Audeze Mobius

@zerodeefex lent me his fixed Mobius, fresh out of the box. I spent most of yesterday and a bit of time today playing with it. Here be my thoughts! (Only tested so far via USB, so no Bluetooth or attempts at using the Aux in.)

2D Sound and EQ Settings

As a regular, 2-channel headphone, with all the 3D stuff turned off, the Mobius is fairly serviceable overall. In fact, I'd generally say it's mostly good, but with some caveats.

The overall sound signature is more "fun" and U-shaped than neutral. There's a healthy amount of bass, albeit relatively clean, tight, and with minimal to no midrange bleed. The lower-midrange can at times sound a little cool, though not lean. The upper-mids through treble as a whole are on the more elevated side of things, though without any etch, sibilance, or notable timbre issues. It's mostly just a little too bright sounding, but clean overall.

That said, they sound relatively normal and coherent overall. A little fatiguing because of the upper registers, but mostly OK.

I haven't had a chance to listen for ultimate detail and resolution just yet, but my initial impression is that the built in DAC/amp powering these is nothing to write home about. Sure, the sharpness, speed, cleanliness, and clarity are all there, but you can throw any nuances or subtleties out the door. I don't really hear much in the way of air or staging (i.e. sound is pretty much a flat 2D plane), but at least most of the usual wonky problems of closed headphones aren't present.

The EQ settings can be adjusted either via the mic volume wheel (quick click and scroll) or through the Audeze software. These adjust the amount of bass, lower-mids, and upper-midrange in relatively broad strokes.

Flat I find to sound somewhat thin in the lower half of the midrange and too aggressive in the upper half of the midrange.

Ballistics and Racing are fairly similar to one another, and actually my preference. They seem to flesh out the midrange and tone down the upper-midrange to relatively normal levels. There is still some brightness in the upper registers, however.

Music seems to add the most to the bass but doesn't address the upper-midrange as much as I'd like. Default seems to be kind of in-between Flat and Music.

RPG seems to boost the upper-mids and reduce the lower half of the mids, making it sound pretty weird.

Take some of these EQ impressions with a grain of salt. You'll go crazy trying to compare them all. Just try them yourself and settle on whatever you like best.

I wouldn't recommend buying these just as a closed-back set of headphones, but they really aren't half-bad even if so. I'd just say it's better to go for something like the TH-X00 or variants at this price point, even paired with your smart phone, if that's all you need.

3D Sound

First, using the 3D sound on these for 2-channel music is a joke. Total garbage. Sounds barely serviceable at best but is usually just weird and bad. And the head tracking makes it impossible to get anything resembling coherency.

These are not good if you want to use headphones to replicate the sound of listening to speakers in a room. They just aren't. Get the Out of Your Head software for that. But it's OK, because the Mobius wasn't made for this. I will try to hunt down some 5.1 music and give that a shot.

Thankfully, games and movies work really well here. I only got to try some of those 7.1 sample videos from THX, Dolby, etc., and while they still don't fully replicate a full plane of sound around your head like in a theater, it's a fairly good simulation. I guess the Mobius does replicate the overly bassy nature of theaters, at least. Is that a plus?

Dialing in the reverb/ambience via the software is key here. Too much, and it's total echo-city nonsense. Too-little, and it's really just a worse form of listening to them in 2D mode. The default setting of 35 works pretty well. Some research indicates most users prefer somewhere around 40-42. My gut told me 40-42 had just a hair too much reverb, so I stuck with the default.

Games I found even more impressive than the THX/Dolby video samples. The rear sounds were the main weakness here, in that they were harder to localize vs. things to the front or side of me. Nonetheless, the virtualized surround worked rather well in creating a surround sound environment. It led to definite tracking and localization improvements over basic 2-channel sound output at the expense of some clarity, focus, and with the expected reverb effect.

However, in games with native Dolby Atmos for headphones (i.e. Overwatch), Atmos did a better job representing the height of sounds. The Mobius's native surround virtualization really only works on a 2D plane around you. But most games don't have Atmos built in like Overwatch, meaning the Mobius will be of great benefit. And it's hard to do a direct comparison between Overwatch's Atmos implementation and using Mobius, because the Atmos mix is very different from the standard mix. (And, no, I was not dumb enough to enable both options at the same time.)

Note that some games may not mix in-game voice chat well with the Mobius 3D. Overwatch's in-game voice chat tried to mix my teammate's voice across multiple channels, so it too got the weird echo effect going on.

Nonetheless, the 3D virtualization stuff was nifty and worked well where it was meant to be used (gaming, movies).

Head Tracking with 3D Sound

Admittedly, this works pretty well. Just as you'd pan your view around in a game, and hear the sounds move as such, actually moving your head with the Mobius does the same. It felt very smooth and precise. You can even watch the tracking in the Audeze software to confirm that, yep, it works. (Note: through regular use, I would end up getting centering drift within about 5-10 minutes to an audible degree.)

But for sitting in front of a computer screen, I just don't see the point of this beyond it being a gimmick. In fact, I found it more a detriment having to regularly, manual center the head tracker on the Mobius while gaming. Sure, I sit mostly still, but I do shift around. And shifting around will throw off the 3D effect, which always relies on head tracking. You can't turn off head tracking, unfortunately.

