Moondrop Venus Review

Today I'll be reviewing the Moondrop Venus, the company's flagship over-ear headphone. If you're familiar with Moondrop, you almost certainly know them for their popularity in the IEM space. This is my first time trying an over-ear release from Moondrop – hopefully you can forgive me, as there's only one other Moondrop over-ear release preceding it, the Moondrop Void. At $600, the Moondrop Venus has a lot of stiff mid-priced competition. Let's see what it comes with, check out its design and technical specs, and finally, talk about what it sounds like.

What's In the Box?

• Moondrop Venus Over-Ear Open-Back Headphones
• Headphone Cable with 3.5mm Unbalanced Jack
• Headphone Cable with 4.4mm Balanced Jack
• 3.5mm to to 6.3mm Unbalanced Adapter
• Warranty/Authenticity Card
• User Guide

Look and Feel

“Wow,” I said when I felt the Venus' noticeable weight in my hands. “Wow,” I said again, when I put the Venus on my head and felt the suspension headband negate all the weight I felt in my hands just a moment ago. The Venus may be about as hefty as a pair of Audeze headphones at nearly 600 grams, but it distributes its mass gracefully. Its all-metal frame provides promising durability, which is further enhanced by the swiveling flexibility of the cans. On a tangential note, its physical build somewhat reminded me of a brother-from-another-mother to ThieAudio's Wraith.

Needless to say, I'm a fan of the fit, and I like the chic-industrial look as well. If I had to offer a criticism for this part of my review, I would say that the pleathery earpads probably don't handle sweat very well. This isn't too serious of a concern when it comes to the inherently ventilating qualities of open-back headphones.

Technical Design and Specs

When it comes to its technical design, we have to talk on a small scale – a very small scale. The Moondrop Venus' diaphragm diameter is 100mm across and 2 microns thick, with a printed silver circuit that is a single micron thick. This results in an extra lightweight and sensitive diaphragm with low heat loss. Stresses on the printed circuit are evenly distributed, as is the magnetic field parallel to the diaphragm, resulting in more even diaphragm movements. The even magnetic field is achieved via finite element analysis optimization, an advanced and generally industrial technology that's used in designing jet engines. While I'm sure there are other headphones that employ this technology, the only one that immediately comes to mind for me is the Dan Clark Expanse – a $4,000 flagship headphone. I note this simply because it's pretty exciting tech to see in a $600 headphone.

The last thing I want to point out here is that the Moondrop Venus' 18 ohm impedance may be low on paper, but I had to give it a considerable amount of power to drive it properly (a little more than I give to my 40 ohm Meze 109 Pro, for example). A phone dongle will likely do the trick, but it seems like the cables that come with the Venus have considerable resistance.

Soundstage

Moondrop's Venus provides a very fun stage, even if it's not the biggest. Parts were kept fairly close to my face, though with just enough distance to establish a respectable amount of depth and traces of height. That said, the Venus showcased some impressive staging qualities with hard pans, which frequently felt as though they approached my ears from behind my shoulders. Imaging seemed particularly accurate, with very mild pans resulting in subtle-but-noticeable changes in placement in my field of hearing. In short, the Venus' stage is small, accurate, energetic, and flexible.

Lows

Though the Venus deals with its truly deep sub-bass frequencies pretty modestly, it's much more forward when it comes to its mid-bass. Here, I could feel tightly controlled vibrations flowing through the earpads – it's a bass you can feel as well as hear, though I wouldn't simply classify the Venus as a “bassy” headphone. Instead, it delivers a satisfying, physically felt low end that seems carefully carved to avoid masking or overwhelming a mix. A little to my surprise, I didn't experience the slam I generally expect from moderately bassy planar headphones, but I would nonetheless qualify the Venus' lows as fast and responsive.  

Mids

The center frequency profile on the Venus is high-mids dominant – vocals had crisp overtones emphasized, and snare drums had a little more crack than thump in their impact. Low-mids and center-mids are still present enough to keep things sounding natural, and didn't stand out as being deficient at any point in my listens. I liked this mids balance quite a bit; the Venus' high-mids and highs establish a bright, clean contrast with its tight, vibrating mid-bass without scooping out the rest of its center frequencies.

Highs

The Moondrop Venus has a moderate low treble amplitude, a somewhat reserved high treble extension, and an incredibly bold and bright mid-treble. This mid-treble emphasis makes the Venus a decidedly bright headphone more than anything else. Like its high mids, its intense mid treble creates a lifting contrast to its prominent mid-bass, and imparts crispness and air onto vocals. The harmonic overtones on guitars shine, and maybe occasionally burn – I for one enjoy a headphone that packs some “pain” in its treble, but I mention this as a fair warning to those with lower treble tolerances than myself. Hi-hats took on extra pointy qualities, while crash cymbals present another warning for the treble sensitive. Perhaps the highlight of the high-end was its handling of strings, which had highly detailed timbres in the midst of the Venus' treble intensity. Lastly, I was relieved to hear that the Venus wasn't particularly sibilant despite what you might expect from a headphone with the Venus' balance. 

Overall

The Moondrop Venus is a great balance of fun and refinement. It pulls off a bassy and bright balance without resorting to a V-shaped mids scoop. Its performance is impressive, and I see it as a welcome, unique addition to the sub $1,000 over-ear competition. Those with treble sensitivities might want to approach this one with caution, but overall, it seems like Moondrop is off to quite a good start with their foray into the over-ear headphone space. 

The Moondrop Venus is available to purchase here from Audio46.