zmf vérité open vs closed
Your review is absolutely magnificent, and one of the very best I've read--, I pulled the trigger and ordered a pair of Verite Closed headphones from ZMF. In my experience, swapping the pads around between the models allowed for fine tuning, but didn’t change the fundamental character of the Vérité. The merrymaker wants a pleasant parlour, he would not give twopence for a pleasant continent. Instead, vocals have great body with a slight warm tilt while maintaining high levels of resolve and liveliness. Joined Dec 10, 2019 Messages 537 Likes 343 Location Orem, UT. One of my review pairs came in that box, while the other came in ZMF’s hard plastic Seahorse case. The Vérité (open) uses a polyethylene naphthalate driver with vapor deposed beryllium. Getting back to the Age of Dickens, when I look at ZMF headphones, with their beautiful, hand-made wooden cups, I can’t help but thinking of the Arts and Crafts movement, which marked a return to individual craftsmanship in response to the industrial revolution. •Brand new set ZMF Verite open and closed (just open once for show) •Full packaging, warranty available. So having the grille inverted to refract the sound out through the side ports where it does hit the grille seemed like a great idea.” (It’s worth noting that, keeping with the Arts and Crafts vibe, Frank Lloyd Wright often employed the Golden Ratio in his designs.). Stereophile. For the open, it’s the Vérité and Universe pads. 8 months ago...just kidding. Headband and head-support system remain the same on both the open and closed models. A comparison with the ZMF Vérité – closed would be very nice: cheaper, less bling-bling, and also beryllium. This was the most fun I've had with a headphone review. I followed your links and found each of them relevant and helpful in contextualizing your comments. Nov 23, 2020 - Written by Chrono The Vérité Closed is the most recent addition to ZMF’s collection and it’s a handcrafted, dynamic driver headphone. Today, Mehrbach tells me that ZMF has six full-time employees, “but it seems we're growing at a steady rate that always keeps us slightly behind [in meeting demand].” Throughout ZMF’s growth period, Mehrbach has stuck with a small-batch, low-margin, direct-to-consumer business model, where most cans are built to order. They have excellent design that relies on exotic wood finishes, and a passionate team led by Zach and his wife Bevin. Bass guitars, for example, come across as squarer, with sharp string articulation, on the Utopia, while the Vérité offers a rounder rendering. For both models, the ZMF headband distributes that weight incredibly well, and I had no issues with hotspots, pain, or fatigue when wearing either Vérité for long stretches. While I liked the Auteurs, I didn't love them the way I love the … The Utopia also features lower distortion than the HD6XX and is overall a much more resolving headphone. The Universe pads offer a slightly more laidback sound with a greater holographic sound whereas the Vérité pads add a bit more treble energy, linearity and slightly smaller soundstage dimensions. I saw some pad comparisons on another site that showed 10+ dB differences between Verite pads extending from the sub bass all the way into the mids, and to me that's clearly a measurement artifact, rather than how it will really sound. Then from about 5.5kHz to about 6.5kHz — the “presence” region that most listeners associate with overt definition — the Vérité open once again slightly overtakes the Utopia. The Vérité’s staging is closer to the listener, while the Utopia’s is slightly further away. But I also suspect that putting suede pads on the Vérité closed would bring its sound somewhat more into line with the open. Verite with the ZMF Pendant Amplifier Construction. I've already put in an order for a pair of Verite closed and plan to order an open set, too. There’s definitely this dance to play between making planar drivers sound more dynamic, and dynamic drivers sound more weighty. To my tastes the Stellia remind me of the … They have a thicker piece of foam backing the pad rather than the normal thin mesh material. As a result of the slightly more mid-centric feel of the Vérité Closed, details are a touch more perceptible. To illustrate how impressive this is, take a look at the Vérité closed against the aforementioned HD820 (blue) added: I asked Mehrbach what he did to bring the closed Vérité’s frequency response into such close alignment with its open sibling. The same was true with Porcaro’s snare. (Headphones really off in this range can also have a “honk”-y quality to them, something that doesn’t apply to any of the cans in this comparison.) However, too much energy in this range can also make headphones fatiguing for some listeners by imparting a grating thinness to the sound. In line with the general observations of their frequency response differences outlined above, the Utopia offers more “air” than the Vérité. The difference is subtle, but undeniable. Like The Nightfly itself, the Vérité closed offers a more unflinching presentation of the source material, whereas the Vérité open is slightly more forgiving. I had considered Sony MDR-Z1Rs to be the best closed-back headphones in my studio, but in a direct comparison, the ZMF Vérités were unquestionably more open, more transparent, and higher in resolution than my beloved Sonys. I've already put in an order for a pair of Verite closed and plan to order an open set, too. Mar 4, 2021 #2. I will be looking at ZMF’s top-of-the-line closed-capsule model—the Vérité Closed—which goes for $2499. I'm just about to pull the trigger on ordering a closed back Verite from ZMF, something I normally wouldn't do without first carefully listening in person. The Vérité open is, to return to our epigraph, a cozier, more intimate headphone than the Utopia. But for illustration, it’s worth looking at how the Vérité open compares to Audeze’s LCD2 Classic (U.S. MSRP $799) (green), which I wrote about in my review of the LCD-1 and which displays the classic flat, impactful planar bass: Through 5Hz, they track each other closely, and even through 1kHz, the difference is minimal. As with the cable options, users can fine-tune sonic preferences with the pads offered with the Vérité. The drivers are suspended in a proprietary rubber composite system exclusive to only ZMF headphones. This subtle difference in depth ties in to the greater “air” presented by the Utopia, as mentioned earlier. The primary differences in frequency response are in the 200Hz to 600Hz region, where the Closed has a few dB less output, and below 60Hz where the Closed have about 1dB higher output. Also, while I didn't include a deep comparison, because I no longer own them, having previously had a pair of ZMF Auteurs, I'd highly recommend that people debating between the Auteur and Verite open (or closed) spend the extra for the latter. On “Save It,” the Utopia emphasizes the slightly reedy quality of Louris’s voice, whereas Louris’s lead vocal is smoother sounding through the Vérité open. The Vérité’s gimbals and rods are also metal, with the former rocking vertically and the latter rocking horizontally and adjusting up and down at notched increments. Vérité Closed Review: Portals Made of Wood Overview The Vérité Closed (VC) is the newest release from ZMF headphones, and their highest-end closed-back design. While the open Vérité is a quick, smooth and 3D experience, the closed Vérité accentuates imaging while retaining 3D space, sub-bass rumbles without being overly boosted, and the immediate snap with weight that only a closed headphone brings is present. I will say it took really starting from scratch and making something totally different than I had seen before and trying some weird tuning and damping/airflow stuff. The VC takes aim at a section of the market that has been seeing increasing attention from the likes of Focal and Sennheiser, with … ZMF was founded by Zach Mehrbach nearly a decade ago, when he was a struggling film school student getting by on adjuncting for crappy pay.