PX100 bad for rock/metal? Alternatives?

[HiFiRE]

Let me start by writing that I find the sennheiser px100's excellent for hip hop, folk music, and classical music. They're detailed and seem to have some soundstage for those genres. They were a bit bright in general when I started using them but they seem to have smoothed out after some burn in. I listen to them both with my laptop and my iriver h10.

When listening to metal and hard rock I find them overly bright, especially after listening for a while. Highs are harsh and it seems like I hear a lot of noise in the high end which really spoils my listening experience. Electric guitar that sounds smooth and pleasurable on my ghetto Koss pro/480's is often very unpleasant to listen to on the px100's. I will try eq'ing the treble down to see if this helps.

To be honest I've never heard a headphone that I thought really works well for metal. I've tried emu0404 + gilmore lite/senn 650, gilmore lite/grado 325i, millet hybrid/senn 595. None of those combinations yielded a great experience with metal for me. You need powerfull fast punchy bass for the drums, clean and forward lows and mids for the guitars, and smooth highs for screams. Maybe it's a genre that simply requires a multi speaker set up. I don't know.

Any insight here would be appreciated.

[MaZa]

As a black and deathmetaller, i kinda like PX100 for metal. Yeah, bass could be little bit more aggressive, but they arent bloomy thank god and technical, riff-happy music is good with them.

I love bright, aggressive highs cuz it makes picking different riffs from wall-of-sound easier, yet they should have enough smoothness so they wouldNT destroy the wall-of-sound itself... and going in circles with that sentence.



*edit* typo fix

[jagorev]

Koss Portapro. I really think that sounds just right with metal.

[skudmunky]

Originally Posted by jagorev

Koss Portapro. I really think that sounds just right with metal.

So true

[mshan]

I also preferred the Koss Porta Pro over the Sennheiser PX100 also. The PX100 seemed a little too smoothed over.

[jagathon]

For my metal listening I use Koss Porta Pros! Very heavy bass, which is alright for my taste, and I find the highs are dependent on the production. Some heavy metal albums are too bright no matter what headphones I use! But with the Porta Pros I can usually enjoy tunes for a long time with no fatigue. Also I find that I need to watch my volume, too loud and I increase my fatigue.

[Jahn]

As far as cans go, I agree with the above - any of the Koss 60ohm drivers would do, like the portapro or the KSC-35.

[jagged]

Has anyone tried the AGK k27i's for this stuff?

[MaZa]

They are same as K26P, just different looking, and definetly NOT recommended. They are very bassheavy, highs are laidback and mids are not that good. For trashy and powerchording music like numetal and simple trashmetal they are really nice, but otherwise no way in hell.

[HiFiRE]

I've played around with the EQ on my iriver h10 and after turning down the high end the px100's don't cause the rapid fatiguing. Yay! It was hard to turn down the highs because it feels like there's less detail but I suspect it's a more objective sound. It's a lot like cranking the bass up to unnatural levels, not liking it, then turning it down and then missing it.

I can now recommend the px100's for rock/metal music with the highs eq'ed down.

Thanks for the replies!

[Alucard]

The Portas are the way to go, I'm very satisfied with them, and I think so will you.