Chilling at the skate park with @taronlissimore “Special” Rad-0 …
7 Likes
Thought you guys might want to see the finished product after our discussion the other day!
I posted the unboxing in the “What’s in the Box?” thread, but figured the nice pictures should be recorded here so others considering custom Rad-0s can find them. I’m THRILLED with how these turned out. I present my homage to Basquiat’s “Trumpet”:
20 Likes
These are beautiful! I think they came out really well!
How are you liking them so far sound wise? I’m a fan =) I have to send my borrowed set back to @taronlissimore soon… I’m sure he wants them back asap ha
3 Likes
Congrats @parmiep, they look gorgeous. Did you choose the "option 2 " colors from your previous post?
2 Likes
@TylersEclectic - So candidly this was a huge leap for me, and I wasn’t sure what to expect. My headphone experience wasn’t limited per se, in that I’ve had many different low to mid range options in my possession over time of varying quality and performance (DT 770 Pro, Custom One Pro, AIAIAI TMA-2, Grado SR80s, etc.), but my knowledge of the higher end is definitely limited/lacking. My first “real” foray into expensive headphones are a pair of Campfire Audio Cascades that blew the doors off anything I’d heard previously. Going from the CAs to this has been an interesting experience to say the least for a variety of reasons - first open set of headphones, first planar magnetic headphones, first TOTL headphones.
All that to get to your actual question - my impressions so far from limited initial listening are very positive, but also not what I necessarily expected either, though not in a bad way. Everything sounds clean and clear, particularly with regards to bass. Obviously, going from the Cascades to the Rad-0s was going to be a leap because the Cascades are known bass cannons, where the Rad-0s have very defined sounding bass. Where the CAs thump and bump, the Rad-0 paint a picture of what is actually producing the bass sound, which is a novel experience for me. On the whole though, the one thing I kept telling myself while listening was “wow this sounds so crisp and clear”, which seemed really noticeable coming from the CAs. Everything sounded “correct”, but still fun. Nothing has stuck out to me yet as specifically muted or emphasized, as to my limitedly experienced ear it sounds very balanced. I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on whether that all sounds in line with your thinking, or if there’s anything you’d want to point out.
@PaisleyUnderground I did! It seemed to match up best with the Basquiat piece to me, and thankfully it still has some wonderful effects in the right light, to @taronlissimore’s point about being careful about the choice given how different and vibrant they can be in person with daylight.
I really enjoyed my custom experience with the Rosson team. They’re all very nice, and incredibly helpful and patient. It was super fun to work with them on the concept and work through iterations to arrive at the final product. I initially had my eyes on the “Fire & Ice” set that was listed on this site’s shop, but the day I went to purchase them, they had already been bought by someone else. I figured I could wait for another pair to come along that spoke to me, but then I saw Torg’s absolutely gorgeous “Graffiti” set, and the decision to try and capture some of that beauty via a custom pair was made for me. A happy accident in the end!
9 Likes
This is awesome to hear! I agree they didn’t fit into what I was expecting when I heard them ha, but also in a good way =) the RAD-0 really is something. I also have a pair of Cascades and I’m a fan of them for what they do, I picked up the XL pads for the Cascades and find that to be my favorite pairing, though I usually use the Cascades for gaming with my switch or watching movies/shows on my ipad, with the occasional spotify random play.
5 Likes
I hate to point this out to you but with Rosson Audio’s custom color expertise, you could probably choose from some or all of the Pantone Purple Pallette.
3 Likes
You’ve potentially done @TylersEclectic’s wallet dirty on that one haha. I’d love to see what would come of a custom purple Rad-0 with all the different color tones though.
3 Likes
Man those turned out great! Whenever you see a pair in person you can truly tell that pictures don’t tend to do them justice.
That’s a good way to describe them. They just have a very natural sound that makes for an easy listen. Are you running them single-ended or balanced. If you have the chance, I’d highly recommend giving them a try balanced. @MRHifiReviews can attest to listening balanced.
Now that you have had them for a couple days how are you finding the weight / comfort?
3 Likes
They are great with single-ended but epic with balanced, balanced isn’t just about more volume as some people like to say. Certain amps have better specs through the balanced connection and I definitely prefer to listen to the RAD-0 with the balanced cable! @parmiep
3 Likes
I can also attest to balanced being better… though I had to send off the balanced cable already… I miss it ha!
