Review : Audeze Mobius – The Chameleon

Sound performance

For this review, I mostly used the internal DAC and a phone as source. You can connect a wired source, but this doesn’t unleash the full potential of the Mobius in my opinion.

 

Most files used were FLAC 16bit/44kHz streamed from Spotify / Amazon Prime or from the internal storage.

Overall signature

If you expect the Audeze Mobius to be all bass and treble, you’d be awfully wrong.

Even with the regular preset activated, the Mobius sounds like a true Audeze headphone. Full bass, clean mids, and shining highs, all carefully sent to your ears with the precision of a metronome. It’s uncanny how clean the overall presentation feels, as if they successfully fitted the LCD-X, inside a gaming headset.

The driver moves a lot of air, and you constantly feel the pressure on your eardrum, but that’s never harmful either. The Mobius blends true analog sound, with hi-end technology and you’d be surprised by how clean it sounds. I tried heavy-paced electro with saturated chords, to see how deep those drivers can reach, and always found the low-note I was searching for.

Mids have this little emphasis on the upper part of the spectrum, but that’s clearly a choice as you can find this quirk in almost every Audeze headphone. Combined with the Waves NX effects, it gives an airy presentation and, depending of the recording, can be seen as amazing or a bit unnatural.

The spaciousness is, by far, a league above all the other closed-back headphones I currently own. The witchcraft behind this comes from the sound localization, which compensates every head movement, to deliver the sharpest rendering, all the time.

Whatever the genre, the Mobius always seemed in control. Its got the deep heavy bass you’d expect from a planar headphone, while keeping the voices clear and poised. Attacks are superb and clearly the ADSR is among one of the best you would find in this price range.

Dynamics are excellent, with a rich presentation and superb layering. Highs are energetic and that annoying sibilant often found on the LCD-XC is nowhere to be found. Honestly, it’s almost shocking how hard it is to put the Mobius past its boundaries.

Yet, there are boundaries. And those come in the form of Bluetooth connection. As long as you remain in USB mode, the Audeze will be the best headphone you can get in this price range, or even higher sometimes. But, once you use the Bluetooth connection, some of that magic seems to hide.

Precision remains astounding but the sounds get a bit more veiled, lacking the original dynamics heard at the beginning. Bass is still superb, but the highs become harsher. All in all, it’s doesn’t make a big difference, but you’ll definitely feel the downgrade.

Tonality

Highs: clean and rich. The Audeze Mobius highs are impressive with great decay and a slight bump around $6kHz. It’s still a league above classic headphones in my opinion and classical music, or female jazz singers will be a thrill to listen to. The massive dynamics really makes a difference here in my opinion.

Good test-track: Mellotron – Worakls

Mids: transparent. Mids are well-balanced and voices sound clear in any configuration. Be it jazz, pop or even heavy metal, the Audeze Mobius offers performances on-par with its bigger siblings. It cannot reach the level of precision heard in the LCD-X or LCD-3, but it is on par regarding the naturalness of the sound.

Good test-track: San-Francisco Street – Sun Rai

Lows: that good old bass. Planar headphones remain the best choice for bass-lovers, and that’s still the case with the Mobius. The bass can reach the lowest notes with absolutely no distortion, while keeping the other frequencies untouched. I tried it with a movie and this may be one of the best headphone experiences I have had up to this day.

Good test-track: Faces – The Blaze

The review continues on Page Five, after the click HERE or by using the jump below.

4.2/5 - (35 votes)
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A nerdy guy with a passion for audio and gadgets, he likes to combine his DAC and his swiss knife. Even after more than 10 years of experience, Nanotechnos still collects all gear he gets, even his first MPMAN MP3 player. He likes spreadsheets, technical specs and all this amazing(ly boring) numbers. But most of all, he loves music: electro, classical, dubstep, Debussy : the daily playlist.

1 Comment

  • Reply November 1, 2019

    JDG

    Gaming. You’d use the Footsteps profile for gaming. That positional surround bit you like works wonders when you’re trying to detect someone sneaking up behind you in a competitive shooter.

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