The Aeolus, from what I’ve been told, is probably the most easy-listening ZMF. It’s just right, not fatiguing in any way.
I joke on another forum the the Porta Pros ar “Baby Aeolus”. 
I’m really interested in the Tuba, as I can use it with planars as well as dynamics.
Glad you’re enjoying it.
The Aeolus is a dark W shaped headphone. if you swap pads to the Suede they sound a little like the Elex. The Auteurs are more neutral and detailed. the Auteurs are considered the more laid back. dont know what signature the Veritas has.
you know the tuba just dropped in price to 649$ right?
What sound signature does he hifiman he6 have?
For something to be “dark” the treble has to be recessed, below neutral. And when you say something is ‘W shaped’ that means it has elevated bass, mids, and treble, with dips in between. So it is a bit odd to say something is both “dark” *and “W-shaped”. I’m not sure you can really have it both ways? Maybe I’m wrong.
i didnt listen to it very long with the stock pads. i switched to the suede pretty early and thats probably when it sounded more W
It didn’t just drop, it’s been like that for a while. For reference, when I bought it in December, the price was the same, but adding the wood panels was $50 less. I bought it for $700 with the panels.
I got an email regarding the Denafrips Ares II order. They are confident about getting it shipped out by the 3rd/4th week of March. Unfortunately, there was some delay due to the quarantines from the virus outbreak, which I’m 100% okay with. Safety is definitely most important.
You’re not wrong. That frequency response looks pretty flat to me, other than a small dip from 3 to 4 KHz.
For something to be W shaped, it would have to have a minimum of 2 deep recessions. A classic example of a W shaped headphone is the Denon AH-D7000
The Aeolus isn’t even close to being W shaped.
yeah, at least based on that graph, seems to have a dip towards the treble region, with a 5db bass shelf. Maybe better to call it slightly warm.
I agree, neutral-warmish to cover all bases. The word balanced is overused often, but the Aeolus are a pretty good example of a balanced sounding headphone.
I believe he’s conflating 2 different pads together.
The aeolus with stock pads is definitely a warm, dark headphone, but very pleasant.
The aeolus with suede is more balanced and he compared it to the elex, a w shape headphone.
I don’t know about the graph, but stock aeolus, doesn’t sound anywhere near neutral.
It depends on the graph and whether or not it is compensated. It doesn’t sound neutral, I agree. That is why I said neutralish warm. If the bass shelf didnt exist, it would be neutral.
I also find it fascinating that every ZMF headphone has that well tuned small notch at 1.2/1.3 KHz range, which helps separate vocals. I have yet to see a ZMF headphone that didnt show that characteristic.
Bottom line, Aeolus sound great. 
Cool, I do feel other aspect can contribute to a perceived “neutral” or “warm” feeling aside from pure frequency response… so you do kind of have to hear them for yourself…
good example is the Clear vs Elex. Raw Frequency response is pretty much identical, but the major difference, imo, lies in the transient detail/impulse response of the Clear. They resolve a lot better, which give them a perceived clarity throughout the frequency spectrum and gives them a much more neutral sound.
I have heard the clear, not the elex. But from what I have gathered from other people’s observations, the clear tend to have a touch more bass and are more resolving in the treble. This lines up with what you said.
I had a consolidated graph that had the 4 pad options together and they all show similar bass, but listening to them is completely different, for this headphone I feel like the graphs really don’t give you as much a good idea as you think they would. With stock pads the aeolus has a slam and punchiness that none of the other pads have and it doesn’t show up in the graphs at all.
Yeah, I have a pair of Elex on hand, since I just fixed a pair I bought on Ebay. I spent a bit of time A/Bing them… and tonality is more or less the same… but the Elex has a much mroe ‘W’ shaped perceived sound. It’s quite a bit flatter in terms of sound stage, which I think also makes the dynamics seem a bit more exaggerated, which lines up with Joshua’s review, when he compared the Elex to Clears.
But on the SPL amp, the Clears resolve a lot better, there’s a definite improvement in separation with more 3-dimensionality to the sound-stage
Oh I agree, it is one of those headphones that doesn’t sound the way it measures. I think the DT 1990 and Sundara are both examples of that too, at least to my ears. This brings up the point that measurements alone, or subjective listening alone doesn’t give the whole picture. I know that many in the hobby tend to pick 1 side…I prefer both. 
1 more day and the RNHP shall be mine. 
