Before digging into the meat of the review, I'd like to offer a little background about myself, and present some information on how I do reviews that might be a little unconventional.
My background: I grew up with a fairly nice two-channel system, in a household with that placed a lot of value on a wide assortment of genres and music in general. Since I was young I've participated in dance and music making quite extensively. I currently attend Oberlin Conservatory, where I study variously Conducting, Classical Singing, Jazz Piano, French Horn, Studio Recording, etc. I also have rigorous classes in music history, theory, listening skills, etc. I participate actively in the social dance scenes on my campus (Tango and Blues most notably). I listen to a fairly wide variety of music, from Classical and Jazz, to Michael Jackson, Ukrainian techno-pop, Australian ska/jazz jam bands, Beninese Pop, Gregorian Chant, Ancient Greek music, Country Acid House Rock, Soundtracks, etc. You name it and chances are I'll probably listen to it. I haven't traditionally had a ton of rap or dubstep in my library, but there is some. I'd say 99.99% of my collection is CD rips, 16/48. I have some high-res tracks, but mostly just free tracks and binaural samplers.
I have a decent working knowledge of electrical engineering, as well as some sample theory, and psychoascoustics, and experience in multiple recording studios, and attend dozens of concerts and recitals every month. I have the good fortune to be able to use recordings I have played on or tracked/mixed myself as reference tracks.
Despite having a fair amount of experience with music for many years, and being fairly familiar with two-channel for some time, I am still fairly new to the headphone hobby. I received a pair of skull candy's about 4 years ago. After they broke, I had a pair of B&W P5's before discovering head-fi and innerfidelity, etc. and moving on to a pair of grado 325is about two years ago, a pair of Beyerdynamic DT880s last year which I currently own, and no the OMNIs which I have had for a few weeks. My approach to listening is generally a fairly subjective one early on: I will sit down to listen and simply attempt to enjoy the music of some of my reference tracks, and over the course of several listening sessions attempt to break down why or why not a piece has moved me. What musical details do I notice? Am I engaged in certain parts of the performance, and why? Do certain moments or things stick out to me? After this I will break these down into further parts: Does the headphone sound particularly dynamic? Are the micro-details very noticeable? How is extension?
What I am looking for is a sonic picture (so-to-speak) that defines this headphone for me. I have fairly open ears, and find most reputable gear by well-known or respected manufacturers generally sounds good though drastically different to my ears. What I look for most is not one particular frequency response for a certain genre, but rather a headphone that is capable of handling any and all genres of music, and that can function both as an enjoyable listening tool and is uncolored or balanced enough to be a reasonably efficient studio tool. This subjective to objective approach is my take on a deductive approach to headphone listening. I approach the sound purely from an enjoyment perspective. I then move into filling in gaps in what I'm hearing until I'm able to assess the headphone and ultimately decide if it is one I would be able to live with for a long time. I would happy to elaborate why I think this system is particularly useful, but on to the review!
The Headphones
I can't speak to everyone's experience with unpacking, but my headphones came with a seahorse case that contained and protect the headphones very nicely. I actually did not think I would need the case, but I would highly recommend it to anyone considering travelling anywhere with the headphones.
My OMNI is in cherry, and has a particularly beautiful darker finish with straight grain and some side-ribboning. The coins are the etched version. My headband is the pilot pad, and I have settled on the lambskin pads as my pads of choice after extensive comparisons between Cowhide, Protein, and Lambskin.
I find comfort to be excellent on these. Not perhaps as weightless as many the HD800, or the new HiFiMan planars, but I don’t experience any neck pain, head hotspots, or ear rubbing with these. That’s more than I can say for any other headphone I’ve tried with the exception of the HD800 and ETHER. I’d say the comfort is on par though different than the ETHER for me. The HD800 feels totally different on the head, and is still perhaps the most comfortable headphone I’ve ever listened to. In the hope of being somewhat objective I will say that these are a little on the heavier side of things, especially in relation to dynamics. Not as heavy as Audeze headphones, and with much better padding. I would say if weight is a big thing for you, get the leather strap, it adds some weightlessness. If you had issues with hotspots, the pilot pad will serve you really well. You can also get both, which is tremendously comfortable and is a best of both worlds solution. The OMNI I have is just the pilot pad and I find it plenty comfortable to wear for many hours.
