ZMF EIKON & ZMF ATTICUS

God damn those Cocobolo cans are beautiful.

.....must....resist....

 

Maybe, but many tube amps have the characteristic that they soften the treble and bass and lift up the midrange a bit. That coupled with some harmonic distortions is what I believe many would call the "tube sound". Woo audio amps, for instance, are knows for being very soft and laid back in the treble, which some like and some don't. Sure, there are always going to be tube amps which don't follow this pattern, and the sonett is actually one of the more SS sounding amps out there. But it does have a little bit of a velvet like character to the treble, something which works well with the HD800. This characteristic of softness in the treble, which many tube amps have, is something which I thought only amplified the already very laid back treble of the Eikon. Is that being too generalizing? Maybe, but it's hard to say anything if you can't generalize even a little bit.

I did like the Eikon quite a bit, but I liked it a lot more with certain music genres than others. I personally wouldn't own it as a headphone to use all the time. I think you're right though, the Auteur is probably more for me. Looking forward to some impressions when you get that one.

 

@TwoEars:
All good! I know what you mean... even more now after reading your answer to my post. My opinions are of course colored from the personal experiences I had.
Before I had a SS Cavalli Liquid Carbon which definetely was smoothing out things. Before that for a very short time I had a SS Violectric V200 which had so much treble roll off it was not funny anymore.
Compared to these two my serbian made Trafomatic Head 2 (for headphones) and my german made Octave V40 (for speakers) are both like a fresh breeze on top... Both are push-pull, so it is a bit easier (or at least cheaper) to get good extension.
And my remark about generalizing was in the first place meant so people don´t get put off exploring the possibilities of the ZMF dynamic headphones with tube amps! I actually think the Eikon - and I am sure Atticus and Auteur as well - are doing really well with the right choice of tube amps.

 

Been using this EQ on the Eikon Padauk for a few months now without complaint, so I thought I'd share it here. Managed to clear up most of the mid range confusion along with some other anomalies in the highs. This alone did wonders for the imaging. Then I did some tuning to the bass and mids to make the headphone sound more spacious and give the bass a more realistic impact. All tuning done on a Fiio e18 (not the best source, but it's portability was a must for me during late night study sessions) so your milage may vary. Here is a Screenshot of the EQed flat and the tuned profiles. Can give a drive download link for the equalizer APO files on request.

Edit: Here is a good song to show the tuning differences between the EQed flat and tuned profiles:

 

For the Eikon or Atticus?

 

Good question. Eikon Padauk, derp.

 

My 2 favorite 'Prog-Metal' headphones! (ZMF Atticus & Audeze LCD-2C)

 

Hmm...I'm curious. Ordered up a set for the Atticus. Will report back.

 

Having now spent 3 months with both the Atticus and Eikon, neither has really grown on me to the point that I feel like keeping them. Technically similar and in some aspects maybe slightly ahead of the HD650M but frequency-response wise more disjoint. Also, now that I got the BW2 and did all the 650 mods, the HD650M is pretty darn close in terms of resolution, soundstage, bass, extension, etc. Unlike the Grado PS-1, which I love for guilty pleasure jpop, the ZMFs also don't do one thing exceedingly better than the 650M that it's worth keeping them for certain songs.

Both are still the best closed headphones I've ever owned. Aeon Flow closed I couldn't listen to for more than 5min without heavy fatigue, Fostex TH900 was too v-shaped. From all closed headphones I've heard, I remember really liking the L3000 on a romantic tube setup but it's been 10 years, so hard to compare from memory. Will give the HD820 a try when they come out. HD650 works so-so in an office environment because sound leakage isn't crazy, but it's not ideal.

 

These are what I use on the Eikon. More comfortable, easier to get a seal, and similar frequency response. A little bit brighter perhaps.

 

New Eikon review

https://headfonics.com/2018/01/zmf-eikon-review/

 

A lot of words which feel like being on a roller coaster...
A review which leaves me wondering if I had the pleasure of listening to the same headphone (for the few months I owned the Eikon). Strange cross references to the Auteur (I will have mine in 1-2 weeks).
Most SBAF members´ impressions and reviews are much more in line with my own experience and they have said more with less...

From the review (???):

- This Eikon feels like less dense and weighted than I would like it to be. If I had a negative gripe, that would be it. But, ask yourselves how many out there love the Sennheiser HD800’s setup and feel? Do you like that type of a lightning fast decay and an overall thinner than a Planar vibe feel? Well, you’ll love this Eikon then because I felt like the HD800 and the Eikon share a similar tonality and physical presence with regard to substance factor.

- The headphone seems to perform the same on portable sources with a typical amount of power to drive the headphone normally, vs the much more powerful desktop amps.

