Rosson Audio Design - Official Thread


Rosson Audio Design was started by Alex Rosson who has been involved in the headphone world (and audio industry) for quite a long time. He was one of the original founders of Audeze and recently launched his new headphone company.

We had the chance to demo his headphones and he invited us out to his visit his lab and check out where the magic happens.

They are currently making 100 unique headphones to start and I snagged pictures of 35-40 of them. He also let Andrew and I do our own molds for a headphone so I am pretty stoked to see how those turned out! We had to catch our flight so we couldn’t see the rest of the process of making the headphones but making the mold was a really cool experience and @andrew has video of me making mine that he will get posted later.

The sound of the headphones themselves are amazing. They are one of the most balanced headphones I have ever heard. They just kind of produce the music in a way that feels natural. We tried it unbalanced with the Cayin N8 Brass/Black as well as balanced with a Cavalli amp (I don’t recall if it was Liquid Gold or Liquid Crimson) and that balanced connection with the RAD headphones is the best I’ve ever heard.

While the tuning will remain the same across the headphones, the level of customization available is amazing. There is no other experience like this when it comes to full-size headphones.

I’m going to continue dumping images into this thread because they are all pieces of art. But they aren’t just pieces of art because they sound incredible too. If these haven’t been on your radar yet then they absolutely should be.

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These look incredible!

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This one is a photo of me mixing up the mold. There are a ton of options available which means the process can be incredibly creative or simple depending on what you are looking for.

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They are unbelievable. The crazy thing is that they sound as good as they look. We had quite the day yesterday. Thanks Alex for the incredible experience.

Here’s @taronlissimore mixing a pair of his own.

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The Audeze lineage is clearly evident in the design but it looks like they went on a program of diet and exercise. How’s the weight?

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:drooling_face:

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The weight is similar however it’s managed better. Clamping force and headband design displace that planar weight well. They don’t feel as heavy on the head. They also feel very secure (e.g. you can lean forward without the feeling that they’re going to fall off)

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As @andrew said, they don’t feel nearly as heavy on your head as you would expect. They are similar in weight to the LCD-2 but because of the headband design and clamping force the weight is displaced in just the right way.

The headband also has enough cushion on it that you don’t get that same pain on the top of your head that you get with other heavier headphones.

The headband also has a sliding mechanism that slides when there is no pressure being applied but when there is pressure applied ( like when its on your head) it locks into place. It’s actually a very cool system.

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This is the pair we got to use for the evening. I listened to Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors album (we actually got to go to the studio where the album was recorded as well), Smashing Pumpkins Siamese Dream as well as Alice In Chains MTV Unplugged.

This is one of the first pair of headphones that I have tried that I’ve put on my head and felt I needed to buy them right away. Normally I would just wait until a unit wandered up its way to our office but these are headphones that I want right now. The hardest part is actually choosing what I would want them to look like.

It’s hard for the pictures to do them justice but these are just so nice to look at.

If you were to customize your own pair, what would you go with? Colours are an option, wood is an option. Wood mixed with colour is an option. I believe the faceplate colour is also an option.

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Considering our relative success at customization yesterday I’d give you cart blanche to choose some colors for me.

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For those looking for a bit of a feel of what they sound like, here’s the measurements taken from the 42nd headphone

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I really liked them too… I had no idea who made them and had to ask on head-fi CanJam impression thread and Alex responded I :thinking: think… but yeah they are purrty!

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Yup that was him that responded to you haha. I didn’t even see them at CanJam because he had two pairs that were tucked away in the quiet rooms. I was able to sneak out there for a tiny little bit (once into the drinks room and once for Dan to give me a run through on the new Ether 2 pads).

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That looks really good to me, depending on the compensation

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Holy god they are gorgeous.

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Great pictures! All look very nice.

But their price of $2.6k seems a little too high (my money already went to Verite and SR1a :disappointed:). Hope to hear more in-depth impressions later!

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Perhaps a Meze Empryean, Audeze LCD 4, ZMF Verite, Rosen Audio Design shootout is in order! Why only these 4 top tier headphones? Because they have all been described as having a “natural sound.”

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With an impedance of only 29 Ohm, they might work well with a speaker amp (coming from my new SR1a perspective :wink: ), that could be tempting…

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I’m up for the challenge :smiley:

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The Empyrean has been on a perpetual 6-8 week backorder so getting one for the program has been difficult to say the least.

Having listened to all 4 of them, I would say the RAD-0 and Verite would probably be neck and neck for 1st place in most shootouts, followed by the Empyrean and then LCD-4 although out of the 4 the LCD-4 is the least natural sounding. I’ve never actually seen anyone say that the LCD-4 has a natural sound so that’s interesting.

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