ZMF Verité Impressions Part 1 – General
I was fortunate enough to somehow convince Zach into letting me check out the Verité and Aeolus. So even though much has been said about the two headphones already, here are my impressions on the Verité specifically. You can see my impressions on the Aeolus
here.
General Background
A little background on me, since I’ve been more of a lurker than an active poster on this forum. I prefer a mostly neutral signature, with a slight warmth. I also highly value soundstage size and imaging/layering. The ZMF Auteur teak is what I mostly listen to now – hopefully that gives you a better idea of what I like. Other headphones that I own or have owned can be found in my profile page.
I don’t have the best setup for driving the Verité, but the following is what I used for my impressions:
DAC: NuForce UDH-100 (pretty unknown, basically it’s a USB-only version of the DAC-80, which uses an AKM AK4390 chip)
Amp: Cavalli Liquid Carbon v1, Massdrop CTH, Cavalli/Monoprice Liquid Platinum with stock tubes
Overall Sound Signature
Overall, I would say that the Verité is a warmer-leaning headphone. It’s not extremely warm, because the mids are definitely very present and lively, even with the strong bass. However, to me it seems that the lower treble is somewhat relaxed, so that there is less sense of “airiness” compared to the likes of the Auteur, the HE1000, etc. However, this does not mean that there is no “airiness” to the Verité – it’s just what I think most people would call “smoother” in the treble than the aforementioned two headphones.
A simple text chart, ranking the 3 ZMF open headphones from darkest to brightest in my opinion, would be this:
Verité with Universe pads
< Verité with Verité pads
< Aeolus with Universe pads
< Aeolus with Verité pads
< Auteur with Eikon pads
< Auteur with Auteur pads
However, despite my rankings above I wouldn’t say that the Verité is extremely dark compared to the Auteur. I’ll go into more detail for my rankings in the comparisons section next post.
Pad Comparison – Universe vs. Verité
Universe pads: have more of a bass and mids emphasis, and less of a treble emphasis. This makes it sound less “airy” and darker than the Verité pads. Also, I thought the soundstage width was about the same between the two pads, but the universe pads had a very slightly deeper stage which gave it a bit more of a 3D feeling. Also, since these are the thicker pads, they were more comfortable to me than the Verité pads.
Verité pads: they’re more neutral than the Universe pads, mainly because I think the mids are less present so that the treble relatively comes up a bit. While I did say that the Universe pads were more comfortable, the Verité pads are still pretty good in this area and definitely aren’t lacking.
Noteworthy aspects of the Verité
Speed and detail – On the Verité, this is easily better than that of Auteur and Aeolus (which are no slouches themselves). I think the Verité is actually competitive with good planars in this aspect.
Very good imaging and layering – I think the Verité is a noticeable step up in precision of its soundstage compared to Auteur and Aeolus. The Verité has a very coherent and very 3D soundstage.
Sounds very open – I think it sounds more open than Auteur, though I don’t think the soundstage is actually that much larger than the Auteur’s.
Bass quality – is excellent. It’s extremely well controlled, while being very punchy and extended at the same time.
Dynamics - are outstanding. The Verité effortlessly nails macro and micro-dynamics without ever sounding out of control. It really made me realize how dynamic some of my music really was. Also, the crazy good dynamics actually makes the Verité good for classical music, despite its darker nature. Imagine the great dynamics of like the TH-X00, but with even more precision, control, and even more dynamic range on the Verité. This is absolutely one of the highlights of the ZMF flagship.
Scaling and sensitivity to source – The Verité definitely can scale. It sounded much better on the CTH than on the built-in headphone amp of my UDH-100 with better dynamics, less mushy bass, more 3D soundstage, better detail retrieval, etc. The Verité also clearly illustrated the tonality differences between CTH and Liquid Carbon (more neutral for the former, warmer for the latter).
In an earlier version of my impressions, I wrote that the Verité was on the darker side of things. I don’t think that as much anymore, mainly due to now having listened to it on the Liquid Platinum. With the Liquid Platinum, the Verité seemed to get a lot more balanced. The Verité no longer seemed to be as mids-focused as when plugged into the Liquid Carbon, and there was now more “airiness” without losing its smooth character or overall warmer nature. Bass quality/tightness and soundstage precision also seemed to improve slightly, but by a lesser amount. Overall, I would say that going from the Liquid Carbon to the Liquid Platinum on the Verité was quite transformative, and is a testament to how sensitive the Verité can be to your chain.
Warmer tone – While the Verité does not have my most preferred tonality (even with my preferred setup with the Verité pads), I am still extremely impressed by the gobs of detail and the driver's speed, as well as just music sounding really clean in general. As to how warm it is, off of the top of my head I think I would place it around where the HD650 is, though take this with a grain of salt since I haven’t listened to the HD650 recently.
Overall, I can’t help but be really impressed by the Verité. It is a warm headphone no matter which pads are used, but it’s not excessively so, and it’s still really a great headphone to listen to due to its world-class technical abilities.
The Verité is a great flagship to really consider if you want a warmer and smoother presentation, and think many of the current flagships from other brands are too hot or sharp. Or if you want a top-of-the-line headphone that brings something different to the table than what many other companies are doing.
Part 2 of my Verité impressions continues below, where I do multiple comparisons.