3 Likes
I got both single ended and balanced cables with my Rad-0s with the hopes of testing out the difference. I have the Bifrost 2 feeding balanced cables to the Mjolnir 2, and plugged the balanced cable in today to give it a test drive. I’ll need to listen a lot more, but so far so good! Listening to Queens of the Stone Age’s album Songs for the Deaf sounds downright nasty with that combo! Definitely has a certain bite to it. I’ll need to do a real comparison between SE out of the Pendant vs. Balanced out of the Mjolnir 2 in the future.
Regarding the weight/comfort, it feels like an “expect the worst and be pleasantly surprised” scenario. Everyone talks up the clamp, hotspot and weight and honestly none of those things are as bad as they’re made out to be (in my opinion of course). Is there a hotspot? Sure. Does it feel like I’m wearing a cloud, or light enough that I don’t notice them? Not at all. But they’re not uncomfortable either. If anything, I’d say the pads + the clamp do a pretty good job of making them feel snug, which is pleasant with the hybrid pads the Rad-0s come with, which are pretty soft and plush thanks to the suede on the inside of the pads. I’m sure there’s an argument around “when you’re paying that much they should fit/feel perfect”, but it doesn’t bug me. I have some Dekoni nuggets on hand I might give a shot just because I have them, but it isn’t an emergency.
Edit: One callout to make that I omitted originally - I’ve read several times that the Rad-0s sound amazing for rock/metal. Can attest, don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed either as much as I have with these, and neither are genres that I listen to with any frequency normally. As cliche as it is to say, feels like the songs are coming alive.
7 Likes
RAD-0’s are BY FAR the most comfortable phones I’ve ever had. Of course that’s for my specific use case - which is listening while lying down on a pillow.
6 Likes
Well I won’t go as far as saying the RAD-0s are the most comfortable headphones I’ve tried, I definitely don’t have as many comfort issues with them as others. I feel like head shape plays a pretty big role with the RAD-0 (along with the HEDDphone) as it seems to determine whether or not you get a hotspot. Heavy headphones aren’t an issue for me but we’ve had people jump from things like the 650 to HEDDphone / RAD-0 and think they’re ready for the weight. It’s a very noticeable difference.
I do think there’s room to get the weight down in a more uniform model down the line but I don’t think the RAD-0 weight / headband design is going to change too much.
5 Likes
I haven’t tried the RAD 0 for a long time but for the 30 minutes I tried them, I really wished the headband was different as It creates way too much of a hot spot on my head. Generally I don’t wear heavy headphones though but LCD-4 was not bad in terms of comfort with their design. HEDDphone wasn’t great either, may just be my head isn’t really built for these.
5 Likes
Just georgeous. If I had an Insty-grahm account, I’d give it a 
1 Like
Brilliant…love track 3 and hearing the method behind the madness… I feel like the RAD-0 and this album were meant for each other… beautiful… <3
3 Likes
I can’t say I’m a fan of the bright colors of some of the RAD-O but this black and white one’s gorgeous.
(That reminds me, I need to check tonight’s lottery ticket)
10 Likes
My lovely pair of RAD-0’s. These were actually just one of the b-stock items that were listed on the site. Apparently theres is a small bubble on the housings, somewhere near the headband mounting points, but I can’t find it…
Had these for a little over a week and I now have zero reason to pick up any of my other planars again… A little context, I’ve owned the LCD-2’s since 2012 and even after adding many, many more items to the collection, I still found myself going back to the LCD-2’s.
Now fast forward to 2020, and here I am watching the Alex Rosson interview, and @TylersEclectic has been telling me to try the RAD-0. So screw it, decided to finally nab a pair to try out. These are everything I loved about the Audeze house sound (flat bass, extended all the way down, no wonkiness to the mids) with a dash more treble and upper mid energy that makes it a much more exciting listen. I’ll have to write up some more formal impressions on these once I get a bit more time with them on my head (probably around the holidays or early Jan).
On the ergonomics side, the clamping force is strong, and the weight is noticeable (nothing out of the ordinary coming from Audeze/ZMF). I think a larger suspension style headband with a decent amount of contact surface area (think HEK, Empyrean, etc) would be a huge improvement. I may have to look at getting one custom made to try out…
One other thing that could use some improvement is the stock cable. Sorry Alex, but man, its just super microphonic.
9 Likes