HEDDphone Two impressions and reviews

I'm starting this thread now that I have an impression of the headphone, after roughly 20h of listening. I'll come back to this thread (or whatever the major thread about the HEDDphone Two is then) in a month or two with a proper review.

Chain: Roon -> HQPlayer -> iFi Zen Stream (USB) -> Meier Corda Daccord FF -> Meier Jazz FF -> HEDDphone Two

Caveats:

• The headphone might not be completely broken in yet. After about 5h, I didn't hear strong changes anymore, but it might still be in the process of becoming a little smoother.
• This is honeymoon phase.

Impressions:

• Great neutral voicing leaning mid-forward. Everything sounds extremely real, no perceived dips or bumps anywhere. Not a bright headphone, far away from a Hifiman, e.g., but at least to my ears not dark, either.
  
• The often talked-about missing extension in the sub-bass is a non-issue to me. With break-in (possibly mainly mental in this case), more sub bass showed up. I don't have an issue with Royals by Lorde now which I mentioned as an example in a profile post, it sounds perfectly good without EQ. It requires songs like Broken by Hidden Orchestra that go really deep for me to even notice that something is missing. Although I do have some electronica in my library, there are very few songs where EQing more sub bass in even makes a difference. That EQ'd sub is much cleaner and better controlled than that of the Clear Mg.
  
• Very detailed, but not in your face detailed. Less "I never heard this before" than "I never heard it like this before". It's all about timbre and plankton, which is the main feature for me. Very, very nuanced.
• Rather unforgiving of mediocre recording quality. Not in the sense that the sound becomes unlistenable, but definitely meh. Easier to enjoy with other headphones.
• Lots of punch, rather more than less than the Clear Mg.
• Very good separation and layering, perfect placement.
  
• Small stage, but very 3D. The first headphone for me where I could perceive instruments clearly behind each other, not only next to each other. Where the material has it, the stage goes out quite a bit, but it never becomes huge. Sphere-shaped.
• Best male voices I ever heard. Also best female voices, but the difference isn't as large there.
• I loved it most with prog like Polyphia (What a punch! What great detail!) and "romantic" sounds like an ocean of strings or a choir, especially if well-recoded, where all the plankton is just breathtaking.
  
• Not exactly harsh, but the transients are really shoved into your ears. The Clear Mg sounds soft in comparison. This doesn't sound bad, not harsh, not metallic or anything like that, it's just strong. Hard to explain. I guess that might be too much for some.
• Comfort is meh. The clamp force is too much for my taste, even in the lightest setting of the HEDDband. Hurts after a while when wearing glasses. Airtight seal which leads to sweat in my ears, and I'm hearing my own pulse when the music is quiet. Eating while listening isn't fun. Like a closed-back, but leaks sound in both directions. It's still possible to listen for long hours, but less clamp force would definitely be nice. I hope it will reduce over time. (I think it might already have, or I got used to it a bit, but it's still far from comfortable.)
• Breaking the seal adds bass. I wonder how it would sound with perforated pads?
• It's not as hard to drive as I had thought from the reviews. I get roughly the same volume from the Clear Mg at 11:30, the HD650 at 1:00 and the HEDDphone Two at 1:30. Comfortable listening volume at low gain on my Jazz FF, and HQPlayer has already removed 3 dB. Probably won't be fun from a phone, but it's not extremely hard to drive, either. Easily enough headroom for EQ.

Comparisons to Clear Mg and HD650:

• HD650 is the darkest/warmest of the bunch with the largest amount of bass (mid bass hump).
• Clear Mg has this mids dip that pushes voices to the back of the mix, not so the other two.
• HEDD features the most even FR where nothing stands out or is pushed back.
• In direct comparison, the Clear Mg almost sounds delicate and soft, with comparatively rounded transients and a more laid-back feeling in general. (I would never have called the Clear Mg delicate or soft before I heard the HEDDphone.)
• The HEDDphone has the best controlled bass of the three by quite a margin.
• With some groovy music, the Clear Mg evokes more emotion in me than the HEDDphone does. This is only certain songs, and I’m not sure about the reason. Slight V in Clear Mg? Unforgiving HEDDphone? For most music, though, the two are similar in that regard.
  
