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purrin said:

Double ridges (of varying width and duration) at 4k and 5k. This explains probably what turned me off the most. The sudden dip from 500Hz down explains what I meant with "lack of warmth." Otherwise, it's very clean.
 
 

PS: Big thanks to 200poundsofamp for sending me a box of headphones. This kiddies, is how "community" works. Headphones don't automatically appear before me nor do manufacturers freely send me samples for review or independent measurements. Hmm. I wonder why.

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They really sound like they have a lack of warmth? Very strange. I must have weird preferences, because the SRH-840 is almost too warm (sounding) for me! Crazy, I know. It might be a combination of amp or source. Who knows. I actually didn't realize this until I compared them to my DJ100 and my KRK KNS-8400. I even think the SRH-840 even sounded warmer than my M50.
 
The SRH-840 was an old favorite, but like another poster just mentioned, I couldn't wear them without pain. I remember them having a frequency spike somewhere that drove my ears crazy, but I figured it was a case of garbage in and garbage out, but maybe not.
 
The 840 was the first real headphone I had bought after using my Triple Fi 10 for 3 straight years
 
If you ever wanted the KRK KNS-6400 for testing, let me know. I love that headphone.
 
 
BTW your K601 impressions remind me of my first pair of K601's. It was a very early pair and I think there must be some different pairs around. The early pair I had had very, very fatiguing and ear piercing upper mids.
 
I got a pair two years later with a higher number (19714) and it sounded much more balanced. Nothing in it's signature jumps out at me. It is picky about amps though. On the Asgard it's horrible. It clearly is much, much warmer than the K702. Mids are much fuller than those of the K702 I had and just a lot more fun to listen not. Not thin sounding at all like the K501 and K702.
 
Maybe when I get my K501 back from loan I could send that

 
 

That's why I put it in quotes. The SRH-840  just sound wierd. I mean they are kind of warm, and yet they don't sound warm. I know I completely make no sense. Mostly likely it's uneven FR from 100-600Hz. To lazy to do an FR on it right now since I need to run the raw data through a compensating function.
 

I felt the same way about the nice tonality of the RH5ma but lack of ultimate resolution and refinement.  My biggest problem with them was a "tizzy" quality to the treble, which improved when they were pushed closer to the ear.  I found this came from the baffle which is slightly domed out in the middle so that when the pads go on over that, they keep that same shape and can't get a good seal because the inside edge of the pad next to the driver sticks out.  So that ring of takk was to elevate the outer edge of the pads so they lay flat on the baffle like most headphones and can get a better seal.  I'm suspicious that more mods could be done internally to get more improvements but they don't open up that easily.  And they're not orthos. 

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anaxilus said:

Someone should get you a Shure 840 which many claimed to be more 'detailed' than the M50.  My listening felt otherwise at the time.

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Digging this up because these 'phones compete with each other pricewise. Re-examining:

The Shure 840 just sounds tonally wierd. It is cleaner sounding than the M50 with more treble, but this actually bothers me because I can't hear the real resolution that comes with it. It's kind of like chasing that rainbow but never finding that pot of gold. The CSD measurements fail, that is they don't objectively confirm what I hear with the Shure 840. This is a first or either I am talking out of my ass on this one.

The AT M50 sounds like a closed HD558 (w/ 598 mods) - overall fairly neutral with slight bass emphasis and forwardness.
 

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purrin said:

Digging this up because these 'phones compete with each other pricewise. Re-examining:

The Shure 840 just sounds tonally wierd. It is cleaner sounding than the M50 with more treble, but this actually bothers me because I can't hear the real resolution that comes with it. It's kind of like chasing that rainbow but never finding that pot of gold. The CSD measurements fail, that is they don't objectively confirm what I hear with the Shure 840. This is a first or either I am talking out of my ass on this one.

The AT M50 sounds like a closed HD558 (w/ 598 mods) - overall fairly neutral with slight bass emphasis and forwardness.
 

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More treble on the SRH-840 than the M50? Do know what M50 version you measured? The old M50 I had was the one with less treble and more bloated bass that was less controlled (or so it seemed). The white boxed M50 I tried recently had was most definitely treble happy (but not too badly) and made the SRH-840 seem dark.
 
I always felt the SRH-840 had more detail than the first M50 I had (first version). I bet my opinion might change if I compared them to the white box version. The newer M50 was close to being a detail monster. There, I said it. It's bass wasn't as bothersome this time around. Maybe a little more than I like though. I ended up selling it because it bored me to death. Still pretty good and better than my first pair.
 
Love the forward mids of the SRH-840, so if that makes it tonally weird, then I'm ok with this.
 
I bet your sound signature preference is a total opposite of mine!
 

