Denon AH-D1100

On these headphones music that i have known all my life from the 80's sound great. Whether Michael Jackson or Roxette or Duran Duran or Celine Dion or AeroSmith, the overall sound is balanced and the vocals come through nicely, but also any instruments in the mix sound authentic.

The bass is a little bit excessive in some way, but similar to the Sony MDR-XB500, however, i am inclined to say that 'slightly' more bass is more preferable than not enough bass when comparing to the originally mixed song; there's nothing worse than not being able to hear enough bass in a song; a 'bit more' bass is always more preferable than not enough IMO; but on the Denons the bass is nicely presented which extends low, and for the most part the only boominess on these headphones is from any song which has been mixed badly at the studio.

I find the treble and midrange clarity in these very good, but especially when used with a good headphone amp; also, if there are faults in the original recording you will hear it, these headphones are high definition.

I have owned Shure 840's and 440's and i now realize that the Shures cannot match the overall balance that these Denon's offer, and i find that the Shures do not have sufficient bass which makes them sound inadequate.

All-in-all these Denons have a nice wide stereo-image and display plenty of detail but they are a warmish sounding headphone, and the bass in the Denon AH-D1100 does bleed into the midrange just a tad but the definition of the overall sound spectrum still shows clearly and the details are all there. Like many on this site i am a connoisseur of music and i expect any song to be represented faithfully on my headphones, and these Denon's do a commendable job of presenting all the frequencies with poise and fast dynamic response.

These Denon AH-D1100's are easy to drive; you could easily spend $500 on a pair of headphones and still not get the quality of these, i mean, how do you improve on a headphone which unashamedly cracks open the champagne when presenting the music.

Answer: Do nothing, keep these until they wear-out and then grab another pair; they make my Grado 125i's sound inadequate, and my Sennhesier HD 280's sound ordinary next to theses Denon's, so you know what that means. 

If you get these Denon AH-D1100's just give them 20 hours burn-in and you will enjoy the sound.

I have not heard another headphone which can show big bass but still present clear mid-range clarity and treble as good as these. But take note, i used three amps with these when auditioning them, and two of the amps did not show them in their best light, so actually the quality of the amp does indeed make a difference, so the amp needs to be of sufficient quality to drive them expertly, and the amp i have found to work wonders is the FiiO E12; quite frankly the FiiO E12 is a winner, it drives these Denon 1100's beautifully, these two work well together. If you get this combination then really i think you will be in the upper echelon of headphone audiophile territory, so no need to spend $1000 on any other combination. If punchy bass is your thing then these are the bomb, because they still give good mid-range and treble clarity while producing solid bass. Good luck.

These are my first non-ipod earbud or cheapass $20 skullcandy-esque on-ears. I got them used on the forums here for $80 which seemed like a steal as they are $200 new on amazon. Needless to say they blow anything i have listened to out of the water. I listen to bass heavy electronic music and they do a great job with it. It is not muddy at all and the high frequency synths are reproduced faithfully and layer nicely with the tight powerful bass. It's not really a con but after an hour+ of listening when i take them off my hearing is a bit muffled, not in a too loud of music ringing way but in a used to isolation closed design kind of way. They don't really block out a ton of noise for being closed ear but there is some outside noise suppression. I listen at medium volume levels and have studied within a few feet of people who said the minimal sound leakage was not bothersome. Outside of 6-10 ft. I don't think you could hear much at all given normal listening volumes. They seem to have more potential to give an I'll hopefully have them LOD'd to a Fiio e11 here shortly. I think that could boost the bass to earthquake like levels as the drivers seem capable of more than my iphone can power on their own through the headphone jack. I got these used and have already listened to them for over 48 hours so I assume they are adequately burned in (if they weren't already) I can't really comment on the more audiophile aspects such as sound-stage or ultra-detailed frequency analysis but all I can say is I'm extremely happy with my purchase and think these are a great introduction to decent quality cans.

These were my first over ear headphone. At the time I went to a retail store and tested the D2000, D5000 and the D1100. Due to price considerations I went away with the D1100.

Build Quality

The headphone in terms of worksmanship is commensurate with the price. The back of the cups are some kind of alloy while the rest of it is mostly plastic construction. This helps keep the headphone light. The ear-pads are reasonably soft and there were no manufacturing faults.

Where I have to fault the design is the use of plastic in the arms that secure the cups. Over the course of about 4 months of moderate usage the arms started to crack and eventually one of them broke. I was able to super glue it and it has held up for the last month or so without re-breaking. In the interest of full disclosure I have a fairly large head.

Those who would buy these headphones should take care to take them off by not pulling out on the cups but rather pulling out at the pivot to reduce the stress on the thinner plastic arms.

Comfort

These are very light and there is very little clamping force. This combined with reasonably soft pads makes for a very light listening experience. One can often forget that these are on his or her head.

Since these are closed back and use some kind of synthetic leather there is very little ventilation for your ears and they may get hot after a few hours of listening.

Sound

Frames of reference are:

Etymotic MC5

HiFiMAN HE-400

These are definitely bass heavy and this bass does leak through into the mids. While there is a lot of bass I am left wanting a little more clarity. 

The mids are well detailed to my ear if a little recessed.

The treble is a little rolled off compared to the HE-400. 

Overall these are a warm can that will appeal to those who love their bass.

Soundstage is fairly good. I am not one who experience a lot of depth to music but I can say the separation between instruments is good but I would not say it is easy to pinpoint where each sound is coming from in 3D space.

It is very easy to drive and you will not have trouble with it out of a portable music player without an amp. This combined with its portability is a big plus for people who would want to use these on the train or during commutes.

Please do not buy these headphones. Don't get me wrong, I bought them a couple weeks ago and love them to bits in terms of sound quality and comfort, but they've been a nightmare. It started, after owning them for a single day that the headphone jack broke. Although this was partially my fault, and there is probably nothing uncharacteristic about the jack, but i've noticed a couple of flaws in case this happened, which it obviously did. Firstly, the piece just down the cord from the jack which is obviously just to help plug it in etc, is extremely large, therefore making it easy for pressure to be applied to it, breaking the jack. Also, if the jack is broken, it may not seem like a problem, just replace the whole cord right? $10 or so shouldn't be a problem? except the cord is permanently attached to the headphones, and therefore renders it useless. Also, having now owned them for two weeks i've noticed the cheap plastic structure isn't just tacky, but structually unsound. Upon examining my headphones i've noticed several hairline (and some not so hairline) cracks all across the plastic arms, one of which is halfway down the width of the arm, and I would personally give it another few weeks of usage before they broke altogether. So again, top headphones - but durability is appalling, not worth anywhere near the 100 pounds (roughly USD$170) I paid for them. Thoroughly disappointed.