German Maestro GMP 400 By Jesse Young, Thu Mar 26 17:24:11 2015

Photo credit: Jesse Young

Along the banks of the Neckar river, in the German town of Obrigheim, resides a factory where workers hand make headphones. No, the company is not Sennheiser nor is it Beyerdynamic. Meet German Maestro, the other other German audio company.

If you live outside Europe, it’s likely you haven’t heard of them. A scattering of forum posts exist online regarding the company’s history. Basically, through a series of acquisitions and corporate missteps, former employees of the audio company MB Quart banded together to form German Maestro, bringing with them plenty of home, car, and personal audio expertise.

I learned about Maestro recently while researching planar magnetic technology (they don’t make those type of headphones but MB Quart used to). Barely a week passed after I emailed their contact page, requesting more information and possibly a review unit, when two pairs of headphones appeared on my doorstep - the GMP 400 and GMP 435 S. This review will focus on the GMP 400, its top-end model.

The GMP 400 is an open-backed dynamic headphone with high-impedance drivers. Each driver sits behind a foam dust shield and circumaural ear pad. The ear pad is made of velour, similar to the kind found on Sennheiser HD-series headphones. On its website, Maestro also sells supra-aural ear pads, made of synthetic leather, as another option. The ear cups are connected to the frame with thin elastic bands that Maestro describes as “cardamatic suspension”. Clamp force is minimal, just barely enough to stay on your head. The rest of the headphone is made of lightweight plastic, with a thin foam-like band resting between your head and the top of the frame. Overall, the GMP 400 is lightweight, comfortable, and unapologetically average in build quality. But I can assure you nothing broke during the 10 minutes I spent clumsily swapping out the ear pads.

I auditioned these headphones for approximately 30 hours, so I’ll skip right to the point: they sound fantastic. The GMP 400 has an airy and natural sound that creates a sense of realism with certain genres. Indie folk and alternative country is a complete treat on these headphones. With live performances, many instruments are easily identifiable, even a chair’s creak can be heard. The GMP 400’s abundant detail and clarity can probably make any recording where musicians perform on non-electronic instruments sound great. You’ll have a good time listening to Ryan Adam’s “Heartbreaker” or Wilco’s “The Whole Love”.

But like most headphones that expose a lot of detail, the GMP 400 is unflattering toward poor-quality recordings and certain genres of music. Metal and hard rock can be fatiguing with its emphasis on treble. The bass, although no slouch, falters for EDM and hip-hop due to its lack of in-your-face presence. These headphones are better suited for someone who prefers, say, Dave Matthews to David Guetta.

One unexpected feature of the GMP 400 not weighing a lot is that sometimes you’ll forget you’re wearing them. Its inconspicuous nature also carries over to its design. They look kind of like, well, plain black headphones. There are no exotic materials or frills to speak of except perhaps the inch-and-a-half coil in the cable, probably to dampen vibrations. In some ways, the GMP 400 seems content fading quietly into the background, leaving you to enjoy music in its most unadulterated form.

As far as amplification goes, the GMP 400 will benefit from an external amp due to its high impedance (300 ohms) and average sensitivity. I’m guessing that a good tube amp will tame the highs a tad, giving it slightly more versatility and a gentler tone. But it’s not so demanding that you can’t drive it straight from a mobile device's headphone jack, either.

Overall, the GMP 400 is a capable set of headphones that is microscopic but doesn’t ignore the whole picture. It easily holds its own against its German counterparts and other more popular brands. The GMP 400 is sort of like a cross between a pair of Grados and Beyerdynamic DT 880 - it shares numerous qualities in shape and sound, but it’s also unique in it’s own plasticky right.

I’d like to thank Thomas from German Maestro for graciously and promptly sending me the demo units for this review.

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