#66 - These ARE the HEADPHONES you are looking for (& more)

Welcome back everybody to another episode of the Darker Audio podcast. It's been a minute. It's been two months, hasn't it, Srijan? Yeah, two minutes. Two minutes, yeah. And today, Srijan, we are, well, I know our original brief was to talk about news items, but we seem to have evolved to kind of taking them more towards review previews or things that we might have reviewed already, whether they're standouts or not, but I hope they are of interest to our audience. I'm pretty sure they are. I think today we're going to run a range of prices from very affordable. I know I'm going to be very affordable to something quite expensive, I think I'm going to do. You've probably got some wacky shit waiting in the wings. I know you with this one. Nothing wacky this time. Okay. Okay. No. I promise I'll be good. This episode is brought to you by Eversolo, makers of the Play, an all-in-one streaming amplifier. Click the link in the show notes for more information. But we're going to kick off with a pair of headphones from China, right? Yes. So let me model them, but I won't be able to hear anything for the durations. I'm going to take these off. Okay. We're going to ... This is for the benefit of people who are watching. And put these on. Okay. So we have what looks like an open back headphone with a suspended headband. I'm going to take them off and I'm going to show the sides and all of it. Okay. And now you're back in the room. So. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's definitely open back. Yeah. It is ... Yeah. Suspended headband. Are they pleather ear pads? Pleather covered ear pads? I can't tell whether they are pleather or real leather. I'd like it to be real. Right. And then I'm going to guess they're planars actually, just by the way that the grills are on the outside. They are planar. Now, if you were to describe the material mix as it shows on your screen, so the headband looks like what? So the top part of the headband looks like a sprung ... I don't know what it's made of actually. It's metal, but it's glossy. It's glossy covered with a suspended part is like a leather strap or something like that. This part is carbon fiber. Carbon fiber. Yeah. Okay. But it's sprung, right? Yeah. So you can twist it in all sorts of directions. Yeah. You can twist it and swivel it. Now, how about these bits here? Yeah. The bits where ... Okay. So the entry point for where the cables go into the headphone, I can't quite see. Is it plastic or is it metal? I don't know. I can't see. It's carbon fiber as well. Oh, okay. So the carbon fibers ring around the ear cup as well. Carbon fiber here. Carbon fiber on the cable entries. Carbon fiber on the headband. This is real leather. I now only know that because I read up on it. And then this is ... What do we call that? Like a copper, copper-ish brown, the color of this, too. Yeah. You're talking about the adjustment mechanism. For the benefit of people who are listening, Sajam, we mustn't forget them. Right. Yeah. It's like an adjustment thing. But you haven't said what these are yet, have you? No. But then what are we doing here? What does this look like? It looks like a fake wood, but I don't know. I can't tell. Again, I can't tell what it is. It's actual real wood, zebra wood or zebra wood, but it's high-gloss. And the high-gloss bit actually adds a lot of plastic on top, right? The lacquer is some kind of a polyester. And that makes it look plasticky. So this is the FIO FT7 flagship, currently in their catalog, flagship planar magnetic headphone, retailing for 749 euros. Wow. For a flagship, that's pretty low, isn't it? So within the FIO catalog, that's on the medium-expensive side. Yes. Compared to my 6,000-euro ancient Hi-Fi Mans Husqvarna, it's very reasonably priced. And since I mentioned the Husqvarna, there's good reason for the mention. One thing that they've done with the earpads, you get two. You get like a fabric one, and you get this pleather one. Yeah. They clip on and off, right? Yeah. They clip on, and it's very easy to see which clip goes on the top, because it's the biggest one. Yeah. Right? It snaps on and off really easily. And so let's see what I can show this off somewhat. The driver. The driver. Right. Is this focusing? Yeah, there we go. Just about, yeah. So are those one, two, three, four, five, six, is it eight? Are they the magnets? Those are the magnets on one side. On the ear side, right? Yeah. And so they are neodymium N52, which is the highest grade commercially available neodymium that all the upscale companies are using. The membrane, it's a PET membrane. It's like one micrometer, not millimeter, but micrometer thin. Same as the Husqvarna of yore. Dual sided traces, and like the Husqvarna, gold, but only on one side, and silver on the other side. Now what our readers, no, nevermind, our listeners and possibly viewers may know is that gold is the worst conductor than silver, and copper sits in the middle. And gold also has quite high resistance, and it's quite heavy. So one of the reasons why the Husqvarna had this very low sensitivity, which became a little bit infamous because it's not that easy to drive, is because it has dual layered pure gold voice coil traces. And the Husqvarna unveiled the replacement or the upscale version of it that has these removable backs, so the driver is completely open. That has gone to silver, and it's more efficient and easier to drive. And looking at my Husqvarna, and looking at what the driver looks like, I think that Fio took a page from the HIFIMAN book, and they mention in the marketing materials, they are clearly aware of HIFIMAN. And it is worthwhile mentioning HIFIMAN again, and the Husqvarna that I have, because on build quality and perceived material nobility, this beats the HIFIMAN into the weeds. Now I have not seen the current HIFIMANS. They might have gone up in fit and finish and all of that, but my 8 or 10 year old one, this is completely leagues above the fit and finish. Now, not everybody may like the look in terms of that it matches high gloss wood, carbon fiber, and then this... This is like red nipple you use to adjust the... Yeah, it's a nipple. And what I should... It's a weird mix. What I should say is that this adjustment is very stiff. You cannot make it on the head. You have to make it off the head, but once you make it, it'll never change. Can I say something about this? And since I don't sort of share my headphones, I will never again touch this. So I'm actually very happy that it just doesn't easily adjust, but some people could take offense that it is really hard. Can I come in on this? Please. I've not said so far as I actually have a pair of these as well. Not with me here in Portugal, but I've got a pair in Germany. And I think that that adjustment mechanism is just horrible. I think it's awful. It's so stiff to adjust. I thought I was going to break them the first time I adjusted it. You're right. Once you get it dialed in, it's never going to change it. It's fine. But I would say this is easily this headphones weakest point, the adjustment mechanism. And I say that because of probably what we're going to talk about in a moment, because that is probably where I would say there's an imperfection in what they've done. But it's a minor niggle in the grand scheme of things. And also the aesthetics. You're right. They're a bit... I don't know. It's a bit like the sort of the Dan Clark dude teenager with the racing car on the wall kind of aesthetic. You know? Like I say a racing car, a picture of a racing car on the wall. I don't know. It