The Moondrop Horizon is weird.

All right, so this is the Moondrop Horizon, and it's an over-ear open-back dynamic driver headphone that is priced at around $200, which is a very competitive price segment for headphones. You have headphones like the FiiO FT1 Pro or the Sennheiser HD6XX that's just a little bit more expensive. There's a lot of headphones in that price range that are very good and good for the money, and so the bar is high. So in this video, we're going to find out if the Horizon meets that bar, if it exceeds it, if it's the chosen one or not. Okay, so the story with the Horizon, as far as I understand it, is that this was actually meant to be the replacement to the Void, which, for anybody who isn't aware of what went on there, the Void was Moondrop's initial foray into over-ear audiophile headphones.

They're much more well-known for making IEMs, and everybody was sort of excited for the Void because Moondrop is known as a bit of a market disruptor in the IEM space. Unfortunately, the Void did not do that. The Void was not what people wanted it to be, come out with this new dynamic driver headphone that is sort of meant to replace that. At least that's what they told me at Munich High End. The problem with this, though, is that this is priced at $200 and that, as I mentioned, is extremely competitive. So it needs to do very well in order for it to be a success. And I'm just going to spoil the review here. My feeling is that while they did some very interesting things here, it really is not competitive and it just doesn't make sense at this price point.

So let's first talk about the build and the design of this From a visual design perspective, this headphone looks great. I love the really open grill that's going on. You can see all the way through to the driver and the backside of the baffle. And you can also see just how angled this driver is. More on that in a moment. But being able to see all the way through and with this design, I think it's a really good choice. And it's one that really does make it stand out. It makes it look striking. It reminds me a little bit of some of those Audio-Technica Air series headphones that were also very open. And there's actually another thing that I really like about this, is that the pads are just this magnetic thing, right?

So there's a magnetic ring on the inside here, similar to what they did with the Cosmo, and it just snaps into place like that, right? So there's really nothing that you have to pull off for the pads. It just goes on the magnetic ring, and then you can pop it back on. By the way, you look at the inside of the baffle here, you can see just how angled this is. It's kind of remarkable. It's a design that I've seen a number of times for other headphones. There are other ones that are trying to do this really far forward angle concept, and this is meant to be something that is interesting acoustically. But as far as the rest of the design is concerned, I actually really don't like this.

And that's because there really is no clamp pressure whatsoever with this headphone. And you guys know me, I have a fairly large head. For me, there is not enough clamp force. If you have a much more normal-sized head, this is just not going to fit at all. Like when I put this on. It does not, there's nothing that really pushes it in to hold it in place. While the coupling might be okay, for smaller heads, I have to imagine this is going to be a problem. It's just huge. Like, it's just massive. Like, look at this. This is crazy. So I'm really not a fan of what they've done with this headband system. Yes, it's lightweight. It's not uncomfortable. You know, the pads maybe are a little bit small for the opening, but it's not an uncomfortable headphone.

It's just that it doesn't really feel like it's secure on your head. It doesn't feel like it fits properly. Even on a larger head like mine. So, heaven help you if your head is smaller. If you have an inferior head size. I'm joking. So, I guess if you're really sensitive to clamp force. And you want like the lightest clamp force ever. That would be this headphone. Because it doesn't really have any. But let's talk now about the sound and the acoustics. And all that good stuff. Because this is where things get interesting. And kind of disappointing. But just before getting into sound quality, I want to let you guys know about headphones. com. Headphones. com is the sponsor of this channel. What can we do here with these videos possible?

They're also a great place to learn about and buy headphones. It's where we publish all of our written articles, so our reviews of products, but also tons of deep dives on all kinds of technical topics, like understanding diffuse field or how to understand the headphone measurements that we post, along with buying guides for headphones, IEMs, and all kinds of other audio equipment. So if any of the information that I've provided in this video helps you out, please consider supporting Headphones. Come the next time you are in the market for a new pair of headphones or audio equipment, this information will be invaluable, okay, back to the video. The first thing that I want to talk about is the angling of the driver. So when you're angling the driver, you are also moving it slightly away from the ear.

And what this commonly does is it will increase the distance between the treble and then the low frequency information. But also what this will do is it will shift energy upwards in frequency. And it seems like that's happened with this headphone. And then in order to accommodate that or deal with it, they've had to do a ton of front damping. This is a massive piece of foam. Again, I don't know for sure if this is all intentional, but it feels like they've angled the driver here because that's an interesting story about the headphones' design. Angling a driver is something that many people have explored in the past and many headphones aim for this. It's not an unreasonable thing to do, but then that's resulted in additional problems that they've had to overcompensate for.

