Tonally it’s fine, but for some reason, they manage to sound pretty anemic. To get any kind of impact from them, I occasionally find myself cranking the volume higher than I would like. Midrange Neumann states that these headphones sound like their monitor speakers calibrated to flat in a treated control room. The NDH 30 can be folded flat for transportation, but there is no hard case. Yet the more I listened to the NDH 30s, the more I felt that they should displace the Shures at the top of the heap. Perhaps it’s the exceptionally low distortion, but there’s something about the sound that relaxes your ears and makes you feel that you’re listening to music, not to a monitoring system. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that I suspect their vestigial softness in the upper midrange might simply represent unaccustomed clarity, rather than a real dip in the frequency response. Transients are reproduced in a powerful way with these headphones, but don’t demonstrate the same level of precision as headphones at a similar level of technical spec. Also, the stereo image suffers a little from the more muted sound character of the NDH 20. The stereo stage comes across a little limited and seems somewhat narrow, even when playing productions that are synonymous with extreme stereo expansion. Think for example current EDM songs.

Playing the "Aja" album by Steely Dan is a "go to" to discern if any cans are able to dig out the bass response, as this album does not have an overly projected bass, its quite neutral....nd many headphones are lost trying to find it. The sound is nowhere near flat. The bass is super hyped and there is a weird peak around 3-4k. These factors make the headphones unsuitable for mixing/mastering purposes, and also a little bit fatiguing. I personally don't find them enjoyable either, even just for sitting down and listening to music. They are good but for the price, I definitely expected more. My favorite headphones (Sennheiser HD600s) cost half the price and deliver better in almost every aspect. Neumanns have better imaging and lower bass extension (which is too much for my taste). So if you're a bass head go for it, but if you listen to music with distorted guitars, be aware. In the case of these headphones, you have a very (perceived) flat response, yet, the clarity is almost hyped.In the world of microphones, Neumann's reputation is unmatched. Does their first‑ever pair of headphones live up to the name? In my opinion, this headphone is exactly what its designed to be.........a studio monitor on your head, first and foremost, and an Audiophile tool for those who prefer flat and clear, vs sweet, or rich, or overly extended.

It’s not an understatement to call Neumann a legendary pro audio company. Their microphones have been used by all kinds of celebrities – starting from a certain controversial Austria-born politician in the 1930s all the way up to now with Billie Eilish and others looking to make their mark upon the world with sound. Materials and manufacturing standards are all top-tier. The headband is made from hard-wearing sprung steel, while the covering plates of the earpieces are made from quality aluminium. A significant amount of the components on offer here are made from robust metals and screwed together, providing audiophiles looking for long-term investment a service-friendly pair of headphones. It’s the perfect combination of high-quality aesthetics and an overall appearance that exudes a “built to last” philosophy. How it Handles These headphones offer something unique.......it presents a very flat - neutral presentation with a lot of clarity and resolution. Sie haben einen sehr linearen Klang, manch einer würde sagen, Sie wummern sehr, weil sie untenrum ebenso stark klingen, wie obenrum präzise. Aber bei aller Stärke sind sie nie ungenau, ich kann immer genau hören, wo etwas brummt, überschneidet oder unsauber klingt.The NDH 30 are primarily designed to be the studio engineer’s tool for peering into mixes when monitor speakers are unavailable. What does it mean exactly? The NDH 20 uses newly designed drivers (38 mm/1.5”) with high-gauss neodymium magnets to ensure high sensitivity and minimized distortion, thus allowing the user to listen to the pure audio signal without unwanted coloration. The mechanical construction, too, meets the highest standards. The adjustable headband is made of flexible steel while the ear cup covers are machined from lightweight aluminum. For easy transportation the headphone is foldable and can be placed into the supplied soft cloth bag. Two detachable cables (one straight, one coiled) and a 6.3 mm (1/4”) adapter are also included. Applications Fitment on the fixture was VERY difficult. It would not fully surround the artificial ear, and I could not get it to fully seal no matter what I did. Slight movements and changes would vary the levels but in practice, I noticed frequency response did not substantially change. Still, be on notice that my confidence in measurements are not super high (although EQ settings verified that they were good enough for that purpose). With many people listening to music on mobile phones and laptop computers, manufacturers these days are careful to ensure that their headphones can be driven effectively by low-powered headphone amps. Broadly speaking, the acoustic level that a pair of headphones will produce in response to a given electrical input is a function of their sensitivity and their impedance. The more sensitive they are, and the lower the impedance they present, the more effectively they'll convert that electrical signal into acoustical energy. Most new headphone models therefore tend to have a nominal impedance of well below 100Ω. That of the NDH 20s is quoted as 150Ω, but they are also more sensitive than most, generating a quoted 114dB SPL for 1V RMS at 1kHz. They went plenty loud enough on every device I tried them with, with no discernible change in overall tonality (in contrast, headphones with very low impedance can be bass-light on low-powered amps).

Neumann don’t publish frequency response plots for either model, but quote upper and lower limits of 34kHz and 12Hz for the NDH 30s. Without any tolerances, these figures are of limited value, and I doubt anyone will notice the differences compared with the NDH 20s’ alleged 7Hz‑30kHz bandwidth. What may be more noticeable is that the NDH 30s improve significantly on the NDH 20s’ already impressive distortion figures, taking THD from below 0.1 percent for a 1kHz input at 100dB SPL, to less than 0.03 percent. Whatever they’ve done, it’s worked, because these headphones sound really, really good. Drawing A Line

I would also like to give a special thanks to Jeff Jent at sweet water for his help though out the many years.

I'm upgrading from an AKG K702. It's a fine headphone, but quite light in the low-end department, which is a big "no-no" for electronic musicians, and causes me to overcompensate the low-end all the time. Neumann is known for being an objective audio lover’s darling in the audio monitoring scene. All of their speakers exhibit state-of-the-art measured performance, yet they haven’t quite reached the mythical status of Augspurger, ATC, or PMC, mainstays of superstar studios around the globe. Technical Specifications

Customer Reviews

The Neumann acoustic engineers took the historically awesome Sennheiser HD 650 as their sonic reference point, re-balancing the sound to squeeze out the added bass warmth from the 650s and achieve a balanced tuning that’s as faithful as possible to the original recording. This is where the “pro” element of these headphones comes through."""