Verum Audio - Exciting high performance DIY planar

Discussion in 'Headphone Measurements' started by cskippy, May 24, 2018.

  1. murphythecat

    murphythecat GRU-powered uniformed trumpkin

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    will you ship the Verum 1 with both pads now?

    as soon as I have the funds, im buying a pair!
     
  2. Garuspik

    Garuspik Tovarisch Ukrainian Terminator MOT - Verum

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    In future as an option.
     
  3. montyjus`

    montyjus` New

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    Hey all, I received my unit 3 days ago and have been listening to them on and off since. For a little background, my first pair of headphones were the akg k272, since then I found those far too fatiguing and clamping for long daily use, my next headphones were the audioquest nighthawks, which I use as my daily driver when I'm just on my computer since I cannot use speakers at night. I have also got a pair of modded m1060 with vegans. I love both my Nighthawks and m1060 for different reasons. when I'm just relaxing and want the music in the background I wear the nighthawks and when I want to pay more attention to the music I put on my m1060. Now for the V1 initially my first impression was that they sounded 'bigger' it seemed as if a wave of sound was hitting my ear almost creating this speaker like impact if that makes any sense. Next compared to my other headphones the resolution and detail are excellent on the V1. I'm not an audiophile by any means but they sound brighter than my modded m1060 with a sparkle to the treble that I had initially enjoyed with my akg's without being fatiguing because these are accompanied by nice mids and bass. Overall I couldn't be happier with my purchase and hope Garuspik all the success in his future projects.

    After about a day I got curious and decided to swap the pads on my V1 with my audeze vegan pads. and what a difference!! I have no measurements to justify my observations, unfortunately :(. The vegans essentially make these warm and laid back ( think lcd2) I feel they smooth the treble out, you lose a little of that sparkle in the highs, but what you gain is this lush warmth in the mids and bass. Another thing I noticed is that the imaging (placement of sound) improves quite a bit. Listening to some acoustic tracks the presentation seems extremely natural and I can hear strums of the strings go from left to right to centre with ease. I could be crazy but I feel slightly more impact in the bass with the vegans, which goes against everything I've read or seen in vegan graphs in the past. it may just be a perception as the whole fr curve likely got warmer. With the pad swapping, it seems the V1's can become so versatile.

    I'd love if someone else could try the vegans with their pair, to see if we get similar results.

    I should also point out I listen to them on an NFB-11.28 and everything seems fine. (Don't own anything else to compare too)

    happy listening :)
     
  4. Garuspik

    Garuspik Tovarisch Ukrainian Terminator MOT - Verum

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    @montyjus` greetings from the speaker land! ;) Believe it or not, but I make speaker MUCH better then headphones ;)
    Maybe it's because I have ~15 years of expereince in speaker building and less then two in headphones building?
    When it's a time for a final tuning I put my measurement rig away, sit at my audiophile throne :D in the center of the room, connect headphones in parallel with speakers and listening at the same to speakers and headphones. and trying to make them sound very close to speakers.
     
  5. Jerry

    Jerry Friend

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    @Garuspik ever consider selling small-sized speakers? Like JBL 305 size. I would be very interested :)
     
  6. montyjus`

    montyjus` New

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    when do you think they will come out?
     
  7. NightPhotographer

    NightPhotographer New

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    Hi
    Does it mean that Verum is brighter now? I enjoy the dark sound signature of Audeze : Strong sub bass and dipped upper midrange. How's Verum sound signature in comparison?
    Cheers
     
  8. Ryanr1987

    Ryanr1987 Facebook Friend

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    If you read through the thread hands and Jerry make some comparisons.
     
    Last edited: May 2, 2019
  9. JustAnotherRando

    JustAnotherRando My other bike is a Ferrari

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    I don't think this ergonomic aspect of the Verums has been brought up before: If you fumble whilst putting the headphones on, the silver knob that hold the cups to the headband can slam into your forehead, and given the weight of cups, it frikkin' hurts. But if you're not cack-handed, the design is hefty but remarkably comfortable.

    I've not hooked up anything to my amp for over a month (been busy- guests at home, then travelling) and have only been using the Verums out of my phone at night. All I can say is that the tonality is really pleasing, which in my limited experience simply means it's not skewed dramatically either towards bass or treble.

    The only issue I ran into was transitory. One evening I had dropouts on one cup (tried switching the L/R cables around). Quite sure that I had properly inserted the plugs as they have a fairly distinctive feel to seating, but haven't been able to replicate this issue since. I guess if it can't be replicated, it's got to be user error.
     