And that's why you get pads that have this really thick foam material going on here. And I'm going to, maybe I'll do a video in the future with this, maybe this is an interesting modding platform. But, you know, as it is right now, this has resulted in a very dark sound signature that also still has some treble peaks, particularly around like five to six kilohertz. So let's dive into the data right now and I'll show you guys this. So here's the HPTF variation on the B &K 528 for this headphone. Think of this as all the various different positional data for how this headphone could perform. And for folks who are new to this kind of data visualization, we feel the direction we feel headphone measurements should go in.

Obviously, we want to include more heads and ears and have additional conditions for how these products are measured so we have a better understanding of how they perform. But for the moment, you want to consider this as all the potential positional variation for this headphone on this particular system. We'll be adding more in the future, so stay tuned for that. But as you can see here, this is a fairly dark sounding headphone. The bass also rolls off a little bit. This is with me trying to get a seal or indexing for a seal. It rolls off in the bass around one kilohertz. And then the rest of it is fairly dark, just with a couple of punctuated peaks there in the treble. And this comes across as kind of a compressed sound to certain types of tones.

I've called this, you know, percussion compression in the past, because that's where I tend to notice it. There's kind of like an emphasis to certain elements of percussive tone, cymbal hits, snare drums. But I also noticed this on sibilant tones. So the S's, F's, and T's, they can come across with a bit of harshness, stridency, that kind of thing, all while being generally dark. So if you think about, you know, how this might compare to an HD 6XX or 650, this would be closer to that headphone with the worn pads, just much darker overall, but then also with some fairly unpleasant peaks going on throughout the treble. So overall, this is a very mid-range focused sound. And in that respect, it is similar to the HD 6 series headphones, but it's not done in a way that sounds natural or smooth whatsoever.

And it also, compromises in other areas, like it loses a little bit of the low frequency information. And again, as mentioned, there's a bit of unevenness throughout. And this is where, let me just show you guys how this compares to the HD 650. So you can see here that the HD 650 is definitely a lot more within bounds. It's a lot more normal. It's a lot more balanced and even and smooth sounding. The Moondrop Horizon is darker, but also with a couple of other features there throughout. Dark sound signature, you know maybe this would be something to consider but I think most people are going to find this to be too dark and actually

it's the harshness and the trouble that I picked up on when I listened to a version of this headphone back at Munich High End, I don't know if that's exactly the same one that they ended up with here but I remember hearing that headphone at Munich High End and thinking okay there's there's something interesting here it has potential but there's there's definitely something in the treble that I didn't like and that stands out to me personally more than the darkness does but that's also, just where my attention happens to go when I'm listening for issues or flaws with the headphone and this definitely has those. All right now let's compare with the FT1 Pro and the FT1 Pro is obviously a planar magnetic but it is around this price.

So the FT1 Pro has meaningfully better bass extension and there's actually a little bit of a bass boost there. Then it's also more balanced throughout the upper mids and treble as well. It is a little bit more dipped in that one to two kilohertz range as you can see but overall the FT1 Pro is just a more balanced sound signature once again. So obviously there's a subjective component to all of this. But if we think of a balanced sound signature generally as something that is good, the Moondrop Horizon just doesn't achieve that. And it doesn't do as well as its competition around this asking price. And that's really what I want to leave you guys with. That's really the conclusion for this headphone is that if it had been priced maybe a little bit closer to like $100 then there might be something there.

Maybe this would be a good candidate for EQ or something along those lines. But as it is right now, this is just not competitive. And I think that's the biggest problem. I will say there is something very interesting with this baffle design and the cup design, and having the pads just be magnetic that maybe this could be a good platform for modding. But as far as how it makes your music sound, it makes your music sound dark, muffled, harsh, strident, rough. It's just this overly cloying and stifled kind of sound signature that it just does not sound clear and that's the biggest problem with something like this at the 200 price mark that's really where we're starting to get into you know HD 6xx territory, we're starting to get into few FT1 territory.

 I think the HD 505 isn't that far away from this either. So I just for sound quality this just doesn't-it doesn't do it and that is a real shame. So ultimately that's just the conclusion that I have for this headphone; it does not meet the bar for quality, even though there are some interesting things about it. And with great sadness, no, I do not recommend the Moondrop Horizon. Maybe make some changes to the design so it's not so dark or so you don't have to deal with some of those resonances, so that maybe the the damping doesn't need to be as and they could have something there in a version 2 of this. But as it is right now, this one just doesn't quite work. But if you have heard The Horizon, do let me know what you think about it. If there is music that you found that sounds great on this, please drop that in the comments below. I certainly tried to find that and could. But also, if you want to chat with me or other like-minded audio people about all kinds of nerdy audio things, check out our Discord, also linked below. And until next time, I'll see you guys later. Bye for now.