Shure SRH-940 Reviews and Appreciation Thread

[electropop]

Quote:

Uh oh, it's the bass police!
 
Maybe you should understand an opinion is an opinion. And you haven't heard every headphone in the world, nor are you the authority for the human race on "never has a closed headphone had..." and "proper open one."
 

<--- See, jesting. I hope you are too.
 
Very best,

It's so difficult not to be understood. If you reread, you can understandably see that I was merely asking for you to be more accurate in your statement. Sheesh. 
 
Nor did I make any presumptions or claims about the 940. What's wrong with you people? 

 
I understand your jesting. "It's funny cuz it's true?" ... You're right, I haven't heard every headphone in the world. 
 
Edit: made a little poopie in my prev. post. Last sentence didn't make much sense... Pardon my second language.

 

[DarkAndroid]

in other news, my Fiio E7/E9 arrived yesterday i've been using it since with my Shure SRH 940. I can say there is just maybe a slight improvement from my onboard sound but not definitely not a night and day difference as suggested around the forums. So either:
 
a) my onboard sound is really good to begin with
b) the Shure SRH 940 dont need/dont benefit much from amping
c) the Fiio E7/E9 isnt just quite as good as I expected it to be
or maybe a little bit of all three.....
 
For me the E9 is the only reason why I'm happy with the purchase....at first I tried the E7 by itself and the sound was pretty much the same with my onboard sound card if not maybe worse, both on my netbook and my HP notebook. I even tried it with my iPod shuffle and it completely muddied the sound, although maybe that would be because I was using it with the headphone jack and not a line out jack since the iPod Shuffle doesnt have one. However with the E7/E9 combo used with my computers, I guess what I notice is that on songs with alot of bass, the bass no longer overshadows the other frequencies since I tend to use a u-shaped curve in my equalizers. I'd be listening to a song that sounded fine and as soon as a bassy part kicked in such as maybe the chorus, the mids and vocals would be recessed, but the E7/E9 solves that problem. Also, many people said that the E7/E9 greatly increases sound clarity and sound crispness, but I'm not so sure about that at least for me.
Well at least, using these has made me like my HD 598 again over my SRH 940! Using both of these headphones with the amp really highlights the lack of bass impact on the SRH 940 which makes alot of my music not as fun to listen to since there is alot of pop and hip-hop in my library. And I can always upgrade to a better DAC, since I suspect that may be what is bottlenecking the sound in this case....HRT Streamer II+, I have you in my crosshairs!!! :-D

 

[donunus]

Even a $30 D3 will make the E9 sing better than when paired with the e7. The D3 is so good that I'm having a hard time imagining an HRT bettering it by much

 

[DarkAndroid]

Quote:

Even a $30 D3 will make the E9 sing better than when paired with the e7. The D3 is so good that I'm having a hard time imagining an HRT bettering it by much

Are you talking about the Fiio D3? Is it really that good? From what I understand it converts optical or coaxial audio to analog audio. So i guess you would use an rca split cable to connect the D3 to the line-in of the E9? I guess if your computer has coaxial and/or optical outputs it would be good because coaxial and optical cables carry digital signals meaning the onboard computer soundcard probably hasnt messed with it. I guess that means the D3 practically does the same thing the E7 does except the E7 does it through a USB interface, but the D3 does it through a optical/coaxial interface? Well the only problem I see here is that while virtually all computers have USB ports, not all have optical or coaxial output. Like mine.

 

[donunus]

Yes, it's the FiiO D3. Check your headphone jack if it outputs toslink. You can usually see a red light coming out of it if it does. About how good it is, well I haven't compared them side by side with high end dacs but I am enjoying them more than I did my old MHDT Havana DAC for example which was a thousand bucks!

 

[DarkAndroid]

So I just downloaded Someone Like You by Adele off of iTunes and after listening it with the HD 598 several times I decided to try and see how the song would sound on the SRH 940....wow...now I see why people say the SRH 940 handles vocals brilliantly. On the HD 598 Adele's vocals sound great but with the SRH 940 its almost as if she is right next to me singing live...I can hear all the nuances in her voice. I guess the treble-leaning sound signature of the SRH 940 really helps it out when reproducing vocals and acoustics, but kind of hinders it when listening to bass-heavy songs like dance, hip-hop, electronic or trance. Oh well...thats why I have 2 sets of cans. :->

 

[R-Audiohead]

Quote:

Even a $30 D3 will make the E9 sing better than when paired with the e7. The D3 is so good that I'm having a hard time imagining an HRT bettering it by much

I think there is some untapped potential in the e9....
 
