Headphones

So Oppo are following up the release of their PM1 & PM2 planar's with the 2015 release of the PM3 which is a closed back portable planar with high sensitivity that Oppo claim will run directly from your DAP. I'm not totally sure, but this maybe the first portable planar ever or if not maybe for a long time. TYLL Hertsens has a video interview with a guy from Oppo on his innerfidelity site that you may like to check, but looks like planar manufacturers are really looking to push the envelope with this type of driver technology.

Hey, does anyone know where I can get a Stax Pro cable so I can recable my ESP-950's? Also, I have tried to find detailed info on the process of doing the mod. Does anyone have any links to info on this? Thanks.

Ok the original HD800 thread is absurdly long time to break out impressions into this thread.

They're here!

Damn, I wish I had US$2K to drop just to hear these... link

HD650 used to be the headphone to get. Everyone seem to have one at one point or another. I have heard on various occassion and I am quite familiar with the sound signature. However I have not own one, I had always planned to get one, however throughout all these time, I never got around to do it for one reason or another. Recently, I considered getting it again. However again I ended up with something else, the HE-500. I compared them, along with LCD-2, the two orthos sounded better by a significant margin to me, which made sense considering they also cost more. There is something that I have always been wondering all these years, I kept hearing people saying these…

Guys, Anyone wants to give this a try? IMO, you can mod a headphone to have a tighter bass and a more natural high but you can't improve the midrange,details, and soundstaging. What do you think? Can the modification be as good as claimed? MarkL has an interesting check on his pair of R10.

In many threads concerning electrostats I come cross opinions that "you must get used to the electrostatic sound" and suchlike... Now I'm in a process of exploring my new Omegas. So can anyone explain what are the peculiarities that we must get used to?

No doubt there will be plenty of announcements at CES 2012 of interest to us, so I thought I'd start a thread to keep track of the headphones announced at the show . Who knows, maybe we can encourage Tyll, or other visitors to get a closer look for us. I'll start off with something interesting (thanks to google translate) Sennheiser introduces the high-end HD 700 Headphones google webcache of (pulled) B&H had it priced @ $999.95

Cutting to the chase: it seems I’m in a headphone identity crisis of sorts. I’ll try to be as brief as possible, and I would dearly appreciate some help. I hope this is the place for it, and I apologize in advance if it isn't! I’ve recently found audio bliss with an O2 MKI, and right now my K1000s don’t get much head time. I got a Little Dot MKVI to use with it, and to be honest I’m not quite enjoying the result as much as I wanted, but I think to some short extent it could be solved with better tubes. The issue is that, with everything I’ve heard with it so far (nothing high end except for a Marantz PM-11S2), the AKG's midrange is harsh and dry sounding and the hi…

EDIT 4/23: If you're just finding this thread, I've substantially revised my published blog review of the DT 770's after living with them a while, receiving comments from others, and comparing them to additional headphones. Many of my initial impressions still apply, but the DT 770's are less accurate than I first believed. Beyer has done a decent job of spicing up the sound to appeal to a broader range of customers while leaving much of the frequency spectrum relatively unscathed. But after living with them for a while, and comparing them to more accurate reference cans, I better understand their weaknesses. All closed cans I've experienced involve significant compromise…

Introduction A headphone review! I haven't had a new pair of cans in a while, but these were on sale during Black Friday – I paid a little over $100 for them. I've been looking for an inexpensive set of open headphones like my old Sennheiser HD 320: https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/sennheiser-hd-320.21653/reviews The first thing to mention is that you get 2 sets of cables in the box, the longer 10 ft. cable (attached to the left ear cup) with a 1/4" jack and a shorter 4 ft. cable with a 1/8" jack as well as a 1/4" female to 1/8" male jack adapter. The HD 599 SE ships in a plain cardboard box, as it is an Amazon special with a 2-year warranty. Immediate…

Time for some impressions of this rare beast. The Icelandic distributor has a set on loan and they carved an entire afternoon out of the schedule for me to try it and do some comparisons. I showed up with the HE90 I built from spare parts, Aristaeus, Carbon amp and a port modded SR-007Mk2. Since they were using the built in dac on the HE-1, I just plugged both amps into as well to equalize the comparison. Over all, I like the build quality of the headphones. Imagine a HD800 built properly and you are pretty much there. The leather earpads are super nice and the headband has nice extension to even fit my large melon. I don't think they are super comfy though …

Great review of these closed headphones, Tyll. I was looking for exactly this kind of can for years, but I ended up with the Alessandro MS-1 (no regrets) because of the compromises in various products. There are so many posts asking (with different wordings): "what is the best closed portable headphone for me?" online, including this forum. Sennheiser, Audio-Technica, AKG, Beyerdynamic, etc. (this is before Shure and Denon came out with their new cans) all failed to meet my standards when I was shopping around. I wasn't a fan of IEMs (many people have an aversion to this style of headphone), although I did get a pair of Klipsch S4i for my iPod Shuffle 3G this Spring. T…

