Comparisons
Contents
These aren’t meant to be fair comparisons, but here just in case you’d like to know what you get (or don’t get) when you upgrade.
From Memory
These are headphones I don’t have on hand but either owned or very familiar with. Still, nothing beats direct A/B so please take this with a grain of salt.
- Sennheiser HD800 & HD800S – Artificially large soundstage with a focus on the analytical. It’s leaner and more neutral sounding. Contrasts heavily to the Empyrean which is more euphoric. Very different sounding headphones (Much prefer the Empyrean).
- Focal Utopia – I think the Utopia is a wonderful sounding headphone. It has more technical abilities over the Empyrean but I think the warmer tone is probably more accurate on the Empyrean. I believe the Utopia was also more resolving and smoother. I may actually repurchase this headphone at a later time.
- Audeze LCD-4 – Another beautiful sounding headphone. Super rich, dense, but textured to the max. Also very engaging due to its meatier sound and authoritative bass. This headphone is great at digging up details and adding meat to it. I think the Empyrean would be a bit leaner in body and fuzzier around the edges but is probably has truer and cleaner tone.
- MrSpeakers ETHER 2 – Relative to the Empyrean, the ETHER 2 will come off darker. It’ll sound closer to the Empyrean with the Alcantara pads. The Empyrean will probably have more tonal variations and micro-details.
- HiFiMAN HE-1000 V2 – These headphones are more elevated and have more treble energy. I think the Empyrean has more density and warmth. I definitely experienced less grain with the Empyrean but the HE-1000 V2 had good sound staging.
Sennheiser HD650 ($400)
These popular headphones could be good for the money – but that depends on what you’re looking for. They’re very nuanced, resolving, and smooth. There’s a sense of precision, speed, and technical prowess to this headphone. It’s effortless and promotes plenty of flair and extension. Transients are clearly defined and there’s plenty of space between recording elements. The Empyrean doesn’t find strength in many of these qualities…but sounds more like the real thing. Again, a more natural sound.
To be honest, I’ve always found the HD650 to be a little boring. Primarily due to its flatter more neutral sound. It’s colorless and doesn’t provide any realistic amount of bass. It’s also too clean sounding to be engaging. But it is a great headphone to measure how articulate and precise a sound could be. Great for critical listeners and might be nice with a darker sounding tube amp. I could never get myself to believe what I’m hearing, however. Real-life just doesn’t sound that clean.
Mr. Speakers Aeon Flow Open ($800)
I much prefer these headphones to the HD650, but the Empyrean is a much more nuanced and faithful headphone. It’s not only more transparent and quieter but is more tonally variant – in a big way. In comparison, the Aeon is more veiled, dark, and monotonous. Both have wonderful tone but the Aeon comes off a bit thicker sounding. The Aeon is a bit softer and looser in its control – which becomes obvious in the low end. In addition, the Aeon’s lower mids to mids have more bleeding so isn’t perceptibly as quiet. What the Aeon does do better is the treble material. Cymbals have more of that realistic metal weight when brushed or splashed.
Overall the Aeon is still a great bang for your buck headphone and does a wonderful job balancing the spectrum from the bottom to the top. Compared to the Empyrean, however, it has more of a silky dreamy sound rather than an insightful and textural sound. Even with the Alcantara pads, the Empyrean wins in the timbre, dynamics, clarity, and texture departments. But yeah, we’re talking at over four times the cost.
Abyss AB-1266 Phi CC ($5,000)
This headphone is simply more “physical.” It’s more incisive. The Abyss wants you to hear what it can do – which is a lot. This is especially the case in the sub-bass region. If it’s in the recording, the Abyss will reveal them in a clean and speedy manner. In addition, it presents a deeper and wider soundstage and offers up more flair. Imaging is also world-class. It’s just a more open and “beast mode” kind of headphone.
The Empyrean is more tonally true due to its warmer sound but doesn’t etch out the finer details nearly as well. In the end, I feel the Abyss is a headphone that embraces precision, speed, resolution, and tangibility. The Empyrean is more down to earth and promotes a lusher and more “chill” listening experience.
Jay… you really nailed this review. After a long research and evaluation process, I choose the Empyrean as my (hopefully) end-game, long-term reference headphone. As such, I’ve become very familiar with them, using both a Chord Hugo2 and then subsequently the magnificently-musical Mola Mola Tambaqui. The front-end to the Tambaqui is what if feel is a reference quality DIY front end server, with a high-quality Sean Jacobs DC3 (19v and 12) power supply, i7 based Intel NUC in a fanless case and a Intel Optane 16gb drive for the OS, Uptone EtherRegen, Linear Systems Ethernet cable and Danacable Truestream USB cable. Yeah, everything matters! The server’s OS is the incredibly good Euphony OS. File storage is using an external Synology NAS, using Roon/Tidal under the Euphony OS. The headphone cable has been upgraded to a Norne Silvergarde 3. So yeah, I’m in pretty deep and loving it.