I'll be trying the e17 when it is finally around.

 

[ac500]

Well, I've had these for a few months. Since I have these Shure SRH940s and Sennheiser HD650s, I've had a chance to extensively compare them with equalization, etc. Obviously they're quite different headphones so it's hard to directly compare, but there are some interesting things to note.
 
The most interesting thing to me is that I still find the Shure SRH940's to literally blow away the HD650 in everything from mids to highs, and especially highs. The HD650 quite literally sounds a league below the SRH940 when switching back to it, even when the HD650's treble is EQed up front like the SRH940. The SRH940 sounds more detailed and simply better quality than the HD650 across the range, EXCEPT for bass. Bass and lower mids is one area where the HD650 dominates easily. The SRH940 lacks the ability to hold a strong impactful bass waveform I think, even though it is not bad at all.
 
My only concern with the SRH940 was actually a feeling of graininess that I didn't hear with the HD650. I just realized this is compression artifacts of some poorly compressed songs I was listening to. After listening to properly compressed high bitrate versions of them, the SRH940 has distanced itself even further in quality above my HD650, while the HD650 sounds more or less the same with both bitrates. I don't know, maybe my amp is bad or something for my HD650, but in any case this is what I'm hearing.
 
As a result, listening to music on my SRH940, then back to the HD650, the HD650 sounds like going back to lower-fi headphones, except for bass centric songs. The articulation of the highs and detail in general on the HD650 is good of course, but I'm finding the SRH940 just twice as good in every direct comparison.
 
I still listen to the HD650 for movies and bassy songs, and it's quite nice in its ability to be 100% nonfatiguing and superior physical comfort. But as far as high fidelity is concerned... I have to say the SRH940 wins by a huge margin.

 

[eugenefeng]

I completely disagree that detail comes from more treble.  That is absolutely nonsense.  The detail come from accurate frequency reponse AND phase response, and controlled behavior of the sound reproduction.  Details CANNOT be "produced", they are "reproduced", or I should say "revealed".  They were in the recordings.  If you can hear them live when they are recorded, the good recording and mix keeps them.  However, whether the speaker or the headphone can reproduced these information is a question.  If you feel the door knock but cannot tell whether it is real or not, then, it is good!  I get from the SRH940.  Now, the SRH940 is ment to be a studio monitor whether you like it or not.  I see so many people talking about how they like or dislike the phone but forgot Shure created this creature for audio engineers.  Whether you caries the phone with your ipod was not the first thing come to mind when Shure created this product (Shure did not try to impress any ipod fans in their marketing of 940, at least I did not see it).  So I see everybody is missing the point.  You like it or dislike it is irrelevant but the real question should be:  what kind of recording will be mixed and sound when the 940 is used for mixing and how well the final recording will be.  You know, if your reference is wrong then the final product will be wrong which is actually the recording behind your source!
 
So, the great news is, if 940 is bass light then the mixes using the 940 will always have more bass because the audio engineering wants to balance them out then all the recordings based on this will have more bass to get everybody happy (haha).
 

 

[SanjiWatsuki]

For microdetails, this is absolutely true. When we talk about the appearance of being detailed, emphasizing treble can skirt that definition a bit, though. It can aid in the definition of vocals, for example, if certain frequencies are emphasized in the upper treble, but also runs the risk of sibilance. This doesn't mean that the headphone is picking up the microdetails, of course, but it can give the appearance of more detail than the headphone is actually rendering. I'm relatively certain this helps the Grados and Ultrasones in reviews. This also helps in the studio for finding sibilance and other details like that, though. 
 
That said, the decay on the SRH940 is pretty damn impressive, so the transient response should be pretty impressive as well.
 
