šŸ”¶ ZMF Verite

The amp was a xDuoo T-20 so a really mellow sounding amp actually. But the source was questionable. So maybe, itā€™s why I asked. The build quality is sculpted artistry.

Yeah I have to say not many headphones can touch the build quality lol. The sibilance isnā€™t an issue for me unless itā€™s a harsher solid state or the dac is harsher

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I was just using a Galaxy S10 with Tidal on it. feeding it right into the amp. Need to improve my portable gear game if Iā€™m to go to future meet ups.

BTW, I replied to you a day or so ago on the LCD-2 thread. I wound up buying a used one.

Ah so you ended up getting a 2? How are you liking it?

DMS definitely had a review up of the Verite Closed he released right before his review hiatus.

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It gets here next week. $575 but itā€™s a June 2016 model and the guy had upgraded the headband to the new style, so I think a fair price.

Itā€™s going to be a fun next week for me, the Zu Dirty Weekend should get here Friday and the LCD-2 will get here before then.

I gotta stop spending money. LOL Iā€™ll stop. I promise. No more.

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Nice, well it sounds like you are going to have a fun time with the killer setup you have in the mail :+1:

It really helped, getting out there and listening to wide variety of things, just helped to know what I liked and the 2 had signature I was comfortable with.

There realization was, thereā€™s a lot of really good stuff out there and in the end weā€™re nit picking about 5 or 10% differences. Unfortunately those differences can be accompanied by thousands of dollars in price.

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Good luck lol, you are a stronger man than I

I got to ask, might not be the right thread for it, but it applies to zmf. People say that these go great with tube amps, but I also know that zach has personally shown off aeolus running off atoms. My concern was that since the aeolus is already so warm, and a tube amp generally has a warmer sound, would it be too much? I can understand the auteur or verite being okay for it, but Iā€™m not sure about the aeolus?

I think it depends on the amp. Not every tube amp is super warm. You can have a fairly solid state sounding tube amp

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Iā€™m probably biased towards using tube amps, so I will usually start my first listening off on a tube and eventually get around to trying off my solid state, then my vintage receiver. Unless it makes it sound worse, I will try to run off of a tube when I can. I should be getting the Verite and Aeolus at the same time, and Iā€™ll let you know if it seems too bass heavy once Iā€™ve had a chance to try it off of both. Like most tube amps, the coloration will come down to the tubes used. My go-toā€™s in my La Figaro definitely arenā€™t the bassiest ones I own, but I will try a few combos out and see if any sound really good or really bad

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I think the whole warm thing is is a common mischaracterization of tube amps, they tend to sound more relaxed, and ā€œrichā€ which is more from the 2nd harmonic distortion than the frequency response.
While some tube amps do slant warm or dark, there are tube amps that can sound positively bright.

The other thing about tube amps is the sound is heavily influenced by the load, an amp might boost bass frequencies on a lower inpedance load, and not do the same thing on a higher impedance headphone.

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I donā€™t think Iā€™ve heard it put this way before, but it would make sense if ā€˜warmā€™ in this case really meant something else, like you say. Would go a long way into relieving the confusion I have about this.

I think a lot of things in this hobby get repeated a lot, whether they are correct or not. I always heard that tube amps improved bass and toned down the highs before I started buying a few of my own. My first was a Darkvoice, and I would have agreed with that characterization until I swapped out the stock tubes. Different combos not only changed the way a track sounded, but those same combos would sound different when swapping out headphones. I donā€™t think I consciously associated it to the headphonesā€™ impedence, but I instead started seeking out headphones that seemed to be mentioned as ā€œgood on tubesā€. It was only later that I put two and two together and realized that they were usually headphones that were 300ohms and up, like Sennheisers and the ZMF dynamics. Iā€™ve had some luck with lower impedence headphones on tubes, but finding the right combo seems to take longer if I ever find it at all. Another common misconception is that planars arenā€™t good on tube amps, but I think itā€™s more that they are not very good on the cheaper tube amps people tend to own. Like M0N said above, a good tube amp sounds closer to a ss amp in most cases.

A lot of the NOS tubes that seem to have decent word of mouth do tend to add to the bass a little bit, but that definitely doesnā€™t hold true to all of them. I forget who it was, but I heard or read some reviewer say that tubes add ā€œviscosityā€ to music. I always liked that analogy, because itā€™s hard to describe what good tubes do to a track. Sometimes itā€™s a sense of added warmth, sometimes added soundstage, but not in the usual way you see it when comparing one headphone to another. Some days Iā€™m in the mood to listen to my Clears off of my 789, but itā€™s a clinical, sometimes sterile, sound to me. I really prefer the sound my vintage receiver and tube amps give mainly because itā€™s not that super clean reproduction. I listen mainly to 60s and 70s rock, funk, soul, and Motown, and I think those genres work really well with tubes, so itā€™s maybe more of a natural fit for me. I listened to my friendā€™s Eikon off my best tubes for about 6 hours straight over the weekend, and it just got me more excited to get my Verite and Aeolus than ever. For a closed back, it sounded really open to me. I canā€™t wait to hear how his open-backed headphones sound and it made me more curious than ever to hear the Verite closed if itā€™s as good as everyone says

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how would the verite sound on 789 or darkvoice, smsl su-8 dac?

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On a 789 it would be pretty good, but I think it would sound really nice on the darkvoice with some nice tubes in there. The su8 would be just fine :+1::+1:

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thanks. started out looking at aeolus and now im here with the verite. haha.

do you like them/worth the jump?

So personally I havenā€™t heard the aeolus (as the zmf line is like the only major headphones I am not too experienced with lol), but I have heard from others that the aeolus is also a different sound than the verite, so it might be more based on preference. I really like my verite for sure, but I canā€™t tell you if it would be worth the jump (price to performance wise it just wouldnā€™t in theory, but I canā€™t confirm)

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yeah, i understand. its not like these are $200-$500 to just try out and return haha.
other than Z i hear good things from the Verite. I may take the leap of faith with this one. Resolve put out a really good review and he seems to have a good ear.