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发表于 2014-10-7 14:39:23
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We in the hi-fi community love to wax poetic. It’s what we do. Hyperbole is as natural and as freely deployed as hot air at a political convention. Personally, it’s a pet peeve, this tendency we have as a group to elevate the most innocuous of molehills into the Mountains of Madness. With that said, I will offer that I have never heard bass anywhere near this quality in a headphone. Not remotely.
First, it had concussive pressure. This is the thing I miss most about headphones — there’s really very little of the full-body immersion that a big, full-range loudspeaker can routinely subject the listener to. That sort of experience, once indulged, is absurdly hard to forget. And headphones will not, cannot, physically move around the fat on your belly like a sub-30Hz wave slamming out of a set of 10″ or 12″ woofers, pulsing less than 10′ away.
Of all the headphones I’ve been blessed to try, only the Audeze really comes close to this kind of experience. Every review of that headphone praises the bass response, both in heft and in speed. In fact, I did in this very review. But if the Audeze LCD-3 is the best in class, it’s only because the Abyss isn’t in that class. It’s somewhere else. Somewhere up in the Mountains of Madness.
It’s absurd how good the bass response is on this headphone. If you are a “bass head”, love bass response, or really just crave the experience of having the jelly in your eyeballs oscillate and shaking the black floaties in there up like a snow globe, then this is the headphone you have to try. It’s crazy. Hearing it for the first time, I think I screamed like a little girl at a Beatles concert, or one about to be devoured by the Thing pouring out of the closet. It’s kinda hard to remember, actually. But I’m pretty sure there were more than a few expletives hurled in full volume to whomever happened to be within ear shot. Or 100′. Apparently, I’m loud.
The bass was, in short, like the difference between a room-corrected subwoofer system and what you’d find in a loudspeaker with delusions of full-range-ness. Everything was clean, precise, and richly textured. How deep? Well, given that the headphone’s called the Abyss, I’m just going to wave at that, nodding like an imbecile. Yes. Yes, it’s like that.
So, that’s the bass. Considered by itself, it makes this headphone special. Unique, in my experience. I have not heard another headphone come close to touching it.
As for the midrange, this is a bit different. It’s also where that sense of finesse comes from. There’s a grace, an elegance, to the presentation that says “pricey”. Part of it is the detail retrieval — this headphone quickly underscored what I heard with the Sennheiser HD-800 and the Cricket Test — lots and lots of birds, way down in the mix. In fact, this kind of mid-range rich detail delicately gilds the presentation of just about every tune … and it’s luxurious.
That said, there’s a bit of a sonic gap between this headphone and the Audeze LCD-3, the reigning King of the Mids. That latter headphone is by far the more forward and immersive of the two, and that’s saying something because it’s also voiced a little dark. This comparative leanness, then, with the Abyss isn’t so much a misstep as a voicing preference, at least to my mind. Let me explain.
I’ve heard a lot of complaints about the Abyss (paralleling complaints about “certain” hi-fi speaker brands, for whatever that’s worth) being “analytical”. One colleague used the term “soulless” to describe this approach to sound reproduction. Let me reassure you, the Abyss is not Stormbringer; no souls have ever been recorded as won, lost or eaten as a result of enjoying this headphone.
Reaching around in the bag-of-audio-experience, the Abyss reminds me a little of listening to a Wilson Audio loudspeaker, a Revel, or maybe a YG. There’s very definitely a signature to this approach that, at least at first blush, will either enthrall or alienate depending on your audiophile predilections. I’ve written about this before, and probably will continue to do so for pretty much for forever, but I submit that there is a hi-fi kind of sound that many (myself included) find absolutely exhilarating. It’s almost as if I’ve suddenly stumbled on a live 4k video feed — BAM! It’s mesmerizing. I call this voicing approach “detail centered” and usually contrast it with “tone centered”, though “solid-state vs tubes” gets trotted out as a ham-fisted way of attempting to capture the divide. I find the Abyss to be very definitely centered on the detail-centered side of voicing. Whether that’s because of an apparent V-shape to the frequency response, or something else, I can’t tell you. But like I said, it’s very similar to what I’ve heard with many so-called State-Of-The-Art audiophile speaker brands. Again, you’ll probably love it or hate it.
