The sand box. The vast majority of circumaural headphones use one dynamic driver. Envision a special dome tweeter. A few outliers replace it with an exotic. HEDD use a heavyweight AMT, Raal-Requisite a floating true ribbon. Stax, Dan Clark, HifiMan, King Sound & Co. go electrostat. Others like Final explore hybrids by adding to a dynamic driver a balanced armature from the IEM world; or array a dynamic and AMT in a coax like Obravo. AKG's K340 mated dynamic with electrostat, EnigmAcoustics still do with their Dharma D1000. Crosszone use an angled array of multiple dynamics. There are even Grado lookalike isobarics from Spirit Torino. Variety rules. The most popular alternative to dynamic headphones are miniaturized Magneplanars known as orthodynamics or planarmagnetics. Already in 1978 Bang & Olufsen had their U70 ortho. Yamaha and Fostex too had theirs very long before Audeze relaunched the concept in 2009 with their LCD-2. Since then we've seen Abyss, Dan Clark, HifiMan, Kennerton, Meze, Oppo, Sendy, T+A and others enter the fray. Today is Camerton's turn.
Unlike ribbons whose magnets drive them from their top/bottom edges to not obscure the diaphragm, the stave magnets of orthos face their membranes from one or both sides. This window-shutter effect demands wind-slip magnet shapes and arrays to optimize airflow and reduce reflections. The higher the magnetic flux, the more efficient its drive is over a thin-film membrane. For a given sensitivity, more powerful magnets can shrink to shave off weight and membrane shadowing. Enter super neodymium. Its most powerful N52 variant we met in Børresen motors. How did Oleh deal with typical planarmagnetic design challenges where size and weight become concerns for wear comfort? Based on the original render I show on a later page, the Binom-ER looked to become unusually thin like a big-diameter Abyss Diana with far shallower pads.
With 105 grams per €1'236 Binom-E driver, could final assembly with headband and drive-unit retainers squeak in below 400g? For reference, an Audeze LCD-4 hits the scale at 735g. That's hotly chased by 718g for a HEDDphone from Berlin. It had the city's conveniently located John Darko turn down a review request. In fact John recently created this convenient list of headphone weights to continue our overview:
Abyss AB-1266 Phi TC 680g / 24 Ounces
Grado PS2000e 680g / 24 Ounces
Rosson RAD-0 650g / 23 Ounces
Audeze LCD-4z 560g / 20 Ounces
Focal Utopia 490g / 17 Ounces
HiFiMan Susvara 450g / 16 Ounces
ZMF Verité (open) 430g / 15 Ounces
Meze Empyrean 430g / 15 Ounces
Audeze LCD-5 420g / 15 Ounces
Dan Clark Audio Stealth 418g /15 Ounces
Sony MDR-Z1R 385g / 14 Ounces
Beyerdynamic T1 (3rd Gen) 360g / 13 Ounces
Sennheiser HD800S 331g / 12 Ounces
Audio Technica ATH-ADX5000 270g / 10 Ounces
I view extreme weight as engineering laziness. Ditto extreme inefficiency for any transducer, head or room. When competitors can present more benign loads and lightweight wear, why tolerate less? Likewise for poor industrial design. When a Meze Empyrean shows what's possible, why settle for half-baked or burnt? You'll appreciate why sighting a Binom-ER render had me excited. It seemed to have it all licked. Add my prior spin with the shiny monitors which had turned into a victory lap even in the big room. Things looked set to add up in a big way including a 3-year warranty for peace of mind rather than a mind gone to pieces when something fails.
May 23rd 2021. "For the next batch I have many changes planned. I want to set new standards not only in sound but design and manufacturing precision. I really liked your comparison of my speakers with the quality of Swiss watches. I must just do one thing now; surpass it. For that I had to modernize my entire machine park. Since there's no limit to perfection, this process dragged on for a long time with the risk of becoming forever. Luckily I was able to stop myself and go directly to making the headphones. My equipment is now even more photogenic and I can take high-quality photos or videos of all processes surrounding it. This is always interesting to the end user. I really appreciate your professionalism and it is very important for me to justify your trust. Summer is ahead and I think that the real release date for the new headphones will be the beginning of autumn. Most likely test samples will be ready sooner but you should still plan on this time line."
August 31st 2021. Photos of first Binom-ER driver production surfaced on Oleh's FaceBook page. A French review of the Binom-A1 Rev.2 monitors had hit on Voir et Emouvoir to end in these words: "… a real success. For a while I had the Voxativ Pi which I really enjoyed too but must admit to preferring the Camerton. Although designed on the widebander principle as well, I find it even more natural, with better spatialization and timbres… it's perfect for a second system/room like a sitting room or office. Oleh Lizohoub developed a magnificent speaker without real weaknesses. The Binom-1 has it all. A favorite!" The speaker had just run another victory lap.
