OLLO Life | vlog series · Mar 15, 2021

HOW DO THE S4R 1.1. SOUND? | #20

Improvements requested by our community are the ones that always lead our research and development team in their quest to perfect our headphones models.

We got many great suggestions from our users and endorsers engineers from all over the world, which we summarised in one of our previous episodes. Today we are going to talk about how we approached the improvements of acoustics and sound isolation.

FREQUENCY RESPONSE

Our previous S4R headphones, the 1.0 version, were fairly balanced headphones, especially for a closed design, recording headphones, but the low-mids were very strongly present.

In developing the new model, we did a lot of research and testing on what a better response would be. Keeping the promise of upgradability and serviceability is vital to us, so we needed to retain as much of the building parts as possible. Pushing acoustic to the next level became our main focus and priority.

We came up with a frequency design that is relatively flat in the low section, all the way to about 3kHz, where we have a little bit of a dip, which is intentionally designed for the concha gain of your ear, to step into that dip. We have another dip at 7kHz, which is something we will try to fix going forward. It comes from the chassis we needed to keep as it was, to be able to offer upgrades from previous models. When weighing the value of upgradeability vs flatter response, we decided in favour of upgrades. The dip is very narrow, so it's not going to hurt your performance at all. Especially the S4R being recording headphones.

ISOLATION

Leakage at 1kHz - 2 dB improvement

When it comes to isolation, the leakage out is what we have measured. We first measured leakage at 1kHz. 1 kHz is something that is present, strong and goes a long way. The scale for dBFS was not calibrated as we were only looking for a difference and not absolute values.

S4R 1.0 1kHz at -29dBFS

S4R 1.1 1kHz at -27dBFS

Leakage at 250 Hz - 7 dB improvement

Another interesting one is a measurement at 250 Hz, the low-mids, where a lot of music comes out. So if you were playing a loud playback track, play along track, the 250 Hz is kind of a representation of that. The old model reached 27.6 dB, which is pretty much the same as the 1 kHz. The new model, on the other hand, measured at 20 dB. So it's 7 dB better than the previous model. And 7 dB in recording scenario, where leakage out of the headphone into the mic is essential, is pretty awesome.

S4R 1.0 250Hz at -27dBFS

S4R 1.1 250Hz at -20dBFS

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