NH1 test listeners wanted (Patreon)

Hi guys, I have finally finished 3 units of the NH1. It took my quite a bit to optimise each unit individually as the internal DSP filters result in slightly different responses than my EqualizerAPO filters, besides the headphone is continuously disconnecting from the app and I am either losing all adjusted settings if I couldn’t save them in time or I have to restart the app every time again. It was a real pain in the ass to get that right. But now all 3 units sound about the same (more or less) and are pretty close to my original target thus should represent the sound I intended:

Aside of the tuning these samples are not final as they are still equipped with micro USB and lack some other functions, I will also work on some other details like status tones, and volume curve which I am not satisfied with yet and final packaging will also be redesigned of course.

One of these units should be getting around to various volunteers, therefore I would like to get a list of everyone who is interested to have a listen to the headphone and then send it to the next one. I hope some days up to a week maximum before shipping it to the next one should be enough. The current listener will get the address of the next one in queue and request the shipping costs from him and ship it there and so on until hopefully everyone is covered.

Like mentioned before my plan is to first send it to Germany and cover all people there before it goes somewhere else. The 2nd unit will be sent to Resolve, not sure what to expect from this, but let’s simply have a look what he thinks about it.

The 3rd unit will be donated to David Stock because he was always most generous donating when I was in big trouble and I hope he will like the headphone just as much as I do.

Of course I would be mostly interested in people who already have some clue about sound to let those listen first and give me their expertise and opinion. I cannot predict how the sound will be perceived by others‘ ears although it may also be a matter of being used to a particular sound signature. Overall it shouldn’t sound that different to a HD600 as shown with my sound samples before. But it should sound more „real“ and closer to the sound of speakers. Therefore I would suggest to compare it to some speakers instead of other headphones.

By keeping both volume buttons pressed simultaneously for 2 seconds the headphone will switch to the next mode. 1st is neutral flat, 2nd is in-room like response with some bass boost similar that you would get from a neutral speaker playing in a room. Keep in mind I adjusted this by taste, but in this mode bass amount should be similar to a K371 which is tuned towards Harman, although the NH1 appears less boomy probably also because of mids and treble being tuned differently. 3rd mode is „boombox“ and has a similar midbass to the DT770 but with way more lower bass and of course way less treble boost. I didn’t want to boost bass even more as it wouldn’t be listenable to me anymore, here the bass curves compared to neutral:

As you can see there is also some slight treble boost with the 2nd and 3rd mode which is simply to keep the sound better in balance otherwise the bass may become too dominant. Other changes in sound between these modes are simply due to lack of filters which I had to sacrifice to achieve an additional bass boost, thus the flat neural one is definitely the most true one and should also achieve the most realistic results when listening to my binaural sound samples. Everything is still some compromise of course and could be refined more with additional filters if available but I am enjoying the results and I think it sounds really convincing. Sometimes I switch to in-room neutral but mostly I listen with the flat mode. Boombox is nice for low level listening and with some tracks the difference in bass is barely noticeable if the track doesn’t contain some real low bass. I didn’t want to boost much above 100hz as this simply makes the sound boomy thus the most boost is below 100hz.

How to participate: simply leave a comment under this post with your name and the country you are living in and I will try to create a reasonable route for the headphone to travel. Please apologise if I cannot cover everyone especially if you are from overseas somewhere as shipping may become complicated due to possible taxes etc. I would just ask everyone to be careful with the headphone so that others can also benefit from it and still get a working unit.

I will just use the next days to record sound samples for all of them with various positions to have the best possible results, that I can use for future videos, promotion etc.

Please keep in mind that the final production can only be realised if I manage to collect enough funds from preorders to be able to finance the MOQ the factory is requesting. I would probably need around 500-600 preorders to get this done which is quite unlike to achieve to be honest, but who knows. It will depend a lot on the feedback from you and spoken word, therefore I hope you will like the result and can also share your impressions with others here.

I have a plan B in case this production cannot be realised. I have finished my tuning for another unit from another factory and am going to request further samples to check variation for that model and maybe optimise my settings even more. In this case MOQ is not that high but the result so far is not that smooth which I managed to achieve for this current unit, although you will gain ANC the sound won’t be that high quality. Its still much better than what I am hearing from other headphones, but the current unit appears to be better workable for my intended target. Maybe I can improve on this after receiving further samples.

Of course I welcome any additional support from you as ordering these samples is quite costly and I can hardly cover these expenses on my own. I also need to get further samples of the current model as I was promised to get better tolerance between all units and need to check this as well. Besides I will request one unit close to final with logo, USB-C etc which should be hopefully doable without spending a fortune.

Thanks a lot, I hope the results will satisfy also more demanding listeners.