All right, I've spent a couple days with mine now, so I'll get some initial impressions up. I want to be careful, since most owners seem to have a change of heart after a few weeks and try to sell them, but so far... I like them a lot.
As DJ cans, I was expecting these to be ideal for electronic music, but was hoping that they would work fairly well with rock as well, since I listen to mostly indie rock. Much to my surprise, I find they sound much better with rock than they do with anything produced digitally. They have a fairly generic soundstage for closed headphones, but I find they have a really nice presentation nonetheless. They have a really pleasant frequency response, with nice peppy bass that doesn't overwhelm, really smooth dominant mids, and just enough treble to avoid being fatiguing. The overall darkness would make them bad for some types of music, but I find most genres can be cranked without getting harsh. This comes at the cost of a bit of spaciousness, but I don't miss it as much as I expected.
Well, I can now understand why people are surprised by the overall sound signature of these puppies. I really don't like them with electronica, where the bass and nice sharp treble are the most important thing. Miami Horror's I Look to You, (a rip-roaring disco revival track that I should hate but kind of love) sound a bit flat on the TMA-1. There is a bit of thump in the bottom end, but it's easily overwhelmed by the vocals. It ends up sounding overly busy. While I find them almost too sharp on my DBI Pro 700, the emphasis on bass and treble gives the song a raw energy that they TMA-1 simply can't sustain. It doesn't sound terrible, but it lacks the overall high energy feel I was expecting from DJ cans. I had a similar response to Massive Attack, where Teardrop had some nice low-end punch, but seemed to overemphasize the piano and vocals for the genre. The same thing was true of The Chemical Brothers' Block Rockin' Beats, which just sounded meh. Again, the DBI Pro 700 gives the illusion of body bass, where there is none in the TMA-1.
For me, this doesn't really matter, because I don't dive into that end of the pool very often. Interestingly, I find pretty much the opposite with rock music, where the overall signature of the TMA-1 delivers a dynamic range and punch in the midrange that really delivers the goods for rock. On many of my headphones, the high treble and bass bleed into the midrange and tend to kill the overall impact of the guitar, drums and vocals in Spoon's I Turn My Camera On. The TMA-1 gets it just right, with bass you can almost feel but never gets in the way of the midrange. Each snare hit has a nice level of impact, but doesn't sound tinny or harsh. The same is true of The Hotrats album, which you should listen to TODAY if you haven't yet. Its relatively low-budget garage sound is awesome on these cans, with an astonishing edge and punch, while remaining really forgiving of the slightly harsh edges that have me reaching to turn the volume down on brighter headphones. The slightly darker tone doesn't do anything to damage the details, and I'm not really sure how the TMA-1 has managed that. I usually find dark headphones really boring (the Shure SRH-840 didn't last long at my house), but these headphones are awesome with just about anything that fits into the rock genre, from Rage Against the Machine to The Meters to Sharon Jones. They handle busy passages well, too, which I find rare for portable headphones.
Other genres seem to be a bit of a mixed bag. I liked The Mingus Big Band on them, but the lack of treble did cause some problems for jazz overall, confirmed by a slightly flat but competent delivery on Dave Brubeck's Take Five. This track sounded nice, but I couldn't feel the dimensions of the room the way I can with some headphones. The same is true for classical music, though I seriously doubt that's why anyone wants to buy these things. Acoustic music fared much better, again thanks to that sweet, warm midrange. The Mumford Sons' Roll Away Your Stone is awesome, delivering clear vocals along with clear instrumentation and just the right amount of bottom end. I would say the same for any vocal-centric work, and was quite pleased with Ray LaMontagne, Bettye LaVette, Nick Drake, Fiona Apple, and Jeff Buckley as well.
Overall, these aren't the musicians I was expecting to talk about when I was writing about the TMA-1, but I couldn't be happier that it turned out this way. Sound wise, this is going to be an ideal pair of headphones for portable use. They aren't my favourite sounding headphones--the DT250 is much more versatile and balanced, the T50RP is superior and the Beyer DT990/600 is vastly superior, but I needed something I can take with me and will work well out of a portable player and laptop-bag friendly amp. The TMA-1 is a great sounding pair of cans for this purpose, and is forgiving enough that I can use it with moderate bitrate MP3s out of my Creative Zen 5. I suspect I'll use them at home sometimes as well, which I didn't really expect.
In terms of comfort, they are quite good for on-ears. I find they have just the right amount of pressure. They don't feel like they're going to fall off, but they also don't feel like they're trying to burrow into my skull. I can wear them for a few hours with minimal discomfort, and I don't think they're going to break anytime soon.
So, there are my initial thoughts. I can see why people searching for the ultimate DJ headphone would find them a bit of a disappointment, but they are a sweet pair of portable rock/pop headphones.
Oh, and I don't know what the hell they were thinking when they made those foam pads. They are even worse than others have said.
