CHANGSTAR: Audiophile Headphone Reviews and Early 90s Style BBS
Lobby => Headphone Measurements => Topic started by: Marvey on October 26, 2013, 04:16:39 AM
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There are measurements for a production AB-1266. The prior measurements were actually of a pre-production unit.
Subjective Impressions (http://www.changstar.com/index.php/topic,1193.msg31974.html#msg31974)
Tile and Width Adjustability (http://www.changstar.com/index.php/topic,1193.msg31972.html#msg31972)
Pad to Cup Interface Design (http://www.changstar.com/index.php/topic,1193.msg31966.html#msg31966)
Affects of Seal (http://www.changstar.com/index.php/topic,1193.msg31900.html#msg31900)
Affects of Seal Measurements (http://www.changstar.com/index.php/topic,1193.msg31967.html#msg31967)
Non-BS CSD Measurements (http://www.changstar.com/index.php/topic,1193.msg31971.html#msg31971)
The 9kHz ringing on the CSD (http://www.changstar.com/index.php/topic,1193.msg31984.html#msg31984)
Abyss Mods (http://www.changstar.com/index.php/topic,1193.msg32302.html#msg32302)
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One thing to note is that I was able to get a much better seal for these measurements, hence lower bass distortion and lack of bump at 50Hz as with the prior measurements. This is really not too different from what we've seen with the HE-400 Jerg Pad measurements where if we allow the open vent, we get a FR bump around 50Hz, but with increased distortion below that.
This correlates with my initial subjective experiences of the Abyss at THE SHOW, where I felt one unit's sub/low bass quality was not as good as the other one. It would seem likely that this is attributable to seal and recording used (low bass drops). Most folks who have heard the Abyss feel it's got quite a punch or bump around 50Hz. This is actually a result of a less than perfect seal. Now there is absolutely nothing wrong with this sound at all, but "leak mode" for a lack of better term, does result in more bass distortion below 50Hz.
I bent the headband inward more and messed with the pads a bit to made sure the lower back of the ear did not have any gaps. This changed the bass quality a bit. Less of that punch - more neutral - and much better quality sub/low bass (not that this really matters because most of the recordings I listen to don't have much energy in that region). Again, one can see this as a feature and adjust things accordingly to taste - not too much different with the Jerg Pads on the HE-400.
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Here are HE-400 jerg pad (vent sealed) and HE-500 stock pad measurements for comparison.
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From the measurements, these ones seem to have a little cleaner treble as well. Is there a treble improvement vs the pre-production version from your impressions?
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There's a treble elevation (not unlike HE-4/500, Paradox, etc.), this time around not tizzy at all. Whereas the prior pre-production pair was just a tad tizzy with certain tracks depending upon amp. I'm going through some marginal 80s recordings right now and everything is OK. The midrange bump is a little more evident subjectively. Could be the pads - they may need some break-in time.
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Makes you wonder WTF is going on with that GE rig as always, adding resonances that are not there. Any chance we have V2 plots for a modded HD800? The production one seems ridiculously clean and distortion looks very low.
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It's just the CSD parameters and visualization techniques. One can stretch or compress the time slices. Smoothing on CSDs tends to do funky stuff too. Also the window rise time of the FFT window is critical. After this is set, we have to align the start and end gates properly.
I can try to borrow Anax's HD800.
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Wow, that's one well-damped diaphragm, minus a few ringing issues. Wonder if those can be remedied.
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That looks great! The distortion figures for the bass and mids are quite remarkable indeed. IIRC, only purrin's modded jade performed this well in these areas or may be this is even better?
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Awesome, thanks for this Marv! This correlates to what I've been hearing all along for the most part. These are some seriously good headphones.
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One thing I'm wondering about: is -30 dB (rather than -36 dB) going to be the standard decibel range for future CSDs? Also the time slices frequency for the plots posted here look much less than other recent CSD plots.
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Will probably use a floor of -30db going forward. The earlier revision graphs normalized the graph so things would tend to max out a -6db with a floor of -36db, so I want to keep the same range. I may play with how far to extend the graph in time. May reduce it from 8.25 seconds here to 6 seconds - or maybe just keep it the same. Want to have some consistency going forward.
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Will probably use a floor of -30db going forward. The earlier revision graphs normalized the graph so things would tend to max out a -6db with a floor of -36db, so I want to keep the same range. I may play with how far to extend the graph in time. May reduce it from 8.25 seconds here to 6 seconds - or maybe just keep it the same. Want to have some consistency going forward.
