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Are my Alessandro MS2i's broken? Or are they not for me?

post #1 of 5
1/18/12 at 2:04am
Thread Starter 

Hey guys. I've been using my new Alessandro MS2i's for about a week or so. They're paired with the Fiio E7/E9 (E9 at low gain) with USB to my PC. Using Foobar with WASABI. No EQ.
 

I'm finding that a lot of metal songs, in this example, "In Flames - Superhero Of the Computer Rage" has what sounds like static or if you can picture a thousand crickets in the background hissing with their annoying high pitch sounds. I tested the same song, on medium volume, same amp/dac with my AD900, AD700, ES7, HD555 and HD515 which all seemed very feint/hard to notice. I also tried the song with my Logitech Z5500's, no drama. I tried the MS2i's un-amped, through the PC motherboard, through my laptop and through my phone with the same song which all produced the very loud hiss. 

With a little more investigation, I played around with the foobar EQ and when I dropped both 1.8kHz and 2.5kHz sliders, about halfway, the hissing went away. Is this a normal trait in the MS2i's or Lack of burn-in (have about 20~ hours)? Maybe it's just a bad recording? My file is FLAC ripped from the CD as well. 

I'm not sure if I'm allowed to link Youtube, I'll remove it if told to. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQeGSYD7ttY 
The noise is still persistent in this/other Youtube versions, you can test it with your rig if you'd like. 

 

Thanks a lot for reading, I'm unsure on what to do at this point. Maybe this phone isn't for me. Any advice would really be appreciated. 

 

EDIT: I just realised I'm still within the 20 day return period. I really don't want to get rid of these, they're perfect besides this annoying hiss.


 


Edited by cenumis - 1/18/12 at 2:41am
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post #2 of 5
1/18/12 at 3:51am
Quote:
Originally Posted by cenumis View Post

 I tested the same song, on medium volume, same amp/dac with my AD900, AD700, ES7, HD555 and HD515 which all seemed very feint/hard to notice.

 

So the hiss is there with the other headphones, just less noticeable? I think it's in the recording and it just stands out on the MS2 because it just happens to accentuate that frequency. If you hear it the most when bass sounds are playing it could also be a hair stuck against the driver (search "grattle").

I couldn't hear any hiss on the youtube song using Pro900.

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post #3 of 5
1/18/12 at 4:05am
Thread Starter 

I've heard about the rattle/grattle issue, definitely not hair (tested with some heavy bass + bass EQ). Thanks for the suggestion. I'll give it a couple more days for some long burn in sessions to see if I can get some of that harsh sound to dull down. At the moment, it's the only problem with these, other than that, fricken love them!

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post #4 of 5
3/21/12 at 2:09am
Thread Starter 

Yup.. I'm fed up. After a few months I still can't listen to In Flames and a few other heavy driven guitar based bands due to this annoying hiss. Time to sell. :(

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post #5 of 5
3/21/12 at 3:51am
You'll find this with a lot of high end headphones I'm afraid. Grado and Ultrasone are some of the worst with it. It's caused by a bad mix of boosted treble and bad mastering in metal music. A lot of audiophile headphones boost the treble so that details that would normally be buried in the music are clearer and more pronounced. Try looking for a headphone on the warmer, more neutral side of things. What you're looking for is a 'smooth treble' as apposed to 'hard, edgy, sibilant, bright, revealing, harsh, or piercing'. I've gone through a fair number of headphones trying to find good mid-range metal headphones and IMO a lot of the popular choices around here are either too laid-back or too revealing for metal. I've switched over to vintage gear, vintage STAX in particular are quite fast and notes don't have as much of an impact on you, so while the treble isn't lowered in the mix, the hard edges are not as fatiguing.
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