just... It's a bit of a miss for me. Now... That's me being really picky. Here's another Fio. Right? Okay. You've got another Fio. Okay. It's got like a red wooden ear cup. Right? Yeah. This is called the FT-13. It's 330 euros. And once again, they have used real wood, purple hard, but they've slapped so much lacquer on it that it is very, very glossy. And to the touch, it does feel very plasticky. That's where Meze, who also use wood, but they use some kind of like an oil finish where you can actually see and feel the pores. You feel like, okay, I got wood and that's what I wanted. And it looks and smells and tastes like wood. This I think is a miss because it's beautiful wood, but it looks like fake wood because they've gone too far on it, yeah? They've gone too far. Yeah. And I think some people may say the same about the FT-7. Well, they will until they hear it. Well, that's exactly the next point. Now, we don't do reviews here, right? But since you and I both have one... No, we can do something that approximates it, yeah. I think we can say something. Now, in my headphone hierarchy, based on what I have at home, the absolute sort of peak, the Mount Everest, are the Rahl 1995 Magna Inimanas, which are dual and triple ribbons. But we're talking about 7 to 10K, somewhere in that neighborhood, okay? So that's the very top. The very bottom is what I'm listening to here, which is the Aune SR-7000, which is a sealed headphone that sounds like an open one. And that is somewhere in the 550-euro neighborhood. That's like my bottom, 550, 7 to 10K. Yeah, okay, yeah. Now, the Susvara at 6000 used to sit kind of in the middle, but more to the high end. And there was still a gap between the Susvara and the ribbons, but there was quite a gap to this and its skin. Now, this one has popped up, and now this one has bumped the Susvara off. I still have it. So you're saying that that Fios replaced your Susvara? It has replaced it at 749. And yes, the ribbons are still sitting higher, but now we're talking less than a thousand versus 10,000, so there's like a 1 to 10. It's like a magnitude of difference. That's how I rate them personally. Now, I should also say that with these ear pads, they have what some people might find to be a flaw. And I would think especially younger people that still have really, really excellent high-frequency hearing and are additionally maybe sensitive to the lower treble area, that's where these particular ear cushions are very forward in that area. It's a little bit bright, even to me. I don't find it unpleasantly bright, like I find these. To me, these are a miss. They cause me inner ear ringing after about 15 minutes, and their bass is elephantine. So rather than the kids now, they talk about a V tuning, right? And I don't quite know why, because the V has a point at the bottom, and that's not what it sounds like. I like the old smiley face, because it's actually round. But the message is the same, that the two ends of the frequency response are up. Treble is up, bass is up, and the mid-range is sort of a little bit lower. These have this to... What are they called again? This is the FT-13. So FT-13. We mustn't confuse them, because the FT-7 is our main focus. So the FT-13, you don't like, do you? These have like a 60mm dynamic driver, that is sort of the same color as this purple. These are trying to be very high resolution, because they have this quite noticeable lift in the top end, and their bass is like... I thought Disco was dead, but this revives it. To me, it is too much. It's trying to be an exciting, adrenaline-charged voicing, but I think it's overdone. Like Messe have what I would call fun voicings, but I think they tend to stay within the bigger bullseye of acceptable. They're not neutral. Acceptable for whom, though? For people that like a more exciting listen, and that are not worried about flat, they're not worried about neutral, they're not worried about audiophile-approved, it's just the listen becomes a little bit more fun. The top end is a little bit brighter, and the bass is just a little bit stronger. And let's admit that to most people, loudspeakers in the room, the ideal frequency balance is like this, right? This would be the treble, it's slightly down, and the bass is slightly up, and it tends to be about 3dB. And very often it starts at about 1,000 hertz. You have a very, very gentle up-till, and by the time you're at 20 hertz, you're maybe 3 or 4dB up. And it's flat, but it's an incline. So these have a little bit of forwardness in the upper treble, with this particular pleather or leather cushion. If you swap the cushion... So we're back to the FT7 now. We're back to the FT7. If you swap the cushion, that goes away. But also you lose some resolution, and you also lose some bass power. So I prefer these cushions, and to me and to my older ears, I find the treble tuning noticeable, but still pleasant. See, I tried the cushion swap. Well, initially I started with the cushions that you like, the pleather ones, right? And then I moved to the fabric ones. And yeah, they take a little bit off the lower treble. I think the terminology you were trying to go for, I don't know whether you use this word or not, was glint. There's like a glint in the lower treble. Very occasional. You used a brilliant phrase in your write-up about them, where you described it as like a window far away, across a town full of houses, that just catches the sun. So it's not always obvious. It's not right in front of you. It's just an occasional glint that you get from these headphones. You don't get that with the fabric pads. But then you lose something, don't you? You do. You lose some, I guess, I don't know whether it's height, or I don't know what it is. But see, the thing- I like to call it like the cabrio effect, like if you're in a car and you take the roof off. Yeah. And it's not only that suddenly you have the wind in your hair, but you also have to sense that there is nothing, you're not in a cave. It's like wide open, and the light is coming down from above. Yes. Exactly, yes. So it's like being in a Tesla, where they have the glass roof. Some Teslas have glass roofs, right? And you feel kind of just, even though your eyes aren't focused, obviously, upwards, you do have a sense that there's a window there. And they're a bit like that. The reason I went to the fabric pad was I could not believe how insightful and transparent, and I'm going to use a phrase I use a lot and people cringe about it, but I'm going to use it anyway, how squeegee clean the FT7 are. I have not heard a headphone that uber transparent. It's, I don't know, it's almost like psychedelics. It's just, I thought, no, this is too much. So I need to dial it back and change the pad and put the roof back on. But I mean, like you, I mean, I know you've got regular expensive pairs at home, and I don't. I do have the Meze, what do I have, the Elite, which I do really like. But I don't think that they're as transparent as the FT7. And I guess what I'm trying to say is, because this won't be to everybody's taste, right? Some people want more of a sort of the low-end, thicker punch of a dynamic driver, and these won't give you that. But if you want to see all the way into the recording, the FT7, I think, is probably the best you're going to get. I don't know, below two grand, maybe? I haven't heard $1,500 headphones, so I don't really know, but. No, I think they are way up there in terms of transparency and resolution, and to what you just said, I find these to have excellent sub-bass. But the sub-bass is of a very controlled, lean-ish type texture, so