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Gold Planar GL2000 Planar Magnetic Open-Back Headphones

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Gold Planar GL2000 Planar Magnetic Open-Back Headphones

Name: Gold Planar GL2000 Planar Magnetic Open-Back Headphones
Brand: Gold Planar
SKU: gold-planar-gl2000-planar-magnetic-open-back-headphones
Price: 550 USD
Availability: OutOfStock
Rating: 4.1875 (48 reviews)

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Product Description

Pushing the boundaries of planar magnetic design, Gold Planar is going big in the GL2000: a flagship pair of headphones with never-before-seen drivers. Raising the bar head and shoulders over many other planar magnetic drivers, Gold Planar increased the surface area and magnet strength of the drivers on the GL2000 to optimize airflow and responsiveness Read More

Customer Reviews

4.2

(48 reviews)

(23)

(18)

(3)

(1)

(3)

77% would recommend to a friend

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Chevyt1963

Mar 10, 2021

Verified Buyer

Where to begin? Sound quality straight out of the box is amazing. Let me back up. I first listened to the headphones with my Mac Book Air and my replacement O2 amp dac coupled with a recently purchased Hart audio cable. The sound was ok ish. I then listened to the combo with eqMac adjustments and the sound was warm with decent sound staging but very pleasing. I listened over an hour to this combo to Michael Franks, Robert Cray, Passenger, Tracy Chapman, and Wynton Marsalis. I really enjoyed the music. I was especially impressed with the reverberation and instrument decay. Up to now, I had never heard this in my favorite recordings but it's been there hidden all this time. My second listening test consisted of my desktop coupled with my THX aaa789, Grace SDAC, both balanced inputs and out using my Periapt cable I purchased for my HE-35X and Peace eq. With this setup, the soundstage of the GLs opened up tremendously now there is space between the instruments and singers. I have a presence of being right in the middle of a performance with the singer centered in front of me. There are instruments to my left and right and I can sense height and depth in instrument placement. My first thought was how can a single driver do this? More to come when break-in is complete. 3/15. Still in the break-in process. I am using the burn-in track in the Audiophile Hi-Res System Test disk item 76 just in case others wanted to try. I tried the D shaped ear pads for about 10 minutes before swapping back. The D shaped pads may have enhanced bass response but they killed the air or space or what I would define as room ambiance. I am pretty sure I won't be using those. Stay tuned more to come. 3/19. I've listened to these headphones like I'm on a job. After break-in I tried them with my cell phone and found that there just was not enough power to properly drive them. Although these headphones are rated to be very sensitive they still require ample amplification. Here is what I've learned, there is a point when turning up your volume just before the volume is too loud that you will clearly hear the planars shift and the sound stage open up. If you under power these headphones they in my opinion sound a little distorted with a small sound stage (that is what I got when I tried playing them with my cellphone) and we all know over powering them will damage your ears. Once you locate the correct volume for the soundstage to open up the next step is proper EQ. I used my ears to adjust frequency points because I don't have a spectrum analyzer so my measured steps might be a little different from yours but I believe eq is a mist. I use the Peace eq with my PC and the eqMac with my Mac Book Air. I listened for over two hours today listening to Passenger, Michael Franks, Macy Gray, Meiko, Oddmund Finnserh, Dave's True Story, and The worlds greatest Audiophile Vocal Recordings (Spanish Harlem) by Cheeky Records and I must say I was impressed. Instrument placement, centered vocals, ambient air, snapping fingers, movement of instruments and feet at times all there once hidden now present. I compared a few songs with the Drop Hifiman HE 4xx but I quickly switched back. The 4xx soundstage is small in comparison however they have a deeper sounding bass response. Nonetheless, I like the sound of the GPs over my Hifiman 4xx. After reading some comments in the discussion section, I wonder if some of the participants quit too soon and made judgements without given these headphones a chance to open up and really reproduce at their best. I believe breaking-in is necessary but I also believe proper power and eq is a must. Audeze, a leader in headphone industry went so far as to create a plug-in (Reveal) for their planars to ensure the listener gets the most from their headphone listening experience, so we should at least be open to the idea of some eq adjustments. That's all I got to say about the Gold Planar 2000s, are they end game? Not for me, I think I see some LCD-3s in the near future and of course with the reveal plug-in. Take care and good listening. Max May 1, 2021 I thought I was finished with this review. These, These, These... Sorry Zeos. These headphones are maturing into a special enjoyment of mine. In my last report I spoke highly of these headphones, but they are maturing, growing up if you will and I am really liking what I hear. I have coined a term for those who made the decision to sale or send these back to quick in my opinon "Early Rejectors". I am really glad I stuck with these instead of allowing heard thought another term of mine, to cause me to lose interest in these headphones. Over the last couple of days I have had more smiles on my face than frowns when listening to my collection. Chlara sings covers of classics and she did an excellent rendition of Hotel California. Her voice coupled with her band really shined on these. I just finished listening to Dave's True Story. When I sat down I was only going to listen to one track but I just got caught up, and now its done, and I have that smile beaming. If you can, get a pair go through the break-in and equalization, then give them time to mature. I believe you will be smiling too.

