When I listen to the CD3000, it seems to me to have some small amount of reverberation of signal -- giving it a fuller, lusher sound. Is this a common experience?

How about the R10 (which I have never heard)? Does it also have a degree of reverb? In this respect, how does it compare with the CD3000?

i can speak for the CD3000.. i wouldn't say reverb. more like a resonance, due to their closed nature. i don't think the time delay is big enough to call it reverb, at least not to my ears

i just used that in a comparison. I think adumzuf said it well though, its resonance, reverb kinda implies hearing echoes. of course its all semantics anyways. Whatever its called, I hear it in the cd3ks.

I have found the so-called echoes to be both a bad and good thing. Sometimes they help to smooth the music a bit. The downside is that sometimes that bass gets too boomy and congested passages start to get mushy. Though, this is probably why CD3000's aren't known for classical music. (Strings wreak havoc with these phones)!

Hmm... Markl said something about the R10's being Ety-like, but much more full. Hard to say without having auditioned the phones though..

Quote:



don't overgeneralize the CD3000.
A. their resolution is superb in all parts of the spectrum. they don't smooth a thing, next to most of the highly regarded headphones in their price range.
B. the boominess can be an issue, when your feeding signal ain't controlled. when it's fine, it might be still relatively boomy, compared to open cans. is it right? your ears will tell.

Quote:




I think you are listening a typicall effect of (all) the closed cans, this effect can to improove if wooden cups and paper membrane!

Best!
Nicola

Quote:



What other highly regarded headphones are in their price range? The Sennheiser HD-650 is still too new to be regarded either highly or otherwise, and the HD-600 is significantly cheaper.

Just wondering... there must be something around $400-$430, but nothing's coming to mind except the Grado RS2 (and I'm not sure how they're generally regarded).

Quote:



I think Jude would probably go nuts if he heard people talking about price ranges and the HD600's. If Jude has his way, HD600's would probably cost closer to $1k.

Quote:



Fwiw, I never got that impression from what he said about the HD600s -- as if he really wished they cost more money. This is a misinterpretation of what he said, in my opinion (which was that because they're relatively inexpensive, people tend to use them with substandard amps/sources and then complain about poor sound quality).

Quote:



ask people who own the sonys and the K1000, Shure E5, HD650 (not highly regarded? look at headroom's opinion, and our members's) , A1000 and the W1000.
i don't say the CD3000 are superior in resolution to any of these, but overall they won't fall short.

Quote:



It's a matter of semantics, I guess. IMO, it's probably a good idea for a piece of gear to have been around at least a year before starting to throw around general terms like "highly regarded." Chances are very big that the HD-650 will be highly regarded, but I'm not sure the hi-fi world has had a definitive reaction to them yet.

Is the PPA highly regarded? Around here it is, but as far as the hi-fi universe goes it's basically unknown and unregarded.

I've never managed to hear the artificially-created "cave" or "hall" effect that *some* report with either the CD3000 and occasionally the R10. I think sometimes people see a closed can and want to imagine there must be reflections or resonances or whatever. (Yes, I acknowledge that some people can hear this, until we can swap ears, we'll never know what anyone else is hearing.)

I call the R10 the "disappearing headphone" because when you close your eyes, they just evaporate from your head. I'm just not aware of the enclosures at all, nor am I aware of the drivers. I believe this is also in part due to the fact that the drivers are so far away from your ears in the large R10s, you aren't always reminded there's this little speakers milimeters from your ear pumping sound into your ear canal. Anyway, I've yet to hear any reflections or "wooden" sound of the enclosure or whatever.

I think the real question is not "why do these closed cans sound so much richer and lush", but "why are certain open cans so airy-fairy, insubstantial, light-weight and floaty?" Coming from an open can, the CD3000/R10 will trump them in terms of "presence" and body, but that's not a "fault" or a "flaw", IMO it's an advantage.

My over-used explanation for this effect of open cans is that listening to some open cans can be analogous listening to a pair of speakers suspended over a dry lake bed. I suspect this adds to the pastel "airyness" and overly dispersed and non-specific sound of a certain open can. Some people may prefer this presentation, others may not. A closed can creates a small pocket of dead air in which the sound can unfold, this lets you hear smaller more subtle cues in the recording that indicate the size, shape of the room in which the music was recorded.

Mark

Hi Mark,

agree with you... but, but, but...

...there is the possibility to have a "med-way", what do you think:
a very open and detailed and precise headphone with a warm, tube, rich and lush AMP?

Not possible to do the viceversa: a closed headhone (like the R10 or CD3000 or W2002...) with a clear and open amp (SS). Why?

I think because the open cans, even if they add a airy and openess to the sound, they change easily to the "closed" direction. I saw this only changing the tubes on the SRM 007t. I remember well the sound of the R10/Sugden combo: the R10 was not more the R10! The Omega II is (as I said) another (better) Omega II with the Brimar 6FQ7. (And imagine with the Egmont Signature, all tube amp!!!).

May be the conslusion would be this: the (hi quality) open cans are more "neutral" than the closed.

Best!
Nicola

Hi Nik,
Since I don't have nearly enough expereience with the Omega 2, I can't comment, but I'll take your word for it! One of the "problems" we have with really good cans is that there are so few of them to compare to be able to make solid generalizations about them. Hard rules like "all closed cans sound X" and "all open cans sound Y". That's why I tried to restrict my remarks to the un-named HD600 on the open side, and CD3000/R10 on the closed. Cheers.

Mark