the extension is really good, but that sort of sock-em punch, or what Zoo call shove, like you get pushed back, that they don't have. Right, yes. It doesn't have that dynamic driver kind of heft. The reason for that, we can also guess, because a planar magnetic driver's membrane is like a drum skin, right? Not only is it sort of round-ish, but it's held captive at all of the edges, it's clamped, and the only way it can excurs, it's not like a dynamic driver, but like this. It has to stretch. And it can only stretch in the middle, and then less and less at the ends, otherwise it would actually tear. Right, so it doesn't have the pistonic movement of a dynamic driver, yeah. Exactly. It's not pistonic at all, it moves the most in the middle, and not at all at the ends, right? So that's why, in order to get good, low bass, they've made such a huge diaphragm. This is apparently 106 mil, so this is like 10 centimeters, this way. Yeah, it's large. That is really, really large, and that's the one thing that I said in my review, that potential buyers really should try, they should wear these to make sure that their heads are big enough where at the rear, where they hit me sort of, where the jawline would hit the neck, that the seal doesn't come off, right? That you still have enough contact patch where this still seals properly, and I can very easily see on a smaller head that these would be too big, just purely too sizable. And this is obviously an open headphone, and the way that I determine how open is very simple, right? I just do, I just do this, while I'm listening, I see how much difference does it make if I try to seal them. In certain open back headphones, there's not a lot of difference. On these ones, it's enormous, like they're completely strangulated. And that tells you that they're very open, and that you can actually hear, if you play it reasonably loud, you can hear whatever you're listening to way, way on the other side of the room. So, it's not something that I would ever take out, not only because they're posh looking, and they're too big, but they're also completely antisocial. Everybody else is going to hear what you're hearing. But now... hearing but now the interesting thing sorry no I was gonna say that the there's one other feature we haven't touched on maybe you're gonna say it is the weight yeah because do you happen to have the number handy I think it's like four hundred and what 23 for 27 okay 427 which for a headphone is on the heavier side but for planar by dint of having this has 16 or 18 magnets 18 so 9 on one side and 9 on the inside yeah there's a lot of magnet mass here yeah right that's what's creating the weight for a planar this is actually on the lower side of the weight now I'm going to come back to that because feel weight wise can do better okay we'll get to that yeah okay I'll come back to that because this is a hundred grams lighter what was that the ft5 this is still a planar no this is a different one okay yeah I mean I have a pair of ft5 right behind me actually I don't use them very often I really don't like them they sound a bit a bit thick and a bit murky and I know the driver's thicker so I it doesn't have the speed or the lucidity of the seven so obviously they've fear I've done some development work in the meantime since introducing the ft5 and okay thinner driver different coatings of mixture of pure silver and gold and then putting it in that carbon fiber frame to really just remove as much weight as possible exactly that's the reason for the carbon fiber right wait yeah yeah so it's to me it's that that would challenge a pair of like orders the LCD X not the see the LCD X which is twice the money considerably heavier and if you like the orders II thing then been fine but you I think people should hear this before they plunk twice the money on a pair of orders II down I don't know I just think there's a lot to be said for that where I was gonna go is that I was listening to a podcast between two well-known pure Hedgefire reviewers so they have a lot more experience than I do with like the whole breadth of starting at the hundred euros going all the way up to the top and everything in between and they have a current they opine in this podcast that what they think the current sort of break at price point is beyond which you don't really get a whole lot better hmm and it's hard to justify it's a thousand euros okay now there used to be a time and it must be probably at least ten years ago when Sennheiser first came out with the HD 800 and I believe because I had one it was maybe twelve thirteen hundred dollars at the time but it was quite shocking because at that time that sort of nearly was like it shattered the glass ceiling right yeah it was about 15 years ago I think when it first made okay yeah yeah so now let's say it's 15 years later and we have headphones at five six seven eight ten thousand euros and nobody's really blinking an eye anymore but what has happened I think especially with Chinese labor and tech advantage is that the cost required to compete has gone down and that at 750 euros you really have to look hard and want the little bit of different or better that is still out there so these two gentlemen said a thousand euros they thought was sort of the split above which you really the law of diminishing returns gets really really meager I would actually say was this one now I would make that number 750 hmm because like I said in order to get better than that I have to jump to like 8,000 euros for the height for the RAL Magna with the dual ribbons and that gives me still a little bit more resolution believe it or not if you thought this was squeegee clean there's still a realm beyond that but it's not that far away from that that's what I'm trying to say but I think I mean because you and I were talking about this privately via email in the headphones like these ft7 as you say that well in this case a Chinese manufacturer can now get really close to a more expensive headphone I've got to be careful saying this because I know this is this is what I call cope fuel what the what any hi-fi audience wants to hear the most is this cheap thing is just as good as this expensive thing and I don't think it's true at all in the loudspeaker and electronic space but in the headphone world passive headphones with a wire I think we're getting to a point now where as you say some companies like Fio they can cram so much technological advantage into the ear cups and because there's nowhere to go right it's not like you can build a bigger speaker and go bigger bigger bigger bit or more drivers like with with your average headphone you've gotten an ear cup that's got to be as big as the ear and maybe a bit bigger but it can't be twice as big as the ear because it would be ridiculous and you can only put one driver in there and the headband can only accommodate so much material so I think headphone manufacturers probably long ago hit physical limits and now they're optimizing for those physical limits those physical limits don't really exist in loudspeaker spaces right but no in the headphone space they do which is probably why we're going to see better and better headphones at 750 a thousand 1250 maybe and I think yeah that's where the cliche about you know or is it you know might be twice the price but is it twice as good it's never twice as good we always have diminishing marginal returns but I think with headphones it's becoming really acute above I don't know 1500 2000 and I kind of know this because I've been looking to buy a luxurious pair of headphones like I was looking at two and a