HiResDes said:
Full Radius DDM HP-TWF11 Impressions: (Featuring a side comparison with the Eterna V1's)
Ah, at long last, the long awaited review! I'm happy to see that the DDM's have not only helped broaden your experiences with headphones, but also helped you understand the importance of treble and timbre reproduction in some genres of music. I've never heard a pair of phones render stringed instruments and guitar distortion in as satisfying a fashion as the DDMs to be honest.
HiResDes said:
....Thinking about checking out the Sunrise down the road, if I don't end up copping some DDM's instead.
Haha. Decisions like that are always hard to make. Do you go halfway and get something you know you're going to want to upgrade from months/years down the line, or just go all out and get it done with?
Alucrid said:
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Well fuck. I should've listened to you (Dynamite) months ago I guess. Sadly I think I'm done with mid-ranged IEMs at the moment. Next upgrade is probably going to be a top tier one...perhaps. But that's probably a year away anyways.
Haha. Hate to say I told you so. I was trying to pimp them way back but people just shrugged off my statements with skepticism and focused on the largely negligible issue of their purported discomfort. I'm also in the market for another pair of phones. The thing about the DDMs is that they offer ridiculously good sound for the money. Des' chart shows that, you can spend twice as much as the DDMs go for, and not really get much more for your money where sound is concerned. The competing phones will have a different sound signature, with an emphasis on different aspects of the audio spectrum, but that boils down largely to preference. At the moment, I think Radius are onto something incredible, so I'm waiting it out for reviews of their new phones, which largely address their lack of treble energy. Other than that, the SM3 or... I'd really consider the 1964 Ears if it weren't for the fact that they are customs. I honestly hate not being able to share what I'm hearing with another person.
Here's a review for the DDMs that I wrote about ten months ago for another forum:
Another year, another pair of killer headphones... I really have got to hand it to Shigzeo over at Headfi, the guy has led me first to the Victor FX500's and now the Radius DDM's. I purchased the DDM's about a month ago and was planning on doing a write up on them once I had gotten comfortable and familiar with their sound signature; a task that I thought would take a relatively brief amount of time, but took quite a bit longer than I had anticipated. So now that I've got my bearings, let's proceed!
Whats in the box:
The DDM's ship inside of a handsome maroon box containing the phones, a very nice and high quality leather case, a microfiber cloth, and a set of silicon tips. Aside from the much nicer than expected case (although much too large to comfortably pocket, so I will say that the FX500's still ship with the best case to date), it's all pretty standard fare here.
Build quality:
Pitting these against the FX500's, they come up short in terms of overall build quality as I feel the Victors are very robust. The DDMs definitely feel fragile as their housing is comprised of a plastic and rubber disc. The plastic is likely easily scratchable and the phones themselves lack the heft and solid feel of the FX500's, rather, they feel a bit like toys in comparison. In terms of looks, I feel it all boils down to personal preference, I quite like them as they exude a sort of retro charm, but I can understand if someone were to think they looked gaudy.
The DDMs employ rubber strain reliefs at the points of entry leading into the phones as well as on the straight jack. Where the Victor's straight jack strain relief felt a bit weak to me, these definitely inspire a bit more confidence as the strain relief on the DDM's is comprised of a solid rubber sheath as opposed to the FX500's flexible, segmented one.
Another unfortunate decision in the construction of the DDMs is that they use nylon for the cable sheath, which, as you can guess, leads to microphonics. I've read quite a bit about how the DDM's are supposedly unusable out and about, and as I spend a lot of my time doing just that, I can report that once you cinch the very grippy rubber slider under your chin, microphonics are kept to a minimum and interfering noise is quite tolerable. Still, the phones don't deal with wind noise very well as they are ported, and while the canalphone design does afford a degree of isolation, these phones are ideally meant to be listened to in a stationary position in a relatively quiet environment.
In short, as long as you take care of these phones and wind them up properly and store them in their case after listening, they should provide years of enjoyment.
Comfort:
Another big point made is their apparent discomfort. I can say that at average height (5 ft. 7 in.) I don't have gargantuan ears or a huge noggin or anything. At the onset, I can admit to a level of discomfort that I experienced with likes of the Vmoda Vibes. Potential discomfort when wearing the DDMs is certainly something to consider, but I can say that it was something that became less and less pronounced to me, to the point that I can now wear them for hours and not even notice them. I also bought a set of Comply T400s and while they were comfortable, I can honestly say that the best pair of tip to employ would be the MeElectronics M9 dual flange tip. Its length keeps the DDM seated so that its housing does not intrude into the concha of one's ear, and the large aperture improves the sound staging, as well as the relative coherency of the phones.
Sound quality:
Okay, this is what everyone wants to know about when evaluating a set of phones, so you're all probably wondering, how do they sound? And beyond that, how do they compare to the nearest competitor, the FX500s?
When I first received the DDMs, a fair amount had been written up on headfi about them being possibly the best pair of IEM's on the market, and on a par with the Victor FX700's at half the price. I, like the rest of you, wanted to believe those claims, after all, who wouldn't want to get top tier sound for a middle of the road price? So it was with great excitement that I tore the packaging open, removed the phones, and plugged them into my iPhone.
I was skeptical, but I queued up the Gorillaz track, "Feel Good Inc" and pressed play. What came through the phones was deep and punchy bass, good soundstaging, and great clarity to the vocals. On the whole, I was relieved, but not impressed to the level that I thought I would be. I figured that I would just enjoy the phones for what they are, proceeded to listen to music for the next several weeks. After all, the DDMs are, interestingly enough, the world's first dual driver design earphones, ones that everyone on headfi claimed to open up and evolve over the course of listening.
