It definitely makes it harder, but Janka hardness isn’t the only aspect of wood that affects sound. Pore size and grain are some of the other factors affecting sound.
It is interesting that Zach is a luthier (as he’s stated before) but seldom uses tone woods.
I just sort of quickly looked it up and it seems complicated over and above the other issues you stated. I doubt it will overly change the nature of the Verite. I wonder if the binder is present as a layer on the acoustic inner surface of the cup or if that is removed to expose more of the actual wood?
From my understanding of stabilized wood, it’s permiated with epoxy. This makes the wood stronger, and easier to work with. That’s essentially the purpose of stabilizing wood.
Many woods are too fragile for delicate shapes (e.g., headphone cups, pocket knife handles) and require stabilization. They’ll either fall apart during construction or crack with any sort of minimal use. Stabilization involves impregnating wood in a vacuum chamber with resin (plastic). There are related products such as Micarta, where fabric or paper is impregnated with resin to create a product not too different from wood.
The resonant properties depend on the density of the final product, as well as the thickness and shape. All of this can be tuned in a desired fashion by a musical instrument maker, or someone trained in handling natural tone woods.
You can’t tune characteristics of wood.
Yes, you can predictably. This follows from thickness, bracing, differences between the back, sides, and top of an acoustic guitar. Wood, plastic, metal, etc. Musical instrument makers exploit a ton of stuff. Brass, woodwinds, etc. etc. etc.
I’m not positive those will be what goes up but not sure… as I don’t think they’ve sent any out to vendors just pictures… maybe they allotted those specific ones to the dealers?
I have a feeling that the thickness of the cups ZMF designed means they don’t resonate much themselves, but like any surface that is reflecting a sound, the density, shape and porousness determines how that sound is reflected. I suspect this makes wood choice a lot less important than in actual instruments like the cello and hollow body guitars.
I see these as complimentary properties, or different sides of the same coin. A harder wood (e.g., maple) will result in a brighter tone than a softer wood (e.g., mahagony, rosewood). Maple and rosewood are common fretboard options on a slew of electric guitars (i.e., brighter or warmer). A harder material may reflect more sound content per its hardness, and in turn has less potential to vibrate than a softer wood. Wood vibrations (as airborne sound content that was not reflected) generally mask/destroy high range tones.
This video demonstrates the differences between the spruce and mahogany top options with the same model of dulcimer. This is an extremely simple instrument that differs only by one wooden piece, as the back portions are identical:
Acoustic instrument tone is both created and amplified through resonances and reflections. There is no debate that tone wood has a massive impact with acoustic instruments, and creating the best tone has been an art and science for hundreds of years. This is why Stradivarius violins sell for millions – they were the best of the era. In the 20th century, the science of sound came into its own and the production of quality tone is faster, better, and cheaper.
Tone considerations fully apply to the several cigar box instruments I built (even with my self-imposed spending target of $50 each), Body size matters. Type and thickness of wood matters. Sound hole size and shape matters. The height of the strings matters (i.e., as greater downward pressure transfers more sound energy to the resonant wood). This guy knows what he’s doing. I watched another build executed by a non-musician (which seems to have been taken down). The best comment was “what a waste of materials” – everything was done backwards and guaranteed to produce bad tone.
There are sharp debates among electric instrument builders about the value of tone wood. Yes, one can certainly hear and feel differences when playing a solid versus hollow electric guitar, as well as guitars made from different woods. However, electric processing adds a mountain of new and overlapping variables. Tone wood may have a minimal impact in the final product, or be overridden through later processing stages (e.g., tube amplifiers, effects pedals).
Headphones, as electric devices that require electric amplification, share many characteristics with electric guitars. Given the central role of electric drivers in sound production, one can use pure wood, a wood-plastic hybrid (stabilized wood), a non-wood composite, metal, or plastic to produce similar results. But audiophile-land is about the small differences. So YMMV and enjoy.
Btw, how much your Leopardwoods’ weight? I was pretty surprised mine was 550 grams. Well, big boii cups are huge but Monkeypod seems pretty light compared to these (I also looked the dencity chart). My Aeolus was 438 grams with the Camphor Burl but they are much smaller. Headband is great for making both of them fit well, you can maybe spot difference in hand but defitinely in head. But also the big cups and Auteur pads are so comfy that I defitinely like more of the VC’s fit.
549g here, which is definitely heavier than the Aeolus but I don’t really notice that they are heavier. Maybe I’d say the weight distribution on the Aeolus feels a little better but I haven’t messed around with the headband on either. The VCdo feel like they are more “wrapped” around my head (which is snuggly!), however, I think that’s a sensation mostly caused by the fact they are closed vs open. Hard to chose between them for most comfortable and actually find it difficult to pick a most comfortable from all my headphones.
i have to say, my first experience ordering from ZMF but this 6-12 week wait for a headphone to be built is killing me. Understandable given COVID and Zach has been very responsive despite the fact but it’s hard watching the status say “machining” for the past 2.5 weeks… sigh. I’m sure it’ll be worth it once it arrives.
I have a feeling the move to a new warehouse also really slowed things down. Once you get them I’m sure it will be worth it.
Zach told me that they sound very similar to the natural harder woods they have used.
Im still trying to decide if I want to “upgrade” or not.
Posted on Head-Fi, but I guess I’ll also post it here.
I received mine this past Sunday (13 weeks). Currently letting them burn in. I’m very surprised on how light they are. I’m also surprised how they’re so damn easy to drive. I had no trouble playing music from my Samsung S10+ and my laptop directly through the headphone jack without any volume issues at all! Of course I will be listening to them via my Bifrost 2/Asgard 3 stack if I’m at my desk, and through my portable Cayin C5 (or just my phone) if I’m just roaming around.
I’ll write some impressions once I get used to these cans, before and after burn-in. I primarily listen to EDM (like 95%), along with some lo-fi hip-hop, jazz, and classical and other genres. Mine came with the default solid Autuer and Universe lambskin pads.
I laughed at myself when I looked at the mirror with these on my small head, but they sure are comfy! I still can’t believe I ended up buying VC. The only other cans I have are my Ultrasone 900. Normally I wouldn’t spend more than $300. All my past gears were either on sale, had points saved up and used it towards the final price, or second-handed. In the end I took the plunge and simply jumped straight towards the summit-fi territory. Pretty cool experience.
Beautiful… My VO are due in next Monday!
Those are among the most gorgeous ones I’ve seen, the wood is lovely and you’ve picked out perfect rods for them. Great photos!
Beautiful cans and great photos. Congrats on going straight to summit-fi. I also have a BF2/A3 stack and recently got African Blackwood Eikons. Looking forward to your impressions. Welcome to the community!
Changed order to stabilized wood. I paid to get the Camphor but changed my mind. Doing some research on the subject I came across some cool examples of what can be done.
Can you already buy the stabilized maple? I have been wanting one but zach hasn’t seemed to have dropped it yet