Quote:

I completely disagree that detail comes from more treble.  That is absolutely nonsense.  The detail come from accurate frequency reponse AND phase response, and controlled behavior of the sound reproduction.  Details CANNOT be "produced", they are "reproduced", or I should say "revealed".  They were in the recordings.  If you can hear them live when they are recorded, the good recording and mix keeps them.  However, whether the speaker or the headphone can reproduced these information is a question.  If you feel the door knock but cannot tell whether it is real or not, then, it is good!  I get from the SRH940.  Now, the SRH940 is ment to be a studio monitor whether you like it or not.  I see so many people talking about how they like or dislike the phone but forgot Shure created this creature for audio engineers.  Whether you caries the phone with your ipod was not the first thing come to mind when Shure created this product (Shure did not try to impress any ipod fans in their marketing of 940, at least I did not see it).  So I see everybody is missing the point.  You like it or dislike it is irrelevant but the real question should be:  what kind of recording will be mixed and sound when the 940 is used for mixing and how well the final recording will be.  You know, if your reference is wrong then the final product will be wrong which is actually the recording behind your source!
 
So, the great news is, if 940 is bass light then the mixes using the 940 will always have more bass because the audio engineering wants to balance them out then all the recordings based on this will have more bass to get everybody happy (haha).
 

 

 

[extrabigmehdi]

Quote:

That said, the decay on the SRH940 is pretty damn impressive, so the transient response should be pretty impressive as well.
 

I'm not sure what you mean by decay, are you referring to some graph ?
Regarding transients, the srh940 seems to put some emphasis on them, making them more obvious/clear  than ever.
This is great on accoustic/electric  guitar, but can be a bit fatiguing sometimes.
Also this reveals the flaws of the source.

 

[SanjiWatsuki]

This one Korean site ran a waterfall CSD plot on them -- from what I've seen from their Korean wing of the site, they're pretty consistent with the results, but I know there's some unfortunate implications in trying to compare waterfall CSD plots. 
 
Quote:

I'm not sure what you mean by decay, are you referring to some graph ?
Regarding transients, the srh940 seems to put some emphasis on them, making them more obvious/clear  than ever.
This is great on accoustic/electric  guitar, but can be a bit fatiguing sometimes.
Also this reveals the flaws of the source.

 

 

[ac500]

Quote:

I completely disagree that detail comes from more treble.  That is absolutely nonsense.  The detail come from accurate frequency reponse AND phase response, and controlled behavior of the sound reproduction.  Details CANNOT be "produced", they are "reproduced", or I should say "revealed".  They were in the recordings.  If you can hear them live when they are recorded, the good recording and mix keeps them.  However, whether the speaker or the headphone can reproduced these information is a question.  If you feel the door knock but cannot tell whether it is real or not, then, it is good!  I get from the SRH940.  Now, the SRH940 is ment to be a studio monitor whether you like it or not.  I see so many people talking about how they like or dislike the phone but forgot Shure created this creature for audio engineers.  Whether you caries the phone with your ipod was not the first thing come to mind when Shure created this product (Shure did not try to impress any ipod fans in their marketing of 940, at least I did not see it).  So I see everybody is missing the point.  You like it or dislike it is irrelevant but the real question should be:  what kind of recording will be mixed and sound when the 940 is used for mixing and how well the final recording will be.  You know, if your reference is wrong then the final product will be wrong which is actually the recording behind your source!
 
So, the great news is, if 940 is bass light then the mixes using the 940 will always have more bass because the audio engineering wants to balance them out then all the recordings based on this will have more bass to get everybody happy (haha).
 

 
We should probably take this discussion to the sound science forum, where there's a topic on just this.
 
Detailed sound = quality treble = transient response. Not quantity treble, QUALITY treble.
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/579137/good-treble-detailed-no-really/105
 
It's currently undisputed by any sound scientific or logical argument, but certainly still open to debate if you wish to make a logical/scientific argument.

 

[eugenefeng]

Quote:

 
We should probably take this discussion to the sound science forum, where there's a topic on just this.
 
Detailed sound = quality treble = transient response. Not quantity treble, QUALITY treble.
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/579137/good-treble-detailed-no-really/105
 
It's currently undisputed by any sound scientific or logical argument, but certainly still open to debate if you wish to make a logical/scientific argument.

Yes that is the point.  I believe the ability of SRH940 to produce the detail is the superior mechanical rather than anything else.  Or course it is not perfect, but over all I appreciate the details the headphone is capable of.  Treble leaning maybe but that is not detail.
 
 

 

[ac500]

IMO SRH940 has a lot more TRUE detail than HD650s, DT880s, and AD2000s. That says a LOT.