Youtube review:
Photos:
http://dalethorn.com/Photos/iPhone_XsMax/Headphone_Edifier_P841_01.jpg
http://dalethorn.com/Photos/Audioforge/Edifier_P841.jpg
Sources: iPhone XsMax/iPad Pro 11-inch with Oppo HA-2/AudioQuest DragonFly Cobalt DAC/amps, various computers using the Meridian Explorer2/AudioQuest DragonFly Cobalt DAC-amps.
Review note: My first impressions of the sound of the Edifier P841 headphone ('P841' hereafter) are based on direct comparisons to other headphones, particularly those that resemble its design (Full-size closed-back), but also to a few premium headphones for reference. I'll describe how I relate to the P841 (i.e., my objectives and how I use the headphone) only after covering all of the technical issues.
Users who've followed Edifier for the past few years, particularly the H850 and its incarnations under various OEM brandings, tend to be very respectful of its sonics, and its physical quality to some extent. Although the P841 is ostensibly a replacement for the lesser H840, I'd place it above both the H840 and H850 in sound quality. Compared to "classic neutral" headphones like the Sennheiser 600/800 series and Beyer Teslas, the P841 is significantly darker, having a ~4db recess in the midrange (700 to 1500 hz), a ~5db emphasis in the upper bass (65 to 90 hz), and a ~5db emphasis in the upper treble (7 to 9 khz). After reviewing a number of other headphones from the P841's price level up to $700, I'd place the P841 right alongside most of those, with the exception of a couple (but not all) of the open-back models.
Naturally, I stick to the High Fidelity standard** rather than the convenient fashion standards, and so I simply EQ'd the frequency ranges noted above and enjoyed hi-fi sound from the P841's superbly engineered earcup/drivers design. First impressions score big with me, and right out of the box playing some familiar tracks, I was surprised by the P841's clarity, dynamics, and detail - particularly the superior bass quality compared to the popular brands sold at (for example) the Apple Store. In spite of my EQ that suppresses the upper bass by 5db, the P841's bass still has great impact on my familiar test tracks.
**When your headphone and music sound like live music, you're on the right track. Also note that while every headphone benefits from some period of burn-in, the P841 is very close to its final sound right out of the box.
Although the P841 isn't considered to be a "high resolution" headphone, it has more than enough clarity and detail to appreciate the differences that can be heard with lossless and higher-resolution music tracks. Every popular headphone has some individual quality that leads to its popularity, but the cost versus quality factors of the P841 are well beyond any nit-picking I'd apply to most other headphones. I've purchased all of the headphones I've reviewed in the past couple of years, and so naturally I tend to like what I purchase, or send it back. Had I paid $300 for the P841, I might wonder about how much I paid given the minimal retail packaging and the included accessories (none), if not the headphone's plastic build, but I wouldn't question the sound at that price.
I won't spend more time on the P841's sound for now, for these reasons:
1) The music tracks listed below, which were included in my tests of the P841, feature a wide range of music tonalities that highlight any sonic weaknesses in the headphone.
2) The sound is much better than I expected, and far better than competing brands anywhere near this price level.
3) The history of Edifier's better headphones and their attention to both build quality and sonic quality are a good heads-up that this P841 is building an even better future on exactly those qualities.
The P841 comes with good-quality soft-plastic covered earpads, which are among my favorites because they don't tend to accumulate sweat and oils that can change the sound over time. The soft squishy foam inside these earpads make for an extremely comfortable fit, assuming a user's ears aren't unusually large. I've had headphones with shallow earcups, and worse yet - spiky protrusions on the driver covers inside the earcups. Neither of these occurs with the P841. The thin 4-ft "Y" cable goes into both the left and right earcups, and is terminated with a 3.5mm Apple-style miniplug. The cable includes an Apple-compatible 3-button control box, mounted just below the left earcup. The padded headband's size adjustment range is about one inch on each side, and given that my average head fits the middle of that range, it should accomodate a wide range of head sizes.
Isolation is good - average or better for a circumaural closed-back design - good enough for most home use and outdoor use where it's not extremely noisy, but probably not good enough for public transport for critical listening. Leakage is just enough that playing music in a quiet office might not work, unless the volume is kept fairly low.
