Steven Slate VSX Headphone

[dfinkmusic]

^^ if you can, get those Asian headphones (they seem pretty cheap?) and report back here.
You might have a good point and it would be interesting to learn more about them from a KVR member.


I'll let bmanic answer for himself, but in fairness, I doubt he could care less about your ultimate preference of headphones. He seems pretty happy (as am I and as are many others) with Slate VSX.
Each to their own tastes...

Undoubtedly, there is an element of marketing hype with Slate (who has previous form of hype...) but the only two weaknesses that I have read about, but not experienced, regarding Slate VSX is the phasing sound in Oct-Dec 2020 of some of the rooms (and this issue has now been fixed with an update), and a very small percentage of the physical headphones snapping due to a sub-quality production run of some early headphones (and Slate has been excellent in posting replacement headphones to the few people who suffered this physical breakage issue).

Imho, they would be expensive for just headphones at around £500 (and I wouldn't buy them if they were just headphones).
But tbf they are instead a whole system that is very comparable with the price point of monitors etc.

If you are going to buy the whole Slate VSX mixing system then you will get the Slate headphones included.
It would be interesting to see how well swapping out the Slate headphones for your Asian headphones would allow the whole Slate VSX mixing system to still function or not.

Slate VSX won't appeal to everyone but they do have very decent feedback from users (including many professional mixing / mastering engineers).
You pays your money and takes your chance.
As put above, if you prefer to try out those Asian headphones, many of us would be interested to find out what you discover.

Thanks for the reply. I don't know much about all the history with VSX but I do know a bit about asian manufacturing and how you can choose an off the shelf product and work with a company to customize it to your needs and have them make it for you. We are talking usually 1/10th or less of the sale price.

The thing that makes me wary of Slate in terms of this is the fact that VMS was touted to only work with the preamp at first and then they changed their story after the fact. Not to mention the emulations work with any clean microphone very well and sometimes sound even better. This makes me curious about buying someones extra license to try out with 3rd party headphones and see what happens.

That being said, if the headphones themselves were really good quality like audio technica or Beyerdynamic, I'd be much more inclined to buy. I want them to feel substantial and not feel cheap which seems to be the consensus.

[dark water]

^^ hi dfinkmusic, your post is very fair and you raise some good points.
To be absolutely honest, in terms of headphones alone, I prefer my £80 Sony MDR-V6 for their feel and comfort (and, in passing, they truly offer an excellent value for money EQ / sound response: very good headphones for anyone starting out or looking for a decent backup pair).
Which probably says it all about my feelings towards the Slate headphones just by themselves!

Also, the fact that a few (less than maybe 2% ?) of the Slate headphones have had snapping issues doesn't exactly inspire confidence...

On the flipside, those people who have purchased Slate VSX are pretty much comprehensively delighted with it.
A person can read the Gearslutz and Facebook (invitational group) threads for proof of this, if they so wish. The reviews are impressive.

Slate has pissed a lot of people off previously by product claims which VERY arguably he has failed to deliver on.
But it seems that he and his team have actually delivered a great product with the VSX that stands up to all the hype.

It's not for me to convince or discourage anyone from purchasing the VSX: it is a considerable amount of money and although the headphones aren't shit (notwithstanding the few that have snapped and, so far, been replaced immediately by Slate), imho they aren't in the same league comfort wise etc as some £300+ headphones that you will know about.
But, again, the whole VSX system (mixing emulations + headphones) stands up at the approx £500 price point imho.

If anyone is willing to see what happens if they swap out the Slate VSX headphones for some others ones, and then continue to use the rest of the Slate software / mixing system, I would be very interested to find out more.
I could do this with my £80 Sony MDR-V6 s, but I'm fairly sure the results of these combined with the VSX software would be crap!
(plus the Slate VSX headphones and system works well for me overall).

Cheers

[bmanic]

I'm sensing a bit of defensiveness and bias from your post. Confirmed to be false where? Please cite where this is confirmed and proven. If you have demonstrable evidence of this other than what people they or other people have said, then I'd listen. Otherwise I'll assume the simplest explanation to be true. This is what they did with the mics as well. I highly doubt slate has done much other than work with asian companies who have pre built manufacturing in place to potentially tweak options and nothing more. Reality is if you have a decent headphone, you can tailor the software to it. Setting up manufacturing of such a thing just isn't cost effective. Have a good one!

It was confirmed by the technical team of Slate and their partner (the guys who invented the impulse capture process and the custom analogue chip that sits in the headphones) both on the beta testing board itself (where a user first discovered the various knock offs/similar cases.. there are MANY of them, not just the one you posted) and was also again reiterated over at Gearslutz, several times actually.

You can believe whatever you want yourself of course. Like I said, get a pair of VSX headphones, then buy the Chinese ones from Ali Express and open them up.

In the Slate VSX headphones even the driver is a custom carefully selected unit and the whole mechanism of the the "air port" (there is a cutout on the VSX headphones behind the cushion, making it look "broken" but it's by design) is custom and not found on the other headphones with similar cases.

