7Hz: what they publish

In this database5 headphones
Figures from their own material0 of 5
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This page does not review anything 7Hz makes. It counts one thing: how much of what this database says about their products came out of their own documents, and how much had to be worked out or left blank.

Where each sensitivity figure came from

ModelImpedanceSensitivitySource of the figure
Legato26 Ω92.1 dB/mWConverted from per volt from a shop listing
Salnotes Zero32 Ω93.1 dB/mWConverted from per volt from a shop listing
Sonus30 Ω93.8 dB/mWConverted from per volt from a shop listing
Timeless AE14.8 Ω104.0 dBUnit not stated from a shop listing
Zero:232 Ω97.0 dBNot published

Impedance is almost always printed. Sensitivity is the one that goes wrong, because a decibel figure means two very different things depending on whether it is per milliwatt or per volt — about five decibels apart at 300 Ω and eighteen at 16 Ω. The conversion is here.

  • Converted from per volt — 3: the maker prints a figure per volt, converted here with dB/mW = dB/V − 10·log10(1000/Z)
  • Unit not stated — 1: the maker prints a decibel figure with no reference unit, so it is shown as printed and flagged rather than quietly converted
  • Not published — 1: no sensitivity figure in anything the maker published
  • From a shop listing — 4: the figure is not on any page 7Hz publishes. The label beside it says which unit the figure is in; it does not say the maker printed it. Those pages name the shop and say so.

What they print, and what it is worth

ModelAs printedToleranceStandard
Legato10Hz-20Khznot printednot printed
Salnotes Zero10-20000Hznot printednot printed
Sonus10-20KHZnot printednot printed
Timeless AE5-40000hznot printednot printed
Zero:210HZ-20KHznot printednot printed

7Hz prints a frequency range for all 5 models here whose sheets have been read.

Not one of those ranges comes with a tolerance in decibels. Without a ±dB figure a range says nothing about how loud the headphone is at either end of it, which puts 7Hz with the majority: of the 490 models across this database whose maker prints a range, 58 print the tolerance.

The rows are not even called the same thing twice: 2 different headings across 5 models (“Frequency response”, “Frequency response range”).

5 of these figures stand on a shop listing rather than on anything 7Hz published; those model pages name the shop.

No measurement is published here — only what was printed. The whole count, maker by maker, is in the frequency response audit.

What reaches 100 dB on all 5

The hardest of the 5 to drive is the 7Hz Legato: 6.2 mW and 0.40 V for a 100 dB SPL peak. Their impedances run from 14.8 to 32 Ω, which matters because the voltage a headphone wants rises with impedance while the power falls.

280 of the 280 sources here reach 100 dB on all 5, and the cheapest of them is the Apple USB-C dongle (EU) at $9. “Reaches” means the maker’s own published power figure is enough at that load; it is not a judgement of how it sounds.

On hiss the count is smaller, because most of the industry does not publish a noise figure at all: of the 83 sources here that do, 80 stay under the threshold of hearing on all 5 of their in-ears. The one to watch is the 7Hz Timeless AE at 122 dB/V — the more sensitive the in-ear, the more of the amplifier’s own noise you hear.

Their lowest impedance is the 7Hz Timeless AE at 14.8 Ω, so a source wants an output impedance at or below 1.9 Ω to satisfy the one-eighth rule on everything they make. 131 of the 169 sources that publish an output impedance manage that.

These counts use figures the source makers published themselves. A product that publishes nothing is not counted as a pass anywhere above, which is why the three numbers differ so much. The collection matcher runs the same arithmetic over whatever you actually own.

What the paperwork adds up to

Very little of what this site says about 7Hz came from them. That is not an accusation about how their products sound — it is a statement about their paperwork, and it is the reason those pages carry so many qualifiers.

The rule used here is the same for every maker and is described on the manufacturer index. Every figure behind it can be opened on the product page it came from, with the document it came from linked.

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