Transcription
Hi everyone. So, welcome to my new setup for this um channel, the Amplify Audio Review channel. Um I believe I call it Amplify Audio Reviews.
It's just one of those days where I woke up uh not really feeling myself because I haven't been able to get a lot of sleep. Work has really kept me busy and you know I do a bunch of different things for work. I work for in in in research in international development in consulting so on so forth. So I think generally speaking um work has been hectic guys and you know I haven't gotten around to doing as many reviews as I'd like but it is what it is.
Um so from now on I'm going to be using this sort of setup to do my reviews. So you know I have a backdrop I have you know a decent camera. I can even turn the light on. So, if you want to see more light on my face, um, and this review is going to be of the Abyss Joel, the jack of all trades, as it is called.
Um, the first thing you'll notice is that it's a beautiful headphone, especially if you like the sort of blacked out aesthetics, which I do. I think most men do. Um, you know, uh, not to make a gendered comment, but I feel like I don't even need to disclaim nowadays for various reasons. Um, so anyway, I think um this is a phenomenal headphone, guys. It is a headphone that my friend who goes by the nickname Roasty and Headfire, he got it and he's like a super high-end headfire. Like this guy has um I would wager um I mean I don't want to sort of give away without his permission the amount of dollars he spent on his uh stable, but he's got one of the most expensive setups. He's got the best to my mind. I mean among the head five circles at least a set of let's say double chassis tube preamps speaker amps of course headphone amps like the Riviera Labs EIC 10 the Wu audio and he's got a plethora of the some of the finest headphones on the planet.
So all that to say when he bought this, you know, after trying this in Singapore and then he advised that I try it, I did in the privacy of his own home and I fell in love with it because I was like, you know, how do you like a headphone at this sort of price point when you have headphones that are like $6,000, $10,000 because he does and I did at that time and I still do because I mean headphones do scale with price. Of course, you have the exception when it doesn't. And I think then we reviewers and even audio files, we read too much into that and we start clamoring for value. And hey, this headphone from so and so company is supposed to be $5,000, but it doesn't really hold up. You know, this was one instance where this $2,000 headphone really, really, really like hit hard. And and of course in in more ways than one because it does have superlative bass.
But anyway, fast forward to just a couple of months ago. Uh I got this thanks to u Abyss headphones and I've been listening to this and I've been listening and listening and listening and you know I should have done this review a long time ago and I apologize because I've been hinting at this that I'll be doing this review and I haven't gotten around to it. I look a bit like a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle uh with this. But that's possibly my head aesthetics, which I like uh you know, I like being bald, but I I do think that this is a very very very nice looking headphone, guys. Regardless of whether you think this looks pretty, whether I look pretty with this, this is a phenomenal headphone for the price. Looks wise as well.
Uh in terms of construction and build, it's it's all metal. So that's something that I think always pleases the heart to see premium materials and um yeah, so it's got this very premium aluminum construction, right? And as you can see, it catches light because it's got these beautiful ridges and uh it does look so beautiful, right? And and I think if you also want to sort of see the comfortable, very pillowy, very very very very very pillowy pads. I mean, this is so comfortable and the headband system is is very functional. You know, it's very very functional. Uh there's nothing wrong with it. It does also look pretty in different ways, right? If you can see this the patterns here, it is a very pretty sort of a look and and overall it just comes together beautifully. It's all metal. It's still light. is around 400 g. It's not difficult to drive. If you if you want to know about the specs, it's around 30 ohms in impedance, about 90 dB in sensitivity. So, you can drive this off an Apple dongle, as the cliche goes.
But, of course, you should never drive anything off an Apple dongle because sources matter and sources can make or break the hobby for you. they they can I mean a lot of people will be in denial because they will say oh the headphone sucks but often times or not often times a lot of the times or many occasionally it's the source that's holding your headphone or IM's back and that's just how it is and um yeah I mean you can argue about cables guys and that's fine and I think you know cables that that sort of space is a very legitimate way of arguing but sources matter you you go to the stacks forum and they figured out transistors that make a difference to the warmth of a headphone, right? And even the greatest builders of ESAD amplifiers will talk about this.