half 3k and I can't find anything that really kind of captures me even on an aesthetic level maybe the Abyss Diana yeah I do I do like that one but everything else it I look at it and go I don't like it the look of it or I look at the specs and think now that's going to be too heavy and then I think okay if it's a planar I've got the ft7 I just how much further can it take me I just don't see it yeah so that's where I'm at I'm a little bit stuck with that you know yeah the other thing that I've learned from all the leads a hoop and Hamilton who was in Berlin like you are and who makes his own drivers yeah he met and he makes loudspeakers and he makes headphones he's the first one that brought home to me that the importance of the method that is used to apply the voice coil traces on the planar thin film membrane mmm right you don't just glue them on there because if you glue them on there there's a chance that they will eventually detach or what I evenly stick what feel have done and I don't know the technical term for it it is some kind of like vapor deposition in a vacuum and it's similar also to the way that you paint cars where you put the entire chassis under an electric charge and the pain sort of gets electro statically attracted to the surface you're trying to paint and you end up with that very very even perfectly evenly thick paint cover so that's what they have done here with the voice coil traces and so the voice call traces are extremely thin there's absolutely no wrinkles when you look under a microscope and because they're perfectly even in thickness they're perfectly even impedance and that has an effect on the frequency response and obviously the thinner you can make those traces the less moving mass you have yeah the less moving mass you have the higher the efficiency for a given system which in this case is 94 DB because I've got it in front of me exactly and I believe that the hi-fi man so far was like what 74 it was pretty low it was it's in the toilet right by comparison and these also have a 25 ohm nominal impedance right so so you don't know I tried it you could actually drive them off something like hmm something like this so you got the Shanling m3 ultra portable yeah we reviewed it a long time ago yeah you had one it's the only sort of portable that I have I tried those two no problem whatsoever I used a campfire audio relay dongle deck and again no issue you do lose a bit of weight in the base when you go when you I think when you have a dip sort of a smaller power supply basically but it's not like it's not really kind of a disaster or it and I did really get close to maximum volume on that dolly dongle deck but it was still perfectly serviceable your cat is here to add some extra thoughts so what I was saying in my view that I find this very very close to magic is the fact that this diaphragm is like 1 17th the thickness of a human hair hmm and to then completely accurately apply gold and silver voice call traces on opposing sides I mean how you technically even do that what kind of equipment is required what kind of a clean room environment and then be able to sell it for 749 through dealers on the other side of the world shipping included and all of that I find that astonishing I mean the the advances in manufacturing know-how on a large scale now all it in Berlin it's a one-man shop right so for him to make a planar magnetic membrane by hand or to find a local supplier that will make him 50 membranes at the time hmm obviously won't be technically as advanced and it will have to be way more expensive because he doesn't have to scale of operations and just to throw in a number according to feel between there are three brands feel Jade audio and snowski the annual turnover is 2 million items not any particular item but the whole catalog that goes out every year is about two thousand two million units do you know how many products they put out this year new ones oh that must be probably like a new one every week it's completely insane it's I did ask the UK PR company this it is about 40 I mean I mean this is why we talk about fear so much because a they have excuse me sorry I'm still getting rid of a cold and they have the depth of catalog and the breadth I mean I don't know whether you've ever seen this I've got this in front of me I've never really used it that much do you know that yeah this keyboard the keyboard I'm holding up is a feo keyboard and it has balance 4.4 and three and a half mil on the side because there's a headphone amp built into it and so the only thing is at the volume control on the other side yeah there is a volume wheel on the other end and this is a mechanical keyboard right and it's quite nice it's actually the key travel is a bit too much for my personal taste I tend to prefer lower profile mechanical keyboards right but that's amazing I used feos dongle Dax oh I've got another one I mean I buy stuff in Germany I don't get feel to send me everything I've got their btr-17 what is this a yes a Bluetooth DAC amp I use for wired I am so I'm traveling really good so they just they make everything and they seem to do everything so well like with the occasional miss like the the v-shaped headphones that you don't like or the ft5 so not everything is amazing and the reason I'm not making a video about the ft7 because ordinarily I would but I'm I'm not because I'm saving my I'm keeping my powder dry for the the warmer R2R DAC which will be back in Berlin when I get back there because I think that's gonna be a huge hit huge and I'm not saying that the ft7 won't but it's a smaller market but yeah I just I think um yeah high-end headphone manufacturer should be really scared of fear because the ft3 dynamic that we also have and you've got a slightly different version to me you've got the 32 version I've got the other 300 I'm is also a great headphone for 300 euros so let me let me really put the cat amongst the pigeons as far as fear goes right and I present you with this is a foldable headphone the Jade audio jt7 jt7 okay right I'm gonna wear it okay it looks very chonky this is definitely thicker yeah yeah I think you look like a proper cyber man now what if I was to tell you hmm that this is another planar yeah I believe it yeah okay now what do you think this is gonna cost I'm gonna guess 200 to 300 maybe 129 really Wow okay okay a planar for a hundred this is a bloody planar for 129 and the diaphragm thickness is only three micrometers okay the model they had before this which was in the fear line not in the Jade audio line hmm was six micrometers hmm this one is one yeah the FT7 is 149 this one is only three what this has that the more expensive one doesn't have hmm I think it might have possibly taken a book out of Dan Clark audio Dan Clark audio in his planar magnetic membranes has licensed a technology from Bruce thick pen at eminent technology Bruce is a very clever guy he invented a particular planar magnetic driver he also invented that famous subwoofer that spirals that makes sound by spiraling okay but anyways he has some kind of a corrugated system so that the driver doesn't just do that again we're thinking about the drum skin yeah stretches yeah yeah but that also has some extra stretch because it's corrugated ah yes like this yeah like the pro audio woofers they don't have the regular rubber surround that looks like a roll surround but they have those three or four folds and that's how they go in and out this is the same principle as the purified driver as well isn't it in terms of lowering distortion right you have like a almost like a pleated edge it's not I know