Quick intro and thoughts on the Mikros 90s.
I'm a longtime head-fi lurker but haven't really delved into the world of headphones because I've always been more of a 2 channel floor standing speaker kind of guy and I've just never really cottoned to the sound of any of the headphones I've tried. That's not to say that I haven't been impressed by many headphones - I have - but there's a difference between being impressed by and objectively appreciating something versus subjectively wanting to keep on using it to the exclusion of a speaker system. So for the past few years I've limited my headphone listening to my Ety ER4Ps w/Shure Olives and pretty much only on airplanes or in hotel rooms when traveling with my wife and/or kids. But then I came across this thread and after reading the entire thing start to finish I just had to bite and try these out.
My first pair (yes - first) arrived a little over a month ago and my immediate reaction was largely visceral - I was just flat out engaged in the music without nitpicking (much) about what was missing or what could be better. Well that was new and unexpected. And after 100 hours or so of burn in, they got even better, but I also started being bothered at the same time by a few things. One was less bass than I would have preferred, and the other was a sense that something was just a bit off at times, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. So I did something I almost never do - I started listening to a battery of test tones and audio checks. And that's when I discovered a slight parasitic buzz in the sub-bass and a slight channel imbalance, but again only in the sub-bass. I wrote to Scott Gribble at ML about it and he immediately offered to send me a replacement set. I packed mine up and sent them off to ML hoping the new set would resolve these issues. In the meantime, however, another new set came up for sale at a ridiculous price and I ordered them as well. Both new sets arrived around the same time and both new sets are not only completely devoid of those issues but also have significantly more bass than the first. I won't bother detailing the sonic attributes of these as those have been more than fully described by others in this thread already other than to say that I could not agree more with all the positive remarks that these have received herein.
For what it's worth, my associated gear is modest - HRT microstreamer, Macbook Pro or iPhone 5 (the HRT is iOS device compliant without a separate powered USB hub) and occasionally a FIIO E12 mont blanc amp.
Thanks to everyone who's contributed to this thread and helped bring these gems into my fold. I don't know how widespread the QC problems that I had with the first set are, but for anyone who's noticed similar issues and still has their set, I would highly recommend getting them replaced and giving them another chance.