So, all that to say, um, this is a beautiful headphone. This is a beautiful looking headphone and I meander and I ramble and you have to excuse that, right? That's just how I do reviews. Okay, so stunning looking headphone. I love these ridges and the way it's catching light. I just love the Abyss logo. I think it's a very cool logo. I just love the blacked out look. It's an homage in many ways and a derivative of their flagship headphone which is to my mind perhaps the greatest headphone ever made which is the Abyss AB1266 5TC total consciousness as that's what TC stands for. That is the best headphone on the planet ever made and and they're far more expensive headphones but it beats everything else to I think because of the just the amazing construction amazing sound. It just does bass so well. I mean, the mids are not his forte, but I'm not a midhead, so take that for what it's worth. I do own a Shanheiser HD6XX, which satisfies my cravings for the sweetest mids or sweet mids. Um, but the best you can EQ, the 1266. This does not need any kind of EQ. I just want to say so can become like a, you know, uh, um, go anywhere, do anything sort of a headphone if you know how to EQ. And if you um have a tube amp, which I do, uh I have a hybrid tube amp, the reviewer lab 10.
So, this looks like the BIS. It's basically, you know, uh the shortand of what I want to say. Um the 1266. I mean, it's blacked out. It it does look also like the DZ and the 5TC and and the other headphones and the Dana Fi. It it does look like the Diana series of headphones, but uh I mean I do think uh some people are confused as to how they sound different, and they do because this is by far the warmest Abyss headphone ever made. This is by far the warmest Abyss headphone ever made. I'm repeating it because it's it's a warm of neutral headphone to my ears, which it might come as a surprise because a lot of people associate abyss with sharp and piercing sounds, which it doesn't. This does not hold up to that stereotype.
Okay, now to talk about sound guys. Uh I've given you a sense of it drivability. So you can drive it off anything and I really think you can drive it off anything. But it does scale with better quality amplification and DAX. Uh, it's light. It's super light. It's less than 400 grams. It's just it's like feather light. It's roomy. It doesn't have clamp. So, if you like clamp, that's some something worth keeping in mind. It doesn't really have clamp, but it suspends really nicely.
Now, guys, um, soundwise, it's a neutral sounding headphone with very good bass extension, very good bass impact. I don't have to tell you about Abyss's base impact because that's for granted. It extends very well. Although I feel like there will be an odd hyphen. I mean, the hyphen headphones extend really well, but their bass sounds wimpy, plasticky, unsatisfying, which is why I've never been able to hold on to a hyphen headphone no matter how much I tried. Even Suzvara, which I've bought and sold five times or maybe six. Every time I've gotten a new flagship amp, I've bought the Suzvara hoping that, you know, maybe the rest of the frequent response will live up to the mids and the treble, which Suzvara excels at. Although the 8 kHz is a bit shimmery for me on the Suzvara, but it the bass never satisfies me. No matter how how many people have said that, you know, you need to unlock the bass with that speaker. It doesn't work. I've tried everything and I've been trying everything since the last I I don't even know since when since the beginning of the pandemic which seems like eons ago. Yeah. I mean I can even tell you I can write essays on what each speaker amp sounds like that I've tried with this. And I'm talking about 10 to $20,000 speaker amps. I mean with the Suzvara. So the Suzvara doesn't do bass well as far as I'm concerned. It's wimpy. It's plasticky. I haven't found a single hypherman headphone with the exception of the H6 that does bass well. The reason I make the comparison is because every Abyss headphone I've I've heard does bass well. And I think it's worth keeping in mind because I don't want to get into a long discussion of a bass. But the long and the TLDDR is that Abyss does bass well not because it's extended like the type of headphones are. This is not as extended but because of the grunt, the impact, the viscerality, the notew weight, it's a drivers of course and also because it just is able to extract so much nuance, information, texture and and to summarize just realism from bassoriented instruments that I think is what ultimately satisfies the cravings of a base lover such as myself. That is exactly what this does so well.
And I'll keep drawing references to Hyman throughout this review because I do feel like it's a perfect foil for Abyss because they have in many ways very contrasting sound signatures and ethos in many ways because while Abyss headphones are supremely wellb built, hyphen headphones are not. They're very functional, but hyphen headphones also give Abyss headphones a run for their money when it comes to technicalities because hyphen headphones tend to be very technical, partially aided by lifted treble, which is not just Herman's fault or straight. Most high-end headphone brands have a lifted treble as a way of shoving resolution on your face.