What about the density of time-slices? I find these to be more nuanced when you cram more slices in.
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Here is a look at how the pads adjust. This is probably one the more ingenious ideas I've seen. The pads are magnetically attached to the cups - similar to how the power supply cables attach to the MacBook chassis (unless Apple has changed this recently). The pads can be angled accordingly by how the holes are aligned with the screw heads. While this does not allow the infinite adjust-ability of how the STAX earpads can rotate, the 18 degrees seems to be granular enough given that once set in place, its not going to move.
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As I've indicated in post number two of this thread, seal makes a huge difference in the bass.
(http://www.changstar.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=1193.0;attach=4265;image)(http://www.changstar.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=1193.0;attach=4269;image)
(http://www.changstar.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=1193.0;attach=4268;image)(http://www.changstar.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=1193.0;attach=4271;image)
Lose the perfect seal and allow some leakage, we get a little bump at 40Hz with D2 rising quite a bit below 40Hz. This effect is not to different from the Jerg Pads on the HE400: http://www.changstar.com/index.php?topic=1127.0 (http://www.changstar.com/index.php?topic=1127.0).
To be honest, "leakage" mode is my preferred setup. The closet bass-head in me likes that little bump at 40Hz. In "leakage" mod, bass drops around 30Hz do start sounding more fuzzy, but again it's nothing I'd worry about since most the recordings I have rarely hit 30Hz loudly; and if they did I could always adjust the earpads for "tight seal" mode.
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Things look a little smoother from 2k to 10k in leakage mode as well... methinks...
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Can we see the CSDs with the old dB/time ranges? The new one is kinda Audeze-ified, though I remember you saying in the past that you didn't want to go so deep on dB because people might take that low SPL level information and infer too much. This makes it harder to compare to the other CSDs though.
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Can we see the CSDs with the old dB/time ranges? The new one is kinda Audeze-ified...
LOL!
Here you go. Time scale to 5ms. Floor to -32 (which is roughly equiv to the -6db normalized start and -36db floor of the old graphs). What I need to do (pending) is write a conversion program from the ARTA format to CLIO.
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This picture demonstrates the adjust-ability of the width and swivel of the cups. I keep mine tilted inward a bit as seen here.
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I still get the random odd PMs on the Abyss, so I figured I will succinctly wrap up my subjective impressions of them.
After GS/PS1000, HD800, LCD3, SR009, etc. I thought I was just going to give up headphones and go completely back to speakers because none of the "TOTL" headphone had good (much less reasonable) tonal balance or "neutrality". To me, there was always something moderately wrong in the FR with these TOTL headphones. Although the HE500, Paradox, HD600/HD650 had reasonably good neutrality, they did not have the technicalities (resolution, transient response, clarity etc.) of the TOTL headphones.
It actually look me a while to warm up to the Abyss. I did not immediately love them, although I should point out that I never thought anything was seriously wrong with them. Maybe a few minor complaints with my critical ears, but never anything even moderately wrong. I think the reason the Abyss took me a while to appreciate was because they were never super impressive enough upon the first short listens, or the DACs were up to par at the demos I heard. However, after I was able to borrow the Abyss for a week, I was convinced. These could possibly be the headphones that could bring my back to serious headphone listening (since I had sworn off headphones in favor of speakers.)
No, the Abyss doesn't resolve like the HD800. (I may revisit the HD800 because of the effectiveness of the Anax 2.0 and upcoming mods.) The Abyss doesn't have the "get out of the way clarity" of the SR-009. But in terms of these aspects, the Abyss is close enough while bringing other things to the table: very articulate, impactful, and clean high SPL capable bass; layering and separation akin to speakers; realistic staging (not too wide or diffuse and with depth); and a very black background.
In terms of transient response and comparison to SR-009, it's difficult to say which one is "faster". Speed may mean different things to different people. And even if they don't, the characteristics of fast or "transient response" are too difficult to generalize into one metric. The main difference between the two in terms of transient response speed is how they accelerate or decelerate.