it's not pleated because it's not uniform so no it's gonna have a different kind of look different yeah this is still if a flat a flat membrane yeah but it has like little nubs or like little ripples that are built in around the voice coil supposedly to help the driver expand more than it otherwise could because yeah yeah yeah so this membrane doesn't have to be as large to potentially have the same kind of air displacement potential meaning that you can still go really really low and loud and it doesn't sort of bottom out right now I was talking about something approaching magic when I'm just thinking about the technology involved hmm like to be able to do this for 129 euros retail and have such a thin membrane in there with some kind of you know spiral voice call and then these tiny nubs insert I find that really really amazing now does it look as classy is there more plastic of course at 129 euros but because it folds it comes in a smaller box and this will travel easier in a carry-on than something really big if you just must have a planar magnetic headphone on vacation but you wouldn't take that on a plane because it was again because it's open back yeah yeah and while we're still at at price gouging crikey you've got a whole I didn't know about these I didn't know about these Jade audio models yeah this also just came out this is the dynamic right and this one is 79 euros also from Fios Jade yeah from Fios Jade now the thing that I don't understand and maybe you can help me out if we look really really close let's see what I can I can do that in the center of this grill it actually says feel and very very small letters mm-hmm and then on the top it says Jade audio mm-hmm this one says feel on one side mm-hmm and Jade audio on the other mm-hmm so it's so obviously it's if it's so obvious that Jade audio our feel you're not even trying to hide it you're actually branding why do you need the second brand that part I don't understand do you have to have another another one called snow sky don't they all snow snow ski yeah but do you understand the need or the purpose or the benefits of this like double branding I think they want to retain the Fio as the master brand but also have like a sub branded range that appeals to a slightly different market I think but normally like in a Western company would ditch the master brand right you wouldn't see fear on the headphone you just see Jade audio and it would be an open secret that it would be made by fear right or it would be Jade audio and then in small letters made by fear so maybe fear are doing it differently I think I did ask them once a while back but yeah it does get hugely confusing with these two sub brands plus the number of products that coming out every year plus the breadth of those products right because they do like cassette players portable CD players obviously earphones dongle Dax I mean they do everything I just they must have some mega factory that they can just decide to make whatever they choose oh it's huge right now the thing that I do know is that the Jade audio product is sold through Alibaba and Amazon and I think that's the primary target for this product line is that you can buy it mail order or you may be at some of the big chain stores like when I when I grew up as an audiophile in California we had huge chain stores called Circuit City and the good guys yeah I remember the mentions of those but but that time has gone away in Ireland right now I wouldn't even know where to go to shop for like nicer headphones but the stores that I do know of that sell washing machines and dryers and just a little bit hi-fi they could sell a 79 euro or 129 euro headphone no problems and that's also how these are packaged if you look at their packaging it's like blister pack that has a little handle so it fits on a on the display stem like it's made for big box stores right and maybe that's the difference that feel is like a little bit more of the the premium brand and this is sort of like the the mass market I think I think that's the way they would they would choose to see it yeah so maybe they're aiming towards I don't know Best Buy or something like that in the future I don't know maybe they have a media mark you have in Germany right media marked yeah I think it's pretty hard to get in there and Saturn which I think they're owned by the same company anyways it's essentially the same store yeah but I wouldn't be surprised if we'd ever see like a Jade audio inside a media marked or a Saturn who knows who knows all right let's move on I'm sticking with China actually we're going to going over to Shanling all right because they've got a new a new disc spinner like an optical digital disc spinner that I think strikes three chords of catnip, audiophile catnip, right? So it does SACDs, which I'm always asked this. Whenever I review a CD player, people go, does it do SACDs? I'm thinking, if it did, I would have said so. But the thing is, I don't know why people get excited about SACDs because they're not being made anymore. The ones you can buy on the second-hand market, if anything interesting, is really expensive. I was looking at a TalkTalk in Depeche Mode. We're looking well over 100 euros per disc. The TalkTalk was 250. But this thing is an SACD player, if you want it. I'll give you the name because it's called the SCD 3.3. What's quite clever about it is that Shanling are piping out the DSD stream over I squared S, so you can pipe that into an external DAC, a bit like what Pierce Audio did with their direct stream memory player a while back. So they've got that functionality in, right? So if you've got an external DAC and you want to do that, you can. But they also have inside, second piece of catnip, an R-to-R ladder DAC, right? And then optionally, if you want to switch it into the circuit, they have a tube-buffered output stage. So you've got CDs, SACDs, I squared S out, if you want it. And then you've got R-to-R ladder, and then you've got a tube-buffered output stage. It's a top loader, which I'm a big fan of. So you have the sort of the dish, and I think there's a puck that goes in there as well on this one. I really like Shanling's little, what's it called, is it called the ET3, like a half-width CD transport. It's got a little streamer built in as well. I still use that. I think that's fantastic, that thing. But this is like the big brother of that. Like it's a full-width box. On the front, it has a screen, which is also a touchscreen, which also does digital or virtual VU meters. I think it's got a, I think I know it has a Bluetooth input as well. So it kind of does pretty much everything you would want, right? So if you want SACDs and you don't want to fork out, I don't know, 10, 15 grand for an adapter, then this is a 4,000 US dollar, well it's just under that, 3,900, $3,900 alternative. Which yeah, it's got a flip-down lid rather than the kind of the big oven lid that comes on the ET3, so that's why the little puck goes in first, you flip down the lid. It's quite, I think it's reasonably attractive from the pictures. It was only announced about four weeks ago. So yeah, I think it's quite interesting. I should also mention it does have balanced outputs on the back, because I know if you're going to have all that catnip inside and you don't have balanced outputs, people are going to go, no, not buying it, no balanced outputs. And then you've got obviously normal digital outputs, you've got coax, and you've got Toslink. And I think there's also inputs to access, yeah, there's all, sorry, I need to correct that actually, I got those the wrong way around. Digital