• Resolution: HD650 < Clear Mg << HEDDphone Two
• Punch: HD650 <<< Clear Mg < HEDDphone Two

Will I keep it? Yes. Probably. I'm not 100% sure because this is a large sum for me, and I wonder if the improvements over the Clear Mg are worth the money. Yes, it's quite a step up, but it takes very good recordings for the HEDDphone Two to really leap ahead of the Clear Mg. It's a different presentation and could be a nice complement, but it's also € 2000. Fortunately, as I ordered directly at HEDD audio, I have a 100 days return window, so I have quite some time to think it over.

Ok. This post has become much longer than originally intended. Maybe I won't write another review after all. Depends on if I change my mind on some of the aspects.

 

More thoughts three weeks later:

• It has become more pleasant and less unforgiving than I thought at first. I think something in the treble must have evened out. Less-than-perfect recordings are clearly detectable, but not bothersome.
• Sub bass is roughly at Clear Mg levels with a bass shelf at 30 Hz, +6 dB, Q 1, so that it reaches +6 dB at roughly 20 Hz or so? To my ears, the effects of this EQ nearly aren’t audible at all in 99% of the music I listen to, but there are a few songs with exceptional rumble down very low where this helps to bring back what I’m used to.
• As I’m getting used to the sheer spades of detail, the distance between Clear Mg and HEDD2 in this regard seems ever greater to me. Timbre is just delicious and spot on, everything sounds correct and lifelike, especially noticeable to me with strings, winds, and voices.
• I got used to the clamp force. I don’t think it reduced over time.
• Definitely a keeper. Actually, I’m thinking about selling the Clear Mg.

 

Heard the HEDDphone two for about 15-20 minutes today. Do not consider these impressions to be particularly authoritative given the short listening time.

Verdict: These are really good. If it fits your head and you have enough amp, I can recommend them.

EDIT: DAC was Yggdrasil GS, Amp (that I enjoyed) was chacha's EC UL

Positives:
- I went in thinking I'd just listen out of curiosity for ~5 minutes before doing whatever and then eating. Ended up listening for 15-20 until it was time to go eat. A few members here who know how I listen will know that this doesn't happen often for me.
- Thinking of a lot of other $2-3k options, I think these are very competitive at $2k. I personally like the sound a lot more than many other headphones I've heard in this approximate price range.
- Very good, full, rich bass with great separation (within the bass region), layering, bass resolution, texturing, and both macro and micro detail. One of the best bass to mids transitions I've heard in a headphone before. I almost don't know what to say about the mids other than "they just were", with nothing drawing any particular attention to itself in anyway aside from it was good. Same full sound as the bass without being congested or bloated at all. Highs were not annoying at all aside from cymbals being weird (see negatives). No sibilance or harshness anywhere.
- Great resolution overall.
- Full rich sound, minimal planar plasticity. And by minimal - if I wasn't listening for it, I only noticed it here and there, not like how it's always there with a lot of other planars.
- Aside from the strap (separate from the frame), great build quality.
- I found the earpads comfortable.

Negatives:
- Comfort - I have the ridge on the top of my head and the majority of the weight / pressure was there with all of the weight distributed through a relatively small headband / strap into the top of my head. There doesn't seem to be any way to not have it this way. Adjustments didn't help. On some headphones with circular or oval cups/pads, I can tilt the headphone back and forth to help with this but it's not possible with these square pads. The top of my head hurt a little bit after my 20 minute session. Very unfortunate because if it wasn't for this, I would strongly consider finding a way to run these off of some kind of small speaker amp + pre combo later this year.
- Given the great build quality and great work on the carbon fiber frame and everything else, I have no idea what happened with the strap. Good materials, clean execution, but the concept / implementation feels like a garage science project IMO.
- I don't like too much mid bass hammer. It had just a little too much for my preferences, but not bothersome by any means. Would probably be less or gone on a less powerful amp (but said amp still needs to be powerful enough to make this headphone good).
- Cymbals were really weird and I have no other way to describe it. It doesn't sound like there's a dip (localized or wider over a few thousand Hz) in the 8-12k region either but I'm not totally sure.

Other:
- Sounded like it had a relatively neutral FR to me other than maybe something somewhere around 9k and up is going on. Like most planars, not a lot of "air" in the sound.
- Even with my big head, I think the strap was set to about a medium size setting. However, as mentioned, the headband on top was still a problem for me.
- Needs a lot of power for a HP. Not good without a lot of power to the point where I would say for the same money, you'd have a much better time with a different non power hungry headphone if you don't have (or don't want to acquire) the power to drive this. Personally, if I were to get one, I'd use a low-ish power speaker amp and a pre to drive this.