(Edited)

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P1st0ls

Feb 23, 2021

Verified Buyer

Please for the love of god don't hate on my boy D-Pads. They made that change for a reason! Yes they came with D-shaped pads. So what guys? They sound incredible with the D-pads. The stock pads are kinda trash... The sound coming out of these things is pretty insane everything is distant, but also close! I love it. The bass response is perfect! Way way way better than my hd 6xx's. This thing is the real deal. :) I am also really really sensitive to high pitches. This thing will not hurt your ears even at crazy volume levels... idk how that's possible??? These things are not accurate at all. But why should you care? They are however detail GODS! You will absolutely hear things you never have with this. I was listening to tracy chapman live and you could here the natural echo of her mic bouncing all over the stadium... it made me literally cry. It also makes terrible sounding music/recordings sound good??? Easy to drive! Low gain on a Topping DX7 Pro. ALSO!!! Everyone getting these play megadeath tornado of souls at least one time. and you will have an ear-gasm.

(Edited)

Recommends this product? Yes

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CanHead

Mar 4, 2022

P1st0lsThis has pretty much been my experience with these. Except I prefer the leather pads for comfort and more open-air sound. I love that they don't fatigue in the high end like I find with most high -end headphones, which means I can pump them louder. I'm using the ifi Zen CAN & DAC and the added bass boost is a god-send, sub-bass that blows my mind. Zero faults.

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Herner

May 9, 2021

Verified Buyer

Made for live recordings

So I knew going into this that some revewers were hyping this headphone as the next best thing since sliced bread and some revewers just plain out shit on it . Truth be told this a headphone that scales up with better equipment, more power and the best recording you can obtain . If you like EDM then the gl2000 will please you BUT....If you love listening to live recordings THEN this is where this headphone shines!! Classic rock was just ok , Hard rock was good but there are better headphones for that . I personally enjoy the headphones in my collection especially for their imaging. Indie rock is great on these. They're a large headphone so if you have a small head you might want to get dekoni nuggets. I just love them for their looks and feel . And I own focal clear mg if that tells you anything . So if you want a sexy classy looking headphone that sounds great , go for it and stop listening to the haters , there not perfect but they give you that holy fuck moment from time to time .

Recommends this product? Yes

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Herner

Sep 23, 2021

Couldn't agree more with everything you said !

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Herner

Sep 23, 2021

I think you'll find that you will like playing around with your darkvoice , eventually you hear certain recordings are too mid bass heavy and then plug into you zen and that recording will come alive ; absolutely true the other way around . Thats music man . Enjoy your journey

AndrasWatzker

399

Mar 4, 2021

Verified Buyer

new dimensions

I don't want to talk about the impressive Pelican case, the perfect (length, material,) pentaconn cable, the lightweight but sturdy structure, the remarkable sound signature, huge soundstage, full-bodied sound but great imaging, resolution, zero loss in dynamics, tight and deep"planar" lows and forgiving highs. It was the first time in my long chase after the Holy Grail, when I tried first, I thought I forgot to switch my gear to headphones from my speakers. It was a real wow moment. In my limited experience, it shines better with solid-state amps than tubes. I have a big bald head, but my ears touched the inner cups' top with the shortest set of yokes. So I have to wear my almighty hat, or I may Dekoni nuggetting it later.

Recommends this product? Yes

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astral_flow

Feb 24, 2021

Verified Buyer

price = sound quality

The headphones perform the way they should perform considering the price point. Nothing special I guess. I'm not super impressed but there's absolutely no disappointment whatsoever. The sound is neutral but not sterile in any way. Long story short GL2000 does everything great (above average for sure). The D-shaped pads add more soundstage. They are not memory foam though. So I kinda like the default ones more.

(Edited)

Recommends this product? Yes

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FAC51

Mar 2, 2021

astral_flowThe Best most honest review of these cans yet! We are on the same wavelength.

