HEDD Audio, the Berlin based manufacturer of high end studio monitors and headphones has announced the launch of its long anticipated successor to the original HEDDphone ONE: HEDDphone TWO

Powered by new advances in Air Motion Transformer technology and informed by detailed user feedback, the new HEDDphone has undergone a turbo-charged evolution. With a folded Kapton diaphragm over three times larger than in traditional dynamic, planar, or electrostatic driver designs, the sound of HEDDphone TWO has reached new heights, precisely tailoring subtle transients and creating a transparent, natural musicality. It produces a speaker-like, evenly balanced soundstage with stunning definition, permitting long listening periods with very little fatigue.

Building on the success of its predecessor among Award-winning producers and engineers such as Tchad Blake, Hildur Guðnadóttir, or DJ Jazzy Jeff, this headphone is crafted with a discerning eye on the needs of mastering engineers, mix engineers, and producers whilst also aiming at the broader spectrum of consumer headphone enthusiasts.

Several breakthroughs have been achieved in the three and a half year process of developing and designing HEDDphone TWO . By reconstructing the driver from scratch and using lightweight materials like carbon fibre and magnesium, the HEDD R&D team was able to achieve a staggering 25% weight reduction. An all new mechanical design was developed in order to make the product more compact and
durable.

The extensive material and reliability testing results in HEDD offering a rare and extended 5 years’ warranty for these headphones.
A patent is pending for the all new unique headband (= HEDDband) that provides users with a true custom-comfort-fit experience. HEDD have gone all out to invent a smart strap system, allowing parameters like height, width, curvature and even the clamping pressure to be tweaked to the individual head shape and taste.

To ensure highest flexibility straight out of the box, the company includes a carrying case as well as additional balanced / unbalanced cables, making it easy to take HEDDphone TWO to projects – and even on vacation. Heavy users will also appreciate the spare set of ear pads for prolonged usage.

HP2: Price and Availability

Priced at 1999€ (incl. VAT), HEDDphone TWO will be available in late September (North America) and from mid to late October (Rest of the world).

HP2: Specifications

Concept: Open-back over-ear
Driver: Full-range Air Motion Transformer (AMT)
Diaphragm: Kapton polyimide film
Frequency range: 10Hz – 40 kHz
Sensitivity: 89 dB/W
Impedance: 41 Ohm
Weight: 550g
Power Requirements: minimum 200mW, recommended 1000mW or more
Cable: Kevlar-infused, graded
Vegan-Leather ear pads and head cushion
Made in Germany

HP2: In the Box

HEDDphone® TWO
Travel case to fit HEDDphone® TWO and Accessories
1x additional set of spare ear pads
1x 2.2 m unbalanced cable with 6.35 mm termination
1x 2.2 m balanced cable with 4.4 mm termination
1x unbalanced adapter from 6.35 mm to 3.5 mm
1X balanced adapter from balanced 4.4 mm to XLR

HEDDphone TWO is hand-built in Berlin, Germany

The post HEDD Audio announces the launch of successor to the original HEDDphone ONE: HEDDphone TWO appeared first on Audio Media International.

Nigel Palmer gets to grips with this modular full range studio monitoring system at Rimshot Studios in Kent…

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Mike Thorne, an audio friend and owner of Rimshot Studios in Kent, recently told me of an upcoming HEDD main loudspeakers launch and demonstration at the studio organised by UK distributors CUK Audio – and asked if I would like to write something about them.

As those following my speaker reviews know, the usual MO is to set up units here for audition in the known acoustics of the Lowland Masters mastering room, and work with them for anything up to a couple of weeks to shake out their plus and minus points. In this case, the short timescale in a less controlled environment felt like a daunting prospect, but as it turned out I needn’t have worried.

Overview

Heinz Electrodynamic Designs, HEDD, is a German company based in Berlin and founded in 2015 by father and son team Klaus Heinz and Frederick Knop. Managing director Heinz has a long history of designing loudspeakers for many different uses, and was the founder and head of research and development of the ADAM brand; Knop is a mastering engineer and musicologist, and looks after HEDD’s sales and marketing.

After achieving early success with the active Series One range, including the near- and mid-field Type 20 and 30 three-ways, the company took the bold step of introducing a modular system of full-range main monitoring as a no-compromise statement of intent to offer the best in sound quality, resolution and dynamics.

The HEDD Tower Mains systems are made up of two active building blocks, the TM80 main monitor and TMS36 subwoofer, both closed-box or non-ported designs. The 280x835x400mm (11x33x16” WHD) TM80 has five drivers: two 7” woofers, two 4” midrange units (both woofers and mids have new ultra-stiff honeycomb sandwich cones) and a proprietary air motion transformer tweeter (AMT). Frequency response is linear after a -6dB point at 80Hz up to a bat-eared 50kHz powered by three 300w ICEpower Class D amplifiers, the drivers being arranged in a quasi D’Apollito symmetrical array either side the tweeter to help reduce floor and ceiling reflections. The TMS36 sub unit measures 280x580x400mm (11x23x16”), covers a frequency range from 20Hz (-3dB) to 80Hz (-6dB) and has four 9” drivers, two each at front and back to help cancel out cabinet resonances. Amplifiers are two 600w ICEpower, wired so each driver may potentially be driven at 300w.

