Quote:
I FOUND THE SPOT TONIGHT!!!
Whoa there tiger, keep that in the bedroom...
In all seriousness... Now that my HE-500's have been here for about 5 days, I'm going to call the HE-500's "neutral" (they're close, so work with me here) and I'll make my interpretations based on the HE-500. To get "neutral", my HE-500's (using an HE-6 OCC cable) are running through an Opus DAC (being fed lossless files only) and an EHHA Rev A hybrid amp using Telefunken 6GM8 tubes.
I should add, my portable set up that I got these impressions on was an iPod Touch (Apple Lossless files ONLY) --> Fiio LOD --> O2 amp --> DT1350. I didn't use the same Amp/DAC set up purposely. I wanted to get an impression of how my entire portable set up compared to what I use most at home. Sorry if this bugs you, but I did this more for me than you.
The DT1350's sound very good really. Their bass is slightly elevated and not as tight as the HE-500 but this makes for some "fun" listening on the road/campus/plane/train etc. Their mids are really nice and I enjoy them a lot. I find the mids on the DT-1350's very "sweet". The high's are slightly reduced but less veiled than I had originally thought, which is good. These headphones don't seem "dark" though because there is that upper treble spike that I hear. I think this might be something like a 10kHz spike on a frequency response graph. It kind of saves then headphone really. With the slightly elevated bass and slightly recessed treble, I would almost classify these has not neutral enough for me to use on a regular basis, but that treble spike gives the "impression" that the sound is more balanced than it really is.
Soundstage is of course not nearly as good as the HE-500 but I don't find it retracing any from the portable listening experience. Details are pretty good, less so than the HE-500 but better than I had expected initially. There could be more high end detail in the main treble part of the signature, but this is due to the recessed treble. For whats present, its a fair amount of detail. I was surprised by the amount of smoothness in the midrange. Its slightly warm, with great sound. As long as you don't pump these through a really warm all-tube amp like the Bijou I have, the musical presentation will sound neutral (on a warm to cold scale).
So overall, I'm very happy with the quality I got for a $300 set of cans here.
To get more accurate impressions, I'll need to A/B set ups with the same song, which I haven't done. Take this with a grain of salt.