In previous reviews I've included the following music samples with comments about how the headphones sound with each track. My suggestion is instead of reading each one as an absolute unto itself, you could compare my notes here to those other reviews and see how the P841 compares with each individual track.
Animotion - Obsession (1980's New Wave/Techno): The upper bass synth has great detail and tone, and both male and female vocals sound natural without favoring either. The P841 plays this extremely well.
Bauhaus - Bela Lugosi's Dead (~1980): Strong midrange sound effects - this is a good worst-case test for resonant-type sounds in the most sensitive midrange area. Handled perfectly by the P841.
Beethoven Symphony 9, Solti/CSO (1972): Excellent overall sound. Of special note here are the bass impacts beginning around 10:30 of the fourth movement. Those impacts are soft and well in the background, but you can really feel the weight they carry with the P841.
Black Sabbath - Iron Man (Classic Rock): Very good instrumental detail and the vocal sounds very natural. As with most classic rock tracks, there is very little or no deep bass. The P841 plays this music very smoothly, and the lack of deep bass doesn't unbalance the treble.
Boz Scaggs - Lowdown (1976): Great sound quality - this is a good test for any nasality in the midrange. Handled very well by the P841.
Cantus - Danny Boy (Traditional/Male Choral/Acapella): The P841 plays the voices with enough low end warmth and weight to sound very natural, yet there is no added emphasis of the lower register of the male voices on this track.
Cath Carroll - Moves Like You (1980's New Wave/Techno): This track's percussion and voice are bright, crisp, and well-balanced, and there's a good sense of space or soundstage around the voices and instruments. The P841 reproduces the space and detail very well.
Catherine Wheel - Black Metallic (~1991): Goth with industrial overtones - I like this since it's a great music composition and the sound effects are smoothly integrated into the mix. This may sound distorted or mushy with some headphones, but the P841 renders the deliberate instrumental distortions clearly.
Chris Isaak - Wicked Game (Pop/Rock): The P841 plays this high treble energy recording very smoothly - the voice and instruments are very detailed but not edgy - very musical in fact.
Chromatics - I'm On Fire (Synth-Pop, female lead): This track has a good amount of space around the voice and instruments, making for a very pleasant stereo image. The voice is excellent, and the tambourine sound is clearly identifiable.
David Hazeltine - Fur Elise (Jazz): A very high-quality recording from HDTracks. The P841 reproduces the instruments smoothly with a spacious ambiance. The wire-brush-on-cymbal harmonics are very extended and detailed, and the upright bass is amazing.
Grieg (Beecham-Royal Philharmonic) - Peer Gynt-Solveig's Lullaby (Classical): This very old (late 1950's) stereo recording must have been made on the most expensive gear in the world, since the overall sound quality and especially Ilse Hollweg's amazing voice are as close to "being there" as I've heard with some of the better classical recordings made since the year 2000. The P841 plays this music perfectly.
Hans Zimmer - Dark Knight-Aggressive Expansion (Soundtrack): The percussion in this track hits really hard, and the bass tones beginning around 0:45 have the ultra-deep "shuddery" kind of sound that indicates an excellent deep-bass response. Overall, the P841 plays this music very well.
Heaven 17 - Let Me Go (1980's New Wave/Techno): The bass instrument (guitar?) has excellent detail, and the voices and ambiance have a "you are there" quality that's uncommon in early 1980's pop music. The P841 plays this track extremely well.
Hugo Audiophile - 15-16 (Electronic): I'm not sure what the 15-16 stands for - perhaps track numbers from a CD album. The deep-bass tones that start around 33-34 seconds into the track reproduce very well with the P841. This is a great recording for evaluating whether a headphone's bass will be sufficient for most environments, since for many headphones that have a weaker bass, the deep bass gets absorbed and mostly lost when the environment contains a lot of low-frequency energy.
Jimmy Smith - Basin Street Blues (early 60's): This track has several loud crescendos of brass and other instruments that don't sound clean and musical with some headphones. The P841 provides excellent reproduction. Listen particularly to the second crescendo at 15 seconds in for best-case detail. I'd like to emphasize that these crescendos are probably the worst-case test I have for instrument separation and detail, and the P841 plays those extremely well.
