the way, they sound fantastic. All this text and I didn't even talk about their sound. Clearly I would be a terrible reviewer .

Gorgeous! I've been waiting/wanting for a Koa Verite Open to be released to pair with my Leapardwood VC. But I have to say Koa VC is making me envious haha I keep telling myself a Koa VO will be my last headphone purchase haha.

 

[GDuss]

Gorgeous! I've been waiting/wanting for a Koa Verite Open to be released to pair with my Leapardwood VC. But I have to say Koa VC is making me envious haha I keep telling myself a Koa VO will be my last headphone purchase haha.

I’ve seen your posts about this. Hopefully the Koa VO is the LTD version soon. I’m sure Zach has something interesting in the works.

I’m also saying these are my last headphone purchase but who am I kidding?

 

[zach915m]

Sneak preview of some of the sets available today at 2PM CST {8pm global}. I'll post more pics in the AM!

We will have 15 different sets total, and ofcourse a few more batches coming in the next few weeks if you don't grab one of these.

 

[KcMsterpce]

Excuse me @zach915m, I think you dropped something... my jaw!

 

[whirlwind]

Sneak preview of some of the sets available today at 2PM CST {8pm global}. I'll post more pics in the AM!

We will have 15 different sets total, and ofcourse a few more batches coming in the next few weeks if you don't grab one of these.

Wow sir....these are stunning!