The modularity of the system comes into play in a number of ways: start point is the TM Standard Tower, consisting of a TMS36 sub on the floor, topped with a TM80 main monitor joined to the sub with metal links, placing the AMT tweeter at around seated ear height. Then there’s the TM Extended Tower (the format heard at the demo), the same as Standard but with an additional TMS36 at the top to make a large floorstander just over an imposing 2m (6’ 6”) tall.

And there’s more: a Standard pair of cabinets may be combined so the TM80 is mounted on a wall and the TMS36 placed nearby and turned 90º; or an Extended group could have the TM80 in-wall, and one TMS36 on top of the other out in the room. All versions may be used for both stereo and surround, making the building blocks of the system extremely versatile. Finally, although the audio input to the tower systems is analogue by default, HEDD also provide a card, the HEDD Bridge (currently Dante-compatible), to integrate the towers into digital workspaces via audio over IP protocol where required.

Listening

There were about 20 of us at Rimshot for the evening demo, a cross-section of people working in music and sound including engineer/producers, DJs, bloggers, musicians and distributors. After a talk by the two company principals explaining some of the thinking and technology behind the marque, CUK’s Steve Barton played a series of reference tracks both of his own and from attendees via a laptop-based system over an extended period.

The HEDD Tower Mains come with a plug-in, the Lineariser, where by recording room impulse responses both the frequency and phase response may be flattened: effective though this might be judging from similar systems I’ve heard, it’s worth noting the Lineariser wasn’t used at the demo. In fact the only concessions made for compatibility with the tracking room at Rimshot, a fairly large, medium-live space, were tall studio screens placed behind the speakers to mitigate rear wall reflections and a small reduction in low frequency output. This in a room intended for performance rather than playback, signalled to me that we might be in for something out of the ordinary.

While we as a group auditioned the system, which played into a stereo listening triangle roughly 3-4m/10-13’ per side, a number of things became apparent. Firstly, this was not like some tower speakers of the past: even bearing in mind the large listening area, the ‘sweet spot’ was huge, so there was no need to jockey for position to hear a good presentation; next, linearity in the setup was commendably wide, including a very natural and informative bass response where I could, for example, easily hear the cutoff point of highpass filters in a couple of pieces I’d mastered.

Where there was no bass in a reference below a certain point, none was reproduced as ‘phantom bass’, something I’ve found to be one of the indicators of a true monitor and a relative rarity. Another point was the unusual combination of extraordinary resolution and listenability of the Extended Tower, where one could hear deeply into any piece played from the purest classical to the most ‘out there’ electronica. My experience (and I don’t think anyone present would disagree) was that the best of the material was displayed in exquisite detail while other pieces’ faults were mercilessly exposed – but presentation somehow always remained a good listen.

A couple of standout moments for me from the demo: I noticed in a number of the recordings with male singers that the chest part of voice from the low mids upward was particularly cleanly reproduced, something I’ve found lesser loudspeakers can struggle with. Also, the studio has a great-sounding Bechstein piano, which was played by various people during pauses in the proceedings. At one point I was in the studio’s foyer and heard a particularly well-executed performance through the open door, went to see who of our number was the pianist and found it was a recording played through the Towers; someone else present also independently noticed this.

Conclusion

The HEDD TM Extended Tower system is in a select group of the very best loudspeakers I’ve personally heard, and its resolution may well be unrivalled. Pricing also seems thoughtfully placed, above the new generation of smart cardioid monitors but well below equivalent models from the best-known industry names.

In addition, the modularity provides a unique possibility to turn a Standard setup into an Extended later for greater headroom and power when finances permit. All things considered, for me there’s a new star in the loudspeaker world, and I think one thing that’s needed for the HEDD Tower Mains to be a considerable success is for potential buyers with sufficient space to abandon preconceived ideas they may have about large tower speakers, and simply listen.

www.hedd.audio

Key Features

– Modular approach allows for different set ups

– Advantageous directivity patterns minimise ceiling
and ground reflections

– Output power 2x 600 W / 4Ω cont.

– Advanced µ-processor controlled safety guard

RRP: Standard set – £7,589; Extended set – £11,569

The Reviewer

Nigel Palmer has been a freelance sound engineer and producer for over 20 years. He runs his CD mastering business Lowland Masters from rural Essex.

The post Review: HEDD Tower Mains appeared first on Audio Media International.

The March edition of Audio Media International is now available online.

In this issue, Colby Ramsey speaks to the owner of Beechpark Studios, a Dublin-based studio that is celebrating its 25th anniversary against the backdrop of AES this month.

