Sad that it's gone out of production in Japan.
I think I should get one of this before it won't be available.

Thanks for this thread, otherwise I wouldn't even have known these headphones existed! Seem perfect for use at my office and also like good value for money. Will update my impressions once I receive them. I also have some Grado SR325is to compare them to which will be interesting. The Yamaha EPH-100 were incredible for their price, so I am hoping these will also surprise!

looking forward to your impression

audiohurric4ne said:

looking forward to your impression

Click to expand...

+1

You will have to be patient, mine is inbound from the UK, so it will perhaps take another week or two before I actually get the headphone. Hopefully this ends up being better than the Sennheiser HD558 and Grado SR80i otherwise I would have wasted money. I does look much more portable though and I still haven't forgiven Sennheiser for the cracking issues I had with my HD595s.

Copied comments that I've posted on the appreciation thread:

Reviving an old thread here, but I traded for Dan's pair and I must admit these are very good indeed even at first listen. I guess this is just one of those pairs that the general Head-Fi population haven't owned so there isn't much on them, shame really.

I would say these are up there with the portables I've owned/listened to. Got to take these with me to Currys (UK electronics store) to A/B against the Momentums as I didn't think they were all that great for the price; I find Sennheiser too veiled for my taste, preferred the Philips Downtown's.

For me, it was between these and the momentums as well. From the comments I read about the Sennheisers I wasn't too keen on them and of course they are much more expensive. 

Depends what sound you are after but I like a natural gr07 type sound with good fast sub bass response. From the quick listen I did I preferred the downtown to the momentum and I think they are closer to the hph sound. I'll try and find out this weekend.

The only negative, noting you want to use these in your office, are these are open back so anyone will be able to hear your music. This is assuming you mean a work office and not home office

nuckinfutz said:

Copied comments that I've posted on the appreciation thread:

Reviving an old thread here, but I traded for Dan's pair and I must admit these are very good indeed even at first listen. I guess this is just one of those pairs that the general Head-Fi population haven't owned so there isn't much on them, shame really.

I would say these are up there with the portables I've owned/listened to. Got to take these with me to Currys (UK electronics store) to A/B against the Momentums as I didn't think they were all that great for the price; I find Sennheiser too veiled for my taste, preferred the Philips Downtown's.

Click to expand...

 
I have both, Yamaha's Hph-200 and Philips Downtowns.
 
In my opinion Yamaha's Hph-200 are at least two leagues above Philips Downtown. I can't think my Downtowns doing something better than my Hph-200.
This Yamaha overcomes Downtowns in terms of Bass (quantity and quality), soundstage, midrange texture, and highs, detail and timbres.
The only thing Downtowns can do better is trivial (Isolate)
 
In fact, I also have a pair of Philips Fidelio M1 (which I really like)
I think M1's are a big upgrade over Downtowns, and they still can't reach the Hph-200 in terms of sound quality.

nuckinfutz said:

The only negative, noting you want to use these in your office, are these are open back so anyone will be able to hear your music. This is assuming you mean a work office and not home office

Click to expand...

 
Hehe, I have a office, but I'm usually the only employee there. The sound leakage is still the one aspect that bothers me, but I think it will be nice to have good set of compact open cans that I can use for business travelling too. I'm thinking of buying a pair of Creative Aurvana Live! headphones as well for when I really need a closed headphone.

Thanks for the impressions me x3. Was only a quick listen but I liked what I heard, I also not there seems to be 2 different versions (not referring to the the colour), the headband looks different.

I think the hph sounds slightly better than the CAL! It's at least level. Been comparing the 2 and the CAL! is brighter but the hph is smoother with better bass. The CAL! isolate really well, I'm selling my pair but I'll probably regret it

Well I've just taken the HPH-200 to Currys and was able to compare them to the Momentums, Fidelio M1, Downtowns, MDR-R1 and a few others. Short story is the HPH is better than all of them, well in my opinion anyway, they are just very well balanced and layered.....that's the main word 'layered'.

I thought the Downtown sounded good, it has a peek in the midrange; in Tyll's review on InnerFideiity he mentioned is having a wierd 'cupped hands' nature to it but I didn't find this with the vocal's, at least not the tracks I was listening to.

The M1 was quite nice, beautifully made and good looking, but too much mid bass IMO and made the mids too thick.

Momentums grew on me a little since last time but I still don't like the veiled mids, they have a nice smooth and accurate sound but are rather un-dynamic and don't really suit rock/metal IMO.

MDR-R1 was probably my favourite, not perfect and a little mid bassy but it didn't seem to cloud the mids much. Beautifully made and good looking.

I agree with all of your points X3 regarding the HPH sound over the Downtowns, the timbre, texture and layering are really nice. They seem to be able to pull things in close, like some guitar parts, and throw out other instruments in a way I've not heard before. They are still burning in really, not that I'm a great believer in that anyway, but they should only get better.

Sadly there won't be any impressions on these headphones from me. Ended up that Amazon.co.uk stuffed up my order and it was stuck at the courier in England for more than a month due to "incomplete" customs information, so I cancelled the order and won't be buying from them again, which was basically the only route through which I would have been able to source the HPH-200.