Review: Moondrop Venus

Intro:

When I first saw the look of the Venus, something in the deepest of my memory seemed to have been awakened… They defintely reminded me of something, but I wasn’t able to figure out what it was until one day this clip by Tyll popped up again on my Youtube recommended list:

Jokes aside, I am not insinuating any resemblances in sound between the two… In fact, despite the artistic look of the Venus, its sound profile seems much more ‘orthodox’… but there’s a catch. Let’s dig in.

Overall impression:

Clean and spacious sound. Slightly warm mids and extra trebel sparkle. In many ways the sound of the Venus can be described as conventional – they have a mostly natural timbre where instruments and vocals sound realistic. The main deviation is a relatively prominent 11.5khz peak reminiscent of Hifiman headphones like the Edition XS. On the upside, it translates into an extra sense of crispness and airiness to the sound. Some female vocals and percussion instruments however can come across as a bit shrill. On the flip side of the midrange warmth, there is also a mild degree of haziness.

Tonal balance

Bass:

Tight and fast bass with a decent sense of punch. Never boomy or bloated. It’s not ruler-flat to 10hz as with some planars but the roll-off is barely noticeable – only about 2db at 10hz as shown by the extended frequency response. In this regard the Venus beats the Sundara (about 10db drop at 10hz) by quite a large margin, a difference that is clearly audible when compared.

In some ways, bass on the Venus reminds me of one of the best bass from open-back dynamic headphones, the HD800. It’s that kind of lightning fast, solid and clean bass that makes for very enjoyable drum beat in up-tempo songs.

Speaking of quantity, bass on the Venus is not the most generous. It can get smeared over in some contents where the mix is bright tilted. The bottomline is, you won’t be buying these for bass heft and slam.

Mids:

Slightly warm but with an excellent sense of clarity, and never shouty. Mids is arguably the best part of the sound of the Venus. It has a subtle sense of warmth where vocals especially female vocals come across as just a tad fuller and mellower than usual. Perhaps this is intentionally tuned to appeal to their customer base. What customer base you ask me? Well just check out what’s on their packaging. 😉

All in all, I find it really difficult to fault the midrange tuning of the Venus. Of note there is a small scoope between 1.5khz to 3khz which is commonly seen on open-back planar headphones like the Hifimans. This genearlly helps to spread out midrange instruments and vocals a little and reduce the sense of shoutiness. On the Venus, this is not overdone for otherwise it could hinder the sense of clarity. I find the mids a little more refined or less grainy as the Sundara 2020, although the difference is by no means night and day. On the flip side, there is a stronger sense of the ‘bite’ and ‘texture’ with the Sundara, which can make the Venus to sound just a little fuzzy by comparison.

While the midrange of the Venus is mostly neutral, the treble tuning defintely has an impact on timbre. More on this below.

Treble:

This is arguably the most controversial part of its tuning.

Treble on the Venus is defintely elevated – sparkly, crisp and airy treble with a lot of brilliance that can sound metallic at times even when the music is NOT mastered to sound bright intentionally. There is almost always a kind of glare or ‘glistening’ quality to percussion instruments, brass instruments, and consonant tones. Comparing to the Sundara, the Venus is discernibly brighter.

Sibilance is a little accentuated. Tracks where sibilance is not prominent may sound fine, but if there is quite a bit of sibilance to begin with, the Venus can encroach upon the uncomfortable territory. Crash cymbals and ride cymbals often stand out too much in the mix. This can be an odd listening experience when the drums aren’t as prominent, so you may feel a sense of disjointedness when listening to live performances. An exception is with darker and drier sounding cymbals like you would find in some of Metallica’s recordings.

The added brightness is most likely deliberate, for otherwise it could end up dull-sounding given how the low end and the mids are conservatively tuned. But if you’re sensitive to treble, you would most likely find the highs on the Venus too much to take unless there isn’t much high-frequency content above 8khz.

Manual sine-sweep:

A manual sine sweep on my head revealed frequency peaks at 6.5khz, 8.5khz, 10.5khz, 12khz, 14khz. A dip was heard at 7khz. Note the perception of treble varies A LOT from person to person (especially from 10khz). You may or may not hear the same peaks or dips depending on headphone positioning, your own HRTF and/or headphone unit variation.

The 5.5khz dip shown in the FR measurement did not come across in the on-head sweep. If anything, the 7khz dip was much more prominent to me.

Other qualities:

• space and stage: This is a strong point – large planar driver and generous pad size defintely helped. The Venus has one of the best stage size out there. Defintely much wider and deeper than the Sundara. Not as tall as eggshaped Hifimans, but overall a more spherical thus ‘normal’ stage presentation. Vocals are not distanced at the same time.

• clarity and imaging: Generally great clarity and sense of resolution up there with the good planars. Instruments feel like they have sharpened edges espeically with high-frequency ones like the violin. Imagine is solid, but not super pin-point. Vocals are front and centre, cymbals feel like they are right next to you, but the positioning of other instruments can be a tad hazy at times. The Venus is overall a very transparent and clear sounding headphone, with the only exception that the midrange is a little warmer an fuzzier than the other frequencies.

• dynamics and impact: About half a league above the Sundara. Contrast between strong and week notes is fantastic in the sense the Venus doesn’t sound compressed or muffled in any way. This is not unexpected given how the treble boost can often help to bring out exciting elements in the mix. Attack and decay are commendably fast and clean. Impact and slam is decent – bass hits feel deep and tight, but not as hefty as the HE6SE V2 or the LCD2.

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Conclusion and value:

As Moondrop’s debut into the planar over-ear scene the Venus is a satisfactory product. It doesn’t have the greatest tonality or technical performance to die for, but it is definetly a worthy contender in its price bracket. In many ways the Venus is like a Sundara with larger soundstage and more extension on both ends, although it might have gone a little too far in the treble part.

At the RRP of $600 USD, the Moondrop Venus is a decent offer though it may not beat the Sundara or the Edition XS in terms of value-to-performance. Also make sure you’re not treble sensitive, and you can handle the weight – this thing is almost exclusively built with CNC metal which adds some 550g on your neck.

Pros: generally natural sounding mids and bass; exceptionally wide soundstage; great clarity and air;

Cons: elevated highs can sound metallic and sibilant at times; instruments have an additional layer of sheen; bass amount not the most satisfying; weight;

MEASUREMENTS

Extended Frequency Response:

note: averaged frequency response measurement shows bass extension cutoff is 10hz instead of 20hz on Squiglink, so as to fully capture frequencies which though may not outside of ‘audible range’, may be felt by our ears, bones and muscles and enhance the sense of ‘impact’.

Positional Variation:

note: this graph shows how the tonality might be affected when you wear the headphones differently on the head.

Leakage Test:

note: this graph demonstrates how a small leakage (simulated using thin-armed glasses) can result in FR change.

Impulse Response:

note: impulse response gives time-domain information about the transducer movement after a test tone is played. It should mainly be read for detecting polarity.

Channel Matching:

note: channel matching graphs DOES NOT RELATE TO TONALITY. A special configuration is used to capture channel differences to mitigate the interference from positioning on rig, directional sensitivity, and the asymmetricity in GRAS pinnae design (legacy of the Kemar). The Left (blue) and Right (red) channels are measured on a flat plate coupler with IEC60318-4 ear simulator.

END.

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