[Kallbo]

Hi!
Still nothing about release date and price?

 

[InfiniteJester]

I believe it’s actually the opposite… planar drivers don’t have as much excursion, so they have to be relatively larger than dynamic driver types in order to create equivalent air displacement. If you had a dynamic and planar driver of equal size and same enclosure, it’s the planar that would sound thin and airy. Weight is also a significant factor. But the enclosure has it’s own effect!


As long as you are aware that there is a fabric cover in front of the dynamic driver in that picture! But yes, the grell headphone does have a dynamic driver. It’s made of a biocellulose material, similar to what has been seen in Sony and Fostex headphones in the past.

Maybe.

I don't know how reliable Rtings is, but it aligns with my experience:

Planar magnetic drivers typically have a better bass response with more extension to the low-end frequencies. This means they have less roll-off than high-end open, dynamic headphones of the same caliber.

Typical planar magnetic drivers have slightly better soundstage.

https://www.rtings.com/headphones/learn/dynamic-vs-planar-magnetic

Headphones.com also seem to argue for better extension both in treble and bass.

Generally this is imparted by the stiffness and rigidity at the diaphragm's center - especially for treble frequencies - remember that dynamic driver diaphragms are not uniform the way planar magnetic diaphragms are.

So in summary, headphones with planar magnetic transducers often sound tighter, more controlled, and have better extension capabilities with less distortion for bass than dynamic drivers.

https://headphones.com/blogs/announ...-vs-dynamic-driver-headphones-which-is-better

The issue with planars is the obvious metallic timbre. It doesn't matter for most music, but it is jarring for some acoustic music.

The Hermit by Richard Dawson is a great track to test the obvious differences.

 

[Rob80b]

I’m really interested in the new Grells but it seems to me they are going to be more than $300, so we’ll see …

I do hope the build quality is excellent.

Haven't been around much lately but dropping in to see where the OAE1 is currently at I find this comment sobering, thank you!
Was having the piano tune the other day, it's an upright Yamaha hand assembled in Japan and looking at used prices, which hover around $3k-$5k, I now find it impossible to accept today's escalating prices on headphones considering the amount of work that goes into most musical instruments... Does not compute. lol

 

[AnyDave]

Haven't been around much lately but dropping in to see where the OAE1 is currently at I find this comment sobering, thank you!
Was having the piano tune the other day, it's an upright Yamaha hand assembled in Japan and looking at used prices, which hover around $3k-$5k, I now find it impossible to accept today's escalating prices on headphones considering the amount of work that goes into most musical instruments... Does not compute. lol

Without making a comment on the pricing of headphones, I would say that used pricing on pianos is a hard thing to use as a metric as it is extremely hard to sell used pianos due to their sheer size. I used to work above a company that refinished pianos and they often got pianos for free if they would agree to haul them away.

 

[zilax002]

Haven't been around much lately but dropping in to see where the OAE1 is currently at I find this comment sobering, thank you!
Was having the piano tune the other day, it's an upright Yamaha hand assembled in Japan and looking at used prices, which hover around $3k-$5k, I now find it impossible to accept today's escalating prices on headphones considering the amount of work that goes into most musical instruments... Does not compute. lol

Yeah it's not a good comparison. You have a hard time giving them away in some places. There was literally a newspaper article in the last couple weeks in the Minneapolis area about how depreciated their value is.

Edit: I might be willing to pay 2K to get the downstairs neighbor (teenager) from playing the same damn ballad over and over again. Sometimes they play (mostly) it for literally hours on a loop.

 

[Rob80b]

Yeah it's not a good comparison.

I was thinking more in terms of sheer physicality and labour involved.

You have a hard time giving them away in some places\

Yep...pianos in terms of popularity, where they were once the cherished center of home entertainment a century a ago (replaced by the record player) are now a thing of the past, a curiosity, at the end of life and of little monetary value if any. We all still love piano music and will go to great lengths to find the headphone that will properly reproduce the recording of such, how times change. lol
Hopefully we'll find out sooner than later how the OAE-1 fairs.

 

[BobG55]

I was thinking more in terms of sheer physicality and labour involved.

Yep...pianos in terms of popularity, where they were once the cherished center of home entertainment a century a ago (replaced by the record player) are now a thing of the past, a curiosity, at the end of life and of little monetary value if any. We all still love piano music and will go to great lengths to find the headphone that will properly reproduce the recording of such, how times change. lol
Hopefully we'll find out sooner than later how the OAE-1 fairs.

As of this very moment, it appears that we’ll find out later rather than sooner how the OAE-1 fairs. Not that I’m impatient

 

[Rob80b]

As of this very moment, it appears that we’ll find out later rather than sooner how the OAE-1 fairs. Not that I’m impatient

Not a question of temperament, time waits for no one and mine will run out sooner than later. lol

 

[Rob80b]

As of this very moment, it appears that we’ll find out later rather than sooner how the OAE-1 fairs. Not that I’m impatient

Seriously though...one should be a bit more mature about the whole thing.

 

[AnyDave]

I was thinking more in terms of sheer physicality and labour involved.

Yep...pianos in terms of popularity, where they were once the cherished center of home entertainment a century a ago (replaced by the record player) are now a thing of the past, a curiosity, at the end of life and of little monetary value if any. We all still love piano music and will go to great lengths to find the headphone that will properly reproduce the recording of such, how times change. lol
Hopefully we'll find out sooner than later how the OAE-1 fairs.

Yeah, there's a lot that goes into building pianos. I once remove the soundboard from a 100k+ Steinway concert grand. I thought the process would be intricate, but it was done with a mallet and a 2x4. There was significantly more care involved when installing the replacement.

 

[zilax002]

Yeah, there's a lot that goes into building pianos. I once remove the soundboard from a 100k+ Steinway concert grand. I thought the process would be intricate, but it was done with a mallet and a 2x4. There was significantly more care involved when installing the replacement.

I can imagine the Douglas Adams quote in your footer might apply to such a process, haha

 

[AnyDave]

I can imagine the Douglas Adams quote in your footer might apply to such a process, haha

Indeed. The good news is that I knew where my towel was.

 

[BobG55]

Seriously though...one should be a bit more mature about the whole thing.

 

[Currawong]

I was thinking more in terms of sheer physicality and labour involved.

There are fundamental differences between what is involved in making a piano and a high-end headphone. The piano industry has been around for countless decades, and the manufacturers have established methods and systems for creating their products. There is more sheer labor and established skill involved.

With the latest headphones, unless you are going to use OEM parts, you're designing the acoustics completely from scratch, then purchasing very expensive equipment for manufacture, for which you have to set up processes and train people, after years of R&D, during which you aren't making any money from the product. So, while a pair of headphones may not be as visibly complex as a piano is, they do involve a lot more than is apparent to the eye, if they are to be successful.

Looking from the other direction, a person without experience in piano design and manufacture isn't going to be able to start from scratch and have a product in a couple of years, least not one that is anything resembling affordable. Establishing such a business would be astronomically hard, let alone entering such an established market.