ZMF EIKON & ZMF ATTICUS

Zach loaned me his Decware when I reviewed the Atticus, and I felt it was way too warm with both sets of tubes he included. It sounded better out of my NFB-11.

The Eikon, however, sounded a lot better on the Decware. -shrugs-

 

The Eikon is even better out of stuff not warmed over Chinese crap. It's legitimately good, think a more compressed, more v-shaped, slightly tizzier HD 650 that doesn't really scale that much but sounds much better than anything Beyer or AKG or Fostex can put out. It just isn't worth it's asking price as it's 1000 more than an HD 650, overall a worse headphone, and closed headphones are mostly tools or for situational use and the Eikon needs more clamp.

 

Yeah!

 

The clamp is truly a problem, at least for my anatomy. Once I get more time I'll try a bit to piss with it. Zach uploaded a video here:


However, bending the headband doesn't help. It just bends back to whatever shape works best with my head.

 

To me the Eikon is above the hd650 but still not at HD800/Utopia /HEKV2 level.
Those (HD800/Utopia/HEKV2) are still the "golden three" TOTL to beat.

Yet for a closed can, I think it is at the top of the food chain.

The treble is excellent at avoiding sibilance, and the bass depth is just excellent as well.

The mids are not in the same realism level as the three "TOTL" level cans mentioned above, but neither is the hd650.

To me the HD650 sounded best to me modded, and out of the Jotenheim,
but then scales lower with most gear.

The Eikon does not scale as much,
but on its worst day is better to me than hd650 in bass and treble areas.

The Eikon mids are a tiny bit colored as would expect from a wooden type closed can.

So the hd650 can/may match and/or surpass the Eikon in the mids.

The Eikon is the more attractive balanced and lively sound,
as it can go deep and go high with beauty/clarity at both ends.

Its bass is deeper and greater than Utopia as well, but Utopia is just too resolving for any can to match even the hd800.

The only can I have heard match Utopia mids realism while surpassing it in bass authority and treble is the HEKV2..

The Eikon is simply not a that level of midrange realism, but it is still above all others and just as beautiful sounding,
wich is a real great asset for a closed can when needing it at night.

The hd650/hd800/Utopia/HEKV2 all scream loudly at night and simply cannot be played without bothering others lol.
The Eikon is amazing at giving me head banging bass in a total dead quiet room environments lol.

I do not hear any other faults, yet I cant really say with average gear.
I have only have tried Eikon with tube amps plus Yggdrasil combo,
And from a friend's Chord Dave.
So from that view they all sound good lol.

As for clamp issue, I haven't noticed that , but it didn't squeeze my head and I thought that was good.
I can see how some may want more clamp though. .

 

You and @Hands have saved me a ton of money since I joined SBAF. I think I'll pick up the Utopia in a year or see what else comes out. Sticking with the HD650 and my money for the moment.

 

No! I like the clamp as is.

 

Your head is a giant skull.

 

It's like an orange on a toothpick.

 

I have a sensitive noggin so I will most likely appreciate the light clamp unless it just won't stay in the proper place on my head. One day hopefully soon I will get to find out for myself.

 

I've known Psal for quite a while on the Headphones Discord, and, while he's usually right on the money about things, I don't think he's right about this. I say this as someone who modded and loved the HD650 even more than the HE500 and some other headphones...the Eikon is just better. I'm not entirely sure where he's getting the compressed sound from (as the HD650 has a pretty small soundstage and the Eikon beats it in that area while sounds quite a bit wider) or the tizzier part from. Especially out of a Decware amplifier, or a good tube amp in general.

THAT SAID, the Eikon needs a better amp than the HD650. The NFB-11's amp (while the DAC is fantastic) does not cut it. :/

 

Crap in, crap out with HD 600/650/800. That's the point of high-fidelity gear.

