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Author Topic: Abyss AB-1266 Production Model Measurements and Review and Other Stuff  (Read 17463 times)

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chetlanin

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Re: Abyss AB-1266 Production Model Measurements and Review and Other Stuff
« Reply #40 on: October 29, 2013, 07:38:57 PM »

~1kHz ringing hump is quite nasty with piano indeed, for me.

It is evident when I use HE500s with stock pleather earpads that the pads introduce a ringing node around 750 Hz, which makes piano (especially tracks that have added reverb) blisteringly painful to listen to. It's one of the main goals of my earpad mod, to retain the pleathers' tonal balance while getting rid of that 750 Hz node.

Funny that you should mention the HE500’s in this connection, I disliked them strongly from the first second for the dominating lower mids  (when listening to classical music at very moderate levels, as I do*). I could not imagine there would be a mod  addressing this, perhaps I should have kept them...(but I also found the bass not very natural sounding for acoustical instruments: a certain lack of aperiodicity perhaps, or distortion, which I also read about later in Purrins comments to his measurements. (I have always been baffled when I see people consider these phones neutral**).
From the different description here & there I got the impression that  the Abyss’s are much more neutral overall, hope they will arrive to the shores of Scandinavia soon in the shape of some demo units. Do they sound well-balanced also by lower levels, I wonder?

*I think myself that I listen loud sometimes, but have come to realise that most headphone buffs would find that description laughable, to put it mildly.

**When one click on peoples names on certain (competing) forums one can se geographical data, lists of inventory etc, but how much more telling would it not be to know their average decibel, so to speak!)  .
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AstralStorm

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Re: Abyss AB-1266 Production Model Measurements and Review and Other Stuff
« Reply #41 on: October 29, 2013, 08:35:29 PM »

Do mind that we're talking about flabby bass in an ortho. It's still miles ahead of almost all dynamics. All I've heard at least, maybe except HD800.

The 1k blip is either tweakable by Jergpads or by removal of the dust screen (which lifts highs a bit and slightly improves detailing for reasons unknown) or both.
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anetode

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Re: Abyss AB-1266 Production Model Measurements and Review and Other Stuff
« Reply #42 on: October 31, 2013, 07:07:14 PM »

The measurement reminds me of the 404LE's http://www.changstar.com/index.php/topic,352.0.html, except the Abyss has that satisfying deep unflinching bass of an open ortho. Maybe the upper mid dip followed by the treble peak contributed to that stat impression that I got from RMAF. The treble was certainly cleaner from last year's prototype. Of course I doubt anyone's going to get a chance to measure those, but I'd be curious if there was a clearly measurable difference in the CSD/HD plots.
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Marvey

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Re: Abyss AB-1266 Production Model Measurements and Review and Other Stuff
« Reply #43 on: November 01, 2013, 05:38:09 PM »

Would you mind elaborating on the mod? Maybe it will help the 1kHz ski slope on my HE-400's...


I put a piece of felt in front of the drop and this dropped the 1k bump as well as the treble. I decided not to go this direction because it seems putting anything in front of the driver results in less plankton.

I'm actually working on another tweak which seems to even out the treble - less peaky. I think the only method to remove the 1k bump is maybe to punch holes in the back of pads a la Jergmod or use velour as a material.

I'll show some measurements soon.
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Marvey

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Re: Abyss AB-1266 Production Model Measurements and Review and Other Stuff
« Reply #44 on: November 01, 2013, 06:33:53 PM »

Latest mods. They would seem to confirm the 9k ringing is indeed "ortho wall" resonance.

BLUE = STOCK
YELLOW = MOD v1



CSD BEFORE



CSD AFTER
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dBel84

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Re: Abyss AB-1266 Production Model Measurements and Review and Other Stuff
« Reply #45 on: November 01, 2013, 08:31:56 PM »

assuming favourable subjective changes too ?
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Marvey

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Re: Abyss AB-1266 Production Model Measurements and Review and Other Stuff
« Reply #46 on: November 01, 2013, 09:25:20 PM »

Yes. Slightly less bright and tizzy. Not a huge difference since there's not much to complain about the Abyss in stock form. But the point of orthos is easy modding. The mod does seem to help alleviate the slight metallic string coloration with orchestra pieces, which is really what I'm after. (And being able to crank up Rage Against the Machine.)

It's just ring ( sandwich of one layer of Creatology foam and one layer of felt) around the slots which is placed between the baffle and cushions.
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jerg

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Re: Abyss AB-1266 Production Model Measurements and Review and Other Stuff
« Reply #47 on: November 01, 2013, 09:37:54 PM »

Yes. Slightly less bright and tizzy. Not a huge difference since there's not much to complain about the Abyss in stock form. But the point of orthos is easy modding. The mod does seem to help alleviate the slight metallic string coloration with orchestra pieces, which is really what I'm after. (And being able to crank up Rage Against the Machine.)

It's just ring ( sandwich of one layer of Creatology foam and one layer of felt) around the slots which is placed between the baffle and cushions.

Do you think this is applicable to Hifiman's fully open driver design as well? Or is it only for drivers with slot openings?
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Marvey

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Re: Abyss AB-1266 Production Model Measurements and Review and Other Stuff
« Reply #48 on: November 01, 2013, 09:46:36 PM »

Not applicable to HFM since they don't have a hard baffle with slots. Also a thin layer of foam is built into the HFM pads.

The Abyss is a solid plate with slots. I realized that much of the solid plate is still exposed even with the pads on. No doubt, some of the ringy stuff was caused by sound wave bouncing off the solid plate. Another solution for the Abyss would be phase/waveguide. This appears to be what Audeze did with the "fazor" on the LCD-X.
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jerg

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Re: Abyss AB-1266 Production Model Measurements and Review and Other Stuff
« Reply #49 on: November 01, 2013, 09:57:57 PM »

Not applicable to HFM since they don't have a hard baffle with slots. Also a thin layer of foam is built into the HFM pads.

The Abyss is a solid plate with slots. I realized that much of the solid plate is still exposed even with the pads on. No doubt, some of the ringy stuff was caused by sound wave bouncing off the solid plate. Another solution for the Abyss would be phase/waveguide. This appears to be what Audeze did with the "fazor" on the LCD-X.

Audeze's "Fazors" don't seem to eliminate the treble unevenness though, or maybe it does partially help with LCDX drivers, they just have inherently spiked treble.

I'm still trying to find some sort of dowel that could act as waveguides along the magnet bars on HFM drivers.
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