Do you need to be an audiophile to love music?

I believe you don't. I could guarantee you that there will be some non-audiophiles who tried equipment marketed toward audiophiles would end up frowning rather than smiling. Why is that? Doesn't high-fidelity mean being accurate and true to a live performance? Not really. Some audiophile equipment exists for you to analyze the music rather than expressing the information that stirs emotion or, worse, bragging rights. There is more to life than just clarity and resolution, not that I can't make headphones that achieve it.

An audiophile chases precision or truth, but in reality, absolute truth is unobtainable. In the world of sound reproduction, a system can only attempt to reproduce as much of the recorded performance as possible, and even recorded performance are altered subjectively to the master and mixing engineers. There will always be characteristics or flavors that come with the reproduction of music, as well as from the equipment itself.

There is no such thing as a universally best or perfect system in the world. It may be the best for you, but not for others. So, do understand that audio is ultimately about personal listening pleasure. I produce equipment that attempts to reproduce music with good accuracy, but with its own unique qualities to enhance the overall experience. Therefore, we do directly market our products towards audiophiles.

My reference setup for tuning headphones

Uranus (by Stars Picker Audio, Malaysia) Litz Pure Silver Cable was used during the tuning process to compensate for the piercing and fatiguing experience as a worse case scenario if a bright cable were to be used with my headphones. Some highly affordable varieties of copper cables were also used to ensure the overall experience is more tolerable and enjoyable, providing the user with peace of mind and avoiding the “you need this cable to sound good” excuse to compensate for bad tuning.

There’s no need for highly expensive exotic cocktail mixes, because the headphone has been tuned specifically to complement the general silver, copper, or mixed cables.

The Mojo 2 DACAMP was used because the majority of DAC, amplifier, or DAC-Amp is slightly warm or warm. If one were to use truly flat or cold equipment to tune the headphone, such as the Chord Hugo 2, RME ADI-2 DAC FS, or E1DA 9039S, the headphone would sound too warm or potentially muddy when paired with commonly warm equipment, as the latter DAC-Amps would result in sounding neutral.

Omne Audio, introduction to materials

During the development of their headphone, the Hendeka, I was there to witness its baby steps. For many years, Omne Audio engineer Leong, the man behind the Hendeka, had been trying many ways to headphone sound good. 

Initially, the Hendeka was to be constructed out of Nylon with SLS (Selective Laser Sintering) process instead of FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling) because it was more aesthetically pleasing. But it didn't work out so more time spent in searching the perfect material to compliment the sound of the Hendeka.

After some time, the solution finally arrived at their doorstep, Leong switched to resin with the SLA (Stereolithography) process, also used to construct High-End In-Ear Monitors. As a result, the sound was so good during trials that many people who didn’t like the Hendeka with the SLS (Selective Laser Sintering) baffle instantly loved it. I was one of them. Nobody who tried was told about the changes, making it a genuine blind test. Do note that Resin isn't the only thing they've changed, there was some additional tweaks involved, though I won't be disclosing them out in public with due to respect.

Inspired, I began experimenting with resin myself, comparing it with other materials such as metal, wood, fiberglass, and more. Through these experiments, I came to agreement that resin is an excellent material for headphone construction, especially for baffles. In fact, it's so good it comes partly a standard on all of my production headphone models in a derivative form as a resin–paper composite.

I wouldn't say Nylon produced with the MJF/SLS process as bad. While resin has its own advantages, Nylon has a porous structure that could potentially contribute to a more open or airy sound, depending on the design and implementation, of course. I'd still consider Nylon a superior choice to conventional ABS and PET plastics for constructing a headphone. In the end, it is all about combination of things that makes anything sound the way they are.

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