The SR-009 tends to slowly ramp up before coming up to lightning fast speed and then slow down gently. It's a subtle effect, but the effect IMO does contribute to the SR-009 relaxed ethereal sound. The AB-1266 tends to accelerate like a four wheel drive launch and stop like an F1 car with carbon fiber brakes. The SR-009 sounds faster or at least cleaner in the treble. High-hats, brushes, fast percussion is more delineated on the SR-009. However, bass on the SR-009 isn't as taut as the AB-1266. There's no such thing as "fast" bass, but bass does sounds faster on the AB-1266. Personally I feel the SR-009's relaxed ethereal sound is a coloration which is not heard in real life. The AB-1266's approach sounds much more realistic. But this really doesn't matter because that STAX sound is quite seductive, realistic or not.
I highly doubt anyone who currently enjoys the SR-009 will see the AB-1266 as the superior headphone. The SR-009 costs a lot of money, and the folks who have it know what they are doing and are spoiled in the sense that the midrange and treble are exceptional. The SR-009 aficionado may likely find the rougher treble of the AB-1266 an unacceptable show-stopper issue. The weakness of the SR-009 IMO is the lack of low bass impact and overall tonal balance not suited for genres other than jazz or small venue classical. I owned the SR-009 and ultimately sold them because I could not overlook the deficiencies of their overall tonal balance: the SR-009 seems to have a midrange emphasis with a slightly downward slope toward the bass (bass volume getting less and less as we get lower).
Ultimately, any comparison to the STAX is stupid. They are very different presentations. My recommendation is that you if you can swing it, get both because they are complimentary. They each do well what the other does not do well.
The Abyss also are not as power hungry as people think. People tend to confuse gain with power. I listen to the HE-500 at about the 9:30 position on the Vali's volume knob. With the Abyss, it's 10:30. The Abyss will scale though with better amps. The more powerful amps seem to bring more speed and control to the table.
The downsides of the Abyss? The treble is a bit rough. But to put things into context, I don't find the treble any rougher than the treble of my DIY Fostex 6" wide-bander speaker. And the treble is certainly less rough than that of JBL 2445 compression driver / horns (another DIY speaker I built) and 90% of other headphones out there.
To reiterate, I don't think the Abyss is one of those headphones which is going to blow people away upon initial listen. The Abyss' strength is that it's good all-rounder. It's the decathlete of headphones. The fact is, most folks appreciate the 100m and 200m winners more than the decathlon winners.
The only downside is the price. But I think JPS Labs know they have something unique.
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Will be interesting to compare the Abyss to the LCD-X.
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Will be interesting to compare the Abyss to the LCD-X.
LCD-X is on the way courtesy of Questhate. Anax said he liked the LCD-X, but that I would probably still say "it's not an Abyss." We'll see.
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It does seem like the LCD-X would be one of the most appropriate comparisons with the Abyss, judging by all the impressions I've been reading from people.
Also interested to see how the even lighter diaphragm plays in resolving power as well.
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Will be interesting to compare the Abyss to the LCD-X.
LCD-X is on the way courtesy of Questhate. Anax said he liked the LCD-X, but that I would probably still say "it's not an Abyss." We'll see.
Pretty much. I know you won't like any LCD that's not the uber LCD3 or better. Can't blame you. LCDX gets closer but not gonna get there.
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Things look a little smoother from 2k to 10k in leakage mode as well... methinks...
Not quite related, but this brings up to mind a criticism (from Tari I think?) that he felt the Abyss was lacking warmth or body. I actually don't disagree with this assessment, especially when the Abyss is run fully sealed. The "leakage" mode brings about extra bass, giving the Abyss a slight fun U curve (so one simply enjoys and forgets these kinds of nitpicky things.)
I too recall one setup at THE SHOW where the Abyss was on the cooler sounding side. Akin my to subjective impressions of the cooler tonality of the SRH840 or K701; or even the TH900 (with its depression the "fundamentals" region.)
I surmise that this aspect of the Abyss may be caused by several factors:
- The moderately wide bump at 1kHz - relative to the warmth / body / fundamental area from 150-600Hz (see graph below)
- Low D2 distortion in the mid-bass
- A good treble presence from 7-10kHz
- The DAC
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To follow up, when running the Abyss with a tight seal (I check the spot under and behind my ears to make sure there's no gap there), I prefer a little PEQ. I find that pushing down the broad bump at 1kHz and the sharper peak at 8.5k about -3db helps to give the Abyss neither a warm nor cold tonality.