The 3D Auto mode was too inconsistent to use. Sometimes it would auto-center the tracker aggressively, and sometimes it would leave me in a totally weird state, with all sounds shifted to the left or right.

I'm still not sure this would be of use for movies. Again, I guess it replicates you moving your head in a real room with speakers, but you're still viewing on a 2D screen. The point is to remain fixed on your target and let the sound do the work around you. In gaming, you move your camera as needed, like you'd move your head in real life. But you'd still be staring at a single screen while gaming.

However, I could see this of being useful for VR. The surround virtualization works really well, and the head tracking seems very precise. But I can't say definitively, because I don't use VR products today. I find the hardware still too much in its infancy (resolution, refresh rate, comfort, etc.), I get nauseous using it, and honestly find it, VR as we know it today (not what I imagine it could be in the future) more akin to the gimmick that was 3D television. But that's just my grumpy opinion and doesn't reflect on the Mobius.

So, yeah, I guess the head tracking stuff works well. And it's cool! But given I'm not doing the whole VR thing, I find it to be of no use and more a detriment to the Mobius that I can't turn it off. Not being able to turn off tracking is a big issue for me.

On Mic, Hiss, Comfort, and General Usability

The mic on the Mobius is pretty bad. With every software option maxed out, volume wise, I literally have to put the mic on my lips to get my voice to come through at an expected level (I'll clean it before returning, @zerodeefex). No, I'm not joking. I literally meant "literally." And it seems to utilize aggressive noise cancellation, because even then, my teammates found my sentences and words would get randomly cut off. (I guess the Mobius finds me to spew useless noise, which, as much as it hurts me, may be the truth.)

On top of that, there's no foam or windscreen type filter, so having the mic almost inside my mouth meant even the tiniest amount of air coming from my nose would create a ton of noise. Funny how that picks up just fine, but barely my voice. I had to use the foam off my Modmic 5 to get around this...which just made it more likely for the Mobius mic to cut off parts of my voice.

I mean, once you get the mic inside your mouth, it has good sound quality. I just have absolutely no idea who in their right mind thought this was an appropriate level of mic sensitivity for a gaming headset.

Now as for hiss, it's still there. I can hear it just barely over the sound of my relatively quiet PC through the headphones. Sure, it would be better if it weren't there, but it has zero affect on the Mobius whatsoever when actually in use. I would recommend not getting all OCD about this. Just use the headphones so you don't have to listen to it.

Comfort is so-so. The clamp is actually about right, not too little and not too much, and the pads are comfortable. The headphones even work well with glasses! That's a big plus for this sort of design. Bass in particular remains strong with glasses.

The headband padding could be improved. I get a noticeable hot spot on the top of my head in short order. I took the headband foam from an HD650 and used that to supplement the stock padding (just held in place while wearing, not secured at all). With that, comfort was actually quite good for a few hours.

As for using the Mobius, I found the instruction manual to be odd in that it was trying to sound hip and cool, or try to treat you like you were training to be an elite space cadet, but really just ended up being lame and wordy. Seriously, just give me a list of what I can do, and how to do them. Technically, it did give me that, but it was at the end of the manual, which I noticed after I had given up and resorted to using the website. And I shouldn't have to use your website to find additional, necessary information about the product you failed to properly include or explain in your manual.

Anyway, once I got the gist of using the headset, it was actually pretty intuitive! I was adjusting controls as needed on the fly, while gaming, without a second thought. And when I let my wife give it a shot, she got the hang of it when a quick verbal explanation of the features.

Easy to use product with a dumb manual.

@zerodeefex also picked the inferior color. The copper looks tacky.

Conclusion

I know I was harsh, and bordering on rambling silliness at points, but the Mobius is a pretty cool product with a ton of features baked in. I won't even get a chance to try it wirelessly or with consoles, mostly out of laziness and indifference.

Really, aside from the horrible, awful mic, and the inability to turn off head tracking, the Mobius is a well-rounded product with features that work as expected. I'm sure Audeze could find a way to fix the mic sensitivity, unless it's a hardware issue, and allow users to turn off head tracking via software and/or firmware updates. How about 2 quick clicks of the 3D button to toggle tracking, eh?

If Audeze can work those out, I think the $400 asking price is fair for all the stuff you get in one package. And, even if not, it's not a deal breaker at that price either, though I can't recommend it to everyone. For most gamers, you're better off getting a regular headset, using a Modmic with your own gear if you don't mind extra wires, and possibly combining it with something like Creative's SBX devices for virtualized surround. Only get the Mobius if you really want all the features.

(Measurements upcoming. Sorting through EQ results.)

 

How do you get these firmware updates???

 

Got beta firmware installed.

Warm EQ is basically bass and low-mid overload.

Regarding mic, teammate said, "Thank God you switched back to your old mic," when we were playing OW tonight. Worked well the whole night. Though I do still have to max out the mic volume in Windows and OW, but that's a non-issue. Still had to use foam cover as well to prevent noises.

 

That's interesting! It makes sense that some virtualized surround solutions won't work for everyone. I'm glad this one works for you.

 

Are there any sensible solutions to having voice chat not sound like garbage when using virtualized surround? When playing alone, it's no issue, but the effect it has on voice chat is awful. I assume there's no way to fix it completely, but am curious if there are ways to at least make it better. (Again, example would be playing Overwatch with in game voice chat.)