I had these for a week. I wanted these for their heralded sound stage. The hoopla around them made me bite.. Overall they are midfi cans with some hi end traits.. Vast 3d sound stage, and great spatial ability being the two. Being total open has benefits to it. Theres a ease and natural-ness to them. Non fatiguing at all. Nothing holds them back so to speak. Never harsh or forced.. This also goes for the bass.. It can breath due to the openess of the headphones. Bass is good.. Impactful without being over bearing. Pretty nice depth, and decent extension. Might be considered bass light to 650 and 770 fans, but doesn't bother me one bit.. The bass is a little out of control and rebellious at times, with a bit of unsteadness. Like it doesn't know if it wants to be tight and snappy or bloated and muddy.
It has more of the tight and snappy which is a good thing.
Clarity is a weak point. There seems to be 'sludge' covering the vocals. Can sound chalky a bit.. Like a minor cold. This isn't just with vocals but with the entire spectrum. This can be annoying to people who own the 880/701/SA5000/48's. You can easily tell it's short comming by comparisons. Midrange is on the warm and wet side. And the voices are good with nice tone and weight.
Detail is better then I expected. I heard the design of the headphone would inhibit the detail in some way. From my experience it doesn't. It gives you all the detail you need to hear. Just don't expect it to go out of it's way Like the SA5000. For a 200.00 headphone their detail is on par with similarly priced headphones.
The sound stage is the F1's bread and butter. It's full and expansive. Has a good stereo like imaging and a natural presentation. Holographic and 3 dimensional. But the sound stage varies. It doesn't give you the overall spacious feeling of the 701's nor the depth from behind and front.. But the F1's trump the 701's when it comes to left and right extension, depth, and width.. And clearly better then any headphone I tried or owned. Minus the K1000. And directional audio is excellent with in a certain range in the sound field. Anything near the left and right gets picked up instantly and accurately. With front and back it's harder to tell. But is still good, not just as apparent. In a nut shell, their sound stage is vast, inviting, warm and accurate, with varying degrees of success.
It has more of the tight and snappy which is a good thing.
Clarity is a weak point. There seems to be 'sludge' covering the vocals. Can sound chalky a bit.. Like a minor cold. This isn't just with vocals but with the entire spectrum. This can be annoying to people who own the 880/701/SA5000/48's. You can easily tell it's short comming by comparisons. Midrange is on the warm and wet side. And the voices are good with nice tone and weight.
Detail is better then I expected. I heard the design of the headphone would inhibit the detail in some way. From my experience it doesn't. It gives you all the detail you need to hear. Just don't expect it to go out of it's way Like the SA5000. For a 200.00 headphone their detail is on par with similarly priced headphones.
The sound stage is the F1's bread and butter. It's full and expansive. Has a good stereo like imaging and a natural presentation. Holographic and 3 dimensional. But the sound stage varies. It doesn't give you the overall spacious feeling of the 701's nor the depth from behind and front.. But the F1's trump the 701's when it comes to left and right extension, depth, and width.. And clearly better then any headphone I tried or owned. Minus the K1000. And directional audio is excellent with in a certain range in the sound field. Anything near the left and right gets picked up instantly and accurately. With front and back it's harder to tell. But is still good, not just as apparent. In a nut shell, their sound stage is vast, inviting, warm and accurate, with varying degrees of success.
