heliosphann
Headphoneus Supremus
So in zeos new burn in video. He burned in verite more and retested. He still thinks they have "no soundstage" and have harshness. Interesting....
Like a few people mentioned, there's quite a bit of subjectivity to this hobby and a lot of other variables which can lead to some interesting opinions.
That being said, I decided to do some A/B testing of the Verite/Aeolus just for hell of it. I had Verite pads on both headphones and used the THX AAA 789 amp since it's pretty neutral and I know Zeos also used it for his reviews.
The Aeolus does have a wider soundstage than the Verite, but that doesn't necessarily make it better. In fact the Aeolus has a more traditional presentation, whereas the Verite has a very holographic sounding presentation. I have quite a few reference tracks I use for soundstage/imaging/instrument separation and the Verite clearly outclasses the Aeolus on all of them. In particular the depth of soundstage and instrument separation are clearly on another level. The layering and specific positioning of instruments are much more pronounced on the Verite. I'm not ragging on the Aeolus in any way as it's quite impressive in it's own regard. I'm quite fond of it's sound and I still stand by one of my first impressions of the Aeolus. I posted in the Aeolus thread that it was probably the best bargain in open back headphones at its price point. But let's be honest, there's a reason why the Verite costs twice as much as the Aeolus. I always get a kick when people rave about the Senn 58x being as good as the 660s for a 1/3rd of the cost. The 58x is an incredible bargain at it's price, but technically it's nowhere near as good as the 660s. For what it's worth, Zeos was also one of those 58x believers...
As for the harshness, I didn't really ever get any from my pair of Vertie's. Compared to the Aeolus, the Verite will certainly reveal poorly recorded songs, so that could be a factor. It's also possible some of that harshness could be from his DAC/chain as well. Also I remember him talking about the lack of bass on the Vertie, which I found quite puzzling. In my comparison to the Aeolus, the bass quantity is very similar. The bass quality and bass impact are far superior on the Verite. On of my favorite things about the Verite is the almost planar-like bass speed with that lush dynamic driver punch. Now I do have the Pheasantwood's as opposed to his Silk's, but that shouldn't be a huge difference.
One of my test tracks is LCD Soundsystem's "Us v Them" and it sounded so good on the Verite I ended up listening to the entire Sound of Silver album. Ah, bliss.