Meanwhile, Grammy nominated singer/songwriter John Parr gives AMI the inside story about his studio Somewhere In Yorkshire, Daniel Wray talks to British punk producer, engineer and mixer Nick Launay about his 40 years in the business, and NUGEN Audio’s co-founder and now CEO gives us some insights about the company’s journey so far.

Elsewhere in the mag, Rosewood Studios’ owner Ed Scull talks us through the dos and don’ts of building a studio, and WSDG’s Dirk Noy reveals all about the company’s Acoustic Simulation Lab in Basel, Switzerland.

As usual, an assortment of interesting opinion pieces can be found towards the front of the mag, while the back pages feature a number of cracking product reviews including Genelec, HEDD, Sennheiser and Cubase 10!

Read all this and more in the latest issue of AMI online, here.

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David Hill is based in the Superior, Wisconsin area and has been designing high-end audio hardware and software for quite some time.

Some of you may know him from his work with Summit or you may have bumped into him during an AES convention, Music Messe or NAMM show. Most of us know Dave from his amazing sounding EQs, compressors, mic pres and most importantly the A/D and D/A convertors.

So let’s have a closer look at the new and updated Crane Song HEDD Quantum.

HEDD stands for Harmonically Enhanced Digital Device and has been engineered to provide musically pleasing sound with the capability of generating tube/analogue sounds within the digital domain.

The key ingredient in HEDD Quantum is a new clocking crystal. It’s Crane Song’s fifth generation design just like the ones used in the Avocet IIA and Solaris and has less then 1pS jitter (1 trillionth of a second). The result is extremely accurate imaging, a very open 3D sound and detailed transient response.

I mentioned jitter and it’s one of those “black art”, hard to explain phenomena. The artefacts caused by jitter are blurred, harsh and unfocussed sound. It also results in a loss of image stability, depth and space.

Jitter, basically a time deviation in the clock timing, is caused by many factors. The main culprit being the frequency of the clock changing during the conversion process. The newly developed crystal clock within the HEDD Quantum has reduced this jitter to the, currently, lowest possible value, resulting in a well defined low end and clear top end. This will provide you with a much stabler image.

In addition to the new AD, DA, Clocking, I/O (Toslink Optical has been added) and extra WC outputs, HEDD Quantum still comes equipped with the same great DSP emulation of Triode, Pentode tubes and Tape emulation from the original model. The operational modes now allow the DAC and the ADC to be used simultaneously and at different sample rates.

The HEDD can operate as an effects device or as separate A/D and D/A convertor with the harmonic generation process applied to either convertor respectively. The signal processor performs up to 24 Bit Processing on digital or analogue sources. HEDD Quantum has transformerless balanced analogue inputs and outputs, transformer isolated digital inputs and outputs and uses separate power transformers and supplies for the analogue and digital sections.

The HEDD Quantum output now has a higher maximum output level +24.5 dBu and the maximum input range is adjustable from +16 dBu to +26 dBu for digital zero. The HEDD Quantum operates at sample rates from 44.1kHz to 192kHz.

The HEDD Quantum can be used for many different tasks. My first test was strapping it across the recording rig at the studio for a recording session. I bypassed the in-house clock and fed the convertors the Word Clock from the HEDD. The change in clarity and definition was instantly apparent.The low end in the bass and the kick drums was so much more detailed and punchy. Stereo imaging got a lot clearer as well, making panning and EQing much easier and faster.

This led to me installing the HEDD in my personal mix and mastering set up. The unit is the master clock, clocking all digital devices and also serves as my A/D converter and processor. The Triode, Pentode and Tape processes are as amazing as in the prior generation HEDD. In the MKI of the unit there used to be a little zipper noise when you cranked the Triode control and that is now no longer there.

Ever since running the HEDD as my master clock, the workflow has sped up considerably.

Because of the extreme low jitter, mixing and mastering do not only sound better, it’s made working more fun.

I performed listening tests with a client, where I had the same mix output feed my interface and the HEDD simultaneously. I had the client in the sweet spot and I kept switching between the interface and the HEDD. I started out by running both units separate from each other, so the HEDD’s crystal was not clocking the interface.

Once flipped to the HEDD the low-end information cleared up and the low mid mush you get from jitter vanished. The panning positions got a lot more precise and in general everything sounded a lot more robust.

Once we started clocking the interface from the HEDD’s word clock out, the interface’s performance improved dramatically as well. I was very pleased to see that the client, who doesn’t spend all his time geeking out of things like this, spotted the difference and was as impressed as I was.

Needless to say, this unit is staying in the rack and is now the centrepiece of the studio. Not only is it a wonderful sounding unit in its own right, it also improves the performance of everything that’s clocking from it.

Key Features

• High-quality 24-bit A/D and D/A Convertors
• 24-bit Processing
• Adjustable Triode, Pentode and Tape sounds
• Digital I/O, AES and S/PDIF

RRP: £3,800

Wes Maebe is a UK-based recording, mixing, mastering and live sound engineer.

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