It's now been about a month, and I can say that the DDMs continually amaze me. Prior to writing this review, I have spent hours and hours ABing the performance of the DDMs compared to my FX500s. I would listen to a song or a section of one on the DDMs and remark at how the phones rendered the sound, and think to myself, could the FX500s possibly invoke the same sense of wonder? A quick listen with the FX500s showed the answer to be a "no". Listening to everything from Cat Power to Number Girl to The Flaming Lips to Sleater Kinney to New Pornographers to The National to Miles Davis to Shiina Ringo to Dead Weather to Arcade Fire to Blankey Jet City... The list goes on and on, and through hours and hours of listening, the DDMs refused to be bested.
One of the things that I've learned about headphones is the concept of diminishing returns, and in the world of headphones, you have to pay a lot more if you want to move from one tier to the next. When I first heard the FX500s, I could hardly believe the sound coming out of them, they simply shouldn't have sounded that good for a single driver, dynamic design. How do you compete with a pair of phones that are highly resolving, are highly detailed, and deal out gobs of highly articulate subterranean bass?
You do so by presenting the same quality sound in an entirely different way.
While the DDMs possess (to my ears) the same level of detail, clarity and bass output as the FX500s, they sound wholly more convincing in their presentation of those sounds. Listening to the FX500s, the details of the recording are presented to you in a largely linear fashion. When we talk about headstaging, the FX500s are purely stereo in the sense that their imaging capability feels like the instruments and singer are presented in a straight line from your left ear extending to your right. As impressive as they can sound in terms of overall clarity, they can sound a bit squashed in terms of width and staging.
So what does listening to music on the DDMs sound like? Well, it varies from recording to recording, but on the whole, they best the FX500s every time, and on some of the better engineered records, they sound positively holographic in their imaging. All of a sudden, it feels like the recording has actual depth to it, sounds no longer merely feel out of the head in a linear fashion, but feel like layers of sound that are in front of, or in back of one another and in some cases seem to even extend upward, possessing height. It's highly addicting to listen to music on the DDMs because of this.
When I listen to the FX500s, I often feel like I'm listening to a great recording played through a great pair of headphones. When I listen to the DDMs, it feels like I'm listening to the band playing inside of my head. Since the phones have an emphasis on mids, compared to the FX500s, it sounds like you are zoomed in closer to the sound, and everything is simultaneously expanded. Sound is lusher, and imaging seems more accurate and most importantly satisfying in terms of mental placement. The details are brought forth in a recording by tuning each element of the audio spectrum perfectly and presenting it in a cohesive fashion. They do not employ the Etymotic "stratified layers" approach, where the treble, mids and bass are presented separately. Everything sounds emotional, exciting, organic and musical.
When I listen to say, Little Joy's "Unattainable" (which is a very simple recording, focusing on a vocalist with sparse instrumentation) through the FX500s, it again feels like I'm listening to a pair of great phone's rendering of a great recording. When I swap to the DDMs, all of a sudden it feels like Binki Shapiro is RIGHT THERE, cooing into my ear, and the oohs and ahhhs of the chorus suddenly take on a completely new dimensionality. It all feels much more tangible to the ear.
This extends to how the DDMs render instruments as well. The harsh edge of the FX500s are tamed without sacrificing the detail, and as a result, guitars are much more tolerable to my ears. Whereas before, songs on Sleater Kinney's The Woods would push me to the brink with their highly aggressive mastering, I experience no such discomfort with the DDMs.
Perhaps the most noticeable difference between the FX500s and the DDMs comes down to resonance and decay. I used to the think the FX500s lent a wonderful timbre to their rendering of instruments such as drums, piano, and strings, but comparing them to the DDM... Yeah... Again, when listening to solo piano as with the Evangelion 2.0 soundtrack (which is chock full of classical music and orchestral arrangements), I feel like I'm merely listening to a great recording with the FX500's whereas through the DDMs, the decay and resonance makes it sound as if the piano is right there in the room. The same holds true for Miles Davis' Kind of Blue, the FX500s are close, but it's the DDMs unique imaging, emphasis on mids (which brings the instruments more forward in the mix as well as lending them more weight), and their outstanding decay and resonance that push the recording towards the realm of believability. Finally, when I listen to Number Girl's "Manga Sick" on the FX500's, the guitar intro lacks the convincing crunch that the DDMs are able to render, and the distortion comes across as cold and metallic instead of organic and tube derived. The sound of an overdriven guitar is very hard to replicate convincingly, and the DDMs come up aces where this is concerned.
Frankly, I can say without hesitation that everything simply sounds more enjoyable through the DDMs. From rock, to pop, to techno, to jazz, to instrumental, whether organic or electronic, I find myself relistening to stuff I haven't listened to in years just because I'm interested in how it'll sound coming through the DDMs. When I swap over to the FX500s, I can't help but feel something is missing, and as a result, I just can't get into the music knowing that.
Concusion:
The DDMs are absolutely amazing earphones, and are in fact, possibly the best pair of headphones I've ever heard. They're everything I've dreamed of back when I got into this hobby; back when I read about SBG's Ety ER4P's and spent hours reading through headfi about gear I couldn't have possibly ever hoped to afford. The bottom line is, if you're in the market for a pair of phones in the $150 range, these should be at the top of your list for consideration. With that said, at the rate at which earphone technology is advancing, I'll see you all here in a year!
