What breathed life into my SE530 AND the discontinued E5c

[sabatar]

I have been into portable since portable began with the Sony Walkman cassette player was unleashed in 1982. I've always been on the prowl searching for the best phones/player combo to provide me with the audiophile pleasure I get from fullfledged home systems.

I listen to Metal as in Heavy/progressive/power/epic...

I bought Shure E5c 4 years ago and they were definitely the best earphones I had ever acquired but the strident and muddy highes was something I could not overcome. So, I bought SE530 last year and it was a bit better on all counts but something always felt missing. The mids had to be overcast by muddy treble and bass was dominant but not defined. The bass is certainly strong but the overall sound was bass-y and treble-y--the sound of bass drums, for instance was never rounded and plush but the WHOLE drumming was thick and quite bassy. Likewise, the cymbals had a whoosh and strident feel to them like they were all high hats.

I tried the etymotics and so many others by Senn etc but the Shures where the best yet so far from giving me the home-system pleasure on the go.

The sources I had been using along the years include Zens from Creative, ipod (bad SQ), and, recently, the amazing Cowon D2 (thanks for online forums such as this). In my pursuit of my portable sonic holy grail, I also bought Beosound 2 by Bang and Olufsen (a bit better than ipod but still not a serious SQ player).

Last week I gave up hope on portable headphones and dropped the idea of carrying a tiny gizmo that will give me ample pleasure and settled on my Cowon D2 with Audio Technica ESW9 and I was happy with the sound but the fact that these marvelous headphones are still big and tend to be less than comfortable with continuous listening gave me a sliver of disappointment.

Thanks for reading this far. Here comes the gist: I bought Sony NWZ -A829 last week and MY FREAKING LORD what a f******g awesome player it turned out to be with the the AT portable woodies. The part that had my jaw hitting the floor was when I plugged into this freaking, sexy Sony my ES530.
Guys, there are no words to describe the VAVOOM and OOMPH and sonic pizzazz that poured out of these olives into my ears. I had no idea that these cans could deliver such awesomness. The instruments are separated from each other, every drum beat is rounded and plush, the cymbals have a crystal ring and sparkle to them, the mids speak space and an ampleness of dimension. I'm in awe to the funny extent of me treating my SE with extreme caution. More thoughts later.

Anyways, this Sony wonder is a notch far from perfect! There is a stupid technology in it that controls the sound level in a very annoying way. All my headphones suffered this distortion-prevention tech in it except the Shures I have. Very strange how they are not affected by it.

Cheers

[ace8888]

Interesting... how does SONY compare with D2?

I have the same combo as you have D2 + SE530, and I find the sound is a bit cold/mechanical..

The only drawback that keeping me from buying SONY NWZ is they don't support FLAC??

[dscans]

There's a humongous thread on the Sony over in the Portable Audio forum. I have both the Sony and the Cowon, and I prefer the Sony more and more. Lovely warm sound signature - very musical.

[Singapura]

You may have a point. I thought the Shures overrated at first too, untill I swapped my Xin SM III for a Headamp AE-2. We've been happy ever after. It's not the Shures fault though, it's as always; garbage in, garbage out.

[western120]

Originally Posted by ace8888

Interesting... how does SONY compare with D2?

I have the same combo as you have D2 + SE530, and I find the sound is a bit cold/mechanical..

The only drawback that keeping me from buying SONY NWZ is they don't support FLAC??

I am happy with D2, I got A818 used it for about 10 days and then returned it. The sound is extra soft, smooth, and bassy, Overall it sounds very polished and great but the limited storage capacity forced me to send it back..
Straight comparison to D2 Sony had a lot more bass.