Uglyrain,
I purposely did not bring up any seller identification at this point as I didn't want to falsely accuse anyone of selling fakse. I bought these off ebay knowing full well that at $360 they weren't going to be perfect in origin. I suspected factory seconds or the like, and I was actually ok with that as long as they sounded good as I intend to use them for listening not artwork.
I have been listening to them while working crazy hours last night, and as they break in, they *are* sounding amazingly good. At first they were only so-so, but with some break-in they are now easily blowing away my SennHeiser PXC450s (noise cancelling off) and my DT770s. My suspicions at this point is that these are possibly built with real AT components, although I've never seen high end wood ATs in person, and the cups don't seem to live up to the standards that people mention here, however, I'll know for sure when my second pair arrives to compare.
Of note: with some more googling last night, it looks like the carrying pouch mine came with are from ESW9. The headband also looks like the ones from ESW9 photos. I wonder if these are built with some ESW9 components, and then have some fake ESW10 cups on them?
At any rate, I'd be very surprised if they are the ones I saw for $30 as the sound quality is actually very good.
I purposely did not bring up any seller identification at this point as I didn't want to falsely accuse anyone of selling fakse. I bought these off ebay knowing full well that at $360 they weren't going to be perfect in origin. I suspected factory seconds or the like, and I was actually ok with that as long as they sounded good as I intend to use them for listening not artwork.
I have been listening to them while working crazy hours last night, and as they break in, they *are* sounding amazingly good. At first they were only so-so, but with some break-in they are now easily blowing away my SennHeiser PXC450s (noise cancelling off) and my DT770s. My suspicions at this point is that these are possibly built with real AT components, although I've never seen high end wood ATs in person, and the cups don't seem to live up to the standards that people mention here, however, I'll know for sure when my second pair arrives to compare.
Of note: with some more googling last night, it looks like the carrying pouch mine came with are from ESW9. The headband also looks like the ones from ESW9 photos. I wonder if these are built with some ESW9 components, and then have some fake ESW10 cups on them?
At any rate, I'd be very surprised if they are the ones I saw for $30 as the sound quality is actually very good.
