[lejaz]

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Hi all
 
I know this is the Q701 appreciation thread - but hope I can join in.  I've been following the conversation for quite a while now - and really enjoying it.  For the record, I own the K701 instead of the Q701 - but I've seen a lot of comparisons to DT880s and HD580/600 (which I also own).
 
@Tdock
I have a feeling our tastes are somewhat similar - although I really like the HD600, and have no issue with the K701 freq response at all.  I really like a detailed can - but with a touch of warmth and a slightly forward mid-range.  I sometimes find the HD600 needs a little more sparkle, and the DT880 sometimes feels just a little dry and distant.  I love my dac/amp set-up at the moment - Audio-gd NFB-12 into an LD MKIV.  Combination has just the right amount of warmth to these ears to make the K701 exquisite and the DT880 very enjoyable.  The NFB-12 also has a lot more body than my old E9 ever had (which in comparison when I had it - almost appeared a little thin and lifeless).  Would be interested to hear your thoughts if you ever get a chance to try one.  BTW - thanks of impressions regarding the ODAC.  I know a lot of 'purists' will suggest transparent amps and coloured cans.  Personally I couldn't really give a toss - if it conveys the music the way I personally like it - I'm completely happy  Interesting regarding your comments with the 598.  Admittedly I only heard them for a short time - but I personally found they had a touch of grain at times (that was though an E7 - and that's probably the cause I guess).  I'd love to hear them again - but this time with my NFB-12/LD combo.  Would just about guarantee I'd realy enjoy it.
 
@Lejaz
I noticed your Norah comments.  I'm a big fan - currently have 5 of her albums.  The one thing I've noticed with a lot of her recordings is that they are warmish in their own right - whereas some artists recordings can be downright bright and harsh with the wrong cans.  I personally love Norah with both the DT880 and K701 - probably more so than the HD600s now.  Whereas a very bright recoding like Beth Hart's "Live at Paradiso" is almost unpleasant with the K701 - and much better with the HD600.  Food for thought anyway.

In regard to amps, I never tried the 702 with tubes, but the ss mkV seems to make the 702 excessively thin, while it's got more 'body' out of the O2, also ss. The treble is too hot for my taste out of both amps.....not just the treble actually, but the whole frequency response seems tilted towards the bright side a bit too much.  But it DOES depend a lot on the recording. With the Beatles 'Rubber Soul' they're way too bright for my taste. I DO agree that Norah Jones sounds great with the 702(as do some operatic sopranos), but my preferred phone for listening to her is the dt48....a very different presentation, and worth a listen if you ever get  the chance to try them. I have some old Sarah Vaughan stuff that I clearly prefer with the dt48 compared to the 702. That singer and those phones are pure perfection together. But I'm sure others might very well like the akg's better.  It''s purely subjective which you prefer. I've never heard either singer live, so I can't say which can is more true to the source. With Sinatra it's not even close....it's the dt48 all the way! The way they do the singer AND the jazz orchestrations backing him up. <edit> I should add that I like all of the above singers with the hd580. I like the way that phone does most singers....and some of the old Beatles stuff and other classic rock is close to perfection with them.....far better to my ears than with the 702 (puts on flame suit)

 

[chicolom]

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 I DO agree that Norah Jones sounds great with the 702(as do some operatic sopranos), but my preferred phone for listening to her is the dt48....a very different presentation, and worth a listen if you ever get  the chance to try them. I have some old Sarah Vaughan stuff that I clearly prefer with the dt48 compared to the 702. That singer and those phones are pure perfection together. But I'm sure others might very well like the akg's better.  It''s purely subjective which you prefer. I've never heard either singer live, so I can't say which can is more true to the source. With Sinatra it's not even close....it's the dt48 all the way! The way they do the singer AND the jazz orchestrations backing him up. 

 
You know Beyerdynamic is quoting you on there official site?
http://europe.beyerdynamic.com/shop/hah/headphones-and-headsets/studio-and-stage/studio-headphones/dt-48-e.html
 
Nice

 

[viralcow]

I'm impressed. 

 

[tdockweiler]

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You know Beyerdynamic is quoting you on there official site?
http://europe.beyerdynamic.com/shop/hah/headphones-and-headsets/studio-and-stage/studio-headphones/dt-48-e.html
 
Nice

I wish I would not have read those comments in the link because now I want to try it.
I've been wanting to try the DT-48e for years, but never got a chance. I'm glad that Beyer points out they have a flat frequency response. NO WAY they could possible sound like their goofy graphs.
The DT-48e i'd probably love. It's discontinued in 2012 also. That's too bad.
 
BTW in the behind the scenes section of one of my favorite movies ("Scent of Green Papaya") the director is using the DT-48e. Kind of interesting to me. The entire movie is filmed on a soundstage in France.
 
