Audeze SINE Impressions and Discussions

On ears are the bane of my existence. So functional. So promising. And so painful.

 

Those measurements are very impressive. I like that we can peel back some of the speculation about what the LC is doing. When I saw it this morning, especially the raw data and the square wave activity, I thought to myself, "its almost as if... http://www.innerfidelity.com/images/SennheiserHD650.pdf"

There are obvious differences, but the general behavior from 800hz to 6khz tracks well.

 

Well, that might be the 'closed HD600' everybody and their grandma keep asking for, at least tonally-wise.

 

For me, it's a combination of glasses pressure and ear size: my ears actually fit inside the Sine pads. They're circumaural for me. (I didn't have any problems with the original Momentum Over-ear, or any of the small pad size headphones like the Focals, because I have tiny, tiny ears). Because my ears go into the pads, the pressure isn't distributed across the ear at all and it just pushes in at the top. With smaller supraaurals, this isn't an issue. (I have both the V-Moda M80 and Sennheiser Amperior and they both distribute pressure better on my ears).

It's one of those "You have to try them on" comfort situations. I think for most people they'll be pretty solid as far as comfort goes.

 

My ears stick out plenty all around the M-80/XS pads, that's literally how I tell I've got them centered (quickly feeling for my lobe and top of the east below/above them)... How large is the Sine pad opening anyway? Sounds like it's even more squarely in between supra/circum than other recent closed portables. They do label them strictly as on ears tho, no?

 

The comfort is definitely making this a try before I buy item. I'll wait until Audio Element has a demo pair.

 

So the best Audeze is a pair of on ears. WTF Audeze. This is probably better than the LCD-4 just judging from the FR.

 

A wild guess is that Audeze decided to f**k up EL8 even more to accidentally have produced SINE. Kinda like Viagra stemming from common cold medicine.

 

I can see the tag line now... "It's like Viagra for your ears! Note: If ear pinning persists for more than 4 hrs please consult your physician"

 

I didn't enjoy them very much, that 3k spot bothered me quite a bit. That said, they were quite nice across the range aside from that.

 

I actually typed "maybe I'm overthink this" before deleting a small wall of text

For the possibly 3 tracks, I was referring to the noises that occur at the beginning of Quiet before the drums kick in, but very interesting to know there were 7 or more in general. That explains a lot, especially why the sound is so difficult to reproduce live. My closest approximation without using an effects board or pedals is to turn the bridge pickup tone down on my Epi Les Paul, leave the neck at full and play through both.

As I suspected, nice to have confirmation. EQ and Multiband compressor could achieve what I was hearing.

Yeah, with Stoner Rock and similar type bands it's more about the groove than fidelity.

I'll probably survive. Love the Hitchhikers reference btw.

I noticed the mismatch, good to know that if even if it does permeate in most of them, it's not really noticeable (tbh I only see the charts as a vague comparative guideline between different earphones.)

Could you give me any tips on how I am supposed to interpret the Impulse Response graph? I guestimated it was the response time, how fast it would react but it seems I was wrong.

 

I have to say I'm really interested in hearing the Sine, especially after reading these impressions. I don't think I'd like it enough to own it from the way @dented42ford described the handling of certain songs (I like your taste, by the way), but it sounds like they did a pretty good job. I do like the looks, too, even though the form factor is on-ear, which I think is an objective flaw comfort-wise.

 

Bear in mind that from a musicians point of view, it's more about groove when playing that close together, and that dented42ford will be used to hardware designed to pick out sounds that most consumers don't necessarily need to hear.

 

New review

http://www.pcmag.com/review/343328/audeze-sine-on-ear

 

He hints at it, but I still hear a bit too much of 10kHz and above, and slightly low 4-8kHz. Less than the LCD-4--where it bothered me on a $4k headphone---which ends up being kind of nice on a portable where you'd have to raise the volume for noisy environments and 4-8kHz might get too harsh. The emphasis up top kind of makes up for the speech intelligibility loss at 4-8kHz. Anybody else hear it this way?

 

One thing I have learned in my early listening sessions is that my ears are different sizes. The right side is over-ear, while the left is definitely on-ear. Pretty comfy. I've had them on for the better part of four hours tonight, and they're fine (not as comfortable as HD 800, but what is?).

Initially, coming from HD 800 and Noble PR, subjective impression was "dark and closed in." Didn't take long to acclimate. So far, I'm very happy with them. More detailed sonic impressions after I have more time with them.

iOS devices can drive them to my normal listening levels with five or six dots on the volume indicator to spare.

 

Are you using the Lightning cable?

 

TRS. i plan to acquire the Lightning cable eventually, but not until there is some sort of passthrough adapter so that you can charge a device at the same time you're using the headphones.

The folks further up the page who were complaining about the carry bag have a valid point. Cheap, flimsy afterthought. Pelican 1170 with a custom foam imsert looks like the answer. Of course, if you go that way, you can expect a LOT of attention from TSA; the 1170 is very commonly used for transporting handguns.

 

Yeah the carry bag sucks. I don't like that the metal gimbals touch and potentially bang against each other. At a minimum they should make a hard case an available option.

 

At first, I forgot that there was a carry bag and thought, "Oh wow, they lined the bottom of the box with a cheap faux velour. That's a nice packaging touch."