hey kuma, shaking your thread a bit, in need for advice.
i've tried the RS-1 + RA-1 from sources that the salesman described as neutral (damn i hope he is right). i didn't compare the same recordings between them, so i don't know. both sounded great, and the RS-1 had ~20 hours of reak-in.
what i liked about the RS-1 most was their hardness (yet not harshness)..they were very solid, chunky, meety. i don't want to lose that.
for now, that's the combo i want.. it has much to do with budget.. as i'm planning to get a RA-1 clone, to compensate on the high price of the RS-1/MS Pro. some opinions say that it's a very natural sound to pull out of the RS-1, and i agree that naturalness is one of the first things that came to my mind, and i own/owned the HD600, DT880, CD3000 and the ER-4.
i felt that the RS-1 + RA-1 lacked a bit of openess in the highest trebles, and just a bit bass extension. the trebles interests me more, because the highest frequencies presense has a lot to do with my flow with the music.
otoh, i can definetly live with the combo, and it might be a matter of psychological break in. but that is with the sources i heard at the store, which i suspect are less warm/bassy then the DI/O.
i'm a bit afraid that with the DI/O + RS-1 + RA-1, i would miss treble openess more/ overload the lower mids and bass, and i have the feeling that the RS-1 wouldn't be happy with more bass, as they are already very fleshy and wants to remain with that "pride".
otoh, i might upgrade the amp later (and we all know what's "later" in head-fi..), and don't want my RS-1/MS-Pro to be very dependant on it. damn...hard to decide!
i listen to all kinds of music. i can't think of a genre that i'll refuse listening to, if it is well made. my taste goes more towards electronica/ art rock/ psychedelia/ jazz.. many of my recordings are not that good, and some of my music is downloaded, so mp3 files encoded at 192kbps are common.
do i need what's called "all around headphones"? of coarse. but that reminds me, that i really like how the CD3000 expresses attack. even when i A/B with the DT880 (the favourite headphones before the CD3000) with 'soft" music, which seems that the beyers fits more to, this attack gives its own quality to my experience, after getting deeper into the session. i like complexity, maybe a bit aggressiveness, because i get bored easily.
i no longer listen in high volumes. i want my cans to perform well in low volumes too.
please, come to my rescue!
But, it's less leading edge focused and pull the music forward from *tummy* down.
