EQUATION AUDIO EARTOOLS: REVIEW - Page 8

Well, I cracked and just ordered some RP-21s! w00t

Congrats! What this means, of course, is that I will now be listening vicariously through you... Be sure to post some gratuitous impressions.

Question for you RP-21 owners: I realize they are not billed as "foldable" (while the RP-15MCs explicitly are), but is there any foldability present in the design? The hinges look like they could allow the earcups to swivel into the recess of the headband, but obviously pictures don't tell much of the story.

Also, have any of you taken them on portable duties? How is their weight in such cases? How do they sound unamped?

As I said in my other thread I'm new to this so my opinion won't be worth much, but I'll post what I can. Maybe I should just play some music through them and record it with my PC's mic, then upload the file so everyone can hear how good they are. Of course I'll encode it at a 64kb/s rate to save space :P

Heh heh. Do it.

I must say, whether you're new to headphonephilia or an old, broke addict up to your knees in cans, your opinions are always appreciated. Contextualizing (as in, "This is the first time I've used my ears. These $7 headphones sound AMAZING!!!!") helps too.

I have a small pile of HD485 cables and i believe they will fit the RP21, but obviously won't twist-lock.

I don't think they'd be in much danger of falling out, either, unless you pull on 'em.

If you want i can actually try plugging them into redbeard's rp21's some day this week.

I see. But they don't swivel up into the headband (a la the MDR-V6), eh?


EDIT: ericj, yes, please do try the HD485 cables with your RP-21! I'd be interested to hear both how they fit and how they sound (if they fit).

Well, they're not my RP-21. They're redbeardatxm's. He lives a scant 2 miles from me, so i could swing by there after work maybe. I was just over there last night selling him a pair of K141-M's to help finance my QP85 purchase. Gonna try and foist off my old MDR-V600 on ebay, too.

This whole concept of *selling headphones is unsettling, but the east berlin spy network showed me where i could get a once-in-a-lifetime deal on the QP85, and i just bought a Stax SR-84 Pro kit last week.

Edit: Oh, and don't expect me to say they sound different. I listen to amps (that i built), not to cables.

All right then. I just wasn't sure how high- or low-quality the HD485 cable might actually be. I have no problems with it (I'm not a cable-listener myself...hell, I'm hardly an amp-listener ), but I figured if a difference was noticeable it would be something worth relating. Congrats on the QP85!

Wow! Great timing this morning by the UPS guy. So this morning I'm leaving to go on campus a little early because I had a midterm, but right as I'm putting my stuff in the car I see a UPS truck come around the corner. So I think to myself "hmm... should I risk being late to my midterm and see if my RP-15MCs came today...?" Well, I wouldn't be a true Head-Fier unless I stayed, so after he pulled over to the side and went to make his first delivery I wait around for him to get back and, sure enough, there's a package for me. So I sign for it and run back to my apartment quickly and crack them open, put them on my head, then run back to my car and go to school.

Ok, so, I got on campus just in time for my midterm, which I just finished about half an hour ago, so I haven't had much time with my new cans yet but my initial impressions are that these are really awesome headphones for the price. Of course, I'll wait until they burn-in some more before I make any definite conclusions on them, but, man, they sound great right out of the box being run straight from my Ipod's headphone jack. Mids and bass are great, not muddy like K81djs, but the highs do seem to roll off (cymbals don't sound as good as they could, but maybe burn-in will fix this). Soundstage is similar in size to K81djs, maybe a little bigger, I'll need to do some comparisons later. One thing I keep noticing is how great percussion instruments sound; drums sound very clear and have a lot of oomph. I'm really impressed with these.

Oh, and I love how they fold up into such a tiny little ball. The detachable cable is great too. And the build quality seems very sturdy, so I wouldn't need to worry at all about just folding them up and sticking them into my backpack. This is especially good, because they aren't very neck-able. They even fit in my jacket pocket. These could become my new main portable cans, though I'll need to do something about the length of the cord.

It's interesting that a couple of users now have commented on the RP-15MCs lacking highs, despite them being marketed as the EA model with hyped highs...I wonder if an underpowered source might be a factor? I'd be curious to see how they improve both with burn-in (unamped) as well as with an amp.

Send a PM to Fitz, he can build you a nice 1.5 meter (or whatever length) you want. I am thinking of getting and asking Fitz to build a 1.5 meter silver plated copper cable.