As Jay’s article unfolded, it literally retraced my steps and experiences with the Empyrean. It’s so very challenging to write about the Empyreans, because they are not so much about high-end audiophile stuff, as they are about delivering the emotion of music and the musical talent of the artist. They are so good at doing the later. I think of them as being chameleon-like in their ability to deliver enough detail to be fully satisfying, but never crossing the line into brightness. The same is true of the bass region, bass definition is there in spades, without being overbearing or bloated. The highs sparkle just right, the bass forms a highly-detailed foundation, but never overdone and never imposes itself into the low-mids. The midrange is simply world-class imho. All of this is consistently delivered, despite the wide range of mastering quality. Anything close to being well recorded and well mastered, is served well and is delivered. This is not a headphone that needs perfect source material, or it will try to kill you on a bad recording. Real music is never harsh. The Empyreans somehow deliver satisfying, compelling music on all but the worst recordings.
The highest compliment of all, is that my listening sessions often go on for 3-4 hours, and even then, I’m very, very unhappy when they have to finally come to an end. That never used to happen. It’s testimony to the musical abilities of the headphone and the rest of the system, coupled with the headphone’s physical comfort that Jay mentioned. Those very long listening sessions are how you know your audiophile journey has matured into something very special. The Empyreans deliver just that, consistently.
The truth be told, I’m a recovering audiophile detail freak. In retrospect, I’m a bit embarrassed about how many times I’ve mistaken brightness/forwardness for detail. It’s an expensive and ultimately unfulfilling mistake. Don’t do it! My previous headphone was the Senn HD800. It took a little while for my brain to make the transition from detail, to the musicality of the Empyrean. But it is just as Jay wrote. The Empyreans check all the important boxes, forgoing all the audiophile traits that force compromise to musicality. You can read in Jay’s descriptions, what a difficult and challenging balance it is to make a headphone like this. Bravo to Meze. Bravo to Jay for being able to put it into words so well. Well done!
Thank you for the kind words, Dave. I have heard the Mola Mola Tambaqui but it seems like an interesting design. You’ve obviously spent considerable time perfecting your source. I’m in the middle of testing out different components on a build. I’m actually surprised the CPU and memory makes such a huge difference. I actually have Euphony OS installed on one of my music servers but haven’t had time to test it. Have you tried any other headphones cables other than the Norne Silvergarde 3?
I completely agree. I’ve tried to enjoy the HD800s a few times…and finally ended up selling them with no regrets. Cheers to finding a headphone we both love. The tonal variations and gradation you get from the Empyrean are so addictive.
Hi Jay and Dave – Let me carry forward my appreciation of your review, and of the Empyrean itself. Dave – I could have written a number of the points you’ve made -and I may have written nearly the same sentences.
I happily had the opportunity to upgrade to a TOTL headphone system. I’ve had good stuff, including the Grado top-end phones of which I am still very fond; the GS3000e still get lots of use. They are certainly musical and very revealing; I do not put them in the mistaking-forward/bright-for detail category. However, I wanted to buy a top-shelf unit which would be complementary to my accustomed Grado sound, and in doing so, I tried the Utopia, The LCD4, and the Abyss; I had higher-end Schiit electronics, which had been musical and satisfying….but I could imagine a sonic character I’d not yet experienced.
While I still have my eye on the Holo May KTE DAC, I’ve been in possession of the Bryston BDA3.14 DAC and BHA-1 amp. I was blown away decades ago by a Bryston-driven Big system, and I liked their logo (clearly I have stringent criteria!). I figured a manufacturer I thought was cool when I was a budding audiophile and musician, whose products are often dismissed as “clinical”, who doesn’t have any niche appeal, pure function and clean engineering, and who made a traditional delta-sigma DAC, would be sufficiently different from the Schiit culture and their bad-measuring, good-sounding Multibit tech. I swallowed hard and ordered a Woo WA5-LE, having never before listened to a SET 300B -technology amp for headphones – only in a magnificent, megabuck horn system.
Well, the Empyreans at first upset me greatly. Before the Bryston and Woo stuff arrived, the Empyreans sounded DARK and DULL, as though something are wrong with them; I wondered if my high frequency hearing was gone. A dealer warned me that the Empyrean weren’t good for “critical listening”; but what, then , was the appeal of a 3K headphone? To be mushy and affectionate?
