jgray91
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Mar 12, 2011
- Posts
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First part of my notes [edited] coming through!
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I'll start with headphones impressions first, since this is much less rambling and gushing.
Chronological order; headphones impressions
K701 with Alpha pads (rckyosho)
The first thing that I noticed, and realized when I played a song is that it won’t play all songs the best, and instead, orchestral, classical genres would shine quite well. So first thing I did was hunt for an anime song, in which the series in question uses a lot of emotional (read: fitting to what’s shown currently to augment the viewers’ experience that they aim for) orchestral pieces. And it did fit so well!
[VIDEO]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTNQNkQCoXA[/VIDEO]
So I browsed through some more soundtrack from the series, and I then noticed how there’s this annoying spike around 1.7k or so. Further testing revealed that it won’t do good for squirrel dubstep (long story…) as the bass rolloff (don’t worry, I made sure this track does have real drops and real subbass) on the AKG, I feel, is quite early. The bass impact is also a bit lacking, but the control is still superb.
But the pinnacle test for me that any headphones I tried had to pass: female vocals. It didn’t perform very well to my expectations.
Overall though, in this setup, I do feel that should I listen more to orchestral music, the superb soundstage and the feel that it can convey for the tracks would be a great match. But for someone like me who’s into screeching high pitched female voices (most aren’t though, if you know where to look, [sarcasm] or just have superior taste in anime like me [/sarcasm]) it’s too limited in use for me.
The comfort is great though.
Sennheiser HD800 (unknown) (to the Project-H DAC/amp)
First things first: the pads on this is … seasoned, so I assumed that the sound is slightly different than one with firmer/newer pads.
This is a headphone that I have read about, heard about, and hyped about, all from those that I don’t and do trust, as one of the more “affordable”, or should I say “entry-level” summit-fi gear. But then again, I’ve also read posts from those that I trust and value their judgement to high regards that it’s also one of the pickier headphones to “synergize” with amps. With that said though, spoiler: I kind of glad that:
First things first, I tried it with my exclusive, by default, extra sibilant song and am glad to not hear it exaggerated beyond sanity. In fact, there isn’t actually any sibilance, meet condition in mind.
Secondly, it passed my highest standard test: female vocals. My god, this is amazing at it. Sadly, since this is early on in the meet, I haven’t got into the “write everything that comes to mind” state of mind yet and didn’t expand on how great it is with female vocals.
Other things that popped out is that it has godly soundstage. If I were to guess my train of thought at that moment, it’s probably better quality/resolution soundstage compared to the K701 I tried prior. There’s some weird high treble that I detected, but then I suspect that could also be my songs.
But the cake goes to it being a god tier OST headphones. One of the more recent OST CD that I listen to regularly nowadays is the Gundam Unicorn one. And with this song:
[VIDEO]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y1wCOxhn3A[/VIDEO]
it just puts me in the zone; transported me back to the scenes that had this song playing.
I also wrote this in my notes:
Ha. Ha.
---------------
More to come!!!!!
-----------------
First meet experience: Singapore Meet 2013
I'll start with headphones impressions first, since this is much less rambling and gushing.
Chronological order; headphones impressions
K701 with Alpha pads (rckyosho)
The first thing that