[athenaesword]

okay here's my little review. i've only listened extensively to the superfi5pros and the um2s.. but i'm relatively inexperienced with dynamic drivers so..

anyway, i must say when i just got them out of the box the mids seemed abit distant to me, but it must've been my song selection, cus i removed them, plugged them into pink noise for 6 hours, and when i listened to them for the second time they sounded alot more forward.

anyway, what struck me right from the beginning was how insensitive these phones are. i listen to 27/28 out of 40 for my iriver clix 2 now.

with regards to sound presentation, it's is clear and detailed, and the bass is present, but not overbearing. can't comment too much on highs yet cus i haven't tested with tonnes of violins and high hats, but i don't find any problem with them impressionwise. i won't go too much into this since i don't have any high end iems lying ard for me to give direct comparisons to right now, and i find this area useful only when there's stuff to compare to, cus it's innately subjective.

what i like about this pair of phones is perhaps the ability to present the vocals clearly, and unmuffled upclose. previously i found that certain phones, when playing songs that had certain sections with vocals extremely up close, actually started to muffle them. this wasn't true with the denons, cus even up close, it's still clear and textured. for me, vocals is of the utmost importance, even more so than bass. thankfuly the denons don't disappoint in this area at all.

and so i thought: why not try some eqing? well it might or might not be because of the player, but i find that the denons themselves already have a coloured distinctive sound, which makes it not all too susceptible to eqing. i tried custom eqing to a preferred sound, normal settings, and rock settings on my player, and i realised they all gave more or less the same sound, albeit slightly different in volume. so imo this isn't a very neutral pair of phones. this isn't necessarily a bad thing, unless u're thinking of using amps and doing a great deal of eqing. for me, since i don't use an amp and i like the sound signature, it's all good =]

moving on to the tips. this was quite a big problem for me. firstly, none of them really suited me. perhaps it may be that my ears are inherently oilyer than most, but i doubt so, since i've seldom had this problem, but the seal just wouldn't hold. i think it might have to do with the relatively frictionless material of the silicon tips, that was just unable to get a good grip on the insides of my ears. in fact, it was quite difficult for me even to obtain a good seal with the provided tips.

so on the very 3rd day of getting the phones, i started hunting for foamies. now the UE foamies fit perfectly, and i think they're really your only choice, since i don't think any other foamies would fit without you removing the plastic inside, which might make the foamies relatively loose from the earpiece. sound-wise, i don't hear any noticeable difference, not serious ones anyway such that i was able to pick them out without doing a careful comparison. soozieq, i might have to spend more time discriminating any difference between the foamies and the tips, but i'm sure they don't suffer any loss in the mids or highs. i'm not sure about soundstage cus that's usually a more tricky thing to compare. anyway, i haven't had an opportunity to test in detail cus i was at the shop. i bought a pair to test, liked it, and bought another 2 pairs. also, u have to take into account that since the UE foamies provided a better fit for me, they're likely to sound better than something that doesn't seal well, or has difficulty maintaining it. they don't loosen, which was already a great deal for me as i spent most of my morning trying to push the stock tips in again and again, and twisting this angle and that.

next i wanna mention the cable. these phones were clearly not designed to be worn over the ear. i noticed this not when i first tried them, but only today when i actually took them outside. the lack of a stiff memory portion actually makes it hard to stay in place over the ear, especially when u turn your head. ie. turn your head right, the left would pop up. i found myself repeatedly having to push loop the cable over my ear, which was really beginning to irritate me, considering the fact that to the undiscerning bystander, it could have possibly looked like i was constantly curling my hair over my ears, and i'm not a fan of excessive hair adjustments on the move. okay enough of that. my point is, denon really shoulda stuck at least 2 inches of memory cable at the top, cus personally i feel they work alot better when worn over the ear. honestly, i've never had this practice, but it just came instinctively to me when i got them. for me, they stick out wayyy too much when worn straight down, not to mention the racket of microphonics that ensued when i tried while walking. they fit great with the foamies and when worn over the ear, but the cables kept popping back up and out over my ears. well so i started experimenting with the different angles and i discovered that having the wire 45 degrees forward and up actually helped keep it in place better, so they're alright now for me. running, or jumping (though i don't expect you'd be doing that on a normal day, unless u're exercising) with them would be a no-no.

lastly, aesthetics. these earphones were never made to be low profile. so if u're using the big tips, expect them to be sticking a fair bit out of your ear. the earpieces are in no way tilted to hug your ear, but rather are designed straight 90 degrees to the cable. so u're probably gonna look like a clown if u use the big tips, and wear them straight down (no offense to those who're actually doing that xD). i wear them over the ears and press them so they're angled and doesn't protrude that bad. if u really must use big tips and wear em straight down i suggest u get the black coloured version. i actually have a silver pair, which doesn't look bad with the UE grey foamies, but otherwise would look quite garish if they were sticking straight out 90 degrees to my head.

that's all for now folks. i'll furnish more details on sound if i have any new revelations over the course of the burn-in period. i'm totally not letting these rest now heh. they're either in my ears or frying. now i really gotta rinse the blood outta my mouth since i just got my wisdom teeth extracted. >.<