Opening
As of today, Snorry is still not a well-known manufacturer, at least in the United States, which is confirmed by the google search. Nonetheless I’ve heard some good things about Snorry’s works from a few audio pals, and very fortunately, one of such great friends,
@Failed Engineer , loaned me his pair for a long time (~10 weeks). I’ve shared my initial thoughts briefly somewhere else, but after more time spent with them. I thought it might be worth updating and working on a full review.
I will skip to discuss
the technological background of meanderless drivers. The technology sounds interesting and makes sense to me if implemented ideally. But I am not confident to make technical judgments as I am nowhere close to a specialist in that area and there’s no robust way to verify the claims on my end. Also, for a broader population of hobbyists, focusing on what it sounds like would be more meaningful than what it is. There’s
an informative discussion thread you may want to check out, too.
By the way,
NM-1 was Snorry’s TOTL but is out of production and presumably replaced by the new model,
TRION.
Do they sound uniquely and distinctly good? Let’s find out.
Setup / Associated Gears
I did most of the in-depth evaluations with Gustard X18 as a primary dac. SMSL HO200 and Topping LA90 were tested to examine whether/what/how NM1 can benefit from different types of amplifiers (headphones amp vs 2ch integrated amp). I also hooked up with Benchmark AHB2, but only in local meets.
The NM-1 connected to amplifiers via XLR balanced outs (HO200) and XLR to Banana adapter (LA90). I didn’t use any digital processing/equalizer in evaluation except for 8x upsampling software on the digital domain.
Finally, Hifiman Susvara and Ollo S4R were used as reference headphones.
Appearance / Convenience / Comfort
The loaner pair I evaluated was with blue stabilized birch wood housing. Build quality and aesthetics were pretty good. They’re a little heavy (~590g) but acceptably comfortable on my head because of thick/soft padding on top. The ear pads were thick, large/deep, airtight, and stiff, which remind me of classic Audeze ear pads (the ones they used prior to 2020).
Sound Impression
Listening to test tones, the NM-1 reproduced the ⅓-octave warble tones (center frequency being ranged between 20hz and 1khz) on the Stereophile Test CD (1990) down to the 25hz band, with the 50 and 63hz warbles a bit higher in level than those on either side. 25 and 31.5hz tones were attenuated. 20hz tone was inaudible. For this price level orthos, I tend to prefer a more linear and deeper extension. Despite their somewhat restricted lower bass extension, NM-1’s bass reproduction circled many items on my checklist. Bass was fast, tight, and well-defined.
Aside: Please note that all my tone-hearing statements were DID (difference in difference) and made relative to my reference, Susvara -- so that I can avoid equal-loudness pitfalls.
Tracks like Hiroyuki Sawano’s bass-heavy track “1st movement, Banshee” in the symphonic suite UC2012 (2012) were illustrating what NM-1 could and couldn’t do. Busy passages among various groups of synthetic percussion instruments were well-separated, but bass drums were obviously not as present due to lacking fundamentals. Is this attributable to meanderless drivers? IDK. But I didn’t hear this way for other reference implementations of rectangular magnet-based planars. Please note that, because we’re talking about planars, I’m asking for far more difficult bars than when I evaluate electrodynamic products.
The NM-1’s bass lacks warmth a little and it caused some trade-offs in vocal reproduction. Male and female vocals lacked a bit of body, but hi-hat and cymbals had a good amount of body and meat. PRaT was mostly good but a bit too fast for my taste. I’m assuming the transients were tuned tightly on purpose. Whether it’s good or bad would highly depend on musical contexts. For example, I could hear the acoustic guitars decaying faster in Damien Rice’s “Cannonball” in the “0” (2022) than I would like. On the other hand, they were responsive enough to separately and accurately track up to 25 female voices in “Girl’s legend U” in the “Pretty Derby Winning Live” (2021).
NM-1’s treble is very well controlled to say the least. Tonality was nicely down-tilted, but slightly nuanced around ear gain and sparkle regions, which combinedly make them sound neither dull nor sibilant at all. Nothing was overly done. They’re one of the best sounding tonal balances I’ve heard from stock orthos. I initially heard a resonant peak around 4.5khz but eventually it didn’t bother me in any circumstances. No matter what I threw in -- such as the metallic sesion in the introduction part of “Moment Ring” by μ’s (2016) or harshly recorded vocals of “Tokonatsu Sunshine” by Liella (2021), I could always rock without any annoyance.
