The ATH-CKM50. The CKM family impressions..(First look at the NEW CKM500)..Pg 86 - Page 50

Indeed, mix of flavors are fun, but for some reason...I just can't help but use the ckm77s...it's something about them that I can't let go for some reason...it sounds too unreal in fact. Bose sounded so muddy...these earphones sounded too clear...and the bass is on par or a bit less than the a900x to me. It's not burned in enough yet, so that will have to wait longer till I can say for sure. I have a hard time hearing the bass in some songs because of the sounds from the vehicle, so....yeah. I will then A/B a900x and ckm77 to see if my mind was just playing tricks on me, lol.

 

For the rest of you, enjoy those ckm50s, I bet they really sound great! I will see if I can make my wallet grow money to get a pair soon!

I'm really enjoying the CKM50 with the filters removed and the large jays tips. The soundstage has opened up, instrument separation has improved, it seems a bit more "3D" for lack of better terms, and the entire spectrum has evened out a bit. A good find by Dsnuts has become even better.

What kind of tips are those, exactly?

How much of the improvement is from filter removal and how much is from the new tips?

After setting up the custom EQ for the CKM50 yesterday (which ended up being a really steep A-curve, with further notches in the treble to tune out ear canal resonances) I watched the 2-part Battlestar Galactica (new series) pre season 1 pilot.

For the first alf of part 1 I used my budget speaker setup. What I heard tells me I need to budget some more... lol. Still I‘d keep using speakers if watching during the day.

At night I fired up the CKM50. Explosions and bass drums came out with great authority and detail, and I really enjoyed the big dish drivers buzzing my ear when stuff blows up. All this with the bass EQed down over 10dB!

Speech sometimes has a certain stridency in the upper midrange and some sibilance in the high treble that I haven't yet managed to tune out. Also as I mentioned with the current settings there's less air than with the SHE3580. This is a complete reversal of what the result would be without EQ of course...

Unfortunately after about an hour my right ear started feeling a bit uncomfortable with the dish, so I swapped out the CKM50 and put back on the SHE3580 for the last part. Detail was about on par. I've tuned the sound of these for so long that they sound more natural to me than the CKM50 in the treble. Perhaps with more tuning time and more burn in the CKM50 will surpass the SHE3580 in treble. Bass does sound a bit more cloudy and less visceral than the CKM50 but I‘d give them a pass for delivering so much bass in such a small (and more comfortable!) package for such a small price. Also my EQ profile for the SHE3580 may have left out a slight midbass hump that I tuned out with the CKM50.

Overall I really enjoyed the sound coming out from both these budget bruisers! For now my preference leans toward the SHE3580, but it maywell be the other way round if I‘d come across the CKM50 first. Especially if the comfort issue turns out to be temporary...

Prefer these to your TF10´s :O Deffinatly cant wait for them to arrive now lol 

Back down to $26 at Amazon

I'm listening to some old school slow jams from Luther Vandross and Whitney Houston, etc. on the CKM50. Amazing. It's like Luther is singing to me, and Tina Turner is really shouting at me "What's love got to do with it?!" I've noticed that the CKM50 is very good at portraying intimacy in music. The removed filters work wonders for the sound

Edited by eke2k6 - 2/12/12 at 5:52pm

I probably won't until the GR08 (dynamic driver/BA hybrid) comes out.

Mmm I've been listening to my CKM50s continuously for a few hours (at the lowest possible volume, of course), and find that the sound has changed a lot from when I first put them on. I don't really care for burn-in so I'm guessing that my brain managed to adjust to the sound. I find the paper filters quite curious - at that price point I'd expect metal mesh filters, and in comparison the CKM55s seem to have to this filter that resembles hardened cotton (if that's even possible).

 

As I don't have the CKM55s I can't make a direct comparison, but I can say that right at the beginning I immediately noticed the recessed mids, but after several hours of continuous playback they seem to sound much more balanced. The bass was also quite non-existent at the beginning but now it's coming at full force. It's in no way overwhelming and I'm actually feeling the bass instead of hearing it at times, which does make it a little fatiguing. The trebles have nice extension, and do seem to have quite a bit of sparkle at the end, which gives me a really strange feeling, almost like an out of body experience.

 

I've noticed that I don't really find these very uncomfortable, which I believe is because the housing isn't too thick, unlike the CKM55s, which have an additional ring inside them. For what I paid, I'd say it's definitely worth it. I'm also starting to get the feeling that these are overall much better than the CKM55s, as Dsnuts has claimed numerous times.

 

A well spent $23, I say.

Edited by mbamg - 2/12/12 at 6:57pm

You finally got them, nice. You'll get better sound out of them if you remove the filters. 

 

I'm really worried about my earwax falling in though. If only I had some mesh filters on hand to replace them...

 

Aw, pity. I almost feel like they move up a notch in SQ without the filters. It may just be placebo though. I wonder if Dsnuts will volunteer to A/B a stock one with a filterless one....

How exactly did the sound change woth the filters removed?

An observation: when I turn up the volume a notch, the treble doesn't seem to get much louder, but the bass gets very powerful.