- 1000Hz -3db Q = 2.5
- 8500Hz -3db Q = 7.1
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HE-400 has that same type of peak at 1khz, but it's a very warm sounding headphone. Its broad upper-mid recession probably helps a whole lot with that though.
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Regarding the 9kHz ringing measurement of the Abyss:
- I hear the elevated treble - the treble peak as indicated the FR. It's just past the "siblance region" and heading to the the "definition region"
- I don't hear any nasty ringing effects.
PLEASE READ THIS TO BETTER UNDERSTAND HOW TO CORRELATE MEASUREMENTS TO THE SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE: http://www.changstar.com/index.php/topic,71.msg26628.html#msg26628 (http://www.changstar.com/index.php/topic,71.msg26628.html#msg26628)
It's amazing how many so called "objective" and "scientist" people at HF look at graphs and "Wowza! Bad" without really understanding how the graphs translate into the subjective experience. But it's really just a matter of troll or people intentionally being retards.
There's also something very interesting, which I will point out in the next post.
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Most planars have some tension to the diaphragm. In the case of orthos (SE or not), there's something on the CSDs which show how tightly tensions the diaphragms are. If you guys remember, I did an analysis of the LCD3 a while back, comparing "veiled" LCD3s to "good" LCD3s. I've also added an HE-400 CSD measurement for better comparison. Gurubai (the resident ortho expert) among others surmised that the "Ortho Wall" ringing was probably indicate of the diaphragm. Whatever it is, I think it's safe to say that this "wall" can be seen on ortho CSD measurements.
The most crucial point I will make is that I don't hear any of of this "ortho wall ringing" with any of the headphones below. I mean I would hope that none of us here look at the LCD3 CSDs and go "Wowza! POS! OMG! WTF for $2000?" As John Atkinson pointed out in his PPT slide at THE SHOW 2012: "Measurements Lie"
The results (and subjective impressions) would certainly jive with Joe's explanation to me:
With CSD's, we've found the decay around 8-9 kHz to not be the driver, but acoustics. I chased this down for quite some time when going through various gasket materials and cut dimensions just to find I was chasing a ghost; taught me all about the wonderful world of CSD's-:)
Or this one (from a post deleted from HF):
In fact, I chased the CSD's for a good week or so prior to release only to come full circle to determine that this measurement, at least as it pertains to this design, was of no use in improving upon the final sonic character...
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I could see the Abyss being a slow burner for some people. I was that way with the original SR-007. For me though, it only took one or two listening sessions with specific tracks to realize this was going to be my new headphone of choice.
I could swing the SR-009 too, but personally I don't feel any need for it. As I was saying to Tari via PM a while back, I find the the R10 is more complementary to the Abyss. Like Tari, I feel the Abyss sounds a little tonally 'wrong' with strings, so when I want some of that organic goodness I'll go for ol' Wood Boobs.
I'm hoping the LCD-XC will sound good enough for me to use as my office 'phone.
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I'm hoping the XC is really good as well. I could use a good pair of closed cans for work. Everybody's praising the X but there isn't much impressions of the XC.
Of the impressions I've seen they say the XC sounds closed and bassy. Bassy isn't bad in my book but I can't take too much closed-in sound.
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So the 9kHz wall is just a very high-tension ortho 'wall of ringing'?
In that light then, wouldn't HE500s have one of the most slacked membranes in the planar magnetic field? It has a wall at 3kHz.
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Here is a look at how the pads adjust. This is probably one the more ingenious ideas I've seen. The pads are magnetically attached to the cups - similar to how the power supply cables attach to the MacBook chassis (unless Apple has changed this recently). The pads can be angled accordingly by how the holes are aligned with the screw heads. While this does not allow the infinite adjust-ability of how the STAX earpads can rotate, the 18 degrees seems to be granular enough given that once set in place, its not going to move.
Damn, they steal my idea ={
I wonder, what is radius of the open driver area?
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Can we see the CSDs with the old dB/time ranges? The new one is kinda Audeze-ified...
LOL!
Here you go. Time scale to 5ms. Floor to -32 (which is roughly equiv to the -6db normalized start and -36db floor of the old graphs). What I need to do (pending) is write a conversion program from the ARTA format to CLIO.
It's fine that the new plot formats are in flux still, as the raw data is there. They can always be more efficiently processed into standard perimeters in the future.
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So the 9kHz wall is just a very high-tension ortho 'wall of ringing'?
