So what's the word on the new Ultrasone HFI-780???? - Page 101

Ok, so who is going to drill some holes in these suckers and make them open phones? Get the drill out baby.

My brother will receive the Jenna 780s this week, I'll let you know how they compare to my Vampire 780s soon

Well, my RS-1 comment is from spending 30 minutes switching back and forth between the ALO 780 with vampire wire and APS cabled RS-1. Everything is similar except the 780 have stronger more powerful bass and more isolation, and a little less airyness because it's closed. Don't misunderstand, they sound similar to the RS-1 in frequency balance and sound sig, but they aren't the same. The point being, IF you like the RS-1 you should like these ALO modded 780.

It's still amazing how good these sound, regardless of whether it is with my Macbook and portable DAC/amp, or my home rig with Apogee DAC and Woo 6. I don't care how much burn-in you do to the stock 780, I am fairly confident that they will never sound this good without modifying them (i.e. the dampening material, diode board, cable, etc).

Same here.

If i may ask a question, about musicality, between the hifi-780 and grado rs-1 which is better? And about the tone, which is warmer?!

Based on those comments,I went ahead and got the 750's. Got them yesterday. The jury is still out on them. I got some B stock units from Ultrasone, and they were demo models, so I dont know how many hours are on them. Im gonna let them burn in some. They certainly have a lot of Bass, i couldnt imagine the Bass the 780's have.

The ALO-780s are the best alternative to the Grado RS-1 for the people (like me..) who want to have a good pair of musical headphones at bed. My girlfriend is so happy since I got my 780s

Other than that, I'd say that they complement each other very well, I mainly use the RS-1 for acoustic and classic prog rock, while I mainly use the ALO-780s for prog, doom, death & black metal. Depending of my mood, I can prefer the inverse because the 780s are also very good with acoustic and classic rock while the RS-1 are happy when I feed them with agressive music.

Rob, if by any chance you have some felt fabric cut a piece to match the outline of the driver cover. Then place it over the driver cover and behind the earpad fabric. It shoudl remove most if not all the high frequency you mention. Of course you could play with various fabric thickness and materials to achieve your sound goal.

I remember someone else mentioning that before but it just seemed to me that felt would be to thick. Then again I have not tried that yet...I was trying to find something a little less thick still.

Well I am not going to hold my breath but today the 780's after the cable swap to the HD650 cable are sounding better. The highs are reined in and the ssssibilance is gone. The bass has also come back, yes it lacked the lower range impact for some time. It doesn't present the stage depth and width of the 750's but at least the frequency range is more enjoyable, right now anyway.

Sounding good with my tube amps. The Sennheiser cable does a good job in converting these. I can't express enough what junk the stock cable is. If it eventually burns in, which I am not very confident in, great. I hope the stock model does as I really like people to get good sound for not too much money. If it does, it will take many hours but even the Ed 9 is said to take around 500 hours of play time.

The way my recable is working I wouldn't need anything to attenuate the frequencies either.

The felt mod is the brain child of Fitz, it started with the Ultrasone PROline 2500. IMO, the felt mod although very subtle it is very effective. Kind of like using a 2,000 grit sandpaper as a final touch on wood before painting. The best part is that it is super cheap.

The HFI-780 is warmer. I haven't spent enough time with the RS-1 to comment more (only had for about 10 days), but I am leaning towards the RS-1 slightly. Don't forget, these RS-1 (and RS-2 and HF-1 too) have the APS V3 cable on them.

While the ALO 780 demonstrate to me that my APS re-cabled D2000 have a slight veil to them, the RS-1 have the ability to do the same thing to the ALO 780.

The RS-1 soundstage may not be as wide as the 780, but it is deeper than the 780 or my RS-2, and closer to the open soundstage of the HF-1. i.e. I can enjoy rock, jazz or classical with RS-1 but the 780 are not as good for classical as the RS-1, while the 780 kill the RS-1 on electronic and new age music.