I am trying to decide which high-end headphones to buy. I am stuck right now between the meze empyrean and the abyss diana v2. What are your guy’s thoughts? I’m open to any suggestions. (I’m also able to eq).
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Well that is one hell of an entrance. Welcome to HFG’s lol
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Have you considered the Koss KPH30i? Very highly regarded here.
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Welcome! What are you planning to amp with, and what are you coming from headphone wise? I have Diana V2, but they’re somewhat amp picky (not as much as Phi), while I understand the Empyrean is more forgiving but I haven’t heard it. Depending on your source chain an goals, there may be other options suited for you.
i am currently running the topping dx7 pro dac/amp
What have been some of your favorite headphones so far that you want an upgraded version of? Diana and Empy are pretty different targets sonically.
My favorites have been the focal elex and an equed dan clark aeon open x. I find i enjoy warmer-sounding heaphones.
Diana are neutral, Empy are warm.
My main concern is everyone talking about the lack of detail with the empyreans.
The Empyrean is more laid back for sure. It depends on your threshold for “lack of detail”. If technicalities are important to you, I’d lean towards Diana. If comfort and warmth are more important then it’s Empyrean.
Look for a place that offers 30 day full refund on returns and try them at home. It’s what I did when I bought Diana (it stayed).
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Should an endgame can require eq?
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I usually buy stuff blind cause there are no places to test where I am, but for this level of purchase I reaally think you should find a way to test them before committing, I think at least abyss has like a 20% restocking fee if you return it in perfect condition which is like… over $600 in this case
Is there a way to effectively do that? At the lower to mid levels eBay offers a pretty simple way to recoup most of the cost of a set of cans you end up not loving. But to your point at this level the restocking fees are killer, and the resell marketing is much thinner. Do Abyss/Meze have retail partners? I dunno if there’s even a showroom to try these kind of headphones out.
In North Suburban Chicago (Vernon Hills) there’s a shop called F1 (shortly changing its name due to obvious conflicts) that appears to deal Audeze, Abyss, Meze.
It definitely appears to be one of “those” shops.
Give 'em a shout though if you local to hear and gots it like that.
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I bought my Diana from Audio46 due to their return policy. They have the Empyrean as well.
Really? I saw a video online a guy brought in the Diana’s to a channel hooked up to like $40k worth of gear, end result, he was unimpressed.
There’s really no point in spending that much on headphones because they’re inherently inferior to speakers and will never be better than speakers of that price no matter what you do unless the music is recorded in binaural which it never is because that is not how people mic instruments when they mix them in the studio. Plus, you’re putting an awful lot of trust in the sound engineers if you are buying those headphones when most of them do not care about sound quality as much as you think. Most studios are cheapskates and if you look at studio gear literally none of it approaches audiophile pricing. Up until the 1990’s the old Sony MDR-V6 now MDR-7506 were the standard for monitors and that is a $99 headphone that I can tell you sounds pretty lame.
Maybe a few studios are using higher end gear but I doubt it. Quincy Jones supposedly mixed his music with AKG’s but I don’t believe it because none of his music sounds good with AKG’s LOL.
Just FYI I have a Modi Multibit feeding HD660s and I tried out Tidal and it sounded horrible to me. I can hear the ringing from their compression algorithm. Basically from that I learned that anyone who says Tidal is good probably has a crap setup.
But that is not the point, the point is even the HD660s will blow right past the limits of most sources even the supposed “MASTER QUALITY” Tidal.
And even if you do get a proper CD player and DAC you will still be screwed by the fact that most music isn’t worth listening to with $3,000 headphones. You’re just paying a lot of money for worse sound I hate to say… that is the irony of this hobby. For instance, forget about buying symphonic music that was recorded before the late 2000’s, especially classical, it all sounds horrific. Simple fact, all the old mic’s weren’t up to snuff but nobody could hear it because none of the gear was good enough. Everything was was very warm up till recently and that warmth turns into congestion with a symphony. And a lot of the older stuff sounds thin and lifeless even for soloists. About the only thing that sounds decent is piano, but even with that older recordings are filled with noise. I mean if you are paying a bazillion dollars for headphones what is the point of listening to poor recordings? I don’t get it.
Maybe in an alternate reality it all makes sense.
So to come to this conclusion I assume you have first hand experience, owned and listened to TOTL headphones on a high-end setup? no?
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tahts why taste is a factor people don’t listen to most music people listen to their music. and listening to your own collection through whatever gear you can afford is what makes the hobby worth it.
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I have owned HD800, LCD-X, and Beyerdynamic T1’s and powered them with PS AUDIO Sources and Headphone amps. So yeah, I have been down the TOTL road. Sounds good but honest to god I still preferred the original HD600’s powered by an X-can V2… LOL with a Denon CD player and MSB Link DAC. Those were the days… HAH. There is a reason Sennheiser won’t change their house sound, it is because it is still the best sound on the market. It always has been and always will be. The HD800 was dumb though, just trying to capitalize on the TOTL folks with too much money.
As much as I want to believe in it, and trust me, I believe in some wacky stuff with regards to audio, the one thing I don’t buy is that headphones, or speakers for that matter, can sound much better than they already did 20 years ago. It’s all the same thing with magnets and coiled metal or planar magnetics which are highly overrated. The only thing that can really be improved is the electrical signal running through it all.