'We can tune the bass to get more output, pretty much for free': I asked audio specialist Audeze about its patented SLAM system for headphones, and the slam-dunks kept a-coming | Tech Radar

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'We can tune the bass to get more output, pretty much for free': I asked audio specialist Audeze about its patented SLAM system for headphones, and the slam-dunks kept a-coming

An accidental SLAM dunk for a winning headphone recipe

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Audeze's own Symmetric Linear Acoustic Modulator (SLAM, for short) tech has been a game-changer for the premium head-fi brand.

It's seen a superb boost for all its most recent lines of headphones and gaming headsets that have seen an enhancement to bass, a reduction in distortion, and a mastering of the pressure equalization within a headphone's architecture.

As Audeze describes it on its website, at its core, SLAM is a collection of "precisely engineered channels seamlessly integrated into the ring that connects the ear pads to the drivers."

This physically manifests in headphones as a "structure that you put between the ear part and the transducer that resonates," according to Audeze's chief technical officer, Dragoslav Colich ('Dr C' for short).

These channels relieve air pressure buildup — the air has somewhere to go — and also help with low-frequency response, to the point where it enhances bass significantly. It's proved so good and transformational for the brand; it's one of the biggest upgrades on offer in the Audeze Maxwell 2 over the original Maxwell, for example.

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I started this for one primary reason; to relieve the pressure on headphones so we're not breaking diaphragms — that was the first objective"

But how did it come to be? Well, basically by accident, as I found out when speaking to Dr C last month when I visited Audeze's HQ in California.

"Well, I started this for one primary reason [and that] was to relieve the pressure on headphones, so we're not breaking diaphragms — that was the first objective," he began to tell me.

This is the characteristic of the SLAM channels funneling air out of the headphone and thus relieving pressure within; imagine the feeling of pushing your palm down on a headphone's ear cup, was the comparison Dr C gave me during our chat.

"Then when we were playing with these things, we kind of found out that we can tune these channels to resonate at low frequencies, and it was a really weird discovery."

It was this accidental finding that then led to a further 'SLAM-dunk' after Audeze discovered what these channels could do when sculpted purposefully: "We didn't plan for it, but I just [discovered by] surprise that when we shape the channels correctly [in terms of] cross section and length, we can tune the headphone chamber ... to whatever we want."

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As a result, an even bigger 'SLAM-dunk' was the one-two punch the discovery offered: fixing reliability while tangibly changing and improving the sound output of Audeze headphones.

"What that does [is] basically solve the problem with reliability; diaphragms are not breaking anymore, because when you push it, basically air goes through these channels, there's no high pressure inside, but then we ended up having [a way] that we can tune the bass to get more output, pretty much for free — and it's not just bass, it translates into mid-range and high frequencies, [as] it's all connected to each other," he said, adding, "So, kill a couple of things at the same time: get more reliability, and we're tuning the headphones correctly for low bass extension."

And so SLAM was born. What started out as a means to stop diaphragms breaking "actually turned out into something spectacular," says Dr C, and from my ongoing use with the Audeze Maxwell 2 gaming headset as my everyday driver, and a new set of Audeze MM-520 headphones kept within arm's reach too, I'm inclined to agree.

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Rob is the Managing Editor of Tech Radar Gaming and Streaming, a video games journalist, critic, editor, and writer, and has years of experience gained from multiple publications. Prior to being Tech Radar Gaming's Managing Editor, he was TRG's Deputy Editor, and a longstanding member of Games Radar+, being the Commissioning Editor for Hardware there for years, while also squeezing in a short stint as Gaming Editor at We PC just before joining Tech Radar Gaming. He is also a writer on tech, gaming hardware, and video games but also gardens and landscapes, and has written about the virtual landscapes of games for years.

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