🔶 ZMF Aeolus

Onaha · January 7, 2020, 5:38am

Personally I think the Aeolus is a better headphone than the Ether CX. I thought the CX was a little bland. Its a nice headphone, but I wanted a little more from it for the price. I’m not 100% all on board with the Aeolus, but it’s definitely not bland

Polygonhell · January 7, 2020, 6:05am

I listen to my Ether CX a lot, but I picked up an Eikon to replace it.
I don’t think the CX is worth $900, it does a lot of things well, but doesn’t really manage to put it together in a cohesive way.
I also have a set of Aeolus on order, looking forward to hearing both, but there are a lot of headphones in Zach’s Queue before mine.

Onaha · January 7, 2020, 6:23am

The wait is brutal. I’m sure he’s exhausted after his November push too. I really like both, but for me it takes about 20 minutes for me to get used to the Aeolus’ presentation every time I listen to them. Zeos called it aggressive I think in his review, and I guess that’s accurate. I don’t know of a better word than that anyway. Once I settle in, I’m good, but I still can’t just put them on and chill right away after owning them a month. The Verites are easily the most capable headphones I own, but I think the Eikons may be my favorite for just sitting back and enjoying music

M0N · January 7, 2020, 1:09pm

Yes it does

Antpage2 · January 7, 2020, 5:41pm

Yes what does?

M0N · January 7, 2020, 5:56pm

I was responding to the question about the jot compression, it’s there but not super present as the magni or modi

Antpage2 · January 7, 2020, 6:13pm

well then i wouldnt want to get that

AECH · January 8, 2020, 3:37am

It’s never been something that I could hear. I even often listen to old recordings and it’s always sounded great, I think it also depends pretty highly on the dac module. Most reviews that mentioned compression came out years ago with the old dac module. It’s a great combo for the price in my opinion. However, if the thx 789 was out when I bought it, I easily would’ve gone with that over the jotunheim. I also do love supporting smaller US companies, hence also why I was okay spending so much on headphones from ZMF over some of the larger companies. Schiits customer service is very legit like ZMF. I ordered mine literally days before the new dacs were added and even though they had already built mine, they called me and asked if I wanted to change out the dac module and even upgrade to the multibit at no cost. You can’t beat the service of the smaller homegrown companies.

Antpage2 · January 8, 2020, 4:00am

Yeah im curious about Schiit and if they offer anything that can compete with the SP200. But i dont like treble colored Amps and Dacs and i dont like compression. Also i dont like R2R dacs.

M0N · January 8, 2020, 4:04am

The asgard 3 competes imo, but they are going for a different type of sound. The sp200 is more anyltical leaning and the a3 is more balanced. The a3 doesn’t really suffer from a poor signature nor a bad sound signature. Also what r2r dac did you hear?

Antpage2 · January 8, 2020, 4:06am

I guess im prejudiced against them. I haven’t heard one. Its based on old tech and seems similar to a tube amp. you know, mess up the sound to get something different. i want a analytical clean uncolored dac.

Polygonhell · January 8, 2020, 4:12am

It’s always best to make up your mind on audio gear without listening to it…

Antpage2 · January 8, 2020, 4:13am

lol i know what youre saying but i think the science speaks for itself.

AECH · January 8, 2020, 4:13am

The dac in the jotunheim seems very analytical. Maybe I’m not as well versed in dacs. As long as it gives me a clean signal, I’m good to go. I don’t think I could ever spend so much money on a dac. Like I said, I wish I got a dac separate from my amp for simplicity of switching amps but that’s as far as I am concerned. It’s hilarious watching the guys from schiit talk about their gear though ha. They’re so sarcastic.

AECH · January 8, 2020, 4:16am

I think another point to r2r, even though the tech is older is that it’s much more simple to make and cheaper. Maybe if I heard a higher tech dac, I’d see the difference, but ignorance is bliss so I’ll stick with my cheaper dacs haha.

M0N · January 8, 2020, 4:17am

The best dacs I have heard so far have been r2r, just saying lol

Antpage2 · January 8, 2020, 4:22am

Well correct me if im wrong but you seem to lean towards more musical, enjoy the music sound. im strictly analytical, cold, uncolored, detail sound.

M0N · January 8, 2020, 4:24am

I’m both lol, I really want as neutral and uncolored as I can get for studio work, since I need stuff to be actually accurate for work. Regarding for listening pleasure I do like a bit more “musical”

Polygonhell · January 8, 2020, 4:24am

I think you misunderstand what science is.
Ladder DAC’s using resistors are going to have linearity issues, the work around is to use multiple ladders to compensate for the errors, their never going to measure particularly well for THD. But they’ll measure better than you can hear, so in what way are they inferior?

Multibit DAC’s like the Schiits and DAC’s based on older audio DAC’s like the one Mon just purchased won’t have the linearity issue, because those chips are rated to 1/2 LSB accuracy.

R2R DAC’s introduce no noise into the system that has to be filtered out.
They can also run at much higher frequencies.
DSDAC’s on the other hand introduce all sorts of high frequency noise, that then has to be filtered out both digitally and in the analog domain.

If DSDAC’s are the best DAC’s why for medical applications do they still use 18 Bit R2R on a chip DAC’s?

So what science exactly?
Audio gear really needs to be listened to.

Antpage2 · January 8, 2020, 4:31am

Whats DSDAC? Direct Stream DAC?

Why do they measure poorly? Are you saying that R2R dacs can be analytical and clean also?