inputs to access the internal DAC, so if you want to go R2R DAC or R2R plus tubes, you've got a coax input and a USB input. And then digital outputs on the back, you've got coax and you've got I squared S, and you've also got, there's a USB out on there, but it doesn't do the SACD bit stream. You can only get that via I squared S. And if you want to know, the tubes themselves are 1287s. So now I have an audiophile geek question. I'm probably not going to be able to answer it, but go ahead. Do we know who makes the transport? The reason I'm asking is that transports capable of SACD are really, really slim on the computer. And most upscale manufacturers have to go to the Denon Marantz platform that does SACD. Yeah, and I think they've stopped making them, haven't they? I think Denon Marantz have stopped making those SACD transports. I think they are running out. So we may have something left at like Luxman, and Accuphase also might have something. Maybe. I'm guessing with Stream Unlimited, maybe. I know they do, obviously they do CD transports, but somebody is going to... I don't think that Stream Unlimited actually do an SACD one. Okay, then maybe we'll scratch that so I don't get sued by Stream Unlimited. But do we know whether Shanling makes their own, or is it like a Sanyo or somebody else's or a Sony? They didn't say. I know they use Sanyo in their more affordable drives, so it could be one of those. But I think what they're... I'm guessing here, right? I think what they're doing is they're using a Sanyo mechanism, and then all the processing is done by their Ingenic 2000 powered digital processing. So I think they're extracting that way. I don't know. Maybe Sanyo make the right coloured laser to extract that information. That wasn't in the press release. So that bit of catnip, Sajan, is beyond me. All right. I got so excited when I saw this, like this has got everything. But this is another thing about Chinese companies, right? They recognise very well what the audience wants and will buy, and it won't take them two years to turn around a new product. That's it. They'll do it in six months. They respond quickly, yeah. Very, very fast, which I don't think Western companies are anywhere near as good. And the Chinese are really good at going, okay, we've got this one at this price point, this one at this price point, let's put one in the middle. And they're constantly bifurcating their line, which gives them a crazy range in the end. But I think... Well, it's just like a Chinese restaurant, right? With a menu that's like 20 pages long. Yeah, a little bit. It's a little bit like that. But I mean, it's the same, I think, with Chinese camera lenses. They're very, very fast with that. So I think, I don't know, this is why the Chinese have taken over the entry-level streaming product market pretty much in terms of WIM and Eversolo, or at least their level pegging with the likes of Bluesound. And we do know, well, I know unofficially that one small reason why Auralic threw in the towel was because of the increased competition from the likes of Eversolo and WIM. I'm not saying that's the only reason. And I know we haven't covered it, and people have been asking me as if there's some kind of conspiratorial reasons to why we wouldn't cover it. And I did speak about this with Livornio, actually. He's like, do you know... I mean, are you going to talk about Auralic not making things anymore? I said, no, because they haven't said anything officially. So all I've got is morsels that I've grabbed from people that used to work there, which is not official communication. So it's not my story to tell unless they go, okay, here's why, John. And please... But why would you? You know, what more do you want than we're not making shit anymore? I guess maybe support for the products that are already out in the field. I don't know what's going to happen with that. But if you're throwing in the towel, you're throwing in the towel, and I guess that leaves people to twist in the wind if they've already got one and they've got a problem. So I don't know. But I think the Chinese are going to eventually rule this market, not just because they make things cheaply. But it's nothing to do with that, I don't think. Or that's not the only reason. The other reason, as I've just said, is they identify what people want very, very well, and then they come to market with a range of products that satisfy those demands at different price points very quickly. And that's why we see the fast turnover of gear, you know, like Mark II. I know that FIO are already working on a new version of their R2R DAC module. So next year, there'll probably be a whole bunch of like K11 R2R Mark IIs and K13s and, you know. So they're just moving at a lightning speed. I think that's interesting anyway, but that's all I have to say about that. So let's stay in China. Okay. And I finally figured out how to pronounce this brand name properly. Because when I asked my factory contact in China, she said, well, the Germans always say it right. I said, okay, then I know how to pronounce it. So if the name, we've done this before, if the name is A-U-N-E, and you've now lived in Germany hopefully long enough to have a sense for, how would the Germans say that? A-U-N-E. I think they would say A-U-N-E. Exactly. A-U-N-E. Like Gute Laune. Good mood. Yeah, A-U-N-E. It's A-U-N-E. Yeah. What are we talking about here? It's a breed of product that up until last month, I didn't even know existed. And I've been doing this for 23 years. So we're going to do another show and tell. Ah, okay. I think it's another, ah, it's basically like, yeah, I'm struggling for the words. I want to say COS, because it's like a COS earphone that rather than having the over the top of the head headband, it has the clip, the clips that go around the ear. So it's like an on-ear headphone, it's probably about two inches, one and a half, two inches across. And it clips around, or it attaches to the ear with a sort of a loop around the back of the ear, like an IEM would have. Yeah. So it's a clip-on. I didn't even know these existed. Now why? Yeah, COS make them. Why is this interesting? My wife, Yvette, sometimes asked me for headphones because she wanted to listen on her computer while she was working. And I'd give her like a Meze, whatever I had floating around. And then I would always notice that she wasn't using it. And then I asked her. Because they're too damn heavy and bulky, right? Even the light ones, she didn't like the feeling of having her ears, no matter how light the contraption was. Do you know that if you go to Google and you put in headphones, and you hit Google Translator into French, and then you go back from French into English, it won't say headphones. It will say helmet. I mean, they do. I mean, even the Audio Technica I'm wearing right now feel like a helmet. My wife didn't like wearing a helmet. So if you don't like a helmet, and you don't like what I call a nozzle jammer, because I am. So that's what they are, right? Yes, they have a nozzle that you must jam into your ear canal to get the perfect seal so that they work as intended. If those two things are out for you, period, you can't stomach the feel, then this is an alternative. It is. Now, can you predict what challenge, what technical challenge something like that would have to have by virtue of how it hangs off your ears? You're on about acoustic design? So I think a small... What challenge would it have? If the driver is 40 millimeters, so it's a standard size driver compared to like a smaller over ear. Well, what do we think this is going to have trouble with inherently? So yeah, that's it. So I'm assuming it's open back, right? Yeah. So it's going to have a problem with bass. And why? Because the... Well, the driver is small. And I mean, I guess they... I don't know how you could juice it. You can't juice it with DSP because it's not a Bluetooth headphone. Well, the reason why it would have issues with bass is because it's lacking this. Lacking the ear cup? No, there's no pressure. Right. Right? So you don't have a really good seal. There's something... Yeah, so the ear cup, yeah. Something is just passively hanging there, which is basically like a foam surface. Right? It's just hanging there, but there's no pressure, there's no clamping force whatsoever. And so when you wear these, and if you apply pressure from your hands to really, really seal these, they get bassy as all hell, which tells you that in order to compensate for the loss of sealing, that they have sort of tuned them up in the bass. So since you don't apply pressure, what they lose there, they have added just acoustically. 