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As stated in my review and other who own the t1. It takes a good 100 hours of listening to the T1 to appreciate what it does well. If I had auditioned the headphone for a couple of hours I probably would never bought one. While many phones wow you the T1 is not a wow headphone. It does nothing wrong in my system and this is the second time I had it after i went through all the flagships and the 880 also I realized just how good the T1 is and the 880 while a great headphone is not in the same league. I like the 880 and if I wanted to keep my budget within 250.00 its the best 250.00 headphone I heard and it will out perform all others IMO in its price range but in comparing to all the flagship model and I owned all of them the 880 falls way short and the 770 less so than the 880. They are good phones in their price category but nothing in the class of the T1. YOMV
I understand and apprehend what you're saying in terms of listening to a headphone for a period of time; I've discussed this myself before, how any headphone be it hot treble or bass heavy can in time turn into your neutral. For example by listening to a Denon D2000 for 100 hours you would concede headphones like the DT880 or HD600 as deficient in the bass department. Having listened to the DT880 for well over 100 hours, switching to the T1 is similar to that of a subtle EQ setting with a bump in the bass.
With the likes of the DT880 when listening at volume I find I am limited by the trebble, adjust this slightly and give the phone a bit more bass and the volume of the entire FR can go higher. Perhaps the T1 has the better balance of the two, the phone overall can be listened to at greater volume and this accounts for the better soundstage/imaging.
I would consider myself a bass-lover in that I appreciate good bass, not that sloppy nonsense attributed to 'good bass' headphones; Denons, Ultrasone etc. Personally I found the T1 to have that synthetic bass I'd moved away from with the DT880, a couple dB higher which I figured couldn't be very accurate. With the likes of electronica the T1 sounded great, however I do think electronica and the likes benefit from a colored sound. With Acoustic and Folk the T1 wasn't as accurate as the DT880, the instrument had a good weight and voices were natural, however in comparison it was like a vale of bass was placed over it.
This isn't to say I consider the T1 as colored, perhaps more theatrical neutrality would be one way of describing it. I might give the T1s another run for their money, however that would likely mean buying them which is a big stretch considering my initial impression. In addition if this difference is small in that it takes time to adjust to the sound is that worth the $1,000 difference. A positive way to put this is that they sound like my DT880s and just improve on a couple things.
