PIONEER Headphone Development- Your input welcome

Or take 650 driver, stick in non-plastic enclosure.

 

Guys I am so grateful for everything you have given me thus far. Keep the ideas coming.

A few more details, I would like to explore both open and closed HP's (we will be building a range of in ear as well, but we can discuss that a bit later). We have some pretty cool driver tech that we actually make ourselves, but I am not at all married to anything YET.

The goal of the top of the line would be to really celebrate JAPAN. SO Japanese wood, Japanese steel techniques, made in a Japanese factory. I have a theme but I can't reveal it yet. I think we can take the master 1 and slot this around the same retail price (could be less but I really want to get multiple cables, multiple ear pads, etc included in the box) If successful it will become a range of product. This HP will have a very special driver (or at least in theory it will as of me typing this-promise to keep updating this).

With the other range, we will pull some inspiration from our past, sort of retro modern if you will. I am working on a purchase proposal this week for all competitive samples- my current list has 20 HP's on it. This will become the audio benchmarking tools. The idea is to take some of the brands and models mentioned here but of course products above and below our target retail. We hear you on the curve, but it is a little funny though, in my experience lots of people think they want flat but want a U curve, some think they want U but hear V and prefer it...I PROMISE to include you guys before we start tuning. Samples will go out and we will create a beta test group.

How do I add pics?

 

Hey, I just realized you are the guy from Klipsch. Glad you got another good job at a headphone company.

 

Off the top of my head for Japanese woods, Paulownia, Zelkova, Sakura, and maybe Japanese Birch. Don't think they'd be great for headphone enclosures (save for the Zelkova, which IIRC was used in the Sony R10). Iconic woods, though, and quite pretty. Durability not the best.

Yup, U-shaped FRs are pleasing, such as on the TH-X00 EB (which is my primary can at the moment, though it's more W-shaped than U), but I do feel more balanced cans are preferable for people who listen to a lot of genres. Heck, I listen to crappy pop music, "vintage" rock, tribal chants, RnB, jazz, chamber music, EDM, live acoustic, and even screechy-bright Jpop and Jrock depending on my mood. Since I can't quite afford multiple cans for varying genres, a jack-of-all-trades was pretty much mandatory. Stock HD650 balance is great, and I had no qualms using them exclusively for around half a year.

@musiqlovr You could upload images to an external host like tinypic and then just copy-paste the URL into the "Image" function at the top of the page:




P.S.
I know a lot of people hate this form factor, but is there any chance Pioneer could bring back budget-tier clip-on cans? I admit I'm only asking for sentimental reasons, since the Pioneer SE-EX9 was one of my first not-terrible pieces of kit, but also, they're great for portable listening when isolation isn't a concern. And hey, it's a Pioneer product

 

Sounds like you are describing a TH900 or R10 type of headphone for the people who care more about that type of thing. I appreciate some of those things, but they are lower on my list when making a purchase. You already nailed that goal with the HP-3.

 

@musiqlovr I am a closed headphone user (office environment) and not a fan of IEMs. There is very very little competition in this market segment at the high end. Right now I have Audeze LCD-XCs and very happy with those, but there really isn't much else at that level even worth trying. For example the TH-900 MkII had too much leakage. Probably the same for the ZMF range (hard to try these in Europe without buying a pair).

 

But...you already did it with the HP-3
There are two headphones here that have a "love" thread instead of "impressions" thread...guess what they have in common? Close to neutral, natural sound, unfucked frequency response and good measurements, no V shaped, U shaped or anything like that

 

Given you're thinking of 3 different price points, sure, a u or v signature makes sense - maybe in a cheaper closed?

You've shown you can do a tasteful v, and while there are a lot of closed "commercial tuning" vs there really aren't many at a sane price without absurd treble fuckery. Even the TH900 has way too much treble fuckery.

But while I do enjoy v or u sometimes, enough that I'm getting an HP-3, I got the Atticus first, because I like n more.

Everything else being equal my listening time goes n -> flat -> v.

I get the feeling Pioneer wants to broadly cover the spectrum as opposed to develop a house sound like denon/zmf, or am I misinterpreting?

Really, just whatever you do, no treble fuckery.

 

I think open headphones should have a more flat response and closed should have a more U response.

If you look at curves, you can see this anyway. Not sure they are desinged this way or what. I was just comparing my close Denon AH-D2000 with my HD650's and they are darn close on FR from Tyll's tests. Although, not many hear would agree they sound about the same.

The HD650's do have more of a mid lift and this helps with the type of music they are most suited for (jazz, classical, bluegrass, acoustic, light rock). Same with the closed Denon's - they have recessed mids that helps in their sound when the fast type of music they are most suited for (loud rock, EDM, etc). Open: more accuracy, Closed: more exciting and lively (doing all I can to avoid the word "fun" here).

Some of the old Pioneer headphones are fantastic looking. Very retro style. It would also be interesting in seeing some kind of bridge with the heritage of Pioneer receivers from the 70's and 80's - with those silver fronts, switches, and wood sides. And marketing wise, I don't think it would hurt to use the Elite monkier for the these new types.

 

It really does boil down to who you're 'marketing' to.

