David A Silva
1000+ Head-Fier
Gorgeous linear straight edge grain, amazing!
ZMF Auteur Thread
- Thread starter PacoTaco
- Start date
I want to buy a ZMF Auteur Classic in the second hand market but not sure its sound signature. Please help me to decide vs my existing gears Focal Clear/ Beyer T1.2 amp by Icon audio HP8mk2/ source Holo Audio Spring Lv3 OG. I am looking for warmer mellow tube sound signature. Thank you.
jonathan c
Headphoneus Supremus
• I own Focal Clear OG, ZMF Auteur Original, ZMF Atrium - but not ZMF Auteur Classic (‘between Auteur / Atrium’) - and Icon Audio HP8 Mk-II Signature.
• With its biocellulose driver, the Auteur Classic will deliver a “warmer mellow” sound. That sound will not be lazy! It will have crispness and impact; I believe that Auteur Classic will be an excellent complement to your Focal Clear.
I recently got the Auteur Classic and the Icon HP8 MkII. While I can't compare to the Focal, I did used to have the Beyer T1.2 (and still have the T5p.2). The Auteur Classic will be more warm and mellow than the Beyers but others on HeadFi have suggested to me that the Auteur Classic (my only ZMF) may not be the warmest/mellowest of the ZMFs. Others may chime in about that, but I wonder if the Aeolus may be warmer and mellower? That said, I think the Auteur Classic is sounding fantastic on the Icon. With your DAC being warmer than mine, it may just be the headphone you are looking for! A great combination.
Thank you guys for the valuable advise. Looks very positive.
I’m also wondering if the Aeolus wouldn’t be the better choice. Words like “warm,” and “tubey” describe it well. But I actually relax much more listening to my Auteur Classics than to my Aeolus. The Aeolus (with the Aeolus lambskin pads anyway) has a bit of a tasteful V-shape going on, and really feels like being pushed right up next to the music in a small room, but the Auteur Classic, with both its staging and its tuning, is the more relaxed, open listen, despite having more upper treble energy (less of a 5/6khz peak though). It also still has that ZMF reverberant, woody sound, even without a tube amp, and some great bass thump. I think it boils down to this: do you want an engaging, intense, slightly V-shaped listen, or a more chilled out, mid-forward, open presentation with better technicalities?
Yes, it is.
I have the Auteur &, Auteur classic. Used to own the T1.1 and reviewed the Aeolus.
The Atticus and Aeolus are the warmest of the ZMF lineup, and have a very thumpy, fun signature. Kinda like your favorite heavy warm blanket, in a good way.
The Auteur Classic is slightly warmer than the Auteur OG, but not by a large margin. The Auteurs are the most neutrally tuned ZMFs, so on the other end of the ZMF spectrum from the Atticus/Aeolus.
I have not heard the T1.2, but have read that it has more bass than the 1.1. ZMF headphones share very little, if anything, with Beyerdynamics, but I would say that the Auteur would be the closest thing followed by Auteur Classic.
If you want the farthest thing from a Beyer as possible go Aeolus, as was suggested above or the Verite open.
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I finally have the chance to get a Pendant SE again or go for a Euforia to pair with my Auteur Classic, which one would be “better” in terms of which one’s quirks would benefit the Auteur Classic the most. Anyone who has experience with both or either amp; I would greatly appreciate!
wizzman121
100+ Head-Fier
I know I am not answering your question but I highly recommend the Cayin HA-3A with the Auteur Classic. Using the 4.4mm out on low gain is the sweet spot for me. Rolling in some nice NOS tubes has taken the pairing to the next level as well. I will get around to posting some formal impressions of the amp and the Classic soon.
This question has been on my mind too! I love my Pendant, but I wonder what the Euforia experience is like on it. The impact and staging on the pendant is top notch, so I’m sure the Euforia is just a different experience, SET vs OTL and all that. Curious if anyone has any insights.
I cannot offer comparison but can attest that Auteur Classic and Euforia AE are a match made in heaven!
MetalVGAnime
New Head-Fier
I tried pad rolling the Auteur suedes that I'd been using for the longest time with a pair of Eikon suedes recently and the differences were immediately noticeable and not insignificant to my ears. The Auteur suedes are still very much my preferred pads for their more open and airy sound signature and less emphasized low end. I find there's just such a nice sparkle and energy/dynamism with electric guitars using the Auteur suedes compared to the Eikon suedes.