I think I found out why some bad recordings sounded so horribly bad with the Q701 and ODAC. If this fixed it, it will be the dumbest mistake anyone on earth has ever made. I'll give it a few days or a week.
 
If this does happen it will be nearly 3 issues my ODAC has corrected for me. Car doesn't work? Get sick? Try the ODAC!
 
If this has done the trick, it'll be like the week I spent trying to fix my computer from crashing. I bought some memory and a power supply and it turns out it was a memory leak in Firefox using some random setting it didn't like. If Firefox was open, 90% of my programs would crash at random. Fingers crossed.
 
If this does it i'll need to review all my comments, possibly cross some of them out and put a moron disclaimer at the end.
 
BTW this isn't it, but plugging the amp into a surge protector actually does NOT improve the sound but degrades it. It's a $40 Belkin Home Theater protector with filtering. It made the bass a bit bloated with some headphones. Not a huge difference though. I didn't notice it until I tried my DJ100 and found it too bassy. Who on earth would have thought a surge protector would degrade the sound so much? When I first tried it I was like "Ah Hah! There's my nice full mids". Well, that was due to it messing up the sound slightly. I noticed without this the soundstage was even larger. No joke.

 

[chicolom]

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I think I found out why some bad recordings sounded so horribly bad with the Q701 and ODAC. If this fixed it, it will be the dumbest mistake anyone on earth has ever made. I'll give it a few days or a week.

 
What did you do? 

 

[lejaz]

Quote:

 
You know Beyerdynamic is quoting you on there official site?
http://europe.beyerdynamic.com/shop/hah/headphones-and-headsets/studio-and-stage/studio-headphones/dt-48-e.html
 
Nice

Yes, I think they contacted me personally to ask my permission, if I remember correctly. They're free to quote me any time, any day, on those! I'm definitely one of the biggest fanboys, in spite of their lack of low end. Listening to Norah Jones with those is like having her sitting in a chair right next to you singing in your ear. As I commented in another thread.....it's almost like cheating on your girlfriend!  

 

[tdockweiler]

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What did you do? 

 
Not saying yet and not sure if this will fix it. Come up with the dumbest thing you can do to degrade a Q701's sound and you're probably right.
Here's a clue: Headfonia
 
The differences are quite subtle, but now everything seems better. All my bad music still sounds bad, but NOT as bad as it was earlier today.
I can say I never had this "issue" with the HRT MSII or any other source.

 

[lejaz]

Quote:

I wish I would not have read those comments in the link because now I want to try it.
I've been wanting to try the DT-48e for years, but never got a chance. I'm glad that Beyer points out they have a flat frequency response. NO WAY they could possible sound like their goofy graphs.
The DT-48e i'd probably love. It's discontinued in 2012 also. That's too bad.
 
 

Yeah, we need to stop treating those graphs like a quote from the Gospel. I saw a graph of the sony 7509HD on a Japanese website that looked very flat. A couple of recording engineers confirmed to me that they sound very flat. You should check out the graph on headroom some time for a good laugh. The reverse is true of the sony 7506....looks very flat on headroom and not very flat at all on the Japanese website. The graphs are extremely unreliable AFAICS.

 

[linglingjr]

I've had mine for about a few weeks. I love how detailed perfectly encoded music sounds but it seems like 80% of my music is from a bad source, from a smaller artist that only released in 192kbps or pretty much anything else that could go wrong and make it sound terrible. Maybe I should start ripping myself haha.

 

[tdockweiler]

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Yes, I think they contacted me personally to ask my permission, if I remember correctly. They're free to quote me any time, any day, on those! I'm definitely one of the biggest fanboys, in spite of their lack of low end. Listening to Norah Jones with those is like having her sitting in a chair right next to you singing in your ear. As I commented in another thread.....it's almost like cheating on your girlfriend!  

I like this old comment from someone about the DT-48E. They describe it as having a DAC cable plugged straight into your brain. I get that with my DJ100 all the time with the proper setup.
I can't get that experience on many headphones. I know it always depends entirely on the recording and singing. Not everything is recorded to sound like someone is singing into my ears thankfully.
 
I also feel the SR-225i is like this with female vocals. I miss it.
 
BTW my music now sounds about 99% accurate to how it should normally sound. All based on memory. My collection doesn't change enough it seems.
 
I'll post an ODAC review in about a week I think. Maybe I can make up for my stupidity (not that the differences are major). Maybe I need to change my avatar back to Ernest P Worrell

 

[chicolom]

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Not saying yet and not sure if this will fix it. Come up with the dumbest thing you can do to degrade a Q701's sound and you're probably right.

 
You were wearing them backwards, aka "Quincy Jones Style". 

 

[tdockweiler]

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You were wearing them backwards, aka "Quincy Jones Style". 