219 euros. Okay. And I found these competitive with the FiiO FT3, of which you have the 300 ohm version. Yeah. Not the same sound. Yeah. Not quite as punchy in the bass, but in terms of like when we say sort of on the level, just a different flavor. Yeah. I'd say this is like a sideways move from the FiiO. And this whole category, which I didn't know existed, but then you said, okay, yeah, Corsair have made these forever. I don't know how many companies focus on what I would call a clip on. But this is something that my wife would have loved because she wanted the sound, but she didn't want the feeling of this. And she hated jamming anything into her ear. Me too. I don't really like IEMs for that reason. And I've only worn these since we started. So less than an hour ago. And my ears are already sweating. I'm already having like warm ears, which is not that nice either. No. So 219 euros, the Auno AC55. Do they make an adapter so you can get like a sort of a thin headband? No. Not that I know of. No. So they're definitely just the sort of the around the ear clip. Just the clip on. Okay. Right. See, I don't like those very much. I got to say, like anything that's like a disc, it looks like a coin on your ear. Yeah. With a loop around the ear. I'm fine with IEMs like that. Hang on. I'm going to model. You keep talking. I'm going to model them. Okay. But I don't, I just don't think they are my... Because this is the thing about headphones, right? They are almost like audio clothing. So they have to look okay. And I think they just look a bit wackadoodle for my taste. But Srijan, maybe you could... Yeah, they just look a bit... Yeah. No. I don't know. Yeah. They look good on you, though. Well, here's the thing. I would actually wear these for our podcast and then wear sort of a snazzy cap. Okay. To look cooler. But since these are open back, I'm afraid that this would create a feedback loop. It would. Yeah. So while we are still on Aune, which is how the Germans would say it, I've got another show and tell. So you tell our audience that is just listening what are you looking at. Okay. It looks like a headphone amplifier because there's a volume control on the front of the screen. There is what looks like a quarter inch socket, 4.4 millimeter balance socket. On the back, we've got balanced and single ended analog outputs and inputs as well. So there's no deck inside. So it's just a headphone amp. And we've got an 18 volt DC input. Which means we have a little wall wart that I'm not showing, right? Yes. Right. The top has just got out. Oh, no. Yeah, okay. And then the rubber feet on the bottom, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So what is this? This is a pure class A fully discreet headphone slash preamp with six and a half watts of power into 32 ohms. That's a lot of power. That's a lot of power. Does that come from the, is the wall wart then really big? About yeah. Like a laptop, like a half a laptop. Okay. Brick. Right. Like a Windows laptop brick. Yeah. Okay. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. It comes with a very nice remote control that I forgot to bring, but it's like a little cigarillo. Okay. Round at the end. It's all aluminum. Now, guess the price. Pure class A, it's completely discreet, which means it has eight transistors, four per channel, two for half phase. So it's dual differential, remote control, metal remote control, can work as a preamp, has high and low gain, and has high and low class A bias. And it's very powerful. I mean, it is very powerful, which suggests they might want to charge a premium for it, but I doubt it's more than 500. 399. Okay. There we go. Do you like the sound of it? They also have one for twice the price, which has a linear power supply, which I also have, and I compared the two. The unique thing about this, which is the, what do they call it? The N7. The Auner N7 headphone amp. Is that it does the class A things that you would expect, which is sort of saturated color. Yeah. And it's sort of like a slightly lusher, warmer textures. But then it also does what you would expect of class D, which is like precision and slam and cleanliness and sort of punch. And I think that's because they use that switch mode power supply. That, I think, contributes some of the class D flavor, while the circuit itself is class A contributes the other half. Because if you go to their bigger version with the linear power supply, it sounds a little bit more classically class A. Not quite as quick, a little fatter, a little bloomier, a little warmer. This thing will drive the Hi-Fi Man so far like you wouldn't believe it. Crazy. And it drives the Fiio FT7 like there's no tomorrow. But with the variable gain, though, you can adjust it so you're not kind of just on the very start of the volume. No. Low and high gain. So in low gain, you have a lot of fine click stop. It's not like that by the time you get to one out of three out of, is it 60 or 65? I think that's the highest volume number before you max out. You will probably be sitting at 25 or 30. So you have lots from zero to 30. You have lots of fine variability. Okay. Let's go over to SHIT. I'm going to try and whip through this one quickly. So this is all headphone related, isn't it, really? So SHIT put out two new products last week and they're connected. So they've got a new Modi entry-level DAC. It's called the Modi 5. It's €149. Five already? Wow. Yeah, Modi. I know. I know. Yeah, time does fly, right? Now, it has this sort of new mesh DAC arrangement. Now, what this is is basically Mike Moffat has designed his own digital filter. I think he calls it the Mega Combo Burrito. I don't know why he calls it that. The thing is I haven't really kept up with a lot with what SHIT's been coming out in the last five years. I've got some sense of it. But anyway, he's got his own filter. And they've managed to put it into some of their more expensive DACs because it can run on an analog devices chip. That's how they run it, right? So this is what then feeds whatever they want to have after that in terms of decoder. Now, the problem with analog devices, DSP chips, is they're expensive. So if you want to put that into a Modi and you want to do the bill of materials on that and you've got to factor in an analog devices DSP chip, it doesn't work. So what they've done is they've put this mesh filter onto their Unison USB chip, which obviously has a little bit of processing in there as well, right? So they've put it in there. And then that feeds an ESS Labs 9018 chip, which I think was like a pro chip about 10 