Impressions of HEDD headphones for your head thread

The relationship of the general relative value (or lack thereof) of 2 channel vs. HP might be based on experience more than anything. Coming from a more traditional "audiophool" background, I find a significant degree more value (relatively speaking) in HP's than 2 channel. The cost of entry, upgrade, and TOTL is much less and frankly easier to research, traigulate, etc. Room treatments for HP users are easy to implement and cheap

As to which is more "High Fidelity", again my experience is that, as a generalization, I have found a truly Hi Fidelity sound in HP's much easier to obtain. That said I am not as much of a "stage" guy as most.

While I find the Raal's and these HEDD's interesting and like how they are pushing traditional design, I do have to question their drawbacks in weight, fit, comfort - not that I have had either on my head. Would love to get in on a tour if it happens for either one.

 

For sure- I'll let you know when we've got our hands on a demo set- I'd be very interested to get some feedback on them and where they sit in the hifi market.

 

I'm down to try them out. Can compare to Clear and modded 650's on a Lyr 3.

 

Hello Nick, thanks for reaching out.

I‘d happily carve out some time to put these through their paces if a loaner gets going. I have a Utopia and would like to compare them.

Any word on amplification? At 87db/mw they’re going to need some juice. Do they include a 4-Pin XLR
balanced cable? Most high-powered headphone amps tend to be balanced designs and need one for full power output.

 

Hi Ben,

Not so much info on them yet with respect to recommended amplification or the included cabling. Let me speak to them now and find out...

I'll be very keen to get them over to you and get your feedback on them for sure. We find, on the pro side, the HEDD and Focal have quite a different appeal to different material so hopefully these headphones will be providing a good but alternative experience. We do a lot of the Clear Pro to mix engineers and they've rewritten the rule book on what the pro world considers acceptable to mix on so getting a comparison on the Utopia will be very interesting!

I'll let you know what they say...

 

I already pre-ordered but wouldn't mind getting a sneek peek.

Supposedly they recommend the Phonitor, it was used for internal listening etc.

 

OK- Freddy at HEDD has got back to me- connections on the headphone are mini XLR. As standard they'll ship with an unbalanced TRS cable but will have options available for balanced XLR- they've not got pricing or dates on that yet but it will be a thing in the not too distant future!

 

If the mini xlr's have the same pinout as Audeze it shouldn't be hard to get hold of a balanced cable. Can also make one yourself it's not hard at all.

 

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/hed...h-amt-technology.906270/page-32#post-15401460

Jude went and posted some measurements:

 

Those measurements don't seem to suggest bass head satisfaction.

 

$1900 is way too much for some HEDD.

ba dum tsss........ crickets

 

There has been some feedback at the headphones.com forum. Apparently there is not enough headband adjustment if you have a large noggin, something to consider. At 718 g too heavy for me to even want to try out and the impedance is so low I would need a new amp also. If you can afford the HEDDs you could also probably stretch and just get the SR1a's and a Jotunheim R and your head would thank you.

 

Regarding measurements, the following got posted for HEDDphone as well:



Measured on EARS using HPN compensation, therefore you can compare with the following HD650 graph from my review / measurement thread here on SBAF (white line = HPN):



Assuming good care was taken to publish a truly representative frequency graph, my interpretation of the tonal characteristics would be:

• Very good bass presence overall, albeit loosing loudness towards subbass. That being said, bass quality can often be the more important factor over dBs and therefore, subjectively, you might still hear bass on HEDD as 'well extended and visceral'. Dunno.
• Somewhat wonky in middle-mids - not too much but enough to be heard consistently.
• Very present but not overdone upper mids. Might appeal to those loving classic HD6xx Sennheisers.
• Seems overall north of neutral in low to mid treble. Therefore the headphone might be on the brighter side of neutral.
• Difficult to judge on treble extension - I tend not to believe measurements above say 12-15 kHz much.

Again, just commenting on its frequency response, nothing more.

Looking forward to first impressions from trusted SBAFers!

 

The cheap way is the best way. HD650 to 4 pin mini XLR adaptor. I'm not about to rebuy my cables

 

They'll post the compensated plots, once they buy sponsorship.

 

FWIW, here are DF compensated versions of Jude's plots that I find more valuable than Jude's uncompensated plots. For this one I plotted Jude's HD650 FR aswell and used a common 25dB/decade aspect ratio. I can do comparisons with other headphones aswell. Matched at 1kHz like Jude seems to do, but I'd prefer raising the HEDDphones graph.


FWIW these measurements don't agree all that much with what I heard from the HEDDphones almost a year ago, but they probably changed it a lot since then. I suspect the bass distortion in Jude's graphs is more indicative of the bass performance that I heard than the FR: not that great.

 

So I went to Namm yesterday and got a shot to hear two HEDDphones. One through the Hugo 2 SE and one through the SPL Phonitor E balanced. Also Namm show sound level is the equivalent of a thousand Times Square Guitar Centers so take that in mind. Also unfamiliar music, yada yada yada.

First and foremost, my biggest concern with the HEDDphones is without a doubt the weight. It is Audeze LCD-4 level weight so I was worried about that. For me and the few minutes I heard it, I would say the weight wasn't my concern but that my ears got little hot with them on. Would I contribute that to the pads or just a crowded environment? Hard to say. I played with the LCD-4 a fair bit in the past at home and got used to the weight after some time, imagine the HEDD will be the same.

Bass: These guys hit hard, hit lowish, and hit clean. No complaints at all on the bass. Extension may have gone lower than what I heard but it was noisy to tell.

Mids: Were fine, maybe a little scooped in the upper mids but nothing major to me.

Treble: I would say it was a little mixed on the Hugo 2, was at times peaky. The Spl was smoother and a preferred pairing to me.

Overall, I dig the under $2k price, comfort is probably going to factor into people's purchasing decision, sound was nice and the bass lives up to what I was expecting.

Do I expect it to be a giant killer to the Utopia/LCD-4 like some people been saying? No I don't think so. The Hedd has its strengths much like the other mentioned headphones. That being said, I can think of worse sounding cans for more money than the HEDDphones that I would rec the HEDD over depending on the use case.

Small notes, the HEDDphone team is small, very small. Their production team is a few guys who can only make just a few a day. The launch blew their mind so they are already a few weeks behind. Their head of business used to be a part of Audeze on the EU side of things, was referred to our store by the guys at Audeze, along with Jude, and a few others. They as a result of the HEDDphones being so unique and their small production team won't be putting it on with their Pro Audio distributor and wants to focus on specialized dealers for demos and such (no Amazon).

Hope these impressions were helpful. In talks with HEDD about getting a pair for demo when they got stock.

 

Probably the pads. This guy evaluated the HEDDphone at home and posted a review, and then made a point of adding another post to say that it made his ears hot.
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/hed...h-amt-technology.906270/page-50#post-15421160 (his review is the post before)