Haha, not that bad. I've never had so many issues with a DAC as I have with this one. It's been a nightmare listening to this since Thursday. My ears ringing every day.
I imagine when I finally give it a review it'll be like 20 pages or something.
 
Another hint..it was causing the mids to be a little less full than they normally are. I think this is why it varied so much between songs. This could be why I got the impression of extra treble for bad tracks.
 
Bad recordings still sound bad, but it's now not like they stick out like a sore thumb (as much).
 
Remember when I said my Q701 was sounding more like a DT-880 in the treble? This could explain it...makes perfect sense now!

 

[NimbleTurtle]

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Wow, can't even talk to you can I? I'm not going to get into it with you again. You take all my comments the wrong way anyway. Every time I hear something with my own ears, you have to claim i'm wrong or give me this stupid rant about expectation bias and this other nonsense. I mean who does this? Maybe next you can give me another one on how it's not nonsense. Many decent headphone will sound different on different setups. The reason you think the Q701's treble is hot is because you're probably too used to the HD-598. There could be a dozen reasons why it sounded this way. Then the idea that people hear differently. I've mentioned this more than once. If you think the Q701s treble is hot, that's OK. It only is an issue for me with bad recordings. That alone is proof enough it's not the headphone or ODAC. The same bad songs are harsh and fatiguing even on the HD-580. It gets really old arguing about how a headphone is supposed to sound.
 
I don't know why you took my comments as me flaming you. I mentioned the HD-598 is quite forgiving. Do you not agree with this? I don't really know why this came to an issue about fanboys. I'll just ignore that rant or was it trolling?
 
Oh god..someone else telling me the Q701 is not accurate to live recordings and claims his preferred headphone is or he knows what is and isn't accurate. Maybe next we can argue about if the HD-600 or K702 is more accurate. For all we know, you could have been listening to an unamped Q701. I asked about what it was connected to when you auditioned it, but you ignored that. I was only curious. Your impressions of the Q701 are different than the usual consensus. If that's how you heard it, then OK. I couldn't care less. If you only demoed the Q701 for a few minutes, you shouldn't even be posting impressions.
 
BTW if you're a fanboy of the 598, what's wrong with that? I'm only a fanboy of one headphone and it's not the Q701. No headphone is perfect. I won't argue with you about the Q701 since we're obviously not hearing it in the same way, so it's a waste of time.
 
You remind me of the guy who felt I should have done a blind A/B test of the Q701 before I left impressions. Are people on here that crazy? There's also people here who give me a cable lecture when I tell people I prefer the HD-580 with an aftermarket cable. That's ok with me.
 
Sorry, I kind of skipped over most of your last part because I don't really care.
 
If you don't believe in amp/dac synergy you've never had the misfortune of having very colored gear or enough of it. Try using the HD-650 on a very warm amp and dac and see what that sounds like. I learned my lesson when I bought an Asgard for the HD-600 and tried using it with the K702. Even the E9 sounded better with the K702. When I heard the K702 on the E9 I was kind of shocked at how much better it sounded compared to the Asgard. The K601 and ATH-AD2000 were also awful on the Asgard.
 
The DJ100/HD-598 is also quite bad with the E10. I think it's due to the rolled off treble of the E10 and it's forward mids. I just can't even listen to the 598 on the E10. The mids are just too fatiguing..yeah fatiguing mids on the 598!

"Every time I hear something with my own ears, you have to claim i'm wrong or give me this stupid rant about expectation bias and this other nonsense." 
 
I never said you were wrong except from an objective point of view. In addition, I was implying that I've had troubles with the Q701's trebles even under the so-called "less analytical" DACs and that an ODAC probably would not have made much of a difference. In other words, even if I heard the Q701 + ODAC, my impressions wouldn't be much different, if at all. But clearly you are overly sensitive with impressions that OTHERS have. If I said the E9 gave less of a soundstage to the Q701, your typical response would be, "HAVE YOU EVEN HEARD THE Q701 WITH THE E9???". Now why does that sound familiar 

 It doesn't really matter either way because your impressions wouldn't be any more accurate than mine.  
 
And I apologize for bringing up the fanboyism. That's my fault since you were simply implying I may have been used to the HD598's treble. But since we're on the topic of treble, this is what my impression of the Q701 was. The Q701 I auditioned for a full hour doing ABX comparisons, using a variety of solid state/ tube amps that were supposedly "far more expensive than the headphones themselves" according to the owner. I don't know many of the expensive amps out there, only the sub $500 ones. I was not looking to criticize the Q701 when I first heard these. In fact, I did not know much about the Q701 at all at the time of the audition. I first noticed the brightness, but once again, I didn't notice the treble. At around the time I hit the 5 minute mark, I noticed slight ringing in my ears that annoyed me. I got used it to it over time but the trebles still bothered me over time. Was I influenced by the 598's treble? No doubt I probably was. Everything is relative. But there is no denying that the Q701 has unnatural double peaks in the treble region, which seems to logically explain my annoyance.
 