Galactase

Apr 23, 2021

Verified Buyer

Probably the best headphone in my collection, but this is not a good daily driver

(4-23-2021) So, GL2K. I first got caught up in the Zeos hype for this headphone. After waiting 2-3 months for it to arrive. I finally got my Gold Planar GL2000... and... well, it was disappointing. First of all, they require a good deal of burn in, whether that's real burn in or perceptual, I don't know for sure, but it still has an adjustment period. So part of my disappointment stemmed from the fact that my first impressions of sound where not fantastic. Another contributing factor was that I had just got a DarkVoice(DV) in a week before these, and DV+6xx is just right in all the right ways. So the GL2K suddenly had some newly found competition, and I thought it would blow my mind. Well, it didn't, but.... I also have no intention to let go of these headphones either. I suppose I should explain what I was looking for. I was naively hoping to find an endgame. I thought these new amazing headphones would be where I would stop this audio journey, and be satisfied even knowing that there is better stuff out there. I would sell all my other gear and end my journey. What I got instead was like a bottle of something top shelf. Not something I would want to use all the time, but occasionally take out to just enjoy some truly beautiful music. So rather than freeing me of my audio pursuits I have now been drawn even closer to the dark side. While I am stopping the search for now, I have moved past my original intentions of practical audio enthusiasm, ie finding a single favorite drink, to a more crazed mentality, ie "one kind of drink is not enough for me". Since this is getting long, I'll try to wrap this up. The main reason why I am not recommending these is because part of me thinks that $600 dollars for an addition to my collection is insane. I would not recommend this to a friend because I don't want to pull any of them down with me. I also think its important to mention that this is overhyped. It is pretty good, probably my favorite in my collection, but I don't think it is the unicorn it was prophesized to be, and a lot of the time I just find myself wanting to listen to the 6xx on the DV. The 6xx's lighter construction makes it much easier to use as a daily driver, so if I had to recommend a headphone to a friend it wouldn't be $600. I would recommend something like the 58x since most of my friends don't already own amps, but if they did want to spend ~$600, I would say get a 6xx + DV instead. I think from a practical standpoint it is much easier to use, more comfortable, and still has a wonderful sound.

Recommends this product? No

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Knight091

Sep 6, 2021

GalactaseFinding the end game will NEVER happen. It's always o look at that new headphone and dam it Zeos loves it and other and now I have to have it as well.....and.......now I am broke eating cold pizza and noodles for half a month but at least my ears have fun and it puts a smile on my face when working. Great music and great headphones etc make the work day fade away... O and its 5 o'clock...lol

(Edited)

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Mikis-76

Mar 8, 2021

Verified Buyer

Decent when it worked.

EDIT: 11th of March; For transparency. I contacted Drop customer service and had an answer where I have 3 choices: A.) You can keep your order as-is and we can issue a Drop credit for $25.00.
B.) You can keep your order as-is and we can issue a partial refund for $20.00.
C.) You can return your entire unit for a refund at no additional cost to you. So I can keep the faulty headphones or send them back when this few day experience costs me "only" the taxes, about 127 dollars. My original "review": Greetings from Finland! Now, let me get started with the build and accessories: Plastic ear cups, metal parts in headband structure and synthetic "leather". Two sets of pads (these ones came with the D -shaped hybrid pads in addition to the stock pads) The build is sturdy and doesn´t feel that it is going to break easily. The 3.5mm connection in the headphone end is great, one can easily find after market cables; I use Hart Audio cables in almost all of my headphones. The stock cable (4.4 pentagon) is great for me because I have Topping A90 in my secondary listening gear and I also have iBasso DX160 as a DAP. With Hart Audio cables I can use also single ended and 4 pin XLR. So everything is still great, the looks are OK, I would have gone with different color than silver but the finishing on the plastic ear cups match the silver metallic parts exactly. The sound then? Well, this is going to be a tricky one because the right channel had a flaw. I noticed it immediately when I gently pushed the headphones towards my ears, the right channel had this metallic "click" or "crackling" sound; almost like the metallic membrane is loose and moves with the slight change of the air pressure. I could listen to music for a few days and if I would describe that I would say that the bass region is great, no sub bass though. Lower mids are really good and fast. Female vocals (Patricia Kaas, Buika, Remedios Amaya etc) sounds close and intimate while the background is wider. Highs have no peaks and plenty of planar "twinkle" here and there. The sound stage is widish and there is also a hint of up and down field. Sorry about if this sounds a bit weird, english is not my first language. I´m afraid that all sound from the lower mids to highs sounds seems kind of flat, it´s like almost all is pushed trough a magle and there is no life, like it is forced to the ear rather than letting the sound live and go. I´m not sure that this makes any sense. After a few days the right channel died on me and I can only hear music from the left ear cup. So my evaluation of the headphone is quite limited. This is with the original cable from Topping A90 and from my DAP; same thing with the Hart Audio cable from Jotunheim II via XLR and single ended from RME ADI 2 DAC and Feliks Audio Elise. Now about the costs and value, especially here in Finland. Headphones and delivery costed 441,11 euros after 25 dollar rewards from Drop. That is about 527 dollars. Taxes to Finland was 106,29 euros on top of that which is about 127 dollars so total cost with shipping was about 654 dollars. If I send them back to Drop it costs about 110 euros / 131 dollars. Based on the time that I could listen stereo music from these double sided magnet variation of these headphones I would say that the price is not on par with the audio quality and the build. Hype.

