Man those are great photos.
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This is actually very apt… I like the armature comparisons it makes sense…I’ve read a couple people put a subwoofer in their SR1A chain for the impact/visceral/weight addition it brings to bass…interesting…
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These are right up your alley I think Paul! They are pretty great, and price to performance is disruptive to say the least… I would see if there is an audio shop that is getting them in and try and demo them…or maybe see about visiting Germany and their offices for a demo?
Also, thank you for the kind words regarding the photos…I hope to get better =)
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thank you for the constant flow of impressions - I do like this style of ears/hands on as much as your pictures
so I think the HEDD is simply to fast, to produce the heft/weight, you get by the big Audeze heavyweight champions - this mirrrors my first impression in may
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I am wondering if the comparison between the Heddphone and the SR1A will include the Schiit Jotunheim “R” as driving the SR1A.
In a way, it make sense and I like the idea to stay with a more or less 4000-4500$ systems comparisons … Heddphone + a good headphone amp like the SPL Phonitor xe and the SR1A with a promising dedicated Schiit Jotunheim “R”…
Of course I would understand if, unfortunately, the Schiit Jotunheim “R” is not available for this purpose.
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Coming soon though. Jason received the boards and assembly is ongoing. I assume they will also spend time on the burn rack. Hopefully we’ll see it in the Schiit site this week or next.
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in 4-4.5k is a DAC included? let´s see…
RME ADI 2 fs… around 1k
SPL Phonitor XE around 2,5
HEDDphone at around 1.9
oh! comes down to 5400 bucks
what will be the cost for the Jot R?
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I didn’t include the DAC as it’s not dedicated to an Headphones Station and DACS are used with other amps/speakers or already included in Hires walkman and so on…
Of course a DAC must be included in the total costs and can be the same between the two systems
As far as I remember, I heard the the cost of the SR1A dedicated Jot R amp should be less than 799$…
So SRA1 with Jot R should be less than 4500$ near the amount of a Heddphone with SPL Phonitor XE. around 4400$
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50k
Pennies.
Just a guess.
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that is very fair
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I think, they already announced it would more than 500$ but be less than 799$…
I am still wondering, if it will be really powerful enough to drive SR1A in all frequencies, as I didn’t understood if SRA1 has a real flat impedance in all frequencies.
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I had a pretty good feeling that for the price the Heddphone May shake the market a bit. Pretty exciting cause I don’t feel any headphone should cost 4 to 6 G’s. It is a bit excessive to pay for the best.
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Hi guys,
New member but have been following the thread and this forum in general for awhile now.
I’ve had this in as a home demo since Monday and wanted to share some impressions of my time with the HEDDphone.
When these were first announced I was pretty excited, another thing to add to my collection. Over the week I did quite a bit of listening and comparison to my other headphones, SR1A, Susvara & ADX-5000. My Abyss TC was sent for repair so any comparisons to it will be from recent memory.
When I first received them, two issues immediately stood out.
- The headband was too small and the cups did not fully cover my ears. Took some effort to get them to fit. I hear this issue will be resolved by replacing the headbands.
- The cable provided was terminated in a quarter inch. Given that these headphones are quite hard to drive, a balanced cable would have been nice. I use my headphones with the Pass XA25 stereo amp using an adapter. Since I didn’t have other headphones using mini-xlr connectors (i.e. no spare cable), I drove the HEDDphone directly from my Hugo TT2.
The HEDDphone is heavy but comfortable (more so than the LCD4 or RAD-0). Still, I could only use it for about 2 hours at the time before the weight got to my neck.
My first thing that caught my attention were how closed in these were, they felt more like a closed back than any of my other headphones. This is not to say that the stage was small (exact opposite of the ADX-5000 which is extremely open sounding but with an intimate stage) as the HEDDphone did width and depth quite well , just not as well as SR1a or Abyss TC. Images were quite small though, I didn’t get that feeling like the sound was enveloping me like I get with my other headphones. However, they were distinct and well placed within the stage.
On speed (aka transients), the HEDDphone also did well, I THINK it is slightly faster than Susvara, but slower than Abyss TC and very obviously slower than SR1a. Dynamics though, were quite muted, I’m not really sure why because bass impact was sufficient by my standards.
On tonality, the HEDDphone is on the thicker & smoother side (think Audeze over Hifiman), with what I think are slightly elevated lower mids, making male vocals and cello sound very full, to the point where I felt it robbed these instruments of texture. For example, Leonard Cohen’s voice sounded smoother with his signature rasp being reduced slightly. I’m pretty used to the endless treble extension provided by the SR1a. In contrast, the treble on the HEDDphone is quite tame with decent extension. Timbre was pretty natural compared to my other headphones, I was expecting it to sound metallic given the driver tech but it did not.
Overall I found the HEDDphone to compete well against similarly price offerings such as Arya, ADX-5000 (I would trade mine for a HEDDphone in a heart beat) & HD800S. Heck, I’d take these over Ether 2 and Empyrean any given day. However, I will not be adding this to my collection and would still prefer the Utopia and LCD4.
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Yes, I am using the Jotunheim R as my primary driver for the SR1A… I can’t go back to the Vidars now lol.
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Also, the Jotunheim R has been able to easily power the SR1A. But if you want to talk more about that please post here:
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Well, thanks to @TylersEclectic and his willingness to brave Seattle traffic on a Friday afternoon, I can no longer say I’ve not heard the HEDDphone.
Some traits were immediately apparent and didn’t take any level of effort or concentration to hear. Which is not to say they won’t take further listening to properly characterize and understand. I am not going to comment further on those aspects until I get to spend the time to do that (sometime next week). And, of course, getting in the details of their technical performance will take more than half an hours listening.
I will say that listening to the HEDDphone is definitely a headphone listening experience, not the more near-field speaker like experience of the SR1a or, to a lesser extent, the MySphere.
I did not find the weight to be an issue, though I’m used to things like the LCD-4, RAD-0 and Abyss anyway. I had the yokes fully extended for a proper fit. This mean the tilt-range on the cups was at its limit also, to get a flat/even seal against the side of my head. I will have to try backing off the yokes extension one notch and see if that still fits well and keeps the pads flatter.
I was happy to find that the yokes are metal - since it wasn’t possible in pictures to tell if it was just a grey colored plastic. They feel and look very nicely put together, even if absent any distinctive, deliberate, styling cues (other than the bronze/gold peeking through the driver grille).
Definitely looking forward to spending more time, and delving deeper, next week when my own set arrive. But so far, I don’t think I’m going to regret not waiting to audition them before buying.
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You’re such a tease. You can’t give a very brief, first impression? Mine are supposed to arrive tomorrow, but It’s been a pleasure just soaking up all these early impressions in the meantime.
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I could, but I don’t think it’d be very responsible to do so, particularly given the immense, “giant-killing” hype these have received in/from some quarters. The more something is hyped, the more cautious I tend to be when it comes to my own commentary.
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That’s a very level-headed and responsible way to do things.
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I am very curious to try this on . I did spend more time with my HE1000SE than the Focal Utopia .
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