As I'm someone who tends to focus more on maybe the high-mids and treble as opposed to the bass or low-mids when I listen to music, the zippy and snappier transients on the Auteur suede pads are more in line with my preferences. The suedes do work a bit better with some of my electronic music but even with those I find I don't really need the weightier or meatier low-end as I don't listen to a lot of bass heavy music and the Auteur suedes also have better layering and realism with female vocals.
I think that the Eikon suedes just added too much body or warmth and made vocals too forward for my liking. I know some others here who most likely have different preferences really like the Eikon suedes with the Auteur but for me I feel like these pads just create too much of a sort of "blob" effect where vocals and instruments just feel more squished in around the center of stage if that makes sense and that actually makes it more fatiguing for me to listening to with certain types of music.
Apologies if it seems like I might have been being overly harsh with my assessment of the Eikon suedes, its just not one that I like as much with the Auteur as the Auteur suedes.
Pad rolling is still such a great option to have with though as it reminded me of how much I prefer the sound signature provided by one pad over the other.
I haven't heard of too many people who have tried out the Universe, Verite or BE2 pads or perhaps the newer hybrid pads of any kind on the Auteur so I'm sort of curious to see which of those ones might be a good match though as I've already discussed at length I'm very happy with the Auteur suedes right now and don't feel any need to get more pads for testing.
As a side note, the Auteurs are also just such a comfortable headphone to wear for long listening sessions even without the magnesium chassis or upgraded crescent pads.
As I'm someone who tends to focus more on maybe the high-mids and treble as opposed to the bass or low-mids when I listen to music, the zippy and snappier transients on the Auteur suede pads are more in line with my preferences. The suedes do work a bit better with some of my electronic music but even with those I find I don't really need the weightier or meatier low-end as I don't listen to a lot of bass heavy music and the Auteur suedes also have better layering and realism with female vocals.
I think that the Eikon suedes just added too much body or warmth and made vocals too forward for my liking. I know some others here who most likely have different preferences really like the Eikon suedes with the Auteur but for me I feel like these pads just create too much of a sort of "blob" effect where vocals and instruments just feel more squished in around the center of stage if that makes sense and that actually makes it more fatiguing for me to listening to with certain types of music.
Apologies if it seems like I might have been being overly harsh with my assessment of the Eikon suedes, its just not one that I like as much with the Auteur as the Auteur suedes.
Pad rolling is still such a great option to have with though as it reminded me of how much I prefer the sound signature provided by one pad over the other.
I haven't heard of too many people who have tried out the Universe, Verite or BE2 pads or perhaps the newer hybrid pads of any kind on the Auteur so I'm sort of curious to see which of those ones might be a good match though as I've already discussed at length I'm very happy with the Auteur suedes right now and don't feel any need to get more pads for testing.
As a side note, the Auteurs are also just such a comfortable headphone to wear for long listening sessions even without the magnesium chassis or upgraded crescent pads.
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Your pad rolling being between two suede pads (Auteur and Eikon suedes) is interesting to me. You prefer a brighter tuning, so it makes sense that you prefer suede to the perf lamb pads. My ACs are still burning in, so I have not rolled any pads yet. Once I get a handle on the fully burned-in sound with the Auteur perf lamb, I'll start swapping around. In addition to the Auteur perf lamb, I have on hand the Auteur suede and the Eikon perf lamb and Eikon suede.
Would you expect from warmest-to-brightest to be Eik.lamb > Aut.lamb > Eik.suede > Aut.suede ?
LCMusicLover
Headphoneus Supremus
@MetalVGAnime @JerseyD
Interesting — I hear only small differences between suede & lambskin ‘siblings’. I swapped between Eikon suede (my daily driver pads), Eikon lamb, Auteur lamb, Auteur suede and Auteur hybrid.
I picked the Aut.hybrid as my second set w/ my Atrium purchase. Turns out I really like them on Auteur. While they seem (slightly) brighter than Aut.suede, they also seem (slightly) bassier as well, so, slightly V-shaped.
I hear warmest-to-brightest to be Eik.lamb > Eik.suede > Aut.lamb > Aut.suede > Aut.hybrid
I preferred Aut.lamb to Eik.lamb when I first received my Blackwood OG Auteur. At the time, my chain was fairly warm/dark:
Denafrips Pontus ==> Violectric V280 | Bryston BHA-1
Since then my chain got brighter:
TT2 ==> DSHA-3F or direct out of TT2 | Hugo 2. At that point I found myself preferring Eik.suede, though I still find Eik.lamb a bit bassier than I prefer.
Surprisingly (to me), my recent BottleHead Crack w/ Speedball purchase hasn’t affected my preferences. Perhaps being fed by the TT2 has a lot to do with that.
