[Paladin79]

So from a pure sound perspective, is it worth getting the better woods for 200 more or the regular one sounds pretty much the same?

I would doubt many outside of ZMF have multiples of the same headphones. It would be hard to compare a VO to a VC in picking out wood types. That being said, I have conducted quite a few blind comparisons with DAC's, amps, tubes, cables, etc. and IMHO this would be a tough one. I know of one young woman who might have a shot at it, she has impressed me with her ability to differentiate between cables and types of wire but she is probably one in 100,000 or more.

 

[Fatdoi]

So from a pure sound perspective, is it worth getting the better woods for 200 more or the regular one sounds pretty much the same?

like i mention on my previous post, a lot of ZMF customers have wood fetish
I've waited for the wood type I really like then pulled the trigger on both...

 

[johnnypaddock]

So from a pure sound perspective, is it worth getting the better woods for 200 more or the regular one sounds pretty much the same?

There are certainly differences in sound between the softer and harder woods. The differences are subtle, but they can easily be heard on a good system. Whether you prefer the sound of a softer or harder wood is entirely subjective. Likewise, whether the harder wood is worth the extra cash is a personal decision that has to be made.

In addition to sound quality, aesthetics and weight/comfort are other factors to consider. Everyone puts different values on all of these things. All you can do is research, read people's opinions and make the decision on what's most important to you.

 

[Zachik]

I know of one young woman who might have a shot at it, she has impressed me with her ability to differentiate between cables and types of wire but she is probably one in 100,000 or more.

Female audiophile is already one in 100,000 unfortunately...

 

[Paladin79]

Female audiophile is already one in 100,000 unfortunately...

I mainly go by my local audiophile group and we have several female attendees, when we do equipment comparisons that number goes up because we use musicians, audio engineers, and many with science backgrounds. Audiogal gave a very accurate assessment of tubes I sent her with a loaner amp. There are many males who cannot do that.
There is such a thing as the accuracy of large groups, take fifty people, average the results and the result tends to be pretty accurate. The young woman in question picked the finish of 20 different DACS blind with the same accuracy as a group of fifty. Now mind you she does not know wire types, OCC, silver plated, whatever but she can consistently pick the same types from a large group, once again blind listening. I have had plenty of people "say" they can hear this or that, until given the same test.

I also had someone here state cooking his AC cables going to an amp made a world of difference. I had the same cable cooker in my possession at the time so I offered to cook four cables, and leave four as they came out of the package. All he had to do was tell me which were cooked, since there was such a huge difference. He did not wish to partake in that experiment for a whole bunch of reasons lol. Whenever someone makes a claim I tend to say "great, show me!!!."

 

[mendye770]

So I currently own the HEDDphone.
I’m really on the edge between returning it and getting the ZMF VO or just keeping it.
Can anyone give a comparison review between the 2?
The strengths and weaknesses and ultimately what’s the better headphone

 

[RobertSM]

So from a pure sound perspective, is it worth getting the better woods for 200 more or the regular one sounds pretty much the same?

So my personal opinion is this:

Some woods have a known and respected reputation for being very musical. The word that I've heard for many years that gets used, is tonewood. These are woods that have specific characteristics that musical instrument makers/builders seek out.

Here is a good write up about these woods that does a good job of explaining everything.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonewood

I know the stock woods Zach at ZMF has chosen are all very very good woods that are just as good as the LTD woods that get released. He suggests that when you decide to order, order the wood type that you love the visual look of.

Are there differences between soft and harder woods...yes probably very small differences. Are there differences between the harder woods? Maybe, maybe not...

Are there known tonewoods that have a long established reputation for being more musical than others? Yes.

For me, I love the visual look of African Blackwood. It's my hope that some of the musical nature of this tonewood shines through so that I can actually hear it. But at the end of the day, I think we should take the advice from Zach and buy our headphones that are made from woods that we love the look of. Because at the end of the day, they are all going to sound fantastic! Differences...maybe. But all varying degrees of fantastic.

 

[Paladin79]

So my personal opinion is this:

Some woods have a known and respected reputation for being very musical. The word that I've heard for many years that gets used, is tonewood. These are woods that have specific characteristics that musical instrument makers/builders seek out.

Here is a good write up about these woods that does a good job of explaining everything.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonewood

I know the stock woods Zach at ZMF has chosen are all very very good woods that are just as good as the LTD woods that get released. He suggests that when you decide to order, order the wood type that you love the visual look of.

Are there differences between soft and harder woods...yes probably very small differences. Are there differences between the harder woods? Maybe, maybe not...

Are there known tonewoods that have a long established reputation for being more musical than others? Yes.

For me, I love the visual look of African Blackwood. It's my hope that some of the musical nature of this tonewood shines through so that I can actually hear it. But at the end of the day, I think we should take the advice from Zach and buy our headphones that are made from woods that we love the look of. Because at the end of the day, they are all going to sound fantastic! Differences...maybe. But all varying degrees of fantastic.

A nice read that pertains mostly to musical instruments, I get in this discussion all the time with folks from the local school of music. As I said earlier I use musicians in some test groups because who better to listen to a specific passage and report back what he or she hears than a specialist in specific instruments. One gentleman who was visiting over the weekend got to hear VO's, Focal Utopias, and a few other sets of headphones I had laying around. He worked with orchestras so I was interested in his take. The local school produced the likes of Joshua Bell so I tend to listen.

I have worked in speaker design and there we tended to avoid solid woods. I pulled this off the internet.

1. Medium-Density Fiberboard (MDF) MDF is a manufactured wood that is popular for building speaker boxes because it is very dense and thick. ...
2. Baltic Birch Plywood. ...
3. Marine-grade Plywood. .

Because I have an engineering background, it seems along the line I was taught this.