I think the majority of people on this forum have a similar idea of 'neutral' and know what they want, so since you're asking us, it's obvious we (most of us) enjoy a variation on the 600/650 sound, as has been stated.

The biggest caveat is the treble peaks (fuckery) and bass bloom (mostly the midbass gets overdone it seems), without midrange suck out.

I agree that if you're going the 'portable' route, the extra bass helps drown out background noise, so tasteful boosting there seems warranted, but for open cans a more even handed approach, without loosing the sub bass is the tough trick to pull off.

 

Wow! This is interesting.

I will try to keep this short. I was into vintage headphones and I loved my old 1970-ties Pioneer Monitor 10. Enough to buy a spare one at one point and enough to buy the modern Monitor 10R and Monitor 8.

Some time back I auditioned the SE-Master 1 and it did many things well for me. Then I heard about the price.

A SE-Master 5 is apparently in the works but I still have my doubts.

You want to take back some market share and put Pioneer back in the spotlight? Okay then I will summarise this quickly:

1. Build on the Monitor heritage.
2. Focus on the headphone driver and acoustic dampening.
3. Keep the headphones affordable, avoid the 2K to 5K war zone for luxury audio.
4. Design light and durable headphones that do not break.
5. Include pro-audio features like detachable cables and easy to replace parts (especially earpads!)
6. Segment in layers: pro-audio people, Pioneer fans and headphone enthusiasts first.
7. Segment for the average consumers later.
8. Really make the headphones sound good! Do not go Beats/Monster because then you fail. Sound quality matters.
9. Know that there are headphones like the SRH840, HM5, DT250-250, HD25 that do their job very well.

I dearly love the old Pioneer sound. I sold my Pioneer Monitor 10s because I needed to pay bills. Pioneer was ahead of the curve decades ago (just like AKG!). An old Pioneer Monitor 10 sounds amazing, better than many ridiculously expensive headphones (that includes the HD800-series, I am not joking).

If you really want me to care about Pioneer, do not f**k this up.

(I already cannot forgive Sony for discontinuing support for the old CD-series of headphones while still selling treble monsters marketed for studio and recording use. Yes I cannot buy Sony gear, they annoy me too much.)

 

I picked up woodworking as a hobby. Not the power tools variety, but hand tools almost exclusively. It's a fascinating art. I would argue that the best woodworking that has ever been done is Japanese. Paying homage to that is fantastic.

Japanese woodworking tools are very different from what we use in the West. Compare this to this, or this to this, and you'll easily see what I mean. The Japanese tools are also extraordinarily functional. I assure you, my Lee Valley No4 plane can't do this. (I've tried.)

Anyway, back on topic... If you want a physical design that looks fantastic and pays homage, perhaps use design elements like this:

Spoiler: Japanese chisels

Thanks.

 

At least you can get them.

A japanese sandstone grinding wheel for blacksmithing is 40k+ (USD, EUR, don't matter) because the deposits are mined out.

 

So I've heard. The consumer diamond plate sharpening systems are unreliable. (I went through 4 DMT plates before I got one that wasn't faulty.) The good synthetic plates are crazy expensive. If you have a good water stone now, cherish it.

 

@Elnrik Those chisels are lovely! Impractical and absurdly expensive as it'll likely be, I'd love to see headphone parts made out of material like that (gimbal, headband, etc). Metal cups on a closed set just sounds like a bad time.

 

For the retro-modern stuff, the old piezo electric SE-700 would be a great starting point, imho looks incredible:



A couple of ideas:

- Dual cable entry, detachable cables.
- Confortable, good quality earpads with generous space for the ears (something like 70mm height x 50mm width would be incredible if possible).
- More confortable headband.
- Keep that classy silver/black color scheme, it's just gorgeous.
- Wonderful and well behaved dynamic driver with a gorgeous sound and none of the treble mess or bass emphasis that belongs to a 30 bucks IEM

 

Suspension or riot.

Seriously, in 2018 there is no excuse any longer. Even Audeze woke up.

YES I'M LOOKING AT YOU FOCAL.

Yes, you can get away with it if the can is chifi-light and doesn't press right on the middle of your head, but seriously. There is no excuse any longer for bad headbands.

 

Biodynamic driver tuned something like the Audio Zenith PMx2 or Mr. Speakers Voce. I doubt that is your target demographic tuning, but there are few things I am interested in anymore.

 

That would be incredible.

PS: or a Zylon driver

 

I hope you are discerning with who you involve with your test group and pick trustworthy people with experience and knowledge of a lot of different headphones and give them enough time to properly evaluate your tunings.

One of the things I see people stress on this forum is how there's this tendency for nubs to say anything and everything sounds great or fall victim to some kind of new toy placebo.

It seems like a lot of manufacturers struggle with this and need outside help from this kind of community. I think massdrop's revisions are a good example of how well this can work.

As far as design goes I personally would like to see you guys flex your muscles and cook up something new that hasn't been done before instead of recreating an R-10 or whatever.

We've seen Focal start to bring things like metal/beryllium drivers to the table and Sony with their massive driver in the MDR-Z1r, perhaps you can similarly leave your mark with a unique driver design.