In that light then, wouldn't HE500s have one of the most slacked membranes in the planar magnetic field? It has a wall at 3kHz.
Likely oth. HE-500 has almost untensioned membranes, relying on air damping almost solely. Pity it is a bit flabby in the bass (D2/D3; not really fixable in this design, air damping is too weak? Jergpads help slightly but do not fix it.) and the wrong grille and cloth damage its treble resolution. (Removing the cloth tilts balance up though. Removing/replacing the grille is harmless and I recommend it.)
HE-500 can even present without any ortho wall, depending on the mood of the factory line and phase of moon. (or rather, humidity)
I have yet to hear the Abyss; Poland is 10-20 years in the past at least. :'(
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So the 9kHz wall is just a very high-tension ortho 'wall of ringing'?
In that light then, wouldn't HE500s have one of the most slacked membranes in the planar magnetic field? It has a wall at 3kHz.
I would appear the "ortho wall" for the Abyss is 9kHz. Indeed, the HE-500's wall is around 3kHz. (see graph below). Probably explains why the HE-500 is the "flabbiest" sound of them all.
This is all speculation based on available evidence of course.
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Very interesting, everything. I wonder if the resonance at 1k will makes the piano sound nasal/clangy (?) I listen a lot to piano recordings, and have come to hate transducers with a peak in this area, where the piano already is at is at its loudest, and our hearing perhaps at its most sensitive (and recording engineers often do their best to make things worse).
The bump must be the fundamental resonance of the membrane, I think. A plastic membrane of this size with metal tracks on it would feel comfortable resonating just somewhere in this area! To get a fundamental resonance at an extremely high frequency like 9kHz, say, you would have to make it of ceramics or smth and without any kind of flexible suspension (if you ask me). Could the 9kHz ringing have to do with mechanical or acoustical concentric waves? The high Q suggests waves in bending material rather than in air, I would say. (otoh I am often wrong)
Anyway, keep up the great/enlightening work. Cheers, Olaf.
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Very interesting, everything. I wonder if the resonance at 1k will makes the piano sound nasal/clangy (?) I listen a lot to piano recordings, and have come to hate transducers with a peak in this area, where the piano already is at is at its loudest, and our hearing perhaps at its most sensitive (and recording engineers often do their best to make things worse).
The bump must be the fundamental resonance of the membrane, I think. A plastic membrane of this size with metal tracks on it would feel comfortable resonating just somewhere in this area! To get a fundamental resonance at an extremely high frequency like 9kHz, say, you would have to make it of ceramics or smth and without any kind of flexible suspension (if you ask me). Could the 9kHz ringing have to do with mechanical or acoustical concentric waves? The high Q suggests waves in bending material rather than in air, I would say. (otoh I am often wrong)
Anyway, keep up the great/enlightening work. Cheers, Olaf.
~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.
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Piano is always a great test of FR linearity. Yes, the 1kHz bump can easily be heard. This is why I suggested PEQ earlier. I have some ideas how to get rid of it based on Jerg's research.
I already have a simple mod in place which shaves a little bit off the 1kHz bump and quite a bit off the mid-treble. Makes the headphone slightly dark sounding which is to my taste.
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Would you mind elaborating on the mod? Maybe it will help the 1kHz ski slope on my HE-400's...
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~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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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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The measurement reminds me of the 404LE's http://www.changstar.com/index.php/topic,352.0.html (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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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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Latest mods. They would seem to confirm the 9k ringing is indeed "ortho wall" resonance.
BLUE = STOCK
YELLOW = MOD v1
(http://www.changstar.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=1193.0;attach=4345;image)
CSD BEFORE
(http://www.changstar.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=1193.0;attach=4275;image)
CSD AFTER
(http://www.changstar.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=1193.0;attach=4347;image)
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assuming favourable subjective changes too ?
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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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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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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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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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(http://cdn.head-fi.org/9/9f/9faee4b9_HDF0134_9854CC_blog.jpeg)
See the hint of the mods above. I'm too lazy to take my own photos. I only happened to have white felt around. Would have preferred to use black.
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i'm sure it sounds awesome but every time i see a pic of the abyss it looks like it's made for death metal fans with pumpkin shaped heads. ;)
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Heard the Abyss and the odd tonality a few have mentioned jumped out for me. It was hooked up to a monoblock, would that have been part of the issue (a poor match)?