Photos:
http://dalethorn.com/Photos/iPhone_XsMax/Headphone_Edifier_P841_01.jpg
http://dalethorn.com/Photos/Audioforge/Edifier_P841.jpg
Sources: iPhone XsMax/iPad Pro 11-inch with Oppo HA-2/AudioQuest DragonFly Cobalt DAC/amps, various computers using the Meridian Explorer2/AudioQuest DragonFly Cobalt DAC-amps.
Review note: My first impressions of the sound of the Edifier P841 headphone ('P841' hereafter) are based on direct comparisons to other headphones, particularly those that resemble its design (Full-size closed-back), but also to a few premium headphones for reference. I'll describe how I relate to the P841 (i.e., my objectives and how I use the headphone) only after covering all of the technical issues.
Users who've followed Edifier for the past few years, particularly the H850 and its incarnations under various OEM brandings, tend to be very respectful of its sonics, and its physical quality to some extent. Although the P841 is ostensibly a replacement for the lesser H840, I'd place it above both the H840 and H850 in sound quality. Compared to "classic neutral" headphones like the Sennheiser 600/800 series and Beyer Teslas, the P841 is significantly darker, having a ~4db recess in the midrange (700 to 1500 hz), a ~5db emphasis in the upper bass (65 to 90 hz), and a ~5db emphasis in the upper treble (7 to 9 khz). After reviewing a number of other headphones from the P841's price level up to $700, I'd place the P841 right alongside most of those, with the exception of a couple (but not all) of the open-back models.
Naturally, I stick to the High Fidelity standard** rather than the convenient fashion standards, and so I simply EQ'd the frequency ranges noted above and enjoyed hi-fi sound from the P841's superbly engineered earcup/drivers design. First impressions score big with me, and right out of the box playing some familiar tracks, I was surprised by the P841's clarity, dynamics, and detail - particularly the superior bass quality compared to the popular brands sold at (for example) the Apple Store. In spite of my EQ that suppresses the upper bass by 5db, the P841's bass still has great impact on my familiar test tracks.
**When your headphone and music sound like live music, you're on the right track. Also note that while every headphone benefits from some period of burn-in, the P841 is very close to its final sound right out of the box.
Although the P841 isn't considered to be a "high resolution" headphone, it has more than enough clarity and detail to appreciate the differences that can be heard with lossless and higher-resolution music tracks. Every popular headphone has some individual quality that leads to its popularity, but the cost versus quality factors of the P841 are well beyond any nit-picking I'd apply to most other headphones. I've purchased all of the headphones I've reviewed in the past couple of years, and so naturally I tend to like what I purchase, or send it back. Had I paid $300 for the P841, I might wonder about how much I paid given the minimal retail packaging and the included accessories (none), if not the headphone's plastic build, but I wouldn't question the sound at that price.
I won't spend more time on the P841's sound for now, for these reasons:
1) The music tracks listed below, which were included in my tests of the P841, feature a wide range of music tonalities that highlight any sonic weaknesses in the headphone.
2) The sound is much better than I expected, and far better than competing brands anywhere near this price level.
3) The history of Edifier's better headphones and their attention to both build quality and sonic quality are a good heads-up that this P841 is building an even better future on exactly those qualities.
The P841 comes with good-quality soft-plastic covered earpads, which are among my favorites because they don't tend to accumulate sweat and oils that can change the sound over time. The soft squishy foam inside these earpads make for an extremely comfortable fit, assuming a user's ears aren't unusually large. I've had headphones with shallow earcups, and worse yet - spiky protrusions on the driver covers inside the earcups. Neither of these occurs with the P841. The thin 4-ft "Y" cable goes into both the left and right earcups, and is terminated with a 3.5mm Apple-style miniplug. The cable includes an Apple-compatible 3-button control box, mounted just below the left earcup. The padded headband's size adjustment range is about one inch on each side, and given that my average head fits the middle of that range, it should accomodate a wide range of head sizes.
Isolation is good - average or better for a circumaural closed-back design - good enough for most home use and outdoor use where it's not extremely noisy, but probably not good enough for public transport for critical listening. Leakage is just enough that playing music in a quiet office might not work, unless the volume is kept fairly low.