Not being defensive here at all. Just stating what I've read elsewhere and I choose to believe that Slate & CO would not dare lie about these kinds of things. If you pay for the Ali Express version I could sacrifice a pair of my VSX headphones and confirm it.. deal?

[bmanic]

I don't ever see it to be possible for headphones to honestly sound like an actual room.

It's probably going to happen at some point.. but that's definitely in the realm of science fiction at this point in time. I suspect the headphones need to somehow "scan" your whole head and insides of ears, then apply some voodoo AI magic to calculate the perfect HRTF for you..

https://smyth-research.com/

That looks very interesting! Unfortunately there is very little information on how the personalized HRTF is done. Actually there is zero information on how it is achieved which makes me quite skeptical.

[bmanic]

^^ if you can, get those Asian headphones (they seem pretty cheap?) and report back here.
You might have a good point and it would be interesting to learn more about them from a KVR member.


I'll let bmanic answer for himself, but in fairness, I doubt he could care less about your ultimate preference of headphones. He seems pretty happy (as am I and as are many others) with Slate VSX.
Each to their own tastes...

Undoubtedly, there is an element of marketing hype with Slate (who has previous form of hype...) but the only two weaknesses that I have read about, but not experienced, regarding Slate VSX is the phasing sound in Oct-Dec 2020 of some of the rooms (and this issue has now been fixed with an update), and a very small percentage of the physical headphones snapping due to a sub-quality production run of some early headphones (and Slate has been excellent in posting replacement headphones to the few people who suffered this physical breakage issue).

Imho, they would be expensive for just headphones at around £500 (and I wouldn't buy them if they were just headphones).
But tbf they are instead a whole system that is very comparable with the price point of monitors etc.

If you are going to buy the whole Slate VSX mixing system then you will get the Slate headphones included.
It would be interesting to see how well swapping out the Slate headphones for your Asian headphones would allow the whole Slate VSX mixing system to still function or not.

Slate VSX won't appeal to everyone but they do have very decent feedback from users (including many professional mixing / mastering engineers).
You pays your money and takes your chance.
As put above, if you prefer to try out those Asian headphones, many of us would be interested to find out what you discover.

Thanks for the reply. I don't know much about all the history with VSX but I do know a bit about asian manufacturing and how you can choose an off the shelf product and work with a company to customize it to your needs and have them make it for you. We are talking usually 1/10th or less of the sale price.

The thing that makes me wary of Slate in terms of this is the fact that VMS was touted to only work with the preamp at first and then they changed their story after the fact. Not to mention the emulations work with any clean microphone very well and sometimes sound even better. This makes me curious about buying someones extra license to try out with 3rd party headphones and see what happens.

That being said, if the headphones themselves were really good quality like audio technica or Beyerdynamic, I'd be much more inclined to buy. I want them to feel substantial and not feel cheap which seems to be the consensus.

That's the thing.. the "shell" of the headphone is most definitely one of those common designs and probably manufactured to specifications of Slate in China. But everything else, the actual driver, the electronics and the special "port" cutout + earcup material is all custom.

The "shell" is not what makes the VSX headphones, other than weight and comfort to a degree (cushions play huge role here too of course), it's everything else.

[JCJR]

If all a slate phones owner has to do to test slate sw with other phones is to plug in other phones, it seems like a no brainer no risk inexpensive experiment? About like wondering "How will it sound if I plug my fender head into marshal speakers and vice versa?".

I won't ever buy those slate phones. I'm fine with monitor speakers. Even if somebody gave me the slate phones I would never install the sw if it requires ilok. I am religious conscientious objector to draconian copy protection. I don't need ANY product bad enough to put up with that crap.

But if I did already have slate phones and sw setup I couldn't resist raw monkey curiosity of trying it with every headphone in the house just to hear how it sounds.

I mean maybe it is incredibly hitech bordering on magic and guaranteed to sound like crap with any other brand of headphones. Crappy sound on even the most expensive glorified gold plated headphones. Then again maybe some of those slate speaker models might sound "lots better" on other brands of quality phones?

Like, in 1955 who knew the gibson guitar would sound better plugged into the fender tweed amp "special designed" for wimpy thin fender pickups, better than the gibson guitar plugged into gibson amps "special designed" for gibson fat hot pickups?

[TS-12]

I have an aux cable from Chinese ebay seller that is exactly the same as the one that came with vsx except different color

[olepro]

I don't ever see it to be possible for headphones to honestly sound like an actual room.

It's probably going to happen at some point.. but that's definitely in the realm of science fiction at this point in time. I suspect the headphones need to somehow "scan" your whole head and insides of ears, then apply some voodoo AI magic to calculate the perfect HRTF for you..

https://smyth-research.com/

That looks very interesting! Unfortunately there is very little information on how the personalized HRTF is done. Actually there is zero information on how it is achieved which makes me quite skeptical.

