V-MODA M-100: Discussion/Feedback, Reviews, Pics, etc. - Page 588

Damn, I wish I got the matte black!  That's what I was hoping for but I made a mistake when ordering it, apparently. D:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xelested 

Now that we have analyzed the headphones for a few hundred pages, could someone comment on the boom mic? I would really appreciate a short review, maybe upload a short sound clip? 

It seems to work pretty well, and picks up your voice really clearly, but it also picks up all of the other noise in the room too, like the tapping of the keyboard and the like, so no noise cancelling abilities.  It also has a little switch to turn off the mic and a dial to adjust the volume, but I have little use for such things myself.

Quote:

Originally Posted by drheadphone 

I wouldn't go for either for rock or metal. The M100 is missing at least a half-octave at the top end, a sweet spot for cymbals and electric guitars, while the UE is missing a whole octave. The DT1350, HD25-1-II/Amperior and maybe even a Grado are better for those genres. The M100 is better for pop music.

 

I'm listening to the M100 right now on my go-to pop rig: Walkman Z1050 > Alo RxMkII. First impressions:

 

• The M80 sounded pretty good on this rig, so predictably the M100 sounds just great. There's something about the Walkmen's mids and RxMII's wide soundstage that opens up the M100 nicely. On the IPod, the M100's mids are marginally recessed and the soundstage narrower, but it's still a good pairing.
• A/B comparison with the M-Audio Q40: Q40's soundstage is wider, images better, tonally more balanced (more top end detail), while the M100 has more focus, more energy, more forward, engaging sound (especially bass). The M100 handles fast, dense-sounding music with ease, while the Q40 sounds slightly laid back and resolution is sometimes not there (older drivers?)
• On a desktop amp (Burson HA-150), the M100 opens up a bit but a little underwhelming. You may as well get an Audeze, Hifiman or HD650 headphone if you can afford a good, midrange desktop amp. A portable amp or a compact dac/amp is the way to go with the M100.
• I would call the M100 "mobile audiophile" for the pop-music-listening crowd.

Thanks for the great input Dr! 

the DT130 and the Amperior are both on-ear headphones. Unfortunately that is a dealbreaker for me as I'm looking for around-the-ear headphones. Which would you recommend for rock and metal out of the closed around-the-ear cans?

Also, i'm not that literate in the audio world and i've only used the bose QC3 and the bose triport cans. Right now I have a budget of around $500 and am looking for a decent pair of headphones. Would appreciate it if you could recommend some. Thanks! 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Puffery 

Its finally here!!

Hi Puffery, I would love to hear your thoughts compared to the Amperior, after you've had some time with your new cans.  I know a few have touched on this already, but it's nice to get another perspective.  Enjoy!

I haven't really posted a pic of my custom shields yet so....POW

Quote:

Originally Posted by Leon Dota 

I haven't really posted a pic of my custom shields yet so....POW

*Snip*

 

Is it bad that I noticed you got a haircut before I noticed the M-100's?

Quote:

Originally Posted by BRSxIgnition 

Is it bad that I noticed you got a haircut before I noticed the M-100's?

Well and it is gelled over because I have a show to do later.

I hate gel.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DarthUnnamed 

So guys, is it better than the mad dogs?

I've never heard the Mad Dogs but from what I've read they're more of a neutral monitor which is a 180 turn from a bass dominant can such as the M-100. The term of which is better depends on what you're looking for

More listening notes:

For dub techno in the seminal German sense, an iPod Classic with a Ray Samuels Hornet, a Pocketdock and no EQ seem far more complimentary to the M-100 than Foobar and a Fiio E10.  Odd, because I'd have thought the Fiio's DAC would have made it the better source.

On the Classic with Hornet, Maurizio tracks have the warmth and lower-mid presence they lacked with the E10.  The Fiio rendered the M Series thin harmonically on the M-100s even with the bass switched on (as a brief test -- the rest of the time, I kept it off).  The Hornet and Classic offer a more non-fatiguing sound.

The soundstage is also fairly dry on the E10 -- so much so that it proves misleading when one's trying to assess the virtues and defects of the M-100. 

The reason I thought the M-100s themselves sounded dry in my post a few weeks back came down to that source -- an issue I hadn't noticed with the HF-1s when I paired them with the E10.  I'll have to A/B them later in the week.

I also had to remove certain tracks from the passacaglia playlist because hiss was audible in certain of the older recordings and the performances weren't good enough to justify tolerating such flaws.  It seems the M-100s aren't terribly forgiving when it comes to casual acoustic recordings.  Some people hate that, but I like it.  I'd rather know what's there.

I had to force myself to move on from the old Basic Channel stuff because it sounded so good, and that's saying something because the music is so minimalist as to become boring quickly and  Moritz Von Oswald didn't always understand gain structure or how to use analog distortion in a recording without creating overload.  Hearing how good the M-100s sounded with that style, I wanted to listen to a better recording -- Hawtin's Consumed, for example -- but most reside on my modified iPod 5.5.