The R10 was tonally a lot better for the acoustic and choral sort of music I was listening to.
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I can confirm that. With the wrong setup, there's a weird treble sheen and "zzzzzznnngg" effect. There is a reason I "tweaked" my pair to smooth out the treble. Three reasons:
- DAC/amp matching. As mentioned LAu matched well. EC 445 also matched well. S7 (Anax's modded) also well. Mjolnir, also good match, but a little more raw in the treble. GSX2 did not match well. I have to run the PWD2 with filter 4 and upsample in JRiver, etc. So you kind of get the idea.
- Related to the above: the rough treble measurements.
- The cable. I went with regular ol' copper. I did not like the Aluminoy cable the headphone came with.
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Yeah, that's what I heard. Glad to hear it's not how the Abyss has to sound.
The Woo Monoblock did come with a hardcover picture book full of pretty pictures of the Monoblock, so there's that in its favor. Not at all a good pairing with the Abyss, though. Terrible, really.
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I know you prefer your IEMs a little warmer, so the Abyss may still not have been for you. Others like Tari have commented that it tends to lack body and the fundamentals / lower midrange are muted. It's UERM like in that way.
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You're right, I like my iems to have extra sub-bass for my commute and a little warmth can be nice.
However, I do like neutral iems/headphones in quiet listening settings. For example, I did like the UERM loaner that I sent back smelling like eucalyptus--sorry Anax! Better than a cilantro smell, I guess?
The UERM has a fairly nice timbre (let me know if this is like saying something is musical). I mean I hear voices, cymbals, string instruments with whatever subtle sound elements that go into them sounding realistic to me. An earphone can be warm and rich or thin and accurate and still have the timbre sound more or less right within the context of that particular tuning or it can sound wonky. You described what I heard with the Abyss--I'm trying to make sense of that as maybe the 2nd order distortion as well as FR dips/rises? Without that I'm sure I could live with the tuning.
Thanks again for taking the time to explain some of the causes.
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I know you prefer your IEMs a little warmer, so the Abyss may still not have been for you. Others like Tari have commented that it tends to lack body and the fundamentals / lower midrange are muted. It's UERM like in that way.
Not your modded ones though. They have plenty of body and presence. Bass extension, detail and texture is phenomenal. I do not much care for most of the stock Abyss I have heard so far.
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So do any pirates still use the Abyss or is the love affair over for most of you?
I'm using a Marvmodded™ Abyss and really enjoying it lately. It doesn't get as much listening time as my speakers or HD800s, but it's one heck of a headphone out of the Ragnarok.
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Did anyone take advantage of those super deals that were around a while back?
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It continues to wow.
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I deleted the message, since it rather was a suggestion to the manufacturer..
....but I think the separate idea about different colors for left and right cup was good and potentially of univeral interest. In the future people will probably laugh at the unicolor fashion now in total domination. "How on earth could people accept having to waste time examining the cans every time before use, for correct L-R orientation?!"*
Olaf, pirate.
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I was able to listen to the Abyss today from the Moon Neo 430HA, running my own music.
Clamp and comfort are horrible. Truly awe-inspiringly awful. It was impossible to get a seal with the pads on my head.
That said, even without a seal the sub-bass on the Abyss is amazing. I had my HE-6 on hand to directly compare. Abyss wins handily for subbass and rumbles so damned low, and I'd say probably beats out the LCD2/3 as well. I think the bass definition is a bit better on my HE-6 though. The Abyss just has tons of energy, but it almost seems like it's digging into a subharmonic to do it. Mids feel very clean and fast.
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Are these phones still loved? I've only recently ventured into headphones from IEMS, and truly enjoying them so far. Right now I have Fostex Th900, which I truly love. Researching other options, from what I've read these might be what I'm looking for. Just not many user reviews, and not much at all recently. It's between getting these or a new DAC for right now.
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The secret to a good fit that a lot of people are not aware of is to pull the metal apparatus apart toward the sides to extend the cups apart about an inch. This greatly improves the fit.
Bad fit:
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Good fit:
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Behold my ascii art skillz
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Lol... Nice art bro!!
These would be a logical upgrade from Fostex Th900, similar sound signature from what I've read. I've considered Audeze as well, but so many revisions, kind of hard to follow. Plus, I don't think it has the same type of bass, I love the bass of the Th900.