- It isn’t that I don’t like neutral or natural sound, it is just that I subjectively think that if you are going the linear, fast decay route, something should be jumping out at you, grabbing and enticing you with its embrace. The Eikon is very linear feeling and the midrange feels very flat as a result, that is, with regard to sitting in the middle of the bass and treble areas.

- The actual defined lines of the instrument are much more noticeable here than the Auteur for example, which is a very meaty, thicker and lush sound than this Eikon.

and so on...

I find the review misguiding to people looking for advice...

 

I think there's a fair chance they may have been reviewed with the perforated pads which are on the Eikon in the pics. I should make this clearer on our website and let reviewers know this, but you can't actually swap the perforated pads and non-perforated pads back and forth between the auteur and eikon as it drastically changes the FR, decay etc etc.

For the Eikon I actually only recommend the Eikon pads in lambskin as any other material or configuration doesn't sound (or measure for that matter) right to my ears.

Edit: Well just saw that it looks like both pads were used in the review.

 

So, I recently got an Atticus again (this time in Camphor.) I actually quite liked this headphone; it was like an exaggerated version of the HD650 with some better technicalities (resolve and macrodynamics specifically.) However, listening to it on the IHA-1 taught me one thing: I completely wasted it on a Lyr 2 and NFB-11. The Lyr 2 added quite a bit more slam than you'd think, but its haziness and tonality added a certain weird thickness to the Atticus that made it...too much if it was an only headphone. The NFB-11 suffered from the usual Solid State issues. Stage became too narrow, and, oddly enough, it did not handle bass well with the Atticus at all.

Well, much like I feel with the Auteur, the Atticus might actually be more source/amp-dependent than I thought. The first thing I noticed when I used the headphone with the IHA-1 was that it opened up quite a bit. It isn't anywhere near, let's say, a good open-back (HD800, Autuer, HE-6, ect,) but it exceeded some that are known for closed in soundstages (HD6x0.) Because of that, the resolve and the macrodynamics seem to improve to the level Marv had put them at. The dac1541's amp also paired quite well with it. The soundstage was more closed off, but the bass was faster.

Honestly though, that's not the focus of this post. A lot of your already knew that through experience or my last review (with the exception of the tube amp opening up.)

The focus of this post is the Seude pads. Besides being way more comfortable and less "hot" than the Lambskin Ori pads, they actually change the sound in a meaningful way. By reducing the midbass and extending/adding to the treble, it becomes more balanced and more like a better-extending HD650. The treble isn't AS smooth, but it's close enough.

However, despite the subbass getting a small bit of a boost from the midbass being lowered, it loses some of character most people enjoy from it. The Macrodynamics take a small hit, but the resolve is improved upon. I feel the timbre takes a bit of an improvement as well, but it's a pretty minor change. The last two improvements are that the Atticus opens up quite a bit, and gets a small boost in clarity because of the treble boost and lowering of the midbass.

At the end of the day, however, it is matter of taste. If you wanted an Atticus with better balance and clarity, than throw those Seude pads on. Otherwise, keep the lambskin ori pads on. They retain the Atticus' character (an exaggerated HD650-like character) and keep the macrodynamics/darkness people love in it intact.

 

I totally agree. I was struggling with my Atticus and ZDS pairing. It wasn’t necessarily bad, it just seemed off, and I found myself preferring the BW.

I ordered up a pair of suede pads and the synergy now is incredible.

 

Nice, I agree Atticus benefits from sources that don't overdo the bass and warmth. That's why i have been favoring it with Valhalla 2. I really don't care for both the NFB-11 and R2R 11 pairing. Even Magni 3 doesn't let it open up as much, though I think it pairs better with that over the Audio-gd stuff.

Zach actually just posted about the suede pads in the HF Auteur thread. Now I really want to try them. It sounds like it shifts the bass hump over so that it goes more toward sub-bass and less mid-bass, which overall makes it closer to neutral. Did you go with Ori or Eikon suede pads? Zach said it didn't seem to matter which one with Atticus, but that Eikon version has more surface area.

 

Mine are Ori seude pads. Normally I go for the Eikon-sized pads because they fit my ears easier, but the seude is soft enough that it doesn't bother me like leather does.

 

Great deal if you are at CanJam this weekend.

ZMF Headphones - $200 off list price of Atticus, Eikon, and Auteur during show only

 

So I did search (and read) this thread, but didn’t really see anything on running the Eikons through a speaker amp. Has anyone tried this? I have Eikons coming soon and was curious about trying it out on my 2 Channel amp (Monoprice Monolith2). Is this a bad idea? I’ll be using a Modi Multibit & Sys.

 

Seems risky, unless you really, *really* like way your speaker amp is voiced more than your headamp.

ZMF Dynamics are 300 Ohm but high sensitivity, even a Fulla 2 - 40mW into 300 Ohm - drives them to ear-splitting levels before 12 on the dial, so on speaker taps there's probably not much between "loud" and "on fire".