Verum Audio - Exciting high performance DIY planar

Nothing against lady gaga, but I don't listen to her on any magic sound portal technology.

 

Does the Verum have any damping behind the driver? Anyone opened theirs up and have pictures? Sorry if this has been discussed I can’t read 89 pages...

 

Verum One Review and Modification Guide


Much has been said about this headphone, so I’ll keep most of my impressions concise. If anyone has a specific question, however, I’m happy to go into more detail.

I ordered my Verum One in late August and took receipt of my Verum One in early October, so, all told, not a terrible turnaround. Like many, my pair arrived in a smashed box, but the headphones inside were unscathed.

Appearance and Build Quality

I received the mk2 version of this product, and it looks awesome. The carbon fiber is sleek, the sheepskin pads are plush, and the entire headphone has a solid feel which screams quality. It is easily the best looking and most well-built headphone I have seen in its price range (and much higher). The Verum One appears to have evolved from its DIY beginnings into a rather polished product.

Comfort and Design

There are two major takeaways regarding comfort: it is comfortable but also a bit heavy. I was initially put off by the weight of the headphone, but after a week or so, the weight no longer bothered me. I imagine we all have varying levels of tolerance for heaviness, so YMMV.

I love the design of the headband adjustment—my favorite of any headphone ever. It’s easy to adjust, and once you find a setting that works perfectly for your head, it stays put forever. A welcome change from, say, Grados which I find need frequent fiddling.

The perforated lambskin earpads are soft, fit my ears just fine, and appear to be well made. If you’ve used leather pads in the past such as those from ZMF, Fostex, or Mr. Speakers, these will look and feel familiar to you.

Sound

I’ll start with my overall take-away: after having owned this headphone for a couple months and having experimented with sources, amps, pads, and front and rear damping, it is hard to imagine headphone-listening life without them. To me, they have a truly unique presentation which is quite addicting. They are the best headphones for my taste, and I’ve heard/owned a lot.

Examples of headphones that I like less than the Verum One:

Most Audeze headphones (I have not heard the LCD-4)

Most Sennheiser headphones (I have not heard the Orpheus)

Most Grado headphones (I have not heard the PS-1 or HP1000)

Most Focal Headphones (I have heard the Elear, Clear, and Utopia but not the Elex)

You get the idea. The reason why the Verum One is so appealing to me comes down to how silky and enjoyable vocals are while providing full, articulate, impactful bass. If you’ve read other Verum One reviews, you might find this bass comment surprising, but what I can tell you is that despite being advertised as a headphone that works well out of a cell phone and sounds good plugged in to everything, the Verum One actually depends heavily on system synergy and proper tuning to reach its full potential in the bass department and overall sound.

Out of the box, the Verum One has a tasteful and articulate, but somewhat delicate bass. Also, I’m not sure whether to call it soundstage or imaging but the presentation of the sound out of the box with stock pads is kind of “compact.” It’s hard to describe. Perhaps it is a little bit “constrained” or “suffocated” sounding for an open headphone. It’s not that the soundstage is small but there is something going on with it that I think is due to the damping and the relatively small size of the earpad openings.

Regarding synergy, this headphone can be a little fatiguing on the wrong system due to the treble/needing to increase volume for lack of bass. For example, using a basic, boring DAC like the Topping D10 makes it sounds kind of lifeless with a flat stage. Out of my laptop sounds sorta okay but needs more volume. Out of my desktop motherboard it sounded like trash. The Geshelli Enog2Pro and Erish Amp were poor choices. They were too sterile sounding, and the Erish would clip very easily at higher volumes. I read somewhere that the Erish was a great match due to it being a “current-based” amp or somesuch—that is total rubbish. I like the Erish but it was just not the right match for this headphone. Also, the Schiit Vali 2 is garbage for this headphone—even with tube swaps.

Surprisingly, my favorite setup for the Verum One is my Aune T1s (version 4) tube-buffered DAC with built-in solid-state amp. This is the newst version of the T1 device, and I’m pretty sure I’m the first person to write anything substantial about it online. Tube swaps make a big difference for shaping sound of the Verum One, and once I found the right tube(s), the Verum One sounded awesome. I’m currently rocking 6922 to 6SN7 and 6SN7 to 6J5 adapters (lol) and running two Heintz Kaufmann 6J5 tubes.

This does make me think that a tube-buffered DAC + solid state amp or the right tube amp plus whatever dac-of-choice is the best way to make the Verum One sing. I’d really like to hear more impressions from people who have tried tube amps with this headphone.

System synergy aside, the mods/tuning I performed are what elevated this headphone to the next level for me.

Mods—what I tried and what actually worked

One plus with the Verum One is that pads swaps are very, very easy. Be advised that you can easily bend the metal mounting rings if you are careless, so don’t use too much force stuffing the rings into your pads.

