Abyss Diana, Anyone Interested?

Lol at doing Zooms in Stax. People must be like “wtf are you wearing?”

 

I recently picked up a Diana V2 to replace my LCD-X as my token planar headphone in my rotation.


I have had them for about a month and I am honestly impressed. The build quality, and style is right up my ally, they are fun to play with let alone listen to.

For the past year my preferred chain was:

PI2AES->SFD MKII->Freya S 4x->Starlett-> HD800S or JAR HD650

This has been truly amazing combo. I rarely mixed it up because it was so good! But somedays I want/need some hard hitting deep bass when listening to electronica/electropop/folktronica whatever they call it now.

Impressions:

Synergy seems to be important with this headphone, tossing the Diana V2 in the same chain I used with my HD800s as mentioned above it is good but lacks some dynamic punch and transient speed. Also the SFD MKII has a setback presentation which can exaggerate the slightly sucked out vocal region.

Switching to Gungnir A2->Freya S 4x-> Mjolnir 2 brought plenty of punch and helped showcase ABYSS bass which is incredible and what I am mostly looking for when I listen to planars. These guys needs power to shine for sure.


As mentioned above Diana V2 does have a slightly sucked out lean vocal region which is helped by the more forward Schiit DAC and amp. This leanness can also be apparent with string instruments, but I only really notice it when I go back and forth between headphones. So if I just use the Diana V2 for the day I do not feel lacking at all sound signature wise. It does sound right to me in its Abyss sort of way. But who cares about that when you have this BASS! Seriously, it is addictive…

Transparency is good, no complaints.

Headstage is no HD800, but wider than Focal and HD6xx.

Comfort… needs a comment because they are not easy to get use to. I found this headband pad on Amazon which has been a game changer.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0814D2NG7/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1



Overall:

- Impressive resolving bass (best I have ever experienced). Plenty of texture and layers that digs deep while having resolution. This is favorite part of this headphone and one of the main reasons I want to try them.

- The vocal region is a bit sucked out… but if I use Schitt DAC’s it balances this out with their inherent forward presentation.

- Mids are a bit lean, but doable if you don’t expect HD650’s on a tube amp as your baseline.

- Treble is smooth and non fatiguing

- I find myself turning the volume a bit more as they are non-fatiguing and the bass is addictive to experience

- It’s does not have the amazing tone and realism the HD800s and HD650 have, but it does have epic bass… what else do you need?

Next question... how long will I keep them...

 

I really want to hear some Abyss Headphones one day...

I feel like I’d love em. I love the way they look and reviews are promising.

 

There's some drama going on over at ASR regarding these. Basically Amir measured them and it's horribly distorted, with bass roll-off. Somebody over at YT, asked them in a comment to release measurements and to say something in response to the distortion these have. Abyss buzzed it off by saying "amateurs can't get proper measurements due to a lack of experience". Yeah, would be cool to get them in here for a whirl.

 

I've had the experience with Phi drivers that they sound distorted from across the table but aren't when you put them on your head. I think your head provides some air pressure or energy reflection which somehow keeps the diaphragms from overreaching or something. Definitely weird, a little concerning, did this consistently, sounds like BS but that's been my experience with a few units. I'd think a measurement coupler would defeat this behavior.

I've heard manufacturers use that excuse a lot do be dismissive of not-in-house measurements.

 

Any transducer that's not designed to operate in free air will not operate properly in free air. Same for sealed and vented cabinet drivers. Some are more sensitive to this, some less.

 

I have a temporary Diana TC loaner and they are quite impressive. I need to listen to them some more... but I think they most closely resemble the Utopia in terms of tuning but in terms of clarity, speed, black background and resolution, the Diana TC is at least 1 or 2 levels above. So like the Utopia it has a very balanced sound from top to bottom but typical Abyss sound it has a lot of energy and intensity. Quite smooth overall and mid is not recessed like the 1266. Technical level is around Susvara / 1266 level, probably only very slightly behind. Very hard to drive, I think most SBAF favourite tube amps are going to struggle with this. These are very comfortable headphone once you get the positioning right. Build quality and finish are excellent as well, more manufacturers should use magnetically attached earpads like Abyss and Meze. I'm impressed with how such a small headphone like this can put output crazy detailed sound. The Diana TC kind of lack midbass or bass body which may be their biggest problem.

They're very different sounding from previous Dianas like the V2 and Phi. They are a lot more refined than the previous Dianas with no glaring weakness (other than the lack of midbass body). I really like these... need to figure out how to fund for them.

 

Abyss just posted the Diana TC measurement in Head-fi. Looks like the mid is quite present, it's the first thing I noticed since I remember the AB1266 has somewhat recessed mid. I'm not good at analyzing the graph too deeply though... I will leave it to people who are more experts.

 

I've got the Diana Phi here for an audition. Notes thus far:

--Pretty mid-forward. @rhythmdevils likened it to an LCD-5, and I think I hear that, too.
--That said, if you break the pad seal, bass goes way up. You can do this by rotating the pads.
--So it can become a basshead HP if you want, though the bass gets a little loose when you do this.
--Experimenting at the moment with inserting folded card between the pads and the frame, to create a smaller gap, and this seems to be a decent compromise, adding a bit of bass oomph but not too much.
--I think it's kind of rolled off up top. Not unpleasantly, but this might affect fine detail.
--The stage is pretty narrow. It's mostly a left-center-right kind of feel, and you don't get terribly more placement info than that.

--Compared to the soft-ish HE1000SE, the Diana Phi has nice impact and (oh, gawd, audiophile speak) PRAT.
--Definitely brings more bass impact to the table compared to the Hifiman. A better feeling of the sound being built from the bottom-up (with the seal broken slightly).

--Comfort is... okay. It'd be pretty easy to add some extra padding to the headband. I do get a hotspot pretty quickly. The clamp is stronger than expected, and the unusual shape of the pads causes some pressure points (for me).

--Relatively fast, lively listen. Maybe b/c of the design, I'm put in mind of open-baffle speakers.

--The pad rotating is a fascinating feature, and in theory, you could have four different presentations. In practice, I think you'd only do two, b/c of the backward slope of the pads. The choice for me is between 1) seal and mid-forward and 2) broken seal and bass.

Going to keep listening. These are preliminary notes, to be sure.

Amp is SPL Phonitor SE, which, in theory, should have solid power for the Phi. Streamer/DAC is iFi Neo Stream. Quobuz via Roon.

 

Ultrasuede Bass Ported Ear Pads for ABYSS Diana

Product page: https://abyss-headphones.com/collec...ies/products/ear-pads-abyss-diana-phi-version

New pads


Original Diana Phi pads


On a Diana Phi (not the latest Diana TC):

• With the original pads I never had a seal, and I’m not really hearing a boost in the bass from the new bass ports.
• IMHO timbre is improved by the suede, though I don’t think everyone will agree with me here. I prefer ZMFs with suede pads as well.
• Comfort is improved! The original pads were a bit sharp at the contact points.
• The price is too steep! Pads shouldn’t be 3 figures, even when they have magnets.
• I’m curious what suede pads would sound like on a 1266.