Planar Magnetic worth it?

[Comixbooks]

Interested in picking these up some reviews say they are good as 1K headphones. Z reviews said they are really good except for the wire it comes with but I guess the wire has been updated.

 

[longblock454]

I have the Drop version of the Dan Clark ETHER C Flow which are Planar, and they are fantastic.

ASR finds the above favorable, IMO the best review site out there.

 

[cvinh]

I have a few planars. The He6SE v2 and LCD-X 2021. I'd say as long as your chain is good. (SOURCE/DAC/AMP), planars should sound amazing.

 

[Sycraft]

They have nice sound, tend to have solid bass. My main complaint would be they are heavy compared to some dynamic phones just because of how the technology works. I ended up going with HD800S phones for my daily drivers because of weight/clamping force. How much that matters varies a lot person to person.

The other thing to note is they tend to be low impedance which means you also want a low impedance headphone amp to drive them. I mean ideally you always want a low impedance amp, but for higher impedance phones it doesn't matter really.

 

[Nenu]

I use the Meze Empyrean and they are awesome, despite being heavy the head mount is so good you dont notice and can wear them all day.
But I cant say for the phones you are interested in.

Read more reviews of headphones you are interested in.
Find hifi forums that have discussed those vs other headphones.
See what peaks your interest the most and what equipment you need to drive them.

 

[rcarlos]

I have tried Dan Clark AEON closed X and HiFiMAN Sundara 2020, but disliked them.

I am now using a HiFiMAN Edition XS and I really like it.

My other headphones are HD6XX, DT880 600, Focal Clear, Meze 99 Noir

 

[TrunksZero]

Got the HiFi-Man/Drop HE-5xx and love em

 

[NamelessPFG]

I haven't auditioned those particular headphones, but I do happen to have some planar-magnetic computer speakers and noted that they have a lot of that clarity I missed from my old Stax Lambda setups, without the delicate fragility of electrostatic drivers or their expensive, specialized amps.

I'm a firm believer of planar drivers, regardless of the driving force (magnetic or static) used. The sense of clarity is something I can't put into words; you'll have to audition it for yourself to truly understand.

Just note that some lower-end planar driver headphones only have a magnet on one side of the diaphragm, not both in a sort of push-pull sandwich. This presumably would mean lower sound quality, but also lower weight and perhaps more comfort.

 

[Sycraft]

I haven't auditioned those particular headphones, but I do happen to have some planar-magnetic computer speakers and noted that they have a lot of that clarity I missed from my old Stax Lambda setups, without the delicate fragility of electrostatic drivers or their expensive, specialized amps.

I'm a firm believer of planar drivers, regardless of the driving force (magnetic or static) used. The sense of clarity is something I can't put into words; you'll have to audition it for yourself to truly understand.

You can put it in to words: Low distortion . That is one of the things that really helps planar magnetics (and electrostatics). If they are good, they can have essentially zero distortion, way below audibility. Even really good dynamic phones tend to have some distortion in the low frequencies.

 

[Comixbooks]

Wow didn't even know there were speakers.

 

[Sycraft]

Wow didn't even know there were speakers.

There are, they tend to have more issues though. There are different issues with distortion in speakers (in part just because of how driver much movement you need a bass frequencies) and things like dispersion patterns become a thing so in general you find that the very best of the best speakers are still dynamic drivers. Things like the Genelec 8361A or JBL M2.