Pads I tried with the Verum One:

Stock Perforated Lambskin

Mr. Speakers Ether Flow Angled

ZMF Universe (Lambskin)

Let me save you time and money—after my mods, the stock pads sound best—easily. All the other pads flatten/congest the soundstage even though the stage gets “wider”, and they also cause vocals to kinda get lost in the mix and lose their “magic.”

Ori Perforated Lambskin Pads are still on my to-try list, so I may try to trade with someone for them in the future.


Regarding Damping Mods:


First, due to the brief discussion in this thread regarding front-damping to “absorb reflections”, I tried two types of materials. I first tried a thin foam tape—the kind of stuff you might use to seal a window or a door—but a very thin and slight version as it would be more appropriate for this application. I placed neat strips of this stuff on the magnet bars, under the pads. The effect this had was it raised the mid bass, lowered the sub bass, and sucked away some of the energy from the treble. It wasn’t terrible, but I did not care for it.

Also, I did the same thing with sticky-back felt. This had less impact on the bass, but overall, it just robbed the headphone of some energy and smoothed over the sound in a way I did not like.

I also experimented by applying these materials to every other magnet bar rather than every bar—it reduced the effect, but my recommendation is to simply leave the area underneath the pads alone. I concluded that placing stuff on the magnet bars is probably a waste of time and worsens the sound.

It took me a while to muster the courage to mess with damping under the grills, but curiosity got the best of me, so I eventually went for it.

*Disclaimer*

1) You will void your warranty if you remove the grills.

2) You will make your grills look like trash in the process.

I have placed an order for new grills from Igor, the headphone’s creator, which is fine—I just have to live with great-sounding-but-janky-looking headphones for a couple months. The grills are a PITA to get off. You basically just pry up the grills which are attached with STRONG double-sided mounting tape. I used a tiny flat head screwdriver to pry up the tape while praying I didn’t ruin the carbon fiber finish. I thought about using a hair dryer to heat up the mounting tape, but I was too afraid of damaging the drivers.

If you perform this operation, just flatten your grills the best you can and hope you can put in an order with Igor for new ones lol.

Once the grills are off, you will see that the stock damping is pretty simple—two layers of felt. One layer of felt is fit neatly into the back cavity against the magnets, while the other felt layer is a large circle with cut-outs to allow spots for the tape to attach to the headphone frame.

Experiments:

Zero materials behind the driver: sound is too diffuse. Bass lacks impact and imaging is “off”. Sound is not cohesive enough. There is a sense of openness and a feeling that the headphones “breathe” more with less pressure in the ears, but it’s overall a downgrade.

Sticky-back felt “Grills”: Using the aluminum grills as a template, I cut sticky-back felt in this shape to make new felt “grills”: I tried these felt grills with both the stock cavity felt in place and with no cavity felt in place. It sounded pretty similar to having nothing behind the driver. The sound lacked punch or authority, and the soundstage seemed to lack definition.


Finally, I struck gold:

I used the aluminum grills as a template to cut black drawer liner (the stuff commonly used in Sennheiser mods), and I also used them to trace and cut some very thin, yellow, spun polypropylene material (from a used isolation gown that you’d find at a hospital). Yes, I know this is weird, but I didn’t originally use it for anything too hazardous, so I figured why not—fingers crossed there’s no nasties on it.

Take the stock cavity felt and place it in the cavity, place the gown material on top of that, then place the drawer liner on top of that. Finally, I used to not-too-sticky-tape to hold the aluminum grills back in place (looks sloppy as hell).

Now, the Verum One sounds EXCELLENT. All of the sound benefits that have been discussed—sweet vocals and less fatiguing treble but with more bass impact and with a more spacious soundstage. This setup takes away some of the “compactness” of the stock sound but not so much that the stage becomes diffuse or undefined, and it ramps up the bass to much more satisfying levels.

With these changes in place, the stock pads easily sound the best of the bunch I have tried, and the headphones as a whole sound unbelievable considering the price.

If anyone is bold enough to try this mod themselves, let me know, and I’ll try to find a link to the exact drawer liner. I’d also be willing to mail some of this gown material that I have left over (if you aren’t grossed out by it). Actually, I haven’t got around to trying this without the gown material—I haven’t bothered because it sounds so good with it—but I’ll give it a go eventually if anyone wants to know how necessary it is.

Summary:

The Verum One mk2 looks and sounds excellent and is well-built.

System synergy is very important with this headphone.

Damping mods under the grills have potential to yield improvement. Front damping changes are probably a waste of time.

Pads are a matter of taste, but stock pads are the best I have tried so far (with damping mod). Prior to mods, I went back and forth between stock pads and angled Ether pads—it was hard to pick just one at times.