Headphones are a pair of small loudspeaker drivers worn on or around the head over a user's ears. They are electroacoustic transducers, which convert an electrical signal to a corresponding sound.

just my two cents.

 

[Hifiearspeakers]

A nice read that pertains mostly to musical instruments, I get in this discussion all the time with folks from the local school of music. As I said earlier I use musicians in some test groups because who better to listen to a specific passage and report back what he or she hears than a specialist in specific instruments. One gentleman who was visiting over the weekend got to hear VO's, Focal Utopias, and a few other sets of headphones I had laying around. He worked with orchestras so I was interested in his take. The local school produced the likes of Joshua Bell so I tend to listen.

I have worked in speaker design and there we tended to avoid solid woods. I pulled this off the internet.

1. Medium-Density Fiberboard (MDF) MDF is a manufactured wood that is popular for building speaker boxes because it is very dense and thick. ...
2. Baltic Birch Plywood. ...
3. Marine-grade Plywood. .

Because I have an engineering background, it seems along the line I was taught this.

Headphones are a pair of small loudspeaker drivers worn on or around the head over a user's ears. They are electroacoustic transducers, which convert an electrical signal to a corresponding sound.

just my two cents.

So what was his take? You never followed up!

 

[mendye770]

He liked the midrange and looks of the VO, fine for vocals and guitar but the overall range and detail of the Utopias won out. I made identical cables for both. I had similar thoughts but I had listened to the Utopias for months so it took some adjusting on my part.

But doesn’t utopia suffer from Sibilance and timbre issues?

 

[Zachik]

I mainly go by my local audiophile group and we have several female attendees, when we do equipment comparisons that number goes up because we use musicians, audio engineers, and many with science backgrounds. Audiogal gave a very accurate assessment of tubes I sent her with a loaner amp. There are many males who cannot do that.
There is such a thing as the accuracy of large groups, take fifty people, average the results and the result tends to be pretty accurate. The young woman in question picked the finish of 20 different DACS blind with the same accuracy as a group of fifty. Now mind you she does not know wire types, OCC, silver plated, whatever but she can consistently pick the same types from a large group, once again blind listening. I have had plenty of people "say" they can hear this or that, until given the same test.

I also had someone here state cooking his AC cables going to an amp made a world of difference. I had the same cable cooker in my possession at the time so I offered to cook four cables, and leave four as they came out of the package. All he had to do was tell me which were cooked, since there was such a huge difference. He did not wish to partake in that experiment for a whole bunch of reasons lol. Whenever someone makes a claim I tend to say "great, show me!!!."

I wish more women came to CanJams. Unfortunately, I am too far (geographically) for your local meets... Just as a tiny sample group, I am coordinating a tour for Etymotic's EVO (it's a new IEM) and as far as I can tell NONE of the people signed up were women. I have no doubt women can have as accurate or even more accurate listening abilities than us men!

 

[Paladin79]

I wish more women came to CanJams. Unfortunately, I am too far (geographically) for your local meets... Just as a tiny sample group, I am coordinating a tour for Etymotic's EVO (it's a new IEM) and as far as I can tell NONE of the people signed up were women. I have no doubt women can have as accurate or even more accurate listening abilities than us men!

Lol now that is a discussion I will stay out of. My friend is vision impaired so maybe her other senses are more pronounced. I did all right on the DAC challenge but nothing like her.
Now if you want to meet women, book clubs. Here the ratio is like 90% women to men unless it is sci-fi.

 

[Pharmaboy]

Yes, I believe there are MANY of us who love wood, and adore ZMF for the aesthetic as much as for the sound.
I've been playing guitar for 30 years, and I've attuned my ear to tonal character over the decades by pinpointing the sound of the guitar, how it's mixed (also recorded music a lot), and how the woods affect tone, versus how pickups and/or string tension and/or the type of bridge influences the tone in comparison, etc... I have spent countless hours looking at guitar finishes and tops, trying to discern how the chambered mahogany Les Paul sounds different from my full-weight version, so on and so forth.
That love of guitar tones, types of wood, and the overall "package" of a finely built instrument goes directly into my love for ZMF headphones.

My twin brother has played guitar for >50 years. He owns many fascinating, offbeat/hard-to-find guitars and talks knowledgeably about the all-encompassing obsession of guitar owning & modding.

One day I tried to explain my headphone jones with him, which led to a discussion of the functional & aesthetic values of various woods used in headphones. That was like stepping into quicksand...he went off on me about the benefits of swamp ash in building DIY Fender Telecasters; the merits of spruce for semi-hollow body guitars, and so on.

Everything we say here about this or that wood is X 1 million in the world of guitars--musical instruments in general.

 

[Zachik]

Now if you want to meet women, book clubs. Here the ratio is like 90% women to men unless it is sci-fi.

Haha. I am spoken for I was just making a comment in general that it would be nice to have more diversity... That's all.

 

[PsilocybinCube]

But doesn’t utopia suffer from Sibilance and timbre issues?

I don't find that the Utopia suffers from sibilance or timbre issues. It's remarkably accurate and dynamic. It's not as bright as an HD800 or ZMF Eikon (my main points of reference since I own them).

The VO (to my ears) has an emphasis on being a fairly smooth headphone that's a pretty easy listen. The Utopia is a more energetic listening experience, though also less laid-back.

I personally prefer the VO if I know if it's gonna be a 6-hour headphone day or something like that. I use the Utopia when I'm using them for 3 hours or less. The VO will melt away on your head, but the Utopia will remind you of its presence quite often. Neither of those is right or wrong, and I find them to be very different headphones.

My preference is toward the Utopia if you forced me to pick, but the VO is still very compelling. And I find the VO with a touch of EQ in the treble to introduce a bit more sparkle is nice.