 

What amplifier(s) did you try it with?

 

edited post for amp info.

 

I tested a few amps with the HEDDphone Two at the World of Headphones fair today. I had hoped there would be more opportunities, but most headphones were just powered by A&K DAPs.

Meet conditions, of course, so take this with a grain of salt.

• Zähl HM1. This was actually the worst sound I ever heard from this headphone. And they had it at HEDD’s booth. To my ears, it sounded totally unnatural, very digital, not enjoyable at all. Maybe the Chord Qutest that fed it played a role, too? I never heard a Chord DAC before, so I don’t know how they sound, just a guess. Anyway, I didn’t like this combination at all.
• SPL Phonitor xe, fed by its builtin DAC: Much better, but still a bit on the analytical side. As far as I could compare from memory, I think it had a slightly better grip on the HEDD’s drivers than my Meier Jazz FF, leading to a slightly fuller bass especially in the deep regions. I prefer the Meier’s smoother and more musical sound, though.
• Some unknown MalValve amp, fed by an extremely expensive looking turntable: Don’t know which amp model, it looked like a Headamp Three, but had headphone jacks at the front? EDIT: Just saw on the homepage that jacks at the front are available as an option, so yes, it was a Headamp Three. Anyway, I liked the sound a lot, musical, very analog, of course, detailed, a good synergy to my ears. I didn’t like the crackling from the vinyl record.
• Feliks Euforia fed by an A&K DAP: Nicely musical, but smoothed over. I found that much of the wonderful detail was missing, especially in the mids where it sounded quite muddy to me. Not a good combination.
• Austrian Audio Full Score one fed by an A&K DAP: I liked that combination. In fact, it reminded me a lot of my Jazz FF: Similar musicality and detail, possibly a little more authority? From memory, it’s impossible for me to tell if one has advantages over the other, this would require A/B tests in a much more quiet setting. But I did like the synergy.

Bottom line: To play out its full strength, the HEDDphone Two requires some power and an amplifier that can deliver detail. For the rest, I’m not sure if it doesn’t play well with too analytical sources or if I only found out that I don’t like too “technical” sound. I do have the impression, though, that the HEDD benefits from some musicality.

 

I really appreciate the loaner. I’ll probs end up w/ 3 posts. This one is called.

Heddphone One meets Two

First, I hadn’t read any of the above posts, but apparently I’m an outlier. And that’s probably because I’m coming from about five hours A/B comparing Heddphone One & Heddphone Two (H1 & H2 from now on).

Chain is

local FLAC on Volumio Primo coax out ==> mScaler/TT2 ==> 1/4 inch outs
local FLAC on Volumio Primo coax out ==> Audio-gd Master 11 ==> XLR outs

Both systems have dual outs, H2 needs 2 clicks less juice. Both have ample power for the Hedds. I only listened to the TT2 chain long enough to determine that I prefer both versions from the Master 11.

The thing is, what I value in H1 is its impact and ‘immediacy’ if you will. And that feels slightly tamed in H2. Specific examples: the long second ‘City’ section of ‘City, Country, City’ from World is a Ghetto has some very sharp percussion strikes which could be kettle drums. They are just not nearly as sharp from H2 as H1. Saxophone on that track doesn’t wail as demandingly. Neko Case’s vocal on ‘At Last’ loses some of its bite. Neil/Crazy Horse material loses some of that ‘Godfather of Grunge’ feel. ‘Aja’ (whole album) leans slightly towards ‘elevator music’. And some of these (esp. the drum thing) are surprisingly noticeable.

I’d guess at least some of that comes from H1’s brighter signature. I wouldn’t call H2 ‘warm’, but warmer than H1 by a little or by a bit more, depending on the track.

Another significant difference is the imaging/headstage. I think a couple others mentioned that H2 varies its image with different material. I agree. Sometimes it feels as enveloping as Empyrean, but without the smear/blur. ‘Hand of God’ by Emma Ruth Rundle really has that in spades.

It always seems pretty intimate but can produce good depth with tremendous separation. I prefer Xfade 1 from my TT2 — same as my HEKse. I’d give it a ‘B’ on my image test track, Van Morrison ‘Sweet Thing’. H1 is more like a ‘C’ by comparison.

H1 & H2 are close to a tie on the Deadphone test. Neither can dethrone Auteur, but they both outperform any other planars I’ve owned or heard. H2 might have a slight edge due to better imaging, or H1 might take the lead due to the way it faithfully brings out Jerry’s clangy guitar.