I’ll follow this post up with some pictures, as well. Thanks for reading. Also, thanks to Igor for making a kick-ass headphone. I wish he could return to the forum sometime in the future to contribute to the on-going discussion of his products, but it is what it is.

Edit: misc. corrections/typos

 

Ok now I want to get one to try modding myself. Though the lack of simple screws on the grill is a big turn off. Shame.

 

Some photos illustrating my mod process:

First, here is the rear of my unit's driver (under the grills). Notice the creases in the driver. I think this is an interesting tuning feature that Igor has implemented. Note that if your unit looks different than mine, your tuning could be ever so slightly different.


Next, here is a picture of the stock felt circles which are no longer of use to me.



Next, here is the lineup of materials I used. First, place the small stock felt in the cavity, then cover with gown material, then drawer liner, then aluminum grill.



Here is the headphone re-assembled--note that that this tape on the outside is temporary. Once I receive new grills, I will cut some appropriate spaces around the gown material and drawer liner material in order to cleanly and nicely mount the grills.





Also, a final note: these mods are truly for incremental differences in sound. For me, it is the difference between a headphone that I like to listen to often and perhaps my favorite headphone ever. It is actually quite similar in amount of sound change to a stock vs modded HD650 in case that helps you decide whether to attempt this.

 

You mean the default stock pads and not the perforated ones, right?

 

Fair question. Actually, I have the mk2/current version of the Verum One, which now comes stock with the perforated Lambskin pads. In my previous posts, I'm referring to the Verum perforated lambskin pads when I say "stock pads." I've never heard the original, non-perforated pads. I've leaned away from non-perforated pads moving forward because they tend to sound worse to me overall (judging by my experience with Mr. Speakers Ether Angled pads and ZMF non-perforated lambskin Universe pads).

That said, I just took receipt of the perforated lambskin ZMF Universe pads and these are extremely compelling for best overall pad (post-mods). The perforated lambskin universe pads turn this headphone into a bass monster while also sounding very natural and spacious.

 

these creases look random to me. I think it’s bad QC or bad manufacturing not a tuning element. The diaphragm is randomly creased all over. I can’t imagine how this could be replicated accurately or what it would accomplish other than maybe eliminating resonance nodes. But I think that’s wishful thinking.

 

That the position, or co-ordinates of the creases are not exactly replicated in every driver does not automatically mean that this is a QC problem, they may still be there on purpose. I obviously do not remember the exact positions, but I did see opened Verum before, and the creases were there as well.

 

just because they all have creases doesn’t mean they’re there on purpose. If they’re there for a reason they’d always be in the same place. Unless you think they go through each driver and measure resonance and crease the diaphragm in the exact right places to get rid of it. I highly doubt that with this DIYish headphone. Fostex doesn’t even do that.

I’m not sure how much harm they do but it’s probably not good.

 

They're there to allow movement (flexibility). If there was just a "loose" flat diaphragm as opposed to a tight "drumskin" one, certain resonance modes would be more prominent compared to the creased solution.

 

Interesting theory. I could imagine a random or pseudo random spacing might actually work better in that respect. Any periodic creasing would still produce a resonance, even if it looked cleaner.

 

hi all, I ordered the Verum and was told they would take 10-12 days to ship - 20 days ago. I have emailed twice for an update. Should I be concerned?

 

Radio silence isn't uncommon for Verum. They tend to just turn up after a while. No shipping confirmation.

Also you should expect postage to take a few weeks longer than whatever the average is from Ukraine to England.

 

Verum prefers to surprise customers with deliveries for some reason. Also take into account multiple holidays too.

 

They'll turn up, I had the same issue with confirmation and Garuspik not replying to emails etc. Annoyingly I ended up messaging him openly, not something I like doing as it comes across as twatish but when you can't get a hold of someone, and someone who lives in a different country it's hard. All that said mine turned up fine, I'm sure yours will too. Verums estimate times I'd take with a pinch of salt and expect them 10 weeks from order give or take, factor in the pandemic causing disruptions too. It isn't abnormal, they're hand built by one guy so the wait is expected, the lack of communication however, isn't.

 

Funnily enough I heard from him after making my post, it had been posted on the 24th- hasn't arrived but I can see from the tracking it's getting close!

 

The whole of London is in tier 4 isn't it, I'm on the Isle Of Wight and have had a couple of parcels held back for quarantine, this has been DPD though, pretty sure it'll be Royal Mail so shouldn't be any delays as things have been arriving pretty spot on lately.

 

Again, if they were intentional they would all be in the same place. There’s no way they are custom creasing each diaphragm to kill resonance nodes at this price point.

 

umm, guys so does someone perchance know what type of screw he uses on the headband? Mine arrived without any screws, I've been contacting him for a bit and he still hasn't replied.