Something happened over the first few days. I learned that my reaction was very much a cognitive bias and a matter of being used to the way sound LEAPT off the Grado driver, a dynamic driver by definition and by adjective. Little by little, I started hearing that the particular design of the Empyrean, by intent, and perhaps as a feature of its planar-magnetic tech, presented music very differently. The Empyrean soon began to present me with a paradox – NO sense of edge, of speed, of slam. In fact, what I began to hear was simply: Music. Relaxing into the experience, I began to realize that these headphones simply disappeared. Recording I knew well and used as references (Ralph Towner, Blue Sun; Joni Mitchell, Cotton Avenue; Ralph Vaughn Williams Tallis Fantasia by Trondheim Solisteine ) were just as musical and well-delineated as before. However, whereas the Grado Brough the music right up to my window and said HERE WE ARE, LISTEN TO US, everything through the Empyreans sounded like a gentle invitation into the recording session. Devoid of etch and aggression – but presenting every last detail in the manner in which it must have happened.
Then the Bryston and Woo arrived. The Empyreans are clean windows on the musics with good lighting. They reveal what is there, in honest proportions, every detail, but as it would sound in a live musical event – adding nothings subtracting nothing; no hyper-real illumination, no accentuation. If there is good, dee bass, I will feel it in my chest, in my eyelids, emotionally, and with exactly the pitch of the tone, not just the rumble and boom; I can tell you if the bassist is Ray Drummond or Dave Holland, Steve Swallow or Eberhard Weber; I can tell you if the ride and snare are Phil Collins or Bil Bruford, or Roy Haynes or Jack DeJohnette. One note…..the timbre and dynamic envelope are true. I have lost a lot of sleep, because, like Dave, I won’t want to put my toys away and go to sleep; one more song, one more movement.
Turns out the Bryston amps, BTW, is extended, groovy, deeply detailed, and smooth, with no hard edges. The Woo single ended triode? Generous. Holographic to the extreme; the movement and interplay of voices deep inside an orchestra are completely transparent; but again, never spotlit. The Bryston DAC, far from clinical, has much greater extension in the highs, and much better pitch in the bass, with sweet and detailed minds, compared to the Schiit Gungnir MB. Every bit as “natural”, but lots more music, more information. At 3.5 x the price, can be expected.
But, “clinical” Bryston, my a@*. The music has soul, and the equipment conveys it to the point at which I am finding it hard to do anything except listen more. And, the Empyreans are the messengers. They lack nothing, and they give everything. The Utopias, I could live with happily. But I consider them to be show-offs compared to the Empyreans, which simply, generously, and modestly, deliver music as it is and should be. THIS is high end audio as it should be.
Have to agree with the review. I tend to get fatigue with bad sound and used to hate headphones, coming from a Senn 600. I bought the Empy on a dealer recommendation and hooked it up to my Benchmark HPA4 and Benchmark DAC3B (along with other sources). Even with this very revealing combo I found that I was missing some details with the leather pads. I did some research and found that a lot of people were upgrading the stock headphone cable to something made of silver material. I was about to go that route before I came across some very complimentary feedback on the copper WyWire Platinum headphone XLR cable. I went ahead and bought the Platinum.
With this cable and my Benchmark HPA4 and DAC3B I have a very detailed but also smooth sound. A nice mix of both. I listen for hours very late at night with 0 fatigue, just brilliant sound.
I’ve heard this Benchmark pairing at the shows and it was amazing. Very dynamic. I’m glad you’re able to find a headphone cable to improve resolution (without having to go silver 🙂 ). I’ll have to test out a few cables in the next few months. Please let me know if there are any others I should put on the shortlist.
Hi Jay and All… Yep, I’ve worked pretty hard at getting the front-end leading up to the DAC in order and optimized. It’s totally amazing to me how responsive it is to small details. As you have noted many times, the importance of the power supply cannot be underestimated and that goes on to include the dedicated power runs, the power cords and even the fuses. The RAM made an easily noticed difference, as did going to the fanless case. It’s hard to believe until you live it. Once you hear it, then there’s no goin’ back.
As for the headphone cable on the Emperian, I only have the stock 1/4″ Meze cable and the Norne Silverguarde 3 as my first-person data points. So that’ pretty limiting. That said, I really like the Norne. I got it becasue I decided that I really needed just a touch more detail in the Emperyian, so I decided to go with silver conductors. Very satisfied, and haven’t felt the need to explore that rabbit-hole any further.
So then… how you next mega-cable comparison coming? I hope it’s either interconnects or speaker cables! You’re decipline, discernment and ability to write it all down for us, is truely exemplary. Thanks!