Okay, so moving on from bass, the mids of this headphone is I I mean, they're um impressive. Um, most fans of Abyss headphones do not, I think, token for mid-range. They get mids elsewhere. If they do token for mid-range, most Abyss headphones till date do not do mids as well as even I think um I mean they certainly don't do mids as well as ZMF headphones do. That's another interesting way of comparing Abyss, I think. Although I do think ZMF house sound and abyss house sound are ever so slightly closer than the hyphen house sound and the abyss house sound. So ZMF headphones famously do mids very well and I think they're perhaps the best brand for mids. If you like mids, there's just no other headphone on the planet, no other brand, no other house sound that do mids as consistently well as it as CMF headphones do. a bass hasn't typically gotten their mids to be as pleasing as their bass. This is a stark departure because this is one headphone where I feel the mids are very close to being phenomenal. So, I don't think they're phenomenal, but I think they're very close to being phenomenal. And I'll tell you what I like about these mids. Beyond the fact that this uncovers a plethora of nuance, which this headphone does, and for $2,000, I I feel it's crazy the amount of nuance and and resolution you get with these headphones. The mids here have just the right tambber, which is just stunning because see, high and abyss were also similar for for a while in the sense sense that I don't think either of them do tambber very well. But I do think that a certain class of h high headphones, especially the new unveil headphones and the OG Suzvara, they do get mid-tamber, right? It's a bit on the thinner side, but as far as thinish sounding headphones go, they still sound very realistic, especially vocals and strings. Now, what this does is it it firstly, it's got the pin again just right. I don't think it's as energetic as let's say the OG area Ara the OG Susvara Ojas or the Oji Susvara which is just right for me because I don't like that amount of pin again but it's not as recessed as let's say the 1266 or many other abyss headphones and somehow it's able to get some of the tambal magic of a ZMF without actually being as good as ZMF in the mids which is why I say if ZMF is phenomenal for miz which it is. This is close to being phenomenal.
The treble is another sort of um band of frequencies where this really impressed me because this this sounds um very realistic in treble, very neutral in treble without being rolled off or overly warm. And if I were to explicate this by referring to frequencies, I feel like this does do uh lower treble really well without compromising or without giving you peaks and and and the sort of uh piercing quality that I think a lot of um headphones that do lower treble well tend to. And then you also get upper treble energy, but I feel like it's just pullback enough that it doesn't sound so symbols and high hats don't sound as shimmery or as as grating or as bright as I think other headphones can. The H100 SE comes to mind, which is a phenomenal headphone for its technical prowess, but the H100 SE, the OG, has such a wild wild west kind of treble that you know, you got it and if you were treble tolerant or if you got used to treble, it would be an amazing ride in resolution and just this treble can create excitement. It's a double-edged sword. I mean, right? So for some people who find a lot of, you know, treble polite headphones boring, they can become treble heads over time as they get into more and more high-end headphones because it just gives you information and it sounds exciting. H100 SU was one such headphones. Some people swore by it. Some people loved it and loved it way more than a lot of other headphones. I didn't. I eqed it aggressively. I tubed it. The H1000 SE at some point became fatiguing for me. Not just because it was fatiguing to my ears, it was just fatiguing physically to continuously try to tame the treble because it had so much great excitement and resolution and all that. This is one headphone which I think is just a really solid example of what treble can sound like where you're not compromising on the treble frequencies, but it's still, you know, it's still not bright. And I would say my tolerance for treble at this current point in time is is sort of average. It's sort of, you know, it's sort of medium level tolerance. I'm not very very treble sensitive and I'm not treble insensitive either. I can handle a bit of treble. So take that for what that's worth.
