Jude E-peens Tyll and Gaslights Us with Alternative Facts

Yeah, if my guess is right, R10 is about 50mm in diameter, so it may well be a 53mm driver. I'm not sure about durability, but most reports of dead R10s I have found mention the voice coil snapping or something like that either during recabling or something else. I know Sennheiser HD6xx headphones also have the voice coil dangling underneath the plastic enclosure, and if you snap off just one of them, it's hell trying to fix it (might as well not bother at all). It seems R10 is the same way from the dissection photos I have seen.

And between the bass heavy versus bass lite R10, I think it's basically that the construction of the bass-heavy version allows more air flow in the rear (or it's more "open" per se, more "ported"). Maybe it's possible to "convert" a bass-lite R10 to a bass-heavy one with some modifications. So in that context, I'd expect the bass-heavy version to not be so wildly different.

But beyond that, I don't find R10 and Z1R similar at all. Z1R seems like a continuation and maturation of Z7 more so than a successor to R10.

I think Denon D7000 or Fostex TH900, if bass was toned down on those, would probably sound more like R10 successors.

 

Yeah! I had it on loaner for a few days, and man, that thing was gigantic! Sound left much to be desired, and if the headphone was cheaper (like, say, even $1000 would be grudgingly acceptable), I'd have tried to grab it and done something to it. Comfort was boss level, though. I wish all of my headphones was that comfortable.

R10 is massive as well, but most of it are due to the cups, as I think you know. The drivers are very cute in comparison to Z1R's drivers.

And @n3rdling gave me a peek at what was under the pads. I think with the right foam material (or ya can just go YOLO like me and stack toilet paper rings ), it could be great. But I think a part of the bass will always drop off since it wasn't tuned with bass in mind like the later Denon and Fostex headphones.

 

...and right to the front page at head-fi

 

Heh, this post was already taken down. I wonder why.

 

Heh, if this was the case I would've thrown out my Voxativs long ago. Actually I would have never bought them, knowing that in specific circumstances they measure horrible.
In any case I'm sure Tyll listened to them first and then took measurements.

Jude's post was actually very helpful.

The question is whether results that are more consistent with in-ear measurements in the high frequencies is something we want with dummy heads. Tyll's results generally struck me as very clean for a dummy head. Heck, you can actually look at the square waves and it doesn't look like a mess, which isn't the case with in-ear measurements.
In my opinion you need an ear, or something to simulate the ear for results to be accurate below around 5kHz. Otherwise the results could be off by 5db or more with some headphones.

Above 5kHz the ear-resonances do more harm than good and I don't think they're important for knowing how a headphone sounds like in the treble. Just take a look at my Utopia measurements: http://www.superbestaudiofriends.or...l-utopia-measurements.2670/page-6#post-140944
The treble is a roller-coaster on the in-ear measurements. The dummy head results aren't nearly as bad in this case, but I still think the more "anechoic" coupler measurements (closer to Marv's V1 than V2) describe it better than the dummy head results.

That the Z1R has a bump at 8-10kHz with multiple flat plate couplers shows that the headphone itself does have issues in the treble region. To which extent that will be audible probably depends on a number of factors, but the underlying issue doesn't go away simply because your ear geometry gives you a nicely flat looking graph.

 

This is... honestly unfortunate. Coming from a dude who really wanted to love the Z1R (I'm a Sony fanboy, not necessarily limited to audio gear), I understand wanting to defend the new flagships from negative press, but there's only so much misinformation you can promote before the current US admin starts drafting you in for government service.

Mr. Hertsens handled this remarkably well given that they seem to be, for all intents and purposes, highly overpriced under-performers— his previous review of the Ultrasone Edition 10 comes to mind. I agree that they're probably among the most comfortable headphones ever manufactured, but their sound just leaves a lot to be desired. Someone once said these were probably voiced with modern music and young wallets in mind; I heartily agree. EDM, dance, and pop (*ahem* J-Pop) sound remarkably fun, but they fall flat on more subtle tracks. Also, as someone who seems to have trouble with spikes in the ~11kHz region, the tuning on these is doubly killer for me. That's killer-bad, not killer-awesome.

No experience with measurements so I'm keeping quiet on that front, but this thread has proven rather educational so far. Fun, too.

 

I'm a bit late to this, but classy f'ing response there, more so because he doesn't deserve it.

 

Yes, Tyll also has a box like this. However his box is DIYed out of wood panels. I think he has a thread over at head-fi where he describes the process of building it.
The main appeal of such an enclosure to me seems to be less noise that could limit THD. This way you don't have to "hold your breath", turn off the AC, the fans and the mechanical hard drive of your PC while measuring.
The problem with a box like this is that sound bounces around in there that could lead to artifacts in the measurement. To counteract this dampening has to be employed. In his build log Tyll posted some graphs that compare the response of the HD800 in the box with and without acoustic treatment (if I remember correctly).
I could also be wrong and the only reason Tyll uses that box is indeed to provide consistent isolation measurements.
The frequent "I can see if trucks drive nearby on my graph" comment seems to support the lack of isolation of the enclosure.
Judes box seems different however. Thick metal walls, everything sealed with silicone gaskets.

What I find interesting is that Jude did not feel the need to comment on the large deviation of his Utopia measurement compared to Tyll's. On his rig the 6,5kHz spike was the same level as 1kHz whereas Tyll showed a -10dB deviation. Even the "representative" sample has less of a peak than can be seen on Jude's graph.
This was an even bigger difference than is the case with the Z1R here. And that at a lower frequency that should have similar relative amplitude across systems.

Didn't he even make the claim in his post comparing various measurement systems that comparing results inbetween systems is not recommended?

I like to think that Jude just saw this difference between the graphs and felt like putting out a mild concern.
However given the above, the whole "damage control" and "I want Sony cash" theory doesn't seem too far off.
What makes me believe the prior is that when Tyll's pair is indeed not an outlier, which, given Sony's great QC with more premium products and other measurements supporting Tyll's, is very likely, Jude won't gain anything from this except maybe some ad cash. Instead he is losing credibility.

Yes, a combination of high mass and decoupling from the ground seems most common. Another one of their acoustic isolation enclosures stands on very tiny feet.

I wonder. Has anyone tried measuring a headphone on a flat plate coupler and EQd it to be flat? How would that sound?

@Serious Do you measure your speakers with the in ear mic and take that response as the compensation for the headphone measurement? I remember reading you developed some kind of target purely by listening. Would be interesting to EQ a headphone to both targets and evaluate which one sounds "better".

 

Yeah, it was probably not all that smart of him to complain that people should be reading unwritten rules that shall not be posted publicly. And doing so publicly, to boot.

 

With all that money head-fi makes you think they could make a decent website. What happened to it? It looks like a child got a hold of the web-hosting password and put up their own wordpress site. Total junk. It used to be decent.

 

"You must be logged in to that."

I've seen any of the other headfi links herein without logging in, which I have no great wish to do on the new site. Does this mean that the thread has gone non-public in some way?

 

@Thad E Ginathom - when I first posted the link, it was as it shows in the screen capture. Like @ultrabike stated, it has since been redacted. If you were to log in now, you would only see "You do not have permission to view this page or perform this action.".