Here it is explained.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source= ... dcExazvVrB

[bmanic]

I don't ever see it to be possible for headphones to honestly sound like an actual room.

It's probably going to happen at some point.. but that's definitely in the realm of science fiction at this point in time. I suspect the headphones need to somehow "scan" your whole head and insides of ears, then apply some voodoo AI magic to calculate the perfect HRTF for you..

https://smyth-research.com/

That looks very interesting! Unfortunately there is very little information on how the personalized HRTF is done. Actually there is zero information on how it is achieved which makes me quite skeptical.

Here it is explained.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source= ... dcExazvVrB

Very interesting indeed! It's exactly how I suspected. You have earbud type microphones in your ears, then just a normal sinesweep per speaker position.

This is not exactly unique or new.. this is how you can do semi-customized HRTF using for instance those DPA earbud microphones. I've actually tried this about 15 years ago as a study subject for immersive audio.

The problem is that this is not the whole equation. It's not just the shape of the head or the earlobe, localization and sound quality (or how we hear frequencies) has a lot to do with the ear canal and even the inner ear apparently.

They even sort of hint in the video that 3D scanning of ear + room with mathematical solutions to these scans may possibly be another level of accuracy.

Anyhow, I don't want to belittle their achievements, it's indeed very impressive and interesting but it doesn't negate my earlier comment that I think a 1 to 1 reproduction of a room over headphones is still in the realm of science fiction.

[bmanic]

If all a slate phones owner has to do to test slate sw with other phones is to plug in other phones, it seems like a no brainer no risk inexpensive experiment? About like wondering "How will it sound if I plug my fender head into marshal speakers and vice versa?".

I won't ever buy those slate phones. I'm fine with monitor speakers. Even if somebody gave me the slate phones I would never install the sw if it requires ilok. I am religious conscientious objector to draconian copy protection. I don't need ANY product bad enough to put up with that crap.

But if I did already have slate phones and sw setup I couldn't resist raw monkey curiosity of trying it with every headphone in the house just to hear how it sounds.

I mean maybe it is incredibly hitech bordering on magic and guaranteed to sound like crap with any other brand of headphones. Crappy sound on even the most expensive glorified gold plated headphones. Then again maybe some of those slate speaker models might sound "lots better" on other brands of quality phones?

Like, in 1955 who knew the gibson guitar would sound better plugged into the fender tweed amp "special designed" for wimpy thin fender pickups, better than the gibson guitar plugged into gibson amps "special designed" for gibson fat hot pickups?

I've tried the Slate VSX software with other headphones. I've even reverse engineered what the Slate headphones do and the software does to make them work and applied that to other headphones. It sort of works fine with other headphones but doesn't give the cohesive experience that the VSX headphones give. Especially low bass to low mids really work quite impressively on the VSX headphones, probably due to the clever way the earcups work like a sort of butt kicker, but for the ears. Air is actually pushing on the cushion and creates a fairly decent illusion of bass moving air in a way that big speakers can do.

It's not perfect though. I still prefer the comfort of my AKG K701 pair and I suspect Slate could easily create a much higher quality upper echelon product for really invested/serious audio engineers or foolish audiophiles who want to get rid of cash.

I also hope Slate Audio at some point develop a standalone product, a closed headphone with built in awesome noise cancellation that includes the software built into the headphones directly. This kind of product would be a complete game changer for all kinds of location audio venues.

[lmprrjs]

thanks so much for the in-depth review of the VSX! I too am using a K701, thru Sonarworks and Goodhertz. Was seriously tempted to jump on the slate digital wagon but I guess I should hang on with my set up for a lil longer

[dark water]

Good interview here by Emmy-award winning composer Rick Tell with respected industry stalwart Paul Wolff (of API, Tonelux and Fix Audio) talking about his current involvement with Slate VSX (and Slate Audio in general):




For anyone (perhaps rightly) cynical about professional 'shills', note that Wolff is collaborating with Slate but Tell is not.

Tell (with the beard in this video) has no dog in the race.
He doesn't need to big up the VSX headphones system.

Yet both seem VERY impressed with the headphones (their best VSX comments really start around 9 mins).

[legendCNCD]

It seems VSX 2.0 is out!
https://download.stevenslatedrums.com/v ... tevens.png
https://download.stevenslatedrums.com/v ... Sonoma.png

[RSL369]

I'm still puzzled as to what's going on with their European distribution. Thomann is listed as the main EU distributor (for my area), yet nothing comes up when I search for "Slate VSX" in Thomann app. It's been like this for a while now, no VSX in sight!
In other words, I still don't get where to buy this if I'm in Europe.
Anyone got any ideas?

[Digivolt]

I'm still puzzled as to what's going on with their European distribution. Thomann is listed as the main EU distributor (for my area), yet nothing comes up when I search for "Slate VSX" in Thomann app. It's been like this for a while now, no VSX in sight!
In other words, I still don't get where to buy this if I'm in Europe.
Anyone got any ideas?

Everywhere is waiting on stock for the version 2 headphones I guess ?