 
 

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tdockweiler said:

 
More treble on the SRH-840 than the M50? Do know what M50 version you measured? The old M50 I had was the one with less treble and more bloated bass that was less controlled (or so it seemed). The white boxed M50 I tried recently had was most definitely treble happy (but not too badly) and made the SRH-840 seem dark.
 
I always felt the SRH-840 had more detail than the first M50 I had (first version). I bet my opinion might change if I compared them to the white box version. The newer M50 was close to being a detail monster. There, I said it. It's bass wasn't as bothersome this time around. Maybe a little more than I like though. I ended up selling it because it bored me to death. Still pretty good and better than my first pair.
 
Love the forward mids of the SRH-840, so if that makes it tonally weird, then I'm ok with this.
 
I bet your sound signature preference is a total opposite of mine!

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LOL. Too many versions of headphones to keep track of! It wasn't necessarily the mids specifically, but a wierd hollow sound or treble activation that would occur with some tracks. From my experience, this usually is a result of uneven FR. 
 

lol, like them that much huh?
 
There was a guy here who did a really thorough comparison of some studio headphones and was hearing pretty much the same thing as you.
 
Personally I like the clear vocals, and the forward mids and bit of zinginess makes them sound good with for rock, I'll take the weird tonality. And they're a much better all rounder than the Grados I used to listen to. Guess they should stay away from the studio though!

 
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200poundsofamp said:

lol, like them that much huh?
 
There was a guy here who did a really thorough comparison of some studio headphones and was hearing pretty much the same thing as you.
 
Personally I like the clear vocals, and the forward mids and bit of zinginess makes them sound good with for rock, I'll take the weird tonality. And they're a much better all rounder than the Grados I used to listen to. Guess they should stay away from the studio though!

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Oh my. He did say similar things. Yeah - I'd take these instead of Grados anyday. How far we've all come.

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armaegis said:

I really liked the 840 when I had it, but it just wasn't comfortable for me. 

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Agreed. Sounded ok to my ears (I liked it better than the 940s), but the comfort (or lack thereof) was what did them in for me.
 
 
 

Coby CVH-47

This is for folks who are sick of paying $2000 for headphones and $5000 for amps. This one's for you swbf2cheater!
 

RD's excellent review can be found here: http://www.head-fi.org/products/coby-lightweight-stereo-headphones-cvh47-black/reviews
 

Pre-measurement Impressions

Exactly like RD's impressions. No bass. They don't hurt in treble. They don't reproduce much either.
 
These are not FR plots. The waterfall plots below only go down to 200Hz not 20Hz!

 
Amazing. The waterfall plot is surprisingly good past 5k. The is exactly at 200Hz, after that the bass drops like a rock.
 
This is awesome, the 2nd headphone in two days that doesn't sound that good that measures pretty good. The CSD certainly does confirm no ringing in the treble. Actually upon further listening, the treble really is pretty fast and smooth.
 
IMPULSE RESPONSE COMPARISON

 
BLUE = COBY
RED = LCD2r1

T50RP minor mods from 200poundsofamp

These have some mods but I'm not sure what they are. I'll let the owner explain.
 

Pre-measurement Impressions:

These sound good. Very linear. I can't hear any issues. If LFF's version is the slightly dark extended bass version, these are the neutral bass lite version (it's my understanding from the owner that bass can be increased by taking the tape off the ports.)
 
 
These are not FR plots. The waterfall plots below only go down to 200Hz not 20Hz!
Closed headphones require compensation below ~2kHz which is not applied in these plots.
(In other words, closed headphones are going to look rolled off toward the bass)
 
 
LFF modded T50RP for comparison. The steeper bass rolloff of the above pair should be noted.
 

Holy cow, I was expecting the Coby's to measure way worse than that.  It's strange how some narrow bands of ringing like that sound way worse than others. 

You'll be getting the box back soon.
 
The treble is rolled on the Coby, but it's actually not bad. Small drivers are always good for treble - the breakup nodes for that Coby are probably well past 20kHz. As you mentioned, the treble is smooth with no eardrum piercing spots. The crappiness of the the Coby sounds more like a ton of harmonic distortion. The muffled but pleasant warmness probably indicates a ton of 2nd order harmonic distortion. I should start measuring distortion, but they are a pain. Two indicators I like: 1) A set of full spectrum non-linear distortion graphs using multiple test tones; and 2) CSDs.

Wow, very cool that they turned out that well. I'll have to see if I can get some more bass out of them and keep the mids like that. Although right now they're not even as bass lite as a srh940.
 
Yeah, removing that extra tape should make them bassier with less treble, and maybe a little peakier. I have trouble figuring out the exact differences honestly, it's like staring into the sun.

very interesting read, thanks for all the hard work.
this might be a very dumb question, but are there any csd graphs for iem? I tried searching across the internet and all I found are only normal fr graphs.