 

don't get me wrong, i enjoyed the Eikon at canjam (if one can enjoy any piece of gear at canjam, the place that makes handjobs feel like a winter in some ex-soviet-block country). will be fun to have it on loan for a week and evaluate it more deeply. i'm 100% willing to take this post and shove it way up my own ass if i feel differently when that time comes. i'm also not a blinded hd650 fan-boi that believes it to be the pinnacle of headphone nirvana. but despite the above disclaimers, i still feel the hd650 (or modded 580, in some ways a modded hd800 despite my love/hate with that one) on a great system would be hard for the Eikon to beat, which deals with constraints inherent to being a closed back, with cup reverberations, etc. by the way its probably my favorite closed back to date, just to put things in perspective. if i was in the market for a closed back headphone I wouldn't think twice about buying an Eikon, period end of story. but i don't need that just yet, and if I were forced to choose I'd stick to the hd6x0 with great gear.

the implications in this statement are just straight cray, since it suggests that the AGD is sufficient for the hd650. sufficient as in gets loud enough, well sure, probably. but sufficient as in unlocking it's potential, definitely not.

 

Hard to beat? Sure. But I think it does. I don't say this lightly, but I just happen to think the Eikon is a better all-around headphone than the HD650 and happens to have the similar timbre that I've been looking for. That said, I think the Atticus is closer to the HD650, and I kinda prefer it.

Honestly, I think you're looking too far into that statement. The NFB-11's amp section is barely on par with the Magni 2u, but I think it is sufficient enough that I don't feel like I'm missing something completely from the HD650's sound like I do the Eikon. The HD650 does scale a lot better, but Eikon does feel like it's missing something if you're not using it with a good amplifier.

When I had the review sample of the Eikon and Atticus (and a decware,) I felt the Atticus actually did really well without the tube amp, while the Eikon was miles better with it. For that reason, I've wondered if I should have stuck with the Atticus, but I didn't (as I wanted a better jack-of-all-trades.)

 

I see what you mean...and have a solution! Get a sweet tube amp for the Eikon and then grab a hd6x0 for the 1-2 punch wait that's what @Mystic did haha! the Atticus probably is more similar to the hd650 but felt darker and bassier to me. Will be interesting to have the Eikon for a week.

 

You have no idea what the timbre sounds like as you've never heard the timbre of the Eikon or HD 650, only the wet, muddy, timbre of a Chinese amp with rolled transistors. And you never paid attention to the sound and levels of the instruments. The Eikon is incredibly overdamped and compressed where the HD 650 is just dark. The Eikon should need something like uh... the Jotunheim to come to life.

Again you've never heard what the HD 650 really sound like. The Magni 2U is much higher fidelity than anything AudioGD makes despite it's slight steel and warm bass.

Jack of all trades hahahahahahahahahahahaha. TELL THE EIKON TO REPRODUCE WHAT DRUMS SOUND LIKE and differentiate the different drumheads, micing techniques, compressors, and drummer heights between Rumors and Ride the Lightning! OH WAIT IT CAN'T! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

FOR YOU:
WORSE = BETTER
BETTER = WORSE
LO-FI = BETTER
HI-FI = WORSE
TIMBRE OF SHITTY EQUIPMENT > TIMBRE OF INSTRUMENTS
OH AND YOU USE HEADPHONES FOR GAMING WHERE YOU'RE NOT PAYING ATTENTION TO THE SOUND INSTEAD OF CRITICALLY LISTENING TO MUSIC

How can you judge any equipment not incredibly distorted by these standards? YOU CAN'T!

 

Lolol I sometimes feel like psalm is the hype man of my inner thoughts. But yeah that's what I was getting at

 

You're acting like I haven't admitted the NFB-11 was shit several times. You're also conveniently leaving out that I've heard the Eikon on something other than the ADG, and I've owned the HD650 with an OTL. That's why it is still one of my favorite headphones. But yah, let's just leave that out because of shit you heard on the discord and you're taking way out of context.

Yes I have, I just don't treat it like the "end all be all" like you do.

This shit is why you're banned from the headphones discord. You don't respect anyone's opinion, and would rather go out of your way to insult them when they don't want to bow down to Schiit and Sennheiser like you do. Hell, your line about gaming isn't even relevant to this, as you know full well that's not all I do with my headphones. Or do I need to bring up the shitty and compressed Metal you listen to constantly?

 

I'm banned from the headphones discord for insulting lo-fi mentalities, gamers, autists, background listeners, anime, and for death threats for saying pedophiles should be hang, drawn, and quartered as it's immoral for a society to feed child rapists and starve children. I stand by my opinions. Maybe you should go listen to some music instead of compulsively playing videogames like a teenager. Wait whispy moustached teenagers in Led Zeppelin shirts listen to more music than you....