Oluv‘Sone will be back… (Patreon)

Sorry guys for my long silence but I wanted to take some time off of everything after the entire YouTube affair also sorry for not responding to any Patreon post or message but I just didn’t want to think about anything and just wanted to forget about everything and simply enjoy some time together with my family also taking some time to visit my parents again.

I wanted to wait until a really significant announcement and would like to share some further details about my planned NH1 headphone with you that I already wrote about last time. I finally received the first sample from the manufacturer and invested the last couple of days trying to make it sound as good as possible. The headphone itself has a nice premium finish to it. It’s comparable to the Beoplay H4 in terms of feel materials etc. also comes with a nice hard box.

The ear pads may seem a bit small but they do not clamp onto the ear as my ear rather slips below which results in a better hold and more consistent fit although I can imagine those with larger ears to get issues, I would regard my own ears as pretty “normal sized”. What I like is that the change in sound with different positioning is minimal probably because there is not that much space where the ear can slip around, in this case I would even regard this as an advantage because the headphone should sound more or less the same every time you put it on, unlike with many other models like the HD800 or DT770 where every slight change in positioning will have a huge impact on the overall frequency response. Thanks to this I expect pretty reliable and consistent results hopefully also to other ears.

The raw sound is not that great, as usual with most headphones too much bass overall too little mids and harsh upper mids as visible below which was compensated relatively to my neutral profile for the HD58X (straight horizontal line means flat).

So far I didn’t manage any direct connection of the headphone to the audio calibration tool as the installation procedure and setup are not that straightforward, I am waiting for some further assistance in order be able to tune the headphone directly. Therefore I could only apply some EqualizerAPO filters externally in order to get a first basic idea of the possible end result.

Using my most recent sound profile for the HD58X as base I was trying to match both responses as good as possible while relying on the audible result for the fine details. Trying to match both responses exactly will result in making them sound too different, we are comparing measurements of a closed headphone to an open one, both headphones have different dips in the lower treble, which can still be perceived the same sounding, I am not even talking about the contribution of the individual ear canal response which may lead to different end results despite similar graphs because I am measuring at the ear entrance of my ear not at the ear drum. That’s why I cannot predict how well the final sound that I perceive as neutral and hits my ear may translate over to other ears. Unlike with inears with overear headphones the individual ear shape should transform the incoming sound to something more suitable to the given ear and listener, although how precisely all this works is beyond my expertise. But this is how my most recent setting which I am quite satisfied with would measure with my own ear for both headphones (HD58X in grey):

They sound pretty similar indeed despite some differences in treble, I perceive this setting as quite plausible and realistic sounding for this particular unit. I could definitely live with such a sound for critical music listening without getting the impression of “missing something”.

The next step will be of course to get my EQ working internally so that I can use the headphone on the go and start finding some issues which may need to be corrected. My goal is to make this unit sound as good as I manage with the internal tools. 10 filters can be a bit limiting if one tries to correct for additional small errors if most other filters are already used to correct for the basic response but thankfully I have 2 filters left which I can use to control the bass amount and treble boost as I am planning to also include a more bass boosted setting to simulate the response of speakers in a room and maybe an even bassier setting which would sound like a bass boosted boombox in a room thus also with some treble boost at the same time which usually is the case for that type of speakers and I already started a setting with more bass which sounds also nicely satisfying for those who do not like completely flat bass.

If I am satisfied with the result I will order further 2 or 3 samples to get a better idea about the sample variation. I will analyse them all and then create an average over all units to readjust this resulting response to the one I achieved for this current unit. Hopefully all units will sound acceptable with this final setting.

Only then if i think it may be worth releasing such a headphone I will start doing calculations regarding production and how the final price will be. I want it to be affordable with a reasonable price compared to what is available on the market but right now it’s too early to even name any number let alone release date.

I will continue my work on this project and will try to keep you updated on any progress I made. I need to sleep some nights and listen again the next morning to finally not hear any issues anymore. Then I may start preparing some sound samples and first teaser videos about it.

I am also planning some other surprise for this month so stay tuned.

Thanks a lot for all of your support more news on the UBoom X release coming soon as well.