Now, to talk about its technical chops, I think the long and short of it, this is perhaps the most technical headphone I've heard at $2,000 and rivaling a lot of high femin headphones which can now be had for $2,000 which like the H1000 SE, right? It was 3,000 when it came out, then it dropped. You can even pick it up for $1,500. So, purely for tech, purely for technical performance. If you look at how aggressively priced the previous generation of high headphones are nowadays, nothing compares to them for technical performance. I'll have to give that to Herman. Nothing in the market compares to these aggressively priced older generation headphones for technical performance. But if you want a newer headphone and a better headphone with better bass, better tambber, better everything perhaps with the exception of perhaps resolution, you shouldn't look at those halfman headphones. You should look at this. But if you want all out raw resolution and you want you want um you're very treble insensitive, I I do still think that you should get the high one H100 SE and and one of those. The H1000 Unveiled is a much better headphone than the H100 SE because it's a lot tamer. But if you don't want to have to deal with treble in general or or you know, if you want something more better rounded, if you like this kind of aesthetics, if you want something with better tambber, uh this I think is just so resolving for the price, it outpresolves everything else. Uh, I would take this over even Ryan's Mod House headphones because Ryan is awesome. He's just so great to talk to. His headphones, I think, just really opened up a new vista for everyone because they're such great headphones. But I do find them heavy and I don't want to be in a rat race of trying to unlock the Mod House tungsten's performance by chasing amps nowadays. I just don't have the time, guys. So, I would take this in a heartbeat over the M house tungsten. Um, they look very industrial. over time to look, I think, somewhat tacky and and and just unimpressive. And uh you need a nuclear reactor to drive the M house tungsten. And they're freaking heavy. They're heavy as hell. And I can't wear them for as long as maybe some of you can. I would just take this in a heartbeat over the M house tungsten.
Um the only headphone that I think competes competes with this is not an open bag at this price point. It's the ZMF Ory 3.0, which is a close pack. And the Ory 3.0 is perhaps the Ory 3.0 and the Abyss Joel are the best headphones on the planet for $2,000. And and you know, that's just my view, but I do think this is a little more resolving than the Ori 3.0, perhaps because it is an open bag. Uh, and for other reasons as well. Dynamics and punchwise, this is as dynamic and punchy as you'd expect an Abyss headphone to be. But of course, other Abyss headphones that are more dynamic and punchy, like the 1266. How punchy and dynamic this turns out to be also does depend on what you drive it with. So keep that in mind. Generally speaking, broadly speaking, a sweeping statement is is one in which I would say that higherend head uh amplifiers have given me more dynamics. a topping perhaps will not.
Um, tambber wise, like I said, this is perhaps the best abyss headphone for tambber and this is one of the best headphones for tambber in general. It's not a Shennheiser 6xx, but it's better than most headphones out there. It's not a ZMF, but again, I think this just a step below a ZMF. It's for the sake of comparisons, it's better than any other planer out there, I think.
Okay, Now, I do want to talk about a sense of staging and and width because some of you have reached out to me inquiring this to respond to your inquiry. This is not as wide as let's say the 1266, but it's still not closed in. It's a classic headphone listening experience where you'll not be wanting for stage. It's not narrow like let's say a 4 L CLST was narrow which is a headphone I liked and I owned. So it's not very in in sort of closed in. It's not wide. I honestly think it's medium level sound stage. Imaging though is Abyss class which is the same as saying master class for imaging because Abyss has very precise images like laser carved out images and that's just true for this as well which I think also lends to a sense of perception of resolution.
So yeah, I mean uh it is a very technical headphone. comes with this beautiful very very uh supple cable which I'm using with an adapter. The adapter is provided so I can use a 6.35 mm. It the stock configuration is 4.4. I do wish this was an all black this is a black I wish this was a blacked out cable cuz that would be an aesthetic match because I really do appreciate the blacked out look of this.
So that's all I have guys. This is a phenomenal headphone for the price. Perhaps the best open back around as of 2025 for this price point of $2,000. And I do think that the other headphone that comes to mind that competes with this is a ZMF O3.0. If you had these two headphones, you could possibly retire from the hobby, which I've considered doing, but you guys keep pulling me back as do headphones like this. And I do also want to say that guys, I have I have no plans of buying another headphone. I'm so happy with my setup. I also have a pretty high-end setup. I'm grateful to report. This is one headphone that I'm possibly going to reach out to Abyss to see if I can purchase this.
So, that's it for me, guys. I hope this was a useful review. If this was, you know the drill. Like my video. It helps YouTube algorithm. It helps me get ranked higher in the YouTube algorithm. Subscribe to my channel and stay tuned for my next one. Bye-bye.