I find the headphones build excellent, different than what you might expect from larger ccompanies, the headband and sliders are the metal/rubber parts from fostex (all badging removed) with the rest of the headphone being wood, or different leathers. It looks and feels much more like a handmade, crafted piece than a factory-finished product. There is some frontal damping that can be seen in the through the silkscreens in front of the driver, but it doesn’t really make a difference on comfort, and obviously isn’t visible most of the time. The small pewter coins are a nice, fairly subtle badging. The headphones feel tremendously sturdy, especially the wooden cups and metal sliders.
The Sound
The really important part of this review!
I’ve tested these headphones on my own Magni/Modi 2 Uber stack, a Lyr 1, Asgard 2 and Bifrost Uber, Ragnarok/Yggdrasil stack, Violectric V281, and Zach’s own Master 11 and Decware Taboo tube amp.
I would describe the defining feature of these headphones as naturalness and musicality. This is not however at the cost of detail or tonal balance. These headphones certainly lean a little on the warmer side, but are not at all dull or overly warm unless paired with a soupy tube amp. I think the fact that the Omni is semi-open is something unique especially at the approximately $1000 price and under category. The bass has some of reinforcement of closed cans, while also being less colored and having open, airier, more spacious mids and treble than a closed can. I think this makes the Omni distinct in a very positive way. Will it please purists looking for the absolute most open, most detailed headphones possible? Probably not. However, it isolates surprisingly well, and is highly resolving and transparent without being hyper detailed. The Omni has many tools in the toolbox, so-to-speak. What I mean by that is that the Omni has microdetail, yes, but the microdetail is not thrown forward in the presentation. The Omni has macro-detail and dynamics, an adaptable tonal balance, and a soundstage that isolates well enough to create a little of it’s own headstage, but is open enough to give the sound space to sound realistic. The Omni draws your attention to macro-detail and dynamics on recordings with wide dynamic range, such as orchestra and movie scores. It draws your attention to micro-detail on recordings with plankton, such as close-miked acoustic folk music, things like piano, guitar, and vocals. If the recordings have a lot of deep bass energy, or slam as in electronic music, they have rhythm and pace. The Omni will rock on rocking tunes. It will chill out on relaxing tunes. It will groove and peel back layers on subtle musical cues without loudly announcing its activities to you. I feel the Omni presents music not only with a natural tone, but with a balance in all aspects that attempts to bring out the best in recordings, whether poor or excellent in quality. The Omni plays music, and does one of the best disappearing acts I’ve heard in the headphone world.
I ran some test tones and tracks I use during studio recording with the Omnis to see how they perform.
The treble sounds well resolving, pretty much absent are the treble peaks of the T50rp, and though the dynamics of the upper ranges are tremendous when called for, they are never piercing or harsh even when the volume is turned up. Treble extends all the way up to 18khz+ on this headphone, and is smooth and even without sounding hyper-extended.
The Mids are transparent and full, and have the ZMF house sound refined to another level over the Blackwoods and Vibro headphones. They are not overly warm or soupy, but manage to convey a richness that is nearly unparalleled in other headphones I have heard. I believe this is due to the nature of the Bass on ZMF headphones. In classical and plenty of jazz and folk music, the bass instruments are the foundation of the sound, while quite a bit of vocal and instrumental “midrange information” lies in the 200-1000hz range. The low-mid/high-bass range sits between the 80-200hz range and often has quite a bit of carrying power and resonance both to the ear, and in musical information. Many headphones have some emphasis or lack of emphasis here however, which to my ears can be almost as fatiguing 2-3khz peaks, Think first generation beats, or the bass resonance in many speaker setups. The Omni transition nicely and a little lean even in this region, while retaining the brighter richness of the upper midrange. This creates a balance that is neither too thick/blaoted, nor too brightly tipped-up in the higher midrange/low-treble. It’s a difficult balance to get right, but I think the Omni does well. Some might find the Cherry Omnis particularly a little mid-forward, or the Blackwoods ever so slightly v-shaped, but in general I think most will find the midrange on the Omni very strong.