The soundstage is wide enough to make recordings of rock drums fun when the mics are placed correctly for imaging as well as sound.  I don't need to hear the cut of the high-hat so much as the decay of the toms and kick.   Dry voices (EQ'd to be slightly thin) against wet drums always have a kind of 3D effect, and here the centered voice is like a floating sheet of paper before a depth-infused landscape.  Guitars can be less bright than intended and shift to the background slightly where they're not mixed to be forward. That's a limitation, of course, but I can listen to Grados when I want the scrape of the pick to hurt.  Most of the time, I don't.

The one Viktor Vaughn track I listened to was surprisingly dark (MF's alter being a gateway between guitar music and hiphop).  Again, the emphasis on low frequencies and the slightly suppressed upper mids affected the rounded off the highs of the kit being looped, but the soundstage made the kick and the low overtones of the snare fun to listen to in themselves. And you do pick up specific details you might not with other headphones.

Last weekend, I performed a transit test: I listened to depressingly familiar DnB tracks, Rostropovich conducting Shostakovich's Symphony No. 11 (which I've analyzed and so am intimately aware of the orchestration), and late '90s industrial hiphop (Brotherhood of the Bomb) while riding a PATH train to White Plains.  Here's what was surprising: While the lows were buried by the rumble of the train (as expected), I could still make out relationships in the arrangements and part writing which I hadn't remembered hearing before.  That can happen purely as a result of headphones with an unfamiliar signature (you'll notice things not because they're detailed but because the disposition of sonic objects has shifted). But here's the thing: I was listening at an extremely low volume and the headphones I normally use for that trip are Etymotic HF2s -- which tend to be sonic archeologists when it comes to revealing nuances of detail.  The M-100s aren't even IEMs, yet listening over the din and using only the first volume step on my rooted Galaxy S -- the one that takes you from silence to an audible signal -- I shouldn't have been hearing new detail at that volume.

And even that 1/2 of a single step was softened by a lowered setting on Neutron's preamp.

I still have yet to A/B the M-100s with other headphones and I'm going to be proofing the next issue of Sensitive Skin Magazine this week, but if I find another rare moment, I'll try to write about my findings even though few people use the hoary kit I do at this stage of onanistic audiophilia.

On the topic of comfort, personally I've had a lot of headphones but never had one I could comfortably wear for much more than an hour.  There's always some discomfort around the ears or the top of the head at some point.  My Denon D2000s are probably the comfiest I've ever had, and it's the same story with them.  So far the M100s are also extremely comfortable for me.  Sure it's getting slightly uncomfortable after a while, but I consider that normal and wouldn't ever want to wear headphones uninterrupted for several hours anyway, so I see it has a healthy warning signal to take a break.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arion 


+1000 I have had zero quality issues as well.
Don't freak out people, it's honestly such a small issue, they try their best to keep units with issues from slipping by but sometimes they slip by. This happens even in mass production with every headphone no matter what company makes it.

I'm unsure if I've already stated as much, but the M-100 I've received is also cosmetically perfect.

An aside, I'll be trialling the V-MODA against the PSB after all.  After reading this article detailing Mr. Barton's investment in headphone measurement/benchmarking my, interest in his products was piqued once again.  I bantered with PSB representatives concerning build material revisions and with Crutchfield about the same plus the ethics of pursuing a refund if necessary.  All was well, so I plunked down the funds for an M4U 1.  It'll be interesting to see how it performs with its cups devoid of the excess electronics included in those of the M4U 2 (I had preferred it in passive mode) and am looking forward to pairing it with the AQ D-Fly. (I did not own one while the M4U 2 was in-house)

As for the K550, it's still amongst the stable and contrasting its performance with that of the M-100 outs the AKG's deficiencies quite flagrantly.  Then again, I've also found the inverse to be true...

...but that isn't to say that they aren't two exceptional headphones.

I wonder when I'll get mine.. Ordered on like the second day they opened up the order form again.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Curly21029 

 

I'm unsure if I've already stated as much, but the M-100 I've received is also cosmetically perfect.

 

An aside, I'll be trialling the V-MODA against the PSB after all.  After reading this article detailing Mr. Barton's investment in headphone measurement/benchmarking my, interest in his products was piqued once again.  I bantered with PSB representatives concerning build material revisions and with Crutchfield about the same plus the ethics of pursuing a refund if necessary.  All was well, so I plunked down the funds for an M4U 1.  It'll be interesting to see how it performs with its cups devoid of the excess electronics included in those of the M4U 2 (I had preferred it in passive mode) and am looking forward to pairing it with the AQ D-Fly. (I did not own one while the M4U 2 was in-house)

 

As for the K550, it's still amongst the stable and contrasting its performance with that of the M-100 outs the AKG's deficiencies quite flagrantly.  Then again, I've also found the inverse to be true...

...but that isn't to say that they aren't two exceptional headphones.

I am very much looking forward to your comparisons Curly.