The Most Open Open-Back?

Apr 3, 202413325 VIEWS

To minimize unwanted artifacts in the listening experience, it was important that the OAE1 signature headphones avoid reflecting any secondary sound waves back toward the ear. Much like sound waves bouncing off walls when speakers are played in an empty room, the echoes from the reflections off the headphone body can cause interference, leading to dips—and even worse, peaks—degrading the quality of sound and imaging.

Findings of the Institute für Kommunikationstechnik (IKT, Institute of Communications Technology) of the Leibniz University Hannover (Dr. Roman Schlieper, Prof. Dr. Jürgen Peissig et al.) shows that there is a greater impact of the closed area and the acoustical impedance of the headphone to our hearing than just the influence on the measurable frequency response. (grell® and IKT have partnered to undertake ongoing research into acoustics.) So, according to what is known today, the acoustic impedance of the headphones measured from the ear should be as low as possible. Ideally, it should be completely open, such as the AKG K1000 head loudspeaker. Unfortunately, such designs have poor bass reproduction due to their design principle. With the OAE1, the aim was therefore to achieve a combination of natural bass reproduction and low acoustic impedance. It is extremely important that the low acoustic impedance is not achieved with a small, very open vent in the ear cup (A), but rather that the entire outer surface of the headphone cup has a homogeneous acoustic impedance (B). Otherwise resonances can form again in the closed areas.

Derived from that current state of the art, we took great care at the earliest stages of the design process to reduce reflections both inside the earcup and in the mechanical structures, such as the frame, baffle and even the sockets where you plug in the cables. The unique transducer positioning of the OAE1 being in front of the ears also reduces unwanted reflections from the membrane or magnet structure, compared to headphones where the driver is much closer to the ear and more likely to cause interferences. On the OAE1 signature, nearly 90% of the structure of the earcup is composed of an open metal mesh and a woven stainless steel acoustic damper mesh, both of which allow sound waves to pass through with minimal interference. All these details add up to make the OAE1 one of the most open…Open-back headphones on the market.

More updates to come soon.

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May 7, 2024

How big are the ear cups? I have large ears and wear hearings aids. Anyone know if the cups are big as the AKG K712 PRO and Sennheiser HD 800.

DimitriSF

May 1, 2024

I hope they fixed the headband. At CanJam it wouldn't fit on my head.

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Dannyif

Keyboard Club Member

Apr 28, 2024

Does anyone know what the price range is for these headphones. Why would I request without a price range at the very least?

tutetibiimperes

266

Apr 9, 2024

I wonder what the impedance will be. Hopefully pretty high like most Sennheiser models, make it a good fit for the new Drop OTL tube amp.

Nutless

Apr 10, 2024

tutetibiimperesimpedance has nothing to do with sound quality. If you want the effect of a tube amp, you can just use parametric equalization, and achieve far better results, at that.

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radpoodle

259

Keyboard Club Member

Apr 12, 2024

Nutlessthats not necessarily true. higher impedance generally means there is more room for louder listening while keeping a cleaner, undistorted sound. turning the volume up too high on lower impedance will distort more than on higher impedance. so at normal listening it may not matter as much but it can depending on what youre using the headphone/speaker for and at what volume. and the equipment you have plays a part of course. like most things its all about finding a balance between what fits the most customers without disappointing the ones outside of that middle ground. finding the top of the bell curve basically. unless youre going for being the very high end of course. where you can assume people have better gear, more powerful amps, better dacs that can take advantage of the higher imp more than the people who plug the headphones into their xbox controller or $200 chromebook. i think. not an engineer or anything.... just an idiot who has spent too much on audio equipment over the years.

(Edited)

PiedPiper

Apr 9, 2024

Pleases release CSD diagrams at release so we can see how much resonance was subdued.

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Nutless

Apr 10, 2024

PiedPiperCSD graphs do not contain anything amplitude response graphs do not in minimum phase systems

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LostnAmerica

Apr 8, 2024

Have any specs been released yet? Thx!

ConnorBig

133

Apr 8, 2024

Hopefully they take time an do some retuning and refining. A lot of people disliked it a lot at the recent cam jam.

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PiedPiper

Apr 27, 2024

How is detail retrieval compared to HD800S

Evshrug

4130

Keyboard Club Member

Apr 27, 2024

PiedPiperHonestly, I've been training at my new job as an eyeglasses lens technician for the past two weeks; I've not had time to do careful, structured A/B comparisons yet (I have off today, but I'm trying to build a piece of furniture, lol). From memory owning an HD 800 for 9 years, the HD 800 will still make micro details more apparent, especially highlighted by the stronger treble presence, but the OAE1 is no slouch and I can still distinguish multiple instruments and easily hear the improvement of going from AAC 256 kbps to Apple Music HiRes. Can I hear Paul McCartney play a wrong chord in "Hey Jude" at 2m:55s, and then make an exclamation in the background? Yes. The OAE1 is not an analytical headphone by nature, but it seems to take EQ well and increasing the treble would make harmonics more emphasized, potentially highlighting details in the fundamental midrange notes.

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