By this point it’s probably obvious I quite like the Omni. There are perhaps some quibbles, as with anything. The imaging, though excellent and wonderfully tactile on the Omni, does have the quality that all planars and electrostats seem to: the left and right channel sounds that are panned tend to sound as though they are panned harder left and right than they do with dynamic driver headphones. This can make the headstage seem like a large, surrounding sort of space from which sounds emerge, a bit different from dynamic drivers, which seem to act more as point sources. I enjoy both presentations and feel the Omni has exceptionally strong imaging even for a planar, but for those who have strong preferences this is a consideration.
The tonal balance is perhaps a bit bass-heavy with the cowhide and protein pads for me. I prefer the lambskin pads. The lambskin pads seem to work well with every version of the Omni. I found the midrange a bit too low-mid heavy with these two pads as well, whereas the lambskin pads sounded much more even-handed to me. This is not so much a negative as it is a consideration.
These cans are a bit heavy. The stock cable is a bit squirrely in the 10ft configuration, so you might want to provide a Y-splitter of your own. I find the balance to be somewhat amp-dependent, and the cans themselves seem a bit on the power-hungry side. These are also no small cans, though I doubt many folks are using them as portables. I think some may prefer the absolute purity of open cans, or the absolute isolation of closed cans. Perhaps a leaner tonal balance is the preference of some as well, but I find these to be very even-handed despite leaning ever so slightly on the warm side of things.
A note on the Omnis and amp selection. I find these cans, and all ZMF cans to be rather amp dependent, and even a little on the more power hungry side of things. Certainly a magni or O2 can drive them wonderfully, but they really sing with more wattage. Zach really likes a softer wound, as with his Decware or violectric setups. These setups are wonderful, but my tonal preferences are on the slightly leaner side of things, and I happen to think the Omni pairs particularly well with Lyr 2, Ragnarok and Asgard 2. The Omni is a tremendously versatile headphone in that it will provide fantastic musicality from all of these amps, but it will give a quite noticeably different character from all of these amps. For example, I found Lyr 1 a little dull with the Omnis, but thought Lyr 2 was a better match for my preferences. Both nice presentations, but quite different. I would categorize the Omni as amp-sensitive, but not amp-picky. Like the way it presents music, it seems to incorporate the most noticeable pleasant features of amps into its sound, yet does not highlight their shortcomings as much as some dynamic headphones (impedance of course has an effect on this)
Conclusions
Several months into owning my own Omni, and a few more months since first extensively testing the Omnis at multiple meets and Zach’s house, I feel that new-toy syndrome has mostly worn-off. While pride-of-ownership still exists, I have spent quite a bit of time thinking about how to characterize the Omni. What stands out most to me is the attention to music in its design. Zach himself is a musician, with wide-ranging and excellent taste, and I believe the design of his headphones shows a distinct awareness and care for making headphones that sound not just accurate or technically capable, but are as enjoyable as possible. I have heard many headphones that were fantastically well-designed that did not have the soul and smile-inducing personality of the Omni. This of course is the difference between larger companies and ZMF. The character of this headphone is in design and the sound. It reminds me a lot of many speaker manufacturers who craft enclosures and tune crossovers and ports, etc. while sourcing drivers from other manufacturers. Certainly, there is very little about the Omni that resembles, sonically or physically the original Fostex headphone.
Here’s my final take away. Perhaps you prefer a finely manufactured piece of gear of the more industrial variety. The Omni might not be your holy grail. But if you really like headphones that engage you in the music, and don’t mind or even appreciate a unique touch and customized/handmade touch in your headphones there really isn’t anything quite like the Omni out there.
As always, I encourage you to try before you buy, and if you do get the Omni I hope you like them! YMMV, and happy listening.
