Coming from NAMM Show, heard it a few times and got a chance to ask Sankar and few other folks at Audeze some questions about the MM-100.
The MM-100 was quite often next to the MM-500 and tonally speaking, it was pretty evident Manny tried going for a similar tuning on both headphones. Reference/neutral was the goal on the MM-100 and I thought Manny and Audeze did a good job hitting that. Bass was nice and tight, fairly well extended. It was on the RME ADI-2 DAC FS and wanted to make sure it no EQ was applied in either of the bass/treble EQ or with the parametric EQ and indeed it wasn’t. For my personal taste I would probably give it a small bass shelf though the bass EQ on the RME was pretty fun and the MM-100 took it well. Technical performance is most excellent on the MM-100 and it had a decent soundstage at least I could tell from the noisy environment of NAMM Show. Treble was nice and present, didn’t get any hints of sibilance. The MM-500 did seem to have better detail/clarity and treble extension over the MM-100 at the fraction of the price, I can see the MM-100 being very popular.
Build wise, big step up from LCD-1/Penrose/Mobius. Premium metal construction and quite comfy on my head. Not too tight but pretty stable and I am not going to worry about it slipping off.
Some of the questions I asked:
Is the driver from the Maxwell?
The only thing the MM-100 shares with the Maxwell is the headband.
From Iron_Dreamer: MM-100 has a unique driver, newly created just for this headphone, and does not appear in any other Audeze product. It is NOT made from cast-offs, reject parts, things with sloppy tolerances, etc. It has been specifically designed by our engineering team to perform optimally in this chassis for the sonic goals we have for the MM-series of headphones.
Is the single entry cable system on the MM-100 the same as the LCD-1 where you can plug it into either side? And for folks who want to try to use a dual 3.5mm cable, does it work?
Yes, same as the LCD-1 where you can put the 3.5mm cable into either side and it will still work. For people that are guitarists for example, if you are a righty or a lefty, you can position the cable either way. For using the a dual cable on either side, it probably depends on how the cable is made but it should work though he wasn’t too sure why folks would want to do that (speaking for pro-audio context)
From Iron_Dreamer on Head-Fi: The connectors on the headphone are 3.5mm, and can be used with single- or dual-entry cables, single-ended or balanced. The stock cable is single-entry, single-ended with a 6.3mm on the amp side, with an included adapter to 3.5mm.
Is the pads similar to any existing or past Audeze headphones?
Completely original to the MM-100, shares tech or material from existing headphones but the MM-100 is pre-production so still tweaking things on the MM-100, pads themselves are still a work in progress.
The weight is listed as TBD, any info on that?
The MM-100 is still pre-production, still working on it so there are things that they are working on but it should not have any major changes from this unit they are showing today.
The website lists June 2023 as the launch, is that accurate?
Yes, planning on launching it in June but that is an estimate currently.
