You're welcome of course. You're probably right on that Sam Tellig call. Though, I'm still bewildered as to why Tom Andry liked them so much. My current working theory is this:
Someone at Pioneer headquarters in Japan decided that they wanted to get back into the hi-fi space after a number of years. And in typical fashion, they decided that audiophiles listen primarily to classical and jazz. And so they created two new models geared toward classical/jazz sound signatures, these being the SE-MJ591 and the SE-A1000
While they are right to a certain extent, they apparently didn't notice that today's audiophile market has evolved to account for a wide variety of genres. Younger audiophiles looking to offload their disposable income are increasingly devotees of rock and even electronic music. And since the SE-MJ591 seems to have been tuned for a limited number of genres, reviews can be very hit or miss depending on the tastes of the reviewer.
Interestingly enough, the SE-A1000 seems to be far more versatile than the SE-MJ591. While I would never recommend it to those that listen primarily to hip hop or electronic music, I would easily recommend it to devotees of rock. It seems to have a bit of that Grado sound to it. And ergonomically speaking, it is ridiculously comfortable. With a street price of only $50 (down from an MSRP of $145), I believe it to be a sleeper, just waiting to be "discovered" so to speak.
For the record, the two Pioneer models above seem to be the only ones that are limited to such an extent. As you can tell from my inventory, I have a number of other Pioneer models as well. And while some have been geared to certain markets (SE-MJ751 > Bassheads), they all tend to be quite versatile genre-wise.
I've never heard the DT1350 personally, but I understand that it is likewise a rather polarizing set of cans. I believe there was one at the L.A. Head-Fi meet this past wekend, but I didn't get a chance to audition it. There was just too much to do during the course of a single day.
