ZMF EIKON & ZMF ATTICUS

Has anyone considered removing some of the dampening material from their headphones to see what changes happen to the sound? Ever since seeing @Tyll Hertsens video, and seeing the inside of the Eikon, I can't help but think of the Philharmonic 3 speakers, where the chamber behind the tweeter is left empty. And the end user fills it to get the treble where they like...

 

Yeah, I'm just (unlike a lot of people here) vehemently against DIY mods to finished products. I need something that I paid for to do its job out of the box if it's advertised to.

Warranties are important, but so is the sense that I'm not willing to finish someone else's engineering work. I buy things made by people who are better at making those things than I am. I also don't have the inclination to tinker. That's why I used to build my own PCs, but now I'm mostly happy with Apple.

More power to the modding community, but I'm not a willing part of it. Again, I have an English Lit degree from a state college. I work in IT, but I make Dell come out to replace failed hard drives. I want someone else to be responsible for the hardware while I write a subpar email describing the experience.

 

Nothing beyond saying it sounds good. I haven't had another headphone rig in a while, so I don't have anything to compare it to. I can say that it sounds different from HD 800 on Ragnarok and better than HD 650 on Jotunheim... but nothing more specific than that.

I got the Eikon and the ZDS the same day, so I can only speak to the combination and not to the individual pieces.

I have heard (unmodded) HD 800 on a number of amps, and I think this is closest to that headphone on the EC Super 7... but that might be EC house sound. This is not as dry or diseuphonic (uneuphonic? deeuphonic? boring?) as HD 800 on Ragnarok.

I concede that none of this is helpful.

 

Buttugly Jeff I think that empty chamber in the Phil 3 is for the planar midrange! Your point still makes sense though

 

With amperex 7308s running balanced, I found the Eikon a bit too bassy (and not as tight as i was expecting). Good soundstage, but a bit too warm overall. I also read some people found it to be a bright headphone, but I didn't get that.

It was at a meet so I didn't really spend a lot of critical time with it. I preferred the HEK v1, v2 and HE6

 

The hate is strong in this thread

 

And now for something completely different... To anyone who's yet to order an Atticus or Eikon and has been thinking about it, going with Cherry Wood over Padauk will probably get you your headphone more quickly. I've had a short conversation with Zach via email the last few days and evidently the Padauk orders far, far outnumber the Cherry orders and that's caused some delays while waiting for wood to be planed and prepared.

This is probably not a permanent situation and if you read this 6 months from now it might not apply. But for now, due to the volume of Padauk orders, Cherry headphones are going to go through the production pipeline more quickly than Padauk headphones.

I'm not impatient but I did want to see if I could receive my Eikon in time for the gathering in Atlanta on May 7. Zach asked if I would be happy with Cherry instead of Padauk and said he could basically ship it next week if I switched woods. Long story short, I decided to switch woods. I think both are beautiful and long term it will be the sound and comfort that is most important to me over the choice of wood.

 

^^^ And the cherry ages exquisitely...

 

I nominate aeuphonic to maximize the vowel:syllable ratio and crush efforts at pronunciation.

 

Been waiting for my cherry for 2 months, how is it you can get it next week?

 

dipthong?

 

"so he says 'dipthong?' and I says 'more like TRIPthong!!'" [APPLAUSE]

 

Sorry, lads but, that's not quite many enough 'phthongs' for me. So let's see: monophthong, diphthong, triphthong, quadriphthong... (Only one is not a thing, err, a phthong.)

 

I think sterile is probably best. For all of you.

 

Pass me a ligature... Quick!


And phthong should be a thing!

 

ONE WEEK BAN FOR.... turning me on? bringing awkward questions to the surface?

 

I'm really very sorry to fall so far below the expected posting standards, adversely affecting the signal to noise ratio of the site.

I should have said...

phthong should be a phthing!​

There. I feel better now.

And @shipsupt: mind what you are doing with your phthpecker!


.

 

@shipsupt, I never want to know what search words you used to find that image...

 

https://www.google.com/#q=duck+thong
It haunts my waking moments.

so... Atticus.. anyone try one with a ZDS yet? I hear it's good with OTLs.