Also what’s exactly the problem with the mids in 1266?
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Just way more recessed compared to the bass and treble. Still great, but maybe not for a TOTL headphone, Though imo with how great the bass and treble is, the mids dont bother me that much.
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Fwiw you may be able to get that broken seal for stage and bass if you do the bass port thing (entirely revisible, look at the pics below) by basically putting something between the pads and the frame
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Nice idea, wondering if that would work similarly for the 1266? Would like to wear it more comfortably and with a better around the ear seal, but still get the sound benefits of the loose seal fit with the extra bass and impact…
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Honestly no idea. Make sure to report back once you try it though!
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I’m curious how it might respond to different chains, given how picky the others can be. Though I’d assume the LAu would be a good match based on how it does with the 1266 TC.
I don’t mind relaxed and warmer necessarily, based on the Phi’s reputation of being rather intense and bright leaning, as long as there’s still a little sparkle and detail isn’t lost.
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I certainly think the DTC has responded more favorably to my warmer chains than my less warm ones. So far my forge is my favorite pairing but I need to get some more ear time on the wa8 and a few others to get concrete thoughts on those
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I would be interested to hear it on something else as well. One big thing I’m not really liking about it is the timbre on snare and cymbal hits. They don’t sound very real compared to susvara and I remember it being better on the 1266tc. I don’t really see what Abyss is trying to do with this headphone honestly. The V2 and Phi are great in respects to the 1266. So to me this sits in a weird spot. I haven’t done enough research or anything so that’s just my quick take on it. Though I can totally see them using this as their middle ground and releasing something much lower tier while phasing out V2 and Phi? I know they have a Closed back in the works as well.
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yah, timbre on DTC is pretty turbofucked across the board tbh. Not really any worse than utopia as a whole (though the issues are different). TBH the presentation makes me forgive a lot of timbral issues specifically though. Still not sure how long it will stick around as a whole though. Im pretty sure what I value about DTC is exactly what the 1266 does even better so…
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Interesting, I don’t find any timbre issues on the utopia whatsoever, but tonality is somewhat sketch, guess it depends on the pairing of course
Honestly that’s basically the summary of this can that I expected, felt somewhat the same about the phi as well
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For timbre, id def take the Utopia over the DTC lol.
Timbre and tonality are big for me personally. Presentation wise, the DTC lacks width that I don’t think it’s depth makes up for, compared to Utopia and Susvara. DTC accuracy is behind them as well, seperation, etc.
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For me the Abyss headphones just aren’t as coherent and organic to my preferences. They def do have their own thing which i appreciate but only with certain genres that I don’t listen to enough to pay for them lol. I think I’d rather get a th900 for those times.
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I don’t have the crazy levels of source gear that some do here (and the nicer stuff I do have none of it is for utopia specifically) but wood winds and brass (clarinet and tumpet are where I hear it the most) i have never once been able to get to sound right on utopia (they have this sheen of brittleness almost, like the body of the sound is full enough but not quite right). Certain pairings certainly exacerbate the issue more than others (for example the issues were utterly intolerable on GSX-mini but completely at a point where I can over look them on 428 and Forge), but they have never gone away for me entirely.
I think it depends what exactly you value timbre wise tbh. For example I just don’t really care about vocal timbre but brass and woodwinds are very important for me. I feel the timbre of these is still off on DTC but more pleasant than utopia (when both on my forge at least, going to try way more amps today) and I don’t care that the vocals are more off. Plus, tbh, the depth really is appealing to me which makes me a bit more forgiving even.
Thats fair for sure. I’m going to try the bass port thing today and see if that helps much. It will certainly increase bass but I’m curious if width will be helped or not
Yah, that’s real fair. Tbh I don’t even care about the bass that much when it comes to abyss. For me the appeal is entirely the crazy depth (and width for 1266 at least). Then again, idk how much use 1266 would actually get if I owned them. Guess I’ll find out next week.
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I could see that. The GSX MK2 was what made me initially prefer the clear to the utopia until I heard it on more proper source gear lol
Not caring about vocals gang?
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I really really really like mids (I think i prefer them over all other parts of the FR tbh) and as such I love vocals too. I just find the same singer often sounds so widely different between tracks on the same album I just don’t care about vocal timbre on all but a couple artists/tracks (and when I do care I tend to want hyper vivd/lush and not realistic anyways, that way I can hear sammy Kershaw in my soul instead of in the sound stage)
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I generally put vocals last for main preferences, Susvara really takes the cake for me on timbre for most instruments and vocals. Utopia timbre on strings,keys,snare, really stood out to me. Despite the presence of bass on the Abyss headphones, I struggle to say that it sounds real, overall. But it does over a wide variety of bass sounds which is great. Where as like the susvara, you don’t get as much feel , but overall sounds more real to me. If that makes sense hahah. Same with its midrange.
Now with brass and wood instruments I find they can fit in a very broad range in the freq. response. The more treble sounding ones fit really nicely on the Utopia, possibly more than on susvara. With the 1266, the treble instruments, though very present and airy, came off as a bit too forced for my tastes.
Depth isn’t something I quite attribute on the 1266, but Phi, Dv2, and DTC for sure. Though Utopia and Susvara has lots of depth ime. 1266 width is awesome, so much that you don’t need as much depth per se.
Looking forward to your thoughts on the 1266
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It’s a difficult headphone to evaluate in a short period, it’s just initially very impressive and it takes a while to get past that, I enjoyed mine more in the first month I owned it than I have since, in fact I tend to chose to use it less and less.
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I’ve honestly used my 1266 less and less with time, I still think they are a great headphone, but I just have less desire to grab for them at this point. That being said they can be pretty killer with some of the stuff I listen to, so I do not have any plans of letting it go, but if I had to pick a headphone to let go out of what it have, it would honestly be up there. Only one that might be first would be the utopia, which is interesting since I really like that headphone, but the 3.1 has largely taken it’s use case for me. The 1266 is awesome for some more modern electronic or rap since it can really help give better space and size to music that doesn’t have it, and really can help capture the more sloppy energy and intensity, so that’s what I mainly use it for at this point. And other genre as well
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Im finally back at work and decided to only grab my portable stuff for now. DTC are actually real real respectable off of a lot of this stuff. I have a couple more amps to try but DTC may be in a similar quality league to D8KP for portable usage which kinda shocked me
Edit: aaaaand the 428 is a beast like always. So clearly underpowered but so clearly just such great damn technicalities. The texture and tactilitity is better than either the bx2+ or C9 despite it having 25x less power than the weaker of the two.
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Abyss Diana v2 are $3500 on every website I could find other than headamp. Did they increase the price recently? I can’t recall hearing an announcement about that or anything. Also curious if this will affect the aftermarket at all if if they will stay around 2k-2.2k range.
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