Some of you may be aware that I was trying out a pair of Hedd Type 07 Mk2 speakers at the beginning of February. As may have been guessed I ended up returning these so first up I want to highlight that I did so and got a full refund via bax-shop.co.uk without issue, which to be able to I needed to request the refund within 14 days of getting them.
I bought the white model which I did really like the look of actually. They had a sort of satin white finish, rather than the rubbery type of finish that I know the Mk1s had. Annoyingly I didn't take any good photos of them actually in use, but here's one to give the idea of one in situ behind one of my Shearwater floorstanding speakers. (The microphone was there for a test nothing to do with the Hedds!) And yes, I did move the Shearwater out of the way when listening to the Hedds .
Here's the Hedd Audio page with details: https://www.hedd.audio/products/type-07-mk2
So why didn't I keep them? I really wanted to like them but fundamentally I just didn't enjoy listening to them. I'm sure others have been in a position of thinking they ought to like something but when it came down to it, didn't, and that's where I got to. Swapping back to my Shearwaters highlighted two main differences - firstly that there was just more life and enjoyment with the Shearwaters but also that the lower midrange on the Hedds just sounded thin by comparison. I've no idea whether the latter was technically more accurate but I didn't like it as much. Below is a link to John Darko's review of the Hedds. In this he noted preferring a specific pre-amp as it gave him an overall fuller sound with them, and I suspect this was a response to the same issue that I found. I should perhaps say that I used the Hedds connected directly to the XLR analogue outputs of my miniDSP SHD.
Another issue with the thinner sound that was a deal-breaker for me was that they integrated terribly with my sub as a result, with the transition between the two being very obvious in a way that it is not with my Shearwaters.
(Edit: apologies if this video doesn't start at the beginning for anyone - I can't seem to stop it doing it even though there isn't a start time in the file path!)
One possible concern I had before getting the Hedds was that hiss from the tweeters may be obviously audible but at my ~2.5m listing distance I couldn't hear it. They were also perfectly capable of playing loud enough in my roughly 4.65 m x 2.35 m lounge.
From a purely technical perspective I'll finally just note that I did look at how the 'lineariser' functionality performed and the improvement it made to the measured impulse response was actually very clear. The first graph that follows is with the lineariser off (black curve) and the second with it on (blue curve). When I was listening to the speakers I always had the lineariser on so I can't comment on what this may have subjectively achieved. I'd like to have done but I had limited time before having to decide whether to return them or not.
I bought the white model which I did really like the look of actually. They had a sort of satin white finish, rather than the rubbery type of finish that I know the Mk1s had. Annoyingly I didn't take any good photos of them actually in use, but here's one to give the idea of one in situ behind one of my Shearwater floorstanding speakers. (The microphone was there for a test nothing to do with the Hedds!) And yes, I did move the Shearwater out of the way when listening to the Hedds .
Here's the Hedd Audio page with details: https://www.hedd.audio/products/type-07-mk2
So why didn't I keep them? I really wanted to like them but fundamentally I just didn't enjoy listening to them. I'm sure others have been in a position of thinking they ought to like something but when it came down to it, didn't, and that's where I got to. Swapping back to my Shearwaters highlighted two main differences - firstly that there was just more life and enjoyment with the Shearwaters but also that the lower midrange on the Hedds just sounded thin by comparison. I've no idea whether the latter was technically more accurate but I didn't like it as much. Below is a link to John Darko's review of the Hedds. In this he noted preferring a specific pre-amp as it gave him an overall fuller sound with them, and I suspect this was a response to the same issue that I found. I should perhaps say that I used the Hedds connected directly to the XLR analogue outputs of my miniDSP SHD.
Another issue with the thinner sound that was a deal-breaker for me was that they integrated terribly with my sub as a result, with the transition between the two being very obvious in a way that it is not with my Shearwaters.
(Edit: apologies if this video doesn't start at the beginning for anyone - I can't seem to stop it doing it even though there isn't a start time in the file path!)
One possible concern I had before getting the Hedds was that hiss from the tweeters may be obviously audible but at my ~2.5m listing distance I couldn't hear it. They were also perfectly capable of playing loud enough in my roughly 4.65 m x 2.35 m lounge.
From a purely technical perspective I'll finally just note that I did look at how the 'lineariser' functionality performed and the improvement it made to the measured impulse response was actually very clear. The first graph that follows is with the lineariser off (black curve) and the second with it on (blue curve). When I was listening to the speakers I always had the lineariser on so I can't comment on what this may have subjectively achieved. I'd like to have done but I had limited time before having to decide whether to return them or not.
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