Confirmed - Grado PS1000 coming Apparently, there's going to be a new PS1000. MSRP is $1695. The SR60 is now the SR60i The SR80 is now the SR80i The SR125 is now the SR125i The SR225 is now the SR225i The SR325i is now the SR325is The RS2 is now the RS2i The RS1 is now the RS1i The GS1000 is now the GS1000i They're also offering the wooden boxes; $75 + shipping. Grado's site

Still at the prototype stage I believe. Has anyone had chance to hear a set? Short video discussing the prototype

Anybody likes to make a recommendation what to try next? I am mostly listening to metal, guitar oriented rock, singer/songwriter and occasional country. I really need good mids, both for the guitars (enough punch) and for voices (actually hear what's going on). Here's my history of headphones: Current favorites: DT-770, but a little too boomy, in particular at high volumes. Like the closed sit and general quality. Not enough punch in the area where distorted guitars sit. Runner up: Proline 650, but too microphonic, not really comfortable, too much noise to the outside and a little thin sounding. Sennheiser HD-250 (not II): best with distorted guitars among what I …

Inspired by this thread: The Best Senn Below the HD800 - Head-Fi: Covering Headphones, Earphones and Portable Audio and what started out as an intentionally silly response on my part: http://www.head-fi.org/forums/6266249-post84.html, I'm now putting my theory to the test! As I mentioned in that post, I'd pick the HE90 over the HD800 if I could only keep one pair of Senns, but both are world class headphones IMO. I'd place the HE60 third, I think, but I haven't had enough time with them to know exactly how they might compare. Yet, they're probably close enough to the HE90 that they might edge out the HD800 as well, for the same sorts of reasons I suggested in t…

I am getting ready to come home in about a month and have to start mailing my gear home. I figure rather than have it sit around, it might was well get some use. I have already offered up the Buffalo and currently have: SWT61->Augsburger->Deepak. The Buffalo will be set up for SPDIF use only. I was hoping the guys at TP would have had the MUX ready by now but no such luck. The Buffalo is in a beat up Par-Metal case so it isn't much of a looker but should give an idea of the sound. The other item for loan is the HE 1.2B. This obviously would require a pro-bias amp or transformer set up with a Stax pro-bias jack. I say each person could try the items fo…

I got home from work to find a box from the UK on my desk. Yippie! I hooked up the pig tail to my amps speaker taps, and plugged the 4 pin socket of the K1000 into that. Turned on my Beta22 and no sound. Hmmm let's see now, the amp seems to be working fine, the speaker adapter is hooked up right, what's missing? Oh yeah, maybe it's that thing that spins CDs that I just shipped out yesterday! My phono stage still has hum issues with my SUT, and the temporary phono stage I was using went tits up. So maybe selling my CD transport would have been better delayed a week or so. Well the new CDP is due to arrive Saturday. It's gonna be an eternity.

Starting up the K340 modding thread so anyone that has modded them could offer advice, impressions on how they sound, etc can do so. I'm looking to recable one of my pairs to a 4 pin male XLR, replace the elastics, replace the grill with some other fabric and replace the earpads with velour ones.

Just in the past week, there got to be more than seven or eight thread devoted to the Ed.9 and how special they are. When I had Mulveling's Ed. 9 (he now sold them) for three week they sounded very good over all for rocks but I found them unnatural due to their recessed midrange and the whole "S-Logic" presentation for other genres. If you are a rock and heavy metals fan, they are quite good, but for everything else they are not even as good as the Senn HD-650 w/ my Zu cable. I found the Ed.9's to be way over emphasis on bass and lack refinement in many areas in comparison to the L3000 and W2002 that I have on hand. What's your take on them? I'm quite curious. My impressi…

Got my Fidelio L1 today, and after 30 mins of listening, I like it a lot so far. Of course, I have to burn it in for 10 weeks and change the cable to baby unicorn hair, but so far so good.

I've often promised to write reviews, but have never followed through. This, then, represents my first-ever attempt to write a full review of an audio product. Setup: I'm at Todd's in Three Forks MT. The T50's are plugged into an awesome system consisting of a Meridian G08.2 CD player, APEX Peak and Volcano headphone amp and power supply, with Cardas Golden Reference cables. Summary: Worst headphones ever. Really bad. Nothing good at all, and I really tried to like something, anything, about them. Shrill, hollow, muffled, tinny sounding like you have pillows over your ears. Thing is, this particular pair is well broken in with over 100 hours on them. The…

I've had the O2's since Tuesday bought was unable to use them till today when my KGSS showed up