One minor downside of their highs is the timbre (largely affected by treble reproduction as most harmonics play around this frequency range). I say minor because I’m personally not too obsessive in timbral realism. But I could hear plastic-ish and artificial timbres which remind me of older HFM headphones such as HE1000. Edlinger’s rendition of Sammartini’s recorder concerto in F major (Naxos, 2012) demonstrated this problem explicitly. For example, the recorder solo part in this track sounded very plasticky, less deep, less prominent reverb, and somewhat lacking expressional power (all by comparison). It sounded as if the soloist used a much cheaper recorder. Bottomline, timbre-first audiophiles should be aware.
NM-1’s soundstage was open and holographic. Probably due to the thick pads, I could hear a moderately wide stage with everything sounding with good distance and depth. In terms of accuracy, listening to the “Ultimate Headphones Test '' video clip (Abyss, 2020), I found NM-1 was mostly accurate in imaging location. Z-axis (depth) often seems a bit off but not too seriously.
Speaking of the pairing, I could enjoy several different pairings in driving NM-1 during my evaluation. While they’re not very amp picky, they’re inherently inefficient headphones. I found they benefit from 2ch integrated or power amplifiers than headphones amplifiers on average, possibly because of superior current capability (at the cost of increased noise floor). I really liked how NM-1 was driven by my reference integrated amplifier, Topping LA90. The amp pulls more than sufficient current (competitive advantage over headlamps) yet exhibits extremely low noise level in both subjective and objective aspects (advantages over other power amplifiers). I could hear similar or even greater benefits from Benchmark’s AHB2. NM-1’s dark sounding seems to match AHB2 slightly better. Unfortunately, AHB2 revealed NM-1’s timbre issues a bit more aggressively.
Measurements
I am also attaching my own measurements of the loaner pair. All the measurements were done with MiniDSP EARS and my own compensation curve (HPN in lows + HEQ in highs + some adjustments) which I calibrated to make the flat horizontal line be close to perceived neutral balance. Results were averaged through multiple repositions and smoothed in the 1/24 octaves.
I’d emphasize that associating deviation from the target to one-dimensional quality (good vs bad) might be hugely misleading. There are various traps and pitfalls caused by individual HRTF variation (huge), different assumptions on artificial ears, and/or acoustic interactions between headphones and measurement devices. Thus, please do not over-interpret my results.
Below are comparative plots against HD650 and Susvara. Both wielded with the stock pads.
Conclusion
Snorry has claimed the traditional (as opposed to meanderless) magnets might cause several acoustic disadvantages including diaphragm overdamping, more HF distortions, lack of openness. I’m still doubting if NM-1 successfully proved them all. What I found was they did sound different and unique in their own light. I’m rather under the impression that Snorry’s approach still has a long way to go.
But please don’t get me wrong. Although NM-1 did not perfectly satisfy my appetite, I am still confident to call them a solid-sounding pair of headphones. In most modern recordings where timbre is less important, NM-1’s fast, tight, and detail-oriented sounding made me keep listening for hours. If you can snag a used NM-1 for reasonable prices and like to hear a lot of electronic genres, they are very likely a great tool for you to seriously enjoy music. That being said, I’m now really curious what Snorry’s new TOTL Trion will bring to the table.
Addendum: Comparison to Susvara and HD650
As requested, I’d like to make a brief comparison against my reference headphones.
Let me first compare them to Susvara. In terms of perceived tonality and balance, Susvara is closer to what I deem a reference. Susvara went deeper in lower bass, had smoother and more even treble, and a lot more extending top ends and air region. On the other hand, NM-1 was a bit recessed and forgiving in the middle treble where I found Susvara occasionally a little hot for me. I always found Susvara had a bit of unique coloration in the midrange which was never found in NM-1 -- but I really don’t think it's Susvara's shortcoming at all.
Moving on to technicalities, I don’t quite think they belong to the same league. Susvara is more solving and detail retrieving top to bottom. While NM-1 per se wasn’t bad in resolving pitches and tiny details by any means, Susvara just did everything more impressively. Fine gradation conveyed by multiple tympanys, subtle nuances of vocal techniques, and breathing details of soloists were not easy to be fully heard without the aid of Susvara. Plus, everything is done with great spatial location -- almost to the exaggerated extent. Indeed I haven’t heard any other headphones doing these better than Susvara at lower prices.
Compared to HD650, they’re both pretty well balanced in tonality. But NM-1 generally shows better performance in technicalities. NM-1 is obviously more slamming, comes with better dynamic and punchier sound, and doesn't exhibit any hint of veil in highs. Better sense of spatial location and layering, too. HD650 still holds its own in more realistic timbre and fuller-bodied human voices.