(Edited)

Recommends this product? No

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Marslander

Feb 24, 2021

Verified Buyer

Great value

The GL2000s are remarkable, and their place in the market is a pretty incredible value. Despite their size and construction they feel surprisingly light. The headband in particular had me skeptical, but it is impressively soft and comfortable. Very solid build quality, and a subtle and sophisticated design overall. Where the GL2000s shine is in soundstage and imaging. They sound huge, with remarkable width and presence, and are incredibly detailed with precise separation. A real concert hall feel to them. They benefit from a punchy and enjoyable low-end, without getting muddy and suffering from any detail loss. The highs are very well controlled, allowing for crispness without any noticeable sibilance. The signature leans towards a pronounced midrange, which works for my taste. Overall the GL2000s have a sound and construction that feel concisely premium. The included pelican case and extra earpads (I prefer the perforated pads) are a nice bonus, and the included 4.4 pentaconn cable fits the premium quality. A wonderful, chunky planar.

(Edited)

Recommends this product? Yes

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Bambamch

Feb 23, 2021

Verified Buyer

Minus one point for scratch paint

Sadly my GL2000 has a little scratch on inner edge. I fine with it. It barely visible but I have to address that. Sound is impressive. I hope I have Sundara to compare with this. (sell it couple month ago because it isn't fit my head) I agree on other review that this isn't accurate headphone but you don't need that all the time right? I feel it difficult to drive more than I though at first place. I use it with AAA789 mid-gain around 10-11 o'clock. Also 4.4 isn't friendly with desktop setup. (most of desktop setup amp has 4pin XLR) Now I have it with Neumann NDH20 , HD6xx , AA789 , Schiit Modius and STAX L300. Most of you will know how ZEOS made us become.

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FAC51

Mar 13, 2021

That’s why Z is good in only small doses for me now. He is first and foremost an entertainer and seller. It’s those obscenities and self talk that keep you glued to his videos. one thing I’ve noticed after watching his videos for awhile, you can tell headphones and equipment he doesn’t like even though he may have recommended it. It’s his tone, attitude and lack of enthusiasm that give it away. Im pretty sure it’s because he has a minimal financial stake in the product being reviewed. I’ve also noticed he does contradict his initial reviews on said hyped products-in other videos. Its in these videos you hear his true feelings of the hyped product. What I mean, it’s that 5-10 second stream of conscious talk you hear how he really feels about hyped products. That’s where editing would help him out tremendously because he contradicts his initial review. There is definitely a pattern of inconsistency if you are a regular viewer of all his videos. But he’s Z, who cares, right? To me it’s clear he has more of a financial stake in various products he hypes, sells, reviews is all I’m saying. To me he is pure entertainment and I do take what he says with a grain of salt. He is like those infomercials on late night TV back in the 90s…. that you watched and glued to but never able to change the channel. That’s called being an excellent seller folks. He would be so great on HSN!! He is a natural born seller with a ton of knowledge in the electrical field and HiFi electronics field. I could easily see him building a headphone company or some sort of HiFi company for a living as well as being a larger than life personality as he is now. He will do well no matter what he does in the future. That I believe is true.

Knight091

Sep 6, 2021

BambamchYa Zeos made us all broke..... Lol

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Tjzurla920

Feb 21, 2021

Locked

Verified Buyer

The build quality alone is a jaw-dropping experience the Gl2000 looks like it cost $3,000 and then the Comfort because of the size of the ear pads is ridiculous it feels like you're putting some next level headphones on and the sound quality is just mind-blowing to say the least highly recommended!🔥-gear (dethonray honey h1) (smsl su9/THX789) (ifiHipDac)

(Edited)

Recommends this product? Yes

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