ETA Mini S Review (Follow-Up to Mini C)

Okay, this is ludicrously good. I get why there was confusion as to whether these were planars or not.

How's the upper mid CSD resonance compare to how some of the better supraaural Grados present things, and as far as headstage imaging goes, how's it fare against the like of say Focal Clear in terms of being able to delineate individual elements on the headstage? Also, no hypersharpened microdynamics or slightly truncated decays like on the Klipsch HP-3?

 

Lmao I sadly no longer own my Klipsches but they're off to a good home at the ass end of the world (edit: fact checked myself it's not quite easternmost but it's barely north of Antarctica— need to work on my geography). That said, had em for a bit over four years so they're a good touchstone and I know exactly what you mean!

Resolution isn't everything

Edit2: @nishan99 not posting again cuz I've not gotten ears on these (... Yet, haha) but I don't necessarily think distortion correlates to bass "tactility" and it's one of those less measurable things to do with dynamics v planars. The AQ Nighthawk was a bloopy mess but it had pretty good texture (disclaimer, only extended demo settings etc etc) while also having amazingly low distortion.

 

How leaky are they? Would it be rude to blast some music (~85dB) next to someone maybe 3-4 feet away?

Also they measure like an ortho! So I'm worried about bass tactility, are they tactile enough?

 

Don't worry about tactility, it's one of their strong suits, both C and S.

 

I throw them in like this into my backpack without much concern for their safety, however, cases made for the 7506 and M40x, M50x will probably fit these as well.

 

Geez..ETA is going to put all the $4k+ headphone brands out of business. I would not be surprised if mini S matches/exceeds Clear and possibly Utopia just looking at the graphs. Send the double magnet version my way when ready

 

Thank you for the support as always. It's very humbling even being in the same conversation as something like Utopia and Clear. we're just happy to see people enjoying our headphones as much as we do! Gives us all the energy we need to continue what we do

I'm glad there's already hype being generated with our prototype double magnet drivers! However, they're still in the development stage and we don't want to reveal much until things are finalized for production. so no ETA yet (ha!)

I know there's a decent amount of folks that still haven't heard the C and S, so we are planning on starting a loaner tour soon. Please give us a bit more time to catch up on orders from the Austin meet haha

In the meantime, feel free to ask us any questions regarding either model, we'll do our best to answer.

 

Could we arrange an EU loaner somehow? I tried reviving the loaner thread a while ago with a phono pre but that was a bit too niche. This should be far more interesting

 

How does the bass respond to a broken seal like with glasses?

 

Significant negative impact on bass and overall sound quality. Wear glasses over the cans.

 

This is only particularly important with Mini Closed, semi-open is much less sensitive though it still matters a little bit.

The more pneumatic pressure in the back, the more seal needed on the front for a good balance and vice versa. The driver is tuned to behave differently in each case, the Mini S vs C isn't just a swap of cups.

Hope you get to hear em soon so you can do your own comparisons too

Edit - I'll do a post about the physical differences between the two with pics soon

 

Oh you are right. I failed to read the thread title properly.

 

Minor prod for isolation measurements of the Mini S and Mini C versus some other contemporaries? I haven't gotten ears on one in a while but the ATH-M50 series definitely seems like a good touchstone for this, or maybe the Meze 99C (really poor headband design notwithstanding: https://www.superbestaudiofriends.o...cal-transmission-of-noise-via-headbands.9257/)

(I somehow think that because a perfect seal might just make for a great medium for transmission of energy a mostly sealed semi-open design could actually go a long ways towards reducing perception of external sounds)

 

I've never taken an isolation measurement before - I rigged up my speakers to play some pink noise, capture with FPC, then put the headphones on top of the FPC with the noise still coming through the speakers for a difference reading. I'm not sure if this is directly applicable to real-world scenarios where ambient noise isn't as directional nor as loud as the speakers may be in this setup. I'd assume these readings are a 'worst case scenario'.

Regardless, here are some graphs for isolation with Mini C and Mini S:

Mini C (don't mind the red/white curves below, that's the generated noise thru the speakers):



Mini S:



My guess is that any time it peaks past 0db is just an artifact. This is a quick and dirty reading and there were other noises in the apartment at the time as well. If someone has some wisdom about how to do this in a better way, I'll take fresh graphs.

 

These look great for closed cans! Wow!