DCA Aeon Noire X Measurements & Official Discussion

Weirdly enough I think clamp is no issue for me. I just need the cups to cover my whole ears. That’s what failed for me with the Abyss headphones. Also, sennheisers closed back wireless headphones came short too. That’s what’s scary with buying headphones for me. No hat fits. Comically massive. Thanks for your input!

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A question here for anyone who owns or has owned the Audeze LCD-X.

How does the NoireX compare?

I recently tried the LCD-X with Eq cause without it sorry but it sounds like a$$.
And it sounded quite narrow.
My head is a bit narrow to , lol, small and the comfort of the LCD-X was horrible. Doesn’t stay on my head.
But , yes the LCDX has a narrow soundstage , it wasn’t zingy as a planar but I found the bass and in general don’t sound natural timbre wise. I was expecting texture but got more of a ‘ solid’ sound with nothing around the edges in terms of texture if that makes sense. I was expecting the opposite.

Are the Noire X more textured and natural than the LCDX and is the soundstage better?

Thanks !

BTW.

Do we have a thread on what tracks or instruments are good to judge timbre on?

I’m not bragging, but I’ve been a musician of around 35 years so I’m pretty intimate with instruments and how they sound.

Here are some tracks and things that are good to see if timbre is proper. I’m sure many know these things already.

Rain and applause. Really really hard to get right on anything. Speakers, headphones, you name it. Super hard to get right without them sounding like static.

Snare drum brushes. Again hard to get right but not as hard as the above. If the don’t sound right it will sound like static again or a mushy indistinct character.

Here is a good track for that

3rd track of this album. Brushes should sound pretty correct and not like static on a record.

The below is a classic amongst audiophiles for staging and timbre.
There is a clarinet on the right and a trombone on the left playing the same thing. On a lesser system it’s hard to delineate which is the clarinet and which is the trombone. Of course a clarinet has a more woody and reedy sound. They also should be in front a bit. Which is weird for a recording but works.
Satchmo comes in , in the middle and his trumpet shouldn’t be too shouty. Trumpets are a bit shouty by nature so….

And some Opera pieces are second to none for soundstage width and depth.

If we don’t have a demo songs to judge timbre , soundstage etc. would be good to have one.

Hope this helps some people!

Pardon for the rant

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There is a thread on timbre. Lots of Keith Jarrett on piano for timbre-heads

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Ok right on. Pardon to the mods for that.

Thanks

Link to this thread would be great.
Thx.

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Can only help with my audition of the Aeon 2 Noire (not the X) against the LCD-X last December.

The LCD-X are a great headphone, with a wide soundstage, instrument separation, dynamic attack etc to be expected from a open backed planar magnetic, but they are heavy and very forward with their accurate & clinical presentation.

The A2N offered as good a soundstage, presentation and attack, but stepped back and not a young puppy pleased to see you home again.

In terms of SQ I would have happy with either, but from a long term livability, I went with the A2N and have been very happy with my purchase.

Had to get the cabling sorted, as needed a long cable, as they are for main system listening and not desktop setup.
I also upgraded from a Burson Soloist MkI to a Bakoon HPA-21 headphone amp.

Both are demanding to drive, so not for direct phone connection and will benefit from a good, powerful headphone amp, probably costing as much or more than the headphones themselves.

No plans to upgrade to the A2NX models, though I may get the latest pads as these seem to have been improved.

I’m still waiting for my E3 to come back from repair, I just got notified today that it’s shipping back. From what I remember, it always sounded a little too hot in the 2-4KHz range to me and I would balance it out by boosting the upper treble and sub bass a bit. When I get it back I think I’ll try to find the peaks with a tone generator and EQ it down.

With the Noire X I did do some frequency sweeps and I’m finding there’s some intense narrow band peaks for me at 3.1K, 4.4K, 6.8K, 9.8K and 10.7K. Maybe it’s just how the AMTS interacts with my head/ears. I EQ those peaks down 1 or 2dB. After EQ the Noire X has less 2-4Khz emphasis and a lot more air than the E3.

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Yep, that’s exactly what I found as well with the E3, slightly too much at 2-4k and not quite enough upper treble and sub bass.

May I suggest taking them off and putting them on again and doing another sweep? I found very similar results with the E3. It seem to be very sensitive to positioning variations on my head, more so than most other headphones. To me it seems like AMTS eliminates the big peaks and dips in the FR, but it also creates absolutely tiny pockets of wave interactions within the cup that creates small peaks. Peaks are here one day and gone the next, quite bizarre.

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I’ve tried repositioning it before and the peaks aren’t as severe when I position it as far down and backwards as possible. But then the pads are touching my ears and it’s really easy for them to slide forward a little.

And yeah, these are super narrow peaks. I’m using EQ filters with Q values of 8 to reduce them. I was kind of shocked that I had to keep raising to Q value so much before it started sounding smooth.

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Same for me with the E3. The annoying thing is that a couple of times when I put them on the next day, those peaks moved or changed. With other headphones I don’t find them to be as inconsistent.

Granted without AMTS, other headphones have much bigger peaks and valleys in the FR to my ear, so I still think it’s a good technology overall. Just has some quirks.

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It really depends on the ear and coupling. I would say that it’s… technology worth trying. Whether this is really the right direction to pursue generally remains to be seen, and by that I mean it really depends on what your design goals are. Certainly for a single head/ears, it can yield good results, but we’re still a bit in the dark when it comes to whether good performance at the eardrum of a single individual ear is a good proxy for a wide range of humans.

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Yeah I know you don’t like it from your reviews. Was it mainly because it didn’t give you the FR you expected/measured?

Dan Clark Audio VIVO Cable

Has anybody experience with the Dan Clark Audio VIVO Cable? Is it worth the upgrade?

Torben

This actually matches my experience with the E3. I find them a bit shouty/hot in the 2-5 khz range, so I have those area turned down with EQ based on Oratory’s measurements, which seem to match how I hear the headphone. I also have some tweaks in the mids and bass to smooth over the response and reduce some of the boominess that can be present with some tracks.

DCA Aeon Noire X vs Drop DCA Aeon Closed X? Does the price difference of $500 worth the upgrade looking at just sound?

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They say the hack is to buy the Aeon 2 closed and update the pads to the inner perforated ones or Noire X pads.

I just put Noire X pads on my Aeon 2 Noire but I’m getting E3/Noire X curious.

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There’s a pretty massive difference in the acoustic design between the AMTS versions and the non AMTS versions. Like you have an entire resonator structure in front of the driver on the newer/higher end ones that doesn’t exist on the older models. So changing the pads alone won’t give you the sound of the higher end models.

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Oh no not saying that. Just saying to get an A2N from an A2C is just the pads.

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