  10. Garuspik

    Garuspik Tovarisch Ukrainian Terminator MOT - Verum

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    @JustAnotherRando new pads are 10mm more narrow so even people with tall heads (I don't know how to say it in English properly :D) won't have problems. Top knob will not touch leather part of headband any more.
     
  11. Shane Coughlan

    Shane Coughlan New

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    I have ordered the Verum 1 as a birthday present to myself. This is a treat based on an interest in great sound tempered by an analytical stance and a sprinkling of intent to help a new business find its feet.


    I will be talking about my experience in this forum to help support a certain type of owner and to provide a general record that may be useful to a broader range of people.


    The type of owner I am:

    • I like great sound.
    • I value objectivity.
    • I accept my measured biological limits.
    • I do not believe in “Golden Ears.”
    • Meanwhile, I respect that other people may believe other things.
    • In the end, this is about recreational sound.
    • The goal is to have fun.

    My starting point:

    • Analysis shows CD 16 bit 44.1kHz sound is around the upper limit of human hearing fidelity [1]
    • Pushing up the bitrate allows us to include more dynamic range in a recording and that is noticeable to those with good hearing.
    • A modern iPhone and similar equipment provides 24 bit 48kHz audio support.
    • After this point you are looking at diminishing returns. [2]

    Target:

    • Access to music that sounds great to most people
    • Access to music players that can...play...that music
    • Access to headphones that can reproduce that sound

    My current status:

    • iPhone X
    • HomePod
    • Bose QC35
    • Yamaha YAS 207 (soundbar)

    All of these are excellent. Objective measurements show good sound from everything within our target of 24 bits at 48kHz maximum. You can check out objective analysis of items like the QC35 at sites like ratings.com


    Some people, of course, have strong opinions for and against these tools. That’s fine. Each to their own.


    Stuff I also have available at the moment:

    • Original mint Pioneer PL1200 turntable from early 70s with new Nakaoka 71-331 cartridge.
    • Original Yamaha CA-1000 amplifier from early 1970s
    • Sony SS-K10ED speakers
    The above is fun, warm and shows how average people with a pretty good budget listened to music back in the day. It sounds fine but the nuance, detail and clarity is less than my current systems. I gravitate towards my HomePod and Bose headphones for a mixture of their sound and convenience.


    Where we are going next:

    • I would like to get more detail in my music and movies for critical listening
    • So I want as much detail as possible from 20-20,000Hz
    • This lead to a rabbit hole of DACs and headphones [3]
    • And clarity that if you want better sound, you start with the speakers
    • Then you consider what you need to drive the speakers
    • And this eventually lead to Verum 1

    Why?

    • Objective performance analysis suggests they do very, very well inside their budget range
    • They are 8 ohm and can be happily driven by a smartphone, meaning no external DAC is needed, an additional saving
    • And there is plenty space to mess around with things like balanced headphone cables and DACs if I ever wanted...for fun

    So...we know what we want. We have placed an order. We await the next steps! Updates to follow.


    Footnotes below. Meanwhile, questions like “why these starting points?” can be answered by spending time around http://archimago.blogspot.com/and https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.htmland similar locations.


    Footnotes!


    [1] Actually 16 bit 20kHz ...but we want double the hz to allow perfect reproduction inside our hearing range of 20-20,000hz because math.


    [2] This is not to say you are wrong to want a higher fidelity recording. If the original master was 24 bits at 96 kHz and you love the album...then why not? It certainly won’t make the music sound worse. I plan to buy a high fidelity copy of Nirvana Nevermind because...well, I just like the album and it will make me happy.


    [3] And amusing articles on high fidelity HDMI and network cables. Wow.
     
    Last edited: May 12, 2019
  12. Baten

    Baten Friend

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    Why the 1st person plural though? lol

    [​IMG]
     
  13. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    What, you're still measuring it?
    The rest would have made a fantastic post in the introductions thread! But hey, ok... it did end up at the Verum 1.
     
  14. Jinxy245

    Jinxy245 Vegan Puss

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    Agreed...That's why I disliked it, it is a bit rambling & has little relevance to the Verum 1. Before posting around, do introduced yourself here
     
  15. Lyander

    Lyander Official SBAF Equitable Empathizer

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    Playing nice cop a bit even though I was likewise irked:

    @Shane Coughlan part of the forum's philosophy is adherence to neither hardline objectivism nor hardline subjectivism. There's room for everyone on the planet, and measurements do lie surprisingly often. Bit of a misstep right there, though I will concede that I can sympathise with your goals, royal "we" aside. Having said that perfect reproduction is a myth, regardless of what J. Gordon Holt (may he rest in peace) says. Not saying MyFi is the way/doesn't bite, but hardline objectivism of the type that's instantly dismissive of anything beyond NWAVGuy dogma sucks Donkey Kong dong.