In previous reviews I've included the following music samples with comments about how the headphones sound with each track. My suggestion is instead of reading each one as an absolute unto itself, you could compare my notes here to those other reviews and see how the P841 compares with each individual track.
Animotion - Obsession (1980's New Wave/Techno): The upper bass synth has great detail and tone, and both male and female vocals sound natural without favoring either. The P841 plays this extremely well.
Bauhaus - Bela Lugosi's Dead (~1980): Strong midrange sound effects - this is a good worst-case test for resonant-type sounds in the most sensitive midrange area. Handled perfectly by the P841.
Beethoven Symphony 9, Solti/CSO (1972): Excellent overall sound. Of special note here are the bass impacts beginning around 10:30 of the fourth movement. Those impacts are soft and well in the background, but you can really feel the weight they carry with the P841.
Black Sabbath - Iron Man (Classic Rock): Very good instrumental detail and the vocal sounds very natural. As with most classic rock tracks, there is very little or no deep bass. The P841 plays this music very smoothly, and the lack of deep bass doesn't unbalance the treble.
Boz Scaggs - Lowdown (1976): Great sound quality - this is a good test for any nasality in the midrange. Handled very well by the P841.
Cantus - Danny Boy (Traditional/Male Choral/Acapella): The P841 plays the voices with enough low end warmth and weight to sound very natural, yet there is no added emphasis of the lower register of the male voices on this track.
Cath Carroll - Moves Like You (1980's New Wave/Techno): This track's percussion and voice are bright, crisp, and well-balanced, and there's a good sense of space or soundstage around the voices and instruments. The P841 reproduces the space and detail very well.
Catherine Wheel - Black Metallic (~1991): Goth with industrial overtones - I like this since it's a great music composition and the sound effects are smoothly integrated into the mix. This may sound distorted or mushy with some headphones, but the P841 renders the deliberate instrumental distortions clearly.
Chris Isaak - Wicked Game (Pop/Rock): The P841 plays this high treble energy recording very smoothly - the voice and instruments are very detailed but not edgy - very musical in fact.
Chromatics - I'm On Fire (Synth-Pop, female lead): This track has a good amount of space around the voice and instruments, making for a very pleasant stereo image. The voice is excellent, and the tambourine sound is clearly identifiable.
David Hazeltine - Fur Elise (Jazz): A very high-quality recording from HDTracks. The P841 reproduces the instruments smoothly with a spacious ambiance. The wire-brush-on-cymbal harmonics are very extended and detailed, and the upright bass is amazing.
Grieg (Beecham-Royal Philharmonic) - Peer Gynt-Solveig's Lullaby (Classical): This very old (late 1950's) stereo recording must have been made on the most expensive gear in the world, since the overall sound quality and especially Ilse Hollweg's amazing voice are as close to "being there" as I've heard with some of the better classical recordings made since the year 2000. The P841 plays this music perfectly.
Hans Zimmer - Dark Knight-Aggressive Expansion (Soundtrack): The percussion in this track hits really hard, and the bass tones beginning around 0:45 have the ultra-deep "shuddery" kind of sound that indicates an excellent deep-bass response. Overall, the P841 plays this music very well.
Heaven 17 - Let Me Go (1980's New Wave/Techno): The bass instrument (guitar?) has excellent detail, and the voices and ambiance have a "you are there" quality that's uncommon in early 1980's pop music. The P841 plays this track extremely well.
Hugo Audiophile - 15-16 (Electronic): I'm not sure what the 15-16 stands for - perhaps track numbers from a CD album. The deep-bass tones that start around 33-34 seconds into the track reproduce very well with the P841. This is a great recording for evaluating whether a headphone's bass will be sufficient for most environments, since for many headphones that have a weaker bass, the deep bass gets absorbed and mostly lost when the environment contains a lot of low-frequency energy.
Jimmy Smith - Basin Street Blues (early 60's): This track has several loud crescendos of brass and other instruments that don't sound clean and musical with some headphones. The P841 provides excellent reproduction. Listen particularly to the second crescendo at 15 seconds in for best-case detail. I'd like to emphasize that these crescendos are probably the worst-case test I have for instrument separation and detail, and the P841 plays those extremely well.