Of course all this is my ears/my chain/my music/my preferences.
That said, @MetalVGAnime you might consider swapping to the radial vented mesh (assuming you have an Auteur Classic). To me that was a significant change from the closed mesh, moving the sound quite a bit in the direction you want to go. Super easy to swap them.
Interesting — I hear only small differences between suede & lambskin ‘siblings’. I swapped between Eikon suede (my daily driver pads), Eikon lamb, Auteur lamb, Auteur suede and Auteur hybrid.
I picked the Aut.hybrid as my second set w/ my Atrium purchase. Turns out I really like them on Auteur. While they seem (slightly) brighter than Aut.suede, they also seem (slightly) bassier as well, so, slightly V-shaped.
I hear warmest-to-brightest to be Eik.lamb > Eik.suede > Aut.lamb > Aut.suede > Aut.hybrid
I preferred Aut.lamb to Eik.lamb when I first received my Blackwood OG Auteur. At the time, my chain was fairly warm/dark:
Denafrips Pontus ==> Violectric V280 | Bryston BHA-1
Since then my chain got brighter:
TT2 ==> DSHA-3F or direct out of TT2 | Hugo 2. At that point I found myself preferring Eik.suede, though I still find Eik.lamb a bit bassier than I prefer.
Surprisingly (to me), my recent BottleHead Crack w/ Speedball purchase hasn’t affected my preferences. Perhaps being fed by the TT2 has a lot to do with that.
Of course all this is my ears/my chain/my music/my preferences.
That said, @MetalVGAnime you might consider swapping to the radial vented mesh (assuming you have an Auteur Classic). To me that was a significant change from the closed mesh, moving the sound quite a bit in the direction you want to go. Super easy to swap them.
MetalVGAnime
New Head-Fier
Yes I should have clarified that the Auteur I have is an OG which I think most would consider to be brighter than the newer Classic version. Unfortunately that means I won't be able to perform that modification which you have mentioned as a means for changing up the sound signature of my Auteur.
My source is neutral bright but my amplification runs the gamut from neutral bright to warmish (Yggdrasil A1 --> BHA-1 or Pro iCAN or DNA Starlett and WM1A as my go to DAP).
If I had to say, I wouldn't mind using the Eikon pads if I'm listening to the Auteur through my iCAN but I really didn't enjoy how my Auteurs sounded very much using this pad on my other amps or the Sony. On the iCAN, I feel like the Auteurs with the Eikon pads were just a bit less overpowering in the low bass and mids and didn't feel quite as fatiguing with the narrower stage width and more forward or aggressive sound presentation. In that sense, the differences between the two pads seemed like they were lessened with this setup.
With the Starlett in particular, I felt like what I was hearing was just a bit too mushy and also a bit soft sounding which isn't a surprise since the DNA is probably my warmest sounding amp and compared to the two solid state amps which have more slam/impact in the bass region and have more energy and extension up in the high-mids and treble.
Having gone back and forth a few more times between the Auteur suedes and Eikon suedes, I'm pretty certain in my opinion that the latter presents the music in a more aggressive or in-your-face sort of way despite the general perception (and also according to the official ZMF pad chart/guide) that it may lend a warmer sound characteristic to the Auteurs.
This is something which I was actually quite surprised about thinking about it now since I've always generally associated a warmer sounding headphone with being more lad-back (think HD650/6XX or perhaps even pre-fazor Audezes) as opposed to something like the Utopias which some consider to be bright and may be considered too aggressive or disagreeable for some.
I guess its a bit weird or odd that I prefer the Auteur suedes since I think most people generally prefer listening to rock/metal with cans that have a more aggressive or dynamic sonic presentation for these genres but for me I just find that this isn't really ideal for extended listening sessions and maybe my preferences are just different as well.
I'm not sure that laid-back (maybe polite or delicate might be the better term?) is really the correct word to describe how I perceive the Auteur using the Auteur suede pads but that's kind of how it sounds like when listening compared with the Eikon suede pads which are significantly more punchy. Actually on this note, I might be more sensitive to hearing too much bass and perhaps the lower midrange as opposed to being treble sensitive so I hope that might be a more helpful explanation.
Also, I don't necessarily think the Auteurs are really any less resolving or less detailed using the Eikon pads though vocals and instrument tones definitely sound warmer and fuller when using these pads.
I haven't tried out any pads on my OG aside from these two that I own but I'm sure this ranking by LCMusicLover would be pretty spot on as far as the sound signature of various pads is concerned.
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