    As a Redbook audio shill myself I feel obligated to point out that 44.1kHz/16 bit isn't quite deserving of all that praise; while it does a perfectly adequate job for 99.9% of people, there's evidence proving that it doesn't quite cover the entirety of human hearing.

    Save your disbelief in golden ears for after you get to meet someone who can ID a DAC in a noisy environment blind. Met a few in person, and this forum is populated with quite a number of them it seems— I've only got human ears sadly, but I'm okay with admitting some have much better ears than I.

    I agree this would have been better suited to the introductions thread @Jinxy245 linked to, saving posting here for impressions of the Verum after you get them.

    Welcome to the forum! Don't let the reception put you off, we're all undercaffeinated here.

    Edit: and happy birthday, whenever that is!
    Edit 2: modified some things cuz I was half asleep earlier.
     
    Last edited: May 12, 2019
  16. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Dude, you are making absolutely no sense regarding your objectivity spiel.

    • You state greater bit-depth (it's bit-depth, not bitrate) is noticeable to those with good hearing, but also state that 16-bits is about the limit of human hearing. If 16-bits is the limit of human faculties, how is greater bit-depth going to be noticeable?
    • You state that you do not believe in Golden Ears, but you also say that there are those with good hearing, which implies that not all people are equal and that there will be people past 1 or 2 standard deviations on the bell curve - the "golden ears".
    • Objectively, the 8-ohm Verum is a poor candidate for smartphones with their higher output impedance - this results in a lot of power being wasted and higher distortion. Objectively speaking, higher sensitivity high impedance headphones or DD IEMs are better devices to be driven by smartphones.
    • The Verum sounds (and probably measures) nothing like the QC35. I know the Ratings frequency response compensations. I don't agree with them, but nevertheless, if the Verum were measured by them, it would have less bass and less mids compared to the QC35. In other words, it would be not be as objectively ideal (per ratings standards) as the QC35.
    • Yes, we all know about Archimago and the Neil Young / Pono nonsense (discussed years ago at CS, the predecessor site to SBAF). Most people here know about the Internet.
    Face it, you wanted the Verum because it's affordable, looks awesome, and sounds good. That is you wanted it more for human factors than any objective factors. Otherwise you would have stuck with the QC35.
     
    Last edited: May 12, 2019
  17. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    FYI: New user registrations closed.
     
  18. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    Buyers' Guide --- All One Needs To Know!

    :D:cool::D
     
  19. Garuspik

    Garuspik Tovarisch Ukrainian Terminator MOT - Verum

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    Verum 1 sounds ok from my old iphone. Why nobody believes me? ;( Iphone has about 1 ohm of output impedance and can go loud without any noticeable distortion from my 5S.
    Also it sound rather good ( rather good > ok) using 20$ whistle tempotec sonata hd cable
    [​IMG]
    Also I was told but didn't tried it myself that Verum 1 sounds rather good from 10$ dodocool da134
    [​IMG]

    All other phones including Galaxy S8, S9, LG V30, some meizu with sabre chip etc sounded awfull with my creation.
     
  20. BenjaminBore

    BenjaminBore Friend

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    You need to question what you read more, and explore things for yourself, then question that too. Objectivity where it comes to audio is not what it presents itself as. A narrow set of measurments based on playing back beeps and boops tells us very little to nothing at all about various aspects of audio reproduction.

    Can confirm, they’re worlds apart in headphone terms. Frequency response is great on the QC35 when DSP is enabled as EQ is applied, not bad but rough in passive mode. They’re HD6x0 like with more bass. Verum 1 has less bass, less upper mids, and more upper treble.

    Agreed, they’re easy to drive, and still produce good performance. On the other hand I’ve had a Dragonfly Red via CCK 3.0 shut down each time I increase volume too high. Happens with an externally powered Fulla 2 as well but only at levels that would be unsafe. I presume this is due to the Verum 1’s having such a low impedence and drawing too much current. Apple’s headphone dongle doesn’t have this issue however, but I cannot remember for certain whether I could get enough volume from it or not.

    I might actually get around to reviewing mine when life stops getting in the farking way, trying to hold on to the LCD-2C and Mjolnir 2 until I do. Pain in the butt the stock cable can’t be reterminated to balanced though.
     
    Last edited: May 12, 2019

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