That preference probably also depends, in large part, on your musical tastes. If you’re a big Diana Krall fan, or prone to reach for Norah Jones, or if you’re the kind of person that has ever responded to the question “What would you like to hear?” with “Female vocals”, then this kind of sound may not be your cuppa. No judgment, there. If, by contrast, you’re a a fan of Boards of Canada, or EDM generally, then this is a whole ‘nuther thing. Me, with my “typical” playlist inclusions of Kansas, AC/DC, the Scorpions and other 70’s and 80’s rock band greats (remasters, where possible, of course), this sonic signature is just brilliant. Carry on, wayward son ….
Moving on to the treble, things get a little more uncertain. Tyll, in his measurements of the headphone on InnerFidelity, noted a few inconsistencies in the numbers. Generally speaking, I find numbers to be a rather cold way to evaluate anything, but I do wonder a bit about his findings — there seems to be a significant recession in the upper-mids/lower-treble in his measurements that doesn’t seem quite so exaggerated in my pair, and the “excess energy” in the treble that he calls out, to me sounds like air, space, separation and light. Perhaps Tyll got some duds? Dunno. It’s certainly a possibility. That said, I will add that the presentation here is not as sweet up top as the Audeze or as penetrating as the Sennheiser. But aggravating or fatiguing? No, not really. I’m a bit at a loss here. As far as I know, my hearing is still reasonably intact, so I’m going to scratch my head at his numbers, shrug my shoulders, and move on.
I’ve really already highlighted the differences between the main contenders, but lets take a second and get a bit more explicit.
Bass: this goes to the Abyss. On a scale of 1 through 10, this performance screams 11. There really is nothing like it. By contrast, the Audeze LCD-3 is a clear step or two down, and the Sennheiser HD-800 is several steps down. Again, nothing wrong with those other headphones. This difference is, in large part, a voicing thing. But with voicing aside, there’s a brutal reality that the Abyss crystalizes — competence is not excellence. And in this category, the Abyss is the best there is and the best that has ever been. Ska-doosh.
Mid-range: this goes to the Audeze. It’s natural, immersive, detailed. Given that most of the life of the music happens here, this is obviously the most important region to get right — and the Audeze mids are the best I’ve heard. By contrast, the HD-800 is a small step back, with the Abyss trailing.
Treble: there really is no question that the HD-800 dominates in the treble. It’s a freakin’ laser, too, and detail in this region is shockingly present. This headphone’s top-end performance is the reason I’ve never been willing to let it go, even when the bass performance was so clearly lagging. By contrast, the Abyss is the more lit up of the two challengers, but the Audeze presents a more coherent frequency extension.
Comfort: The HD-800 are the lightest of the bunch, and the all-too-common caliper pressure in this kind of design is fairly minimal on my oversized noggin. The new LCD-3 has improved leaps and bounds over the old head-in-a-vise squeeze in the earliest models, but even with that alleviated to a large degree, it still feels bulky and cumbersome. The Abyss has … challenges here. This one goes to the Sennheiser, no question.
Fit and finish: the Audeze definitely has an antique chic with a bespoke execution, like a retro bit of audio couture. The head band and the ear cups are extremely comfortable, and the metal and wood on the transducer are begging for a lingering touch. By contrast, the Sennheiser has an ultra-modern design and it looks a little … juvenile. Like there ought to be a frickin’ “laser” on your head (thank you, Dr Evil). Pew-pew! Contrasted with these, the Abyss almost looks steampunk. I don’t think there are winners, here, as this is aesthetics. My preferences land on the Audeze, but I kinda am sweet on the Abyss for all of its unapologetically chunky charm. Points to Audeze.
The question, I think, is what you value. Are you looking for a SOTA sonic presentation? If so, any one of these three headphones will scratch that particular itch. Unfortunately, there isn’t one of them that does everything that the others do.
The most difficult design problem, at least in my experience, is coherence. That is, providing a consistent top-to-bottom sonic presentation. All things being equal, consistency is the key here — and failing that could amount to a disqualification.
But this is like pooh-poohing a Bugatti because it’s 12-cylinder engine isn’t fuel-efficient. The correct response to this is, “Yeah, too bad about that … and?” Consistency across all domains is just not always relevant. Especially when performance goes so radically past expectations.
I think this is where the Abyss fits. If you’re “into bass” — and not big, flabby, blattt-y noise, but true percussive power, with a visceral impact, with real texture and full articulation, then there really is no better choice. If you’re not a “bass head”, well, you’ve got options. |
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