years ago. Nothing wrong with it. You know, like it's a good choice. But I think this is quite interesting because, well, Moffat will explain it better than me. I'm sure JT will. any better than me, and I'm sure Jason Stoddard would as well, in that a digital filter can alter the sound of a DAC. Not hugely, but enough that maybe it's your flavor, right? At 150 bucks for the Modi 5, it used to be 99, now it's 150. It's still pretty decent, but the twist in this story is that they've also issued something called the MagniUnity. I know your cat is excited about this, thanks for joining. Now the MagniUnity is a headphone amplifier, same size, same small form factor as the Modi 5, right? So about the size of a, about the width of a CD maybe, and the MagniUnity is modular. So, hang on, are we gonna have cat show and tell? We're not gonna have cat show, okay. Okay, all right. The MagniUnity is modular, so it's a headphone amp, 2 1⁄2 watts into 32 ohms, so it's not as powerful as your owner, but it does have gain that you can adjust so that you can plug in IEMs as well as higher impedance headphones. But you can order it with the mesh DAC as a little module. So they've modularized the Modi 5-ish's DAC, and you can put it into the MagniUnity at time of ordering, and I think that is, yeah, that's 199. So the headphone amp with the little mesh DAC inside, 199, very small footprint, very affordable, and you've got everything you need to hook up to a computer and get up and running with a very decent sounding headphone system. So I think that would definitely be enough for the FiiO FT7. And it's interesting that we happen to mention FiiO and Sheet and Auna in the same thread. Yep. Because it seems to me that Sheet is like one of the only American brands that I can think of that can compete with the Chinese entry-level products. It's the only one I can think of. I don't know anybody else. Well, I mean, it's kind of funny, because I was thinking about this a bit when I was writing up this Sheet news article, thinking like 10 years ago, Sheet was probably the only game in town when it came to affordable DACs and headphone amps. When I say affordable, I mean $100, $150, right? This range, the Modi Magni range. And I know they had other products and they went all the way up to the aggressor with their two grand plus DAC or whatever, but they were the only game in town at the entry level. And the Chinese have slowly kind of forced their way into the market with Topping, SMSL. There's probably another one that I'm missing. And then you've got FiiO, who don't, well, they actually know they do operate in this space because they've got that K11 R2R, which I think is incredible for the money. So again, the Chinese are muscling in and have done for the last 10 years into this space. And the interesting thing I was thinking about the K11 R2R, which is, obviously, a resistor-ladded DAC with a headphone output on the front. And it's got a screen and a menu system. And I don't think, I mean, I'm sure shit will correct me if I'm wrong here. I don't think shit can do that. But what they can do is they can give us, I mean, the Magni Unity, I think is all discrete. So no op amps, which I think fully discrete is like halfway to catnip. A lot of audiophiles get very excited about it. Fully discrete, you know? And it is made in the USA. This new shit stuff is made in Corpus Christi, their sort of new headquarters on their new surface mount production line. So these Magnis are 100% made in the USA. No sort of trickery, no like, oh, we get the boards in from China and then we assemble them in Texas. No, they're all made properly. So if that's important to you, I think shit's probably the only game in town that does this, right? Because everything else at this price point that does this kind of stuff is Chinese. Well, my final one is actually a walk back and a rewind of the last podcast we did. Ah, yeah, yeah. Remember Spotify? Do I remember Spotify? Yes, I do, Sajan, yes. Too little, too late? Well, two days after that podcast aired, my lossless in Ireland turned on. Okay. And I must say, it's fixed my prior misgivings on the Sonics. I will say that Corpus only sounds better to me now because I run it through Audiovana, which Spotify cannot. Yep. And in Audiovana, I can use their re or up sampler. Right. And you know from owning the, it's the Grimm, right? The Grimm ME2, yes, yes. You know how their up sampler engine, which they are really proud of, it actually makes a real difference. It does. And it's just code. But it happens to be code that does something. Well, Audiovana does that with their up sampler. So that's the edge that Corpus still has, sonically for me, over Spotify. But otherwise, it's pretty much a wash. But what I didn't know, because I hadn't used Spotify in such a long time, having basically kind of sort of rejected it for the sound quality, is that every day, they give me six different curated playlists, each 50 tracks long, and each based on performers that I have previously listened to, and then building in things that are similar too. But it gets very, very specific. And it's finding things that I would have otherwise never found. Not that I like everything, but I'm fascinated by how specific the algorithm that they use has gotten. And that I find a real worthwhile feature that Corpus does not have. Right. So between six playlists with 50 tracks each, 300 tracks that I can very quickly zip through and find, and even if I only find 10 out of those 300 that I like, now suddenly I have a new artist or band that I never knew about, and I can investigate that. And the moment that they know I listened to that, now they bring up something else. So that feature alone, I think, is really worth its price of admission. Nevermind sound quality. That now is extra that I have the lossless version of it. But so on that level and on how the interface works, I actually prefer Spotify to Qobuz. I think the interface is superior. I can do more things more easily. And this sort of curated playlist thing, it even goes further. Like I used to study clarinet, right? So to this day, I'm very curious about how the clarinet is played outside of the classical orchestra and outside of jazz. Like how do they play it in Bulgaria and in Turkey and in Greece and Azerbaijan and in India? Because they all play it and completely different. I can actually now punch in Indian clarinet, which is not even a title. It's just a subject matter. And they'll give me a playlist. Right. And I don't even know how they create it, but it happens like instantaneous. And it's probably AI driven. Probably. I mean, there are a lot of reasons to not like Spotify these days. Of course. I'm sure there'll be loads of people in the comments telling us all the reasons why not. And I'm not saying they're wrong. I mean, I don't use it anymore for those reasons or for some of those reasons. But then again, I use Roon and Roon Arc for my remote streaming. And if I want recommendations, well, I either use Roon Radio. So when an album's finished, it'll play similar tracks. I discovered loads of new music that way. Or I'll use Apple Music, which has also curated playlists. It's probably not quite as good as Spotify, but I'm not prepared to go back. But yeah, lots of people talk about the algorithm on Spotify being very, very good and the interface being very, very good. Certainly better than other rivals that you've mentioned. So that's where I guess where I'm at with that. And I guess that's where we'll wrap this podcast, Rajan. Yeah, I'm done. I don't have anything else of worth to share. Thanks for your time.