I guess it was my fault for posting in a Q701 appreciation thread in the first place, though I was out to post an honest impression between the Q701 and HD598. But any negative impression of the Q701, whether it's honest or not, seems to followed thru with comments such as, "you didn't amp it well enough" or "you gotta burn these in more". Right. People will do anything to justify their purchases. I guess that's the difference between myself and many others on this site. I have not yet spent a single penny on audio equipment. Nada. Zero. I could not have cared less if the 598s sounded awful. If they did, I would've sold them for another headphone by now. 
 
 
" If you don't believe in amp/dac synergy you've never had the misfortune of having very colored gear or enough of it. "
 
I've tried out a variety of tube amps (this owner had pretty much everything). With tube amps, the change in sound survives a blind test, without a doubt. Someone who spent precious money on these tube amps will definitely notice this change in sound, and likely to see it as some sort of improvement. 
 
And to answer your question, how would you define synergy? Most people's impression of synergy would be something like this. They have a headphone that sounds cold and analytical. So, they match it up with something dark. A typical audiophile's mind thinks: analytical + dark = perfection!  Only if it was actually that simple. I don't think anyone actually did a double blind test comparing different synergy pair ups. The difference in sound between one type of synergy combo with another could easily be, once again, expectation bias. You seem to be overly confident in your impressions of how certain amps affect the sound of your headphones. Of course, I trust your honesty with those impressions. But under a blind test, how well will you be able to distinguish one from another? 
 
"Sorry, I kind of skipped over most of your last part because I don't really care."
 
That cool, indifferent side of you is something I'm sure we can all admire. 
 
 
"Oh god..someone else telling me the Q701 is not accurate to live recordings and claims his preferred headphone is or he knows what is and isn't accurate." 
 
Facepalm. 
 
 
 
 
"There's also people here who give me a cable lecture when I tell people I prefer the HD-580 with an aftermarket cable. That's ok with me."
 
So why was my comment about the E9's output impedance any different? It should have been "ok" with you. 
 
 
"I mentioned the HD-598 is quite forgiving. " 
 
Define forgiving. The HD-598 is more forgiving than the Q701 but far more accurate to the source, without a doubt. 
 
 
I think you're doing a great job of lableing others' subjective impressions and scientific phenomena as "nonsense"! Keep posting! 
 
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What are all these Q701 fanboys doing in the Q701 Appreciation Thread!  Get out of here Q701 fanboys!!   LOL
 
Your experience going to many live performances has been duly noted.  We are all impressed.
 
I doubt anyone claimed Q701 is a "perfect headphone", except for maybe Quincy Jones (and he got a check for it).  If there was such a thing as a perfect headphone for $250, I think all of our wallets would be a lot fatter.  They all have there pros and cons.  I somehow get the impression you think the Q701 has a lot of cons with few pros.  Obviously some peeps in this thread feel differently. 
 
Which headphones do you recommend in this price range instead?

I was referring to people posting outside of this thread. Want a link? Either way, I enjoyed your condescending remark. "We are all impressed". 

 

[lejaz]

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I like this old comment from someone about the DT-48E. They describe it as having a DAC cable plugged straight into your brain. I get that with my DJ100 all the time with the proper setup.
I can't get that experience on many headphones. I know it always depends entirely on the recording and singing. Not everything is recorded to sound like someone is singing into my ears thankfully.
 
I also feel the SR-225i is like this with female vocals. I miss it.
 
BTW my music now sounds about 99% accurate to how it should normally sound. All based on memory. My collection doesn't change enough it seems.
 
I'll post an ODAC review in about a week I think. Maybe I can make up for my stupidity (not that the differences are major). Maybe I need to change my avatar back to Ernest P Worrell

Or like having the mixing desk hard wired to your brain! Another one from an audio engineer.....'like getting a direct mic feed in the control room'. I can relate to that one.....or a direct mic feed from Norah Jones!  sorry, not intending to make this into another DT48 thead.....it's hard to control myself when the topic of those phones comes up. Look forward to your further reporting on the ODAC, tdock.

 

[chicolom]

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I was referring to people posting outside of this thread. Want a link? Either way, I enjoyed your condescending remark. "We are all impressed". 

 
That's OK, you don't have to prove yourself to me.
 
My condescending remark was cancelled out by your condescending "People who aren't bothered by the treble have little experience with live performances, which is why they have little experience judging timbre and tonality, or even soundstage/imaging for that matter".
 
So we're at a clean slate now. 
 
Seriously though, which headphones do you recommend?