To be clear, I’m not saying these are bad — they’re not. They’re very technically competent with well-balanced tonality delivering an engaging and revealing look at the music. I like them very much for a lot of my favorite music. They do vocals very well, they have very coherent imaging and they’re darn enjoyable to listen to.

Just saying they don’t replace H1 in my quiver. For me, the headstage advantage doesn’t overcome the immediacy deficit.

To reveal where I think these fit in my quiver, next post title: Hedd into the Expanse

P.S. Guess I should mention the huge wearability/comfort upgrade. Unlike most improvements in audio, this really is night-and-day.

 

So, Hedd into the Expanse

tl;dr: Color me surprised — Expanse is closer to H1 than H2. H2 is competitive but Expanse is better to my ears. 2X better? Definitely not!

Same chain as last post, Master 11 ==> cans via front XLR out. Expanse seems to want 2 1/2 clicks more juice, I stuck with 2.

I hear four areas where I prefer Expanse: headstage, sub-bass, highs, tonality. I’ll talk about H2/Expanse comparo and add H1/Expanse notes as needed.

Headstage: Expanse is somewhat more open, and really opens up on some tracks. On other tracks there’s very little difference. Overall, the main difference is in depth. It’s not that the Expanse is much deeper, but rather that Expanse does a better job of isolating/localizing sounds front-to-back. Not a huge difference but quite noticeable on tracks like Loreena McKennitt’s ‘Night Ride Across the Caucasus’. But on Ambrosia’s ‘Nice, Nice, very Nice’, I literally hear no difference.

Headstage is the biggest H1/Expanse difference.

Sub-bass: About a minute into ‘Heaven’ by Emma Ruth Rundle there's percussion which kicks in. It’s clearly heavier from Expanse. Same w/ the beginning of Fleetwood Mac’s ‘The Chain’. And quite noticeable on London Grammar’s ‘Hey Now’ which has a lot of sub-bass without much mid-bass to mask the difference. But honestly, on most tracks I would barely notice.

H1 ‘Hey Now’ bass extends well, but loses timbre. H1 ‘Heaven’ percussion isn’t as heavy.

Highs: This is the biggest difference I hear. As with my H1/H2 comparison, I notice H2 takes some edge off high pitched music — Gretchen Peters, Beth Orton, Marissa Nadler, Joni Mitchell — all lose something on H2 vs Expanse. Another example — guitar on Fleetwood Mac's ‘Woman of a Thousand Dreams’ or ‘The Chain’ loses character. On ‘China Doll’ from Dead Reckoning there’s a keyboard set to ‘harpsichord’, as well as a high pitched acoustic guitar. From Expanse they are almost in a duet w/ Jerry’s vocal, while they're more like accompaniments from H2. I will add that Jerry’s vocal on this track sound excellent from H2 — very emotive. It’s actually a bit thin from Expanse.

H1 upper mids/highs are close to and frequently more aggressive vs Expanse

Tonality: Compared to Expanse, I hear H2 as a bit lower-mid+ and treble-. Not hugely so, and not unpleasantly. But a significant difference. Several tracks from All the Roadrunning showcase the difference. Knopfer’s voice isn’t as forceful from Expanse as H2, but Emmylou’s voice loses a bit of her shrill edge from H2 vs fully (I guess it’s not ‘shrill’, but what?) from Expanse. Which do you prefer?

< brief commercial message > Personally, I prefer Atrium for these tracks, even though it’s not as detailed as these two cans. They handle vocals so convincingly. < /end >

Expanse tonality is closer to H1 than H2.

Bottom line, I think H2 is an excellent headphone, but I prefer the H1. And Expanse does everything H2 does, as well or better … at twice the price.

 

hello,

tl;dr: these cans KICK ass! and i hate them for all the wrong reasons.

the H2 are very, very good. extraordinarily fast, articulate, and impactful.

the headband solution is brilliant! i would want all 500g+ headphones to implement this design.

for all the virtues they have... they are still too heavy for me.

the sub-bass roll-off is tolerable, barely, i wanted mohr!

again, i ask, why are non-dynamic driver headphones so f'ing heavy?

i love the noise, the weight hurts me.

ymmv

cheers!

n.b.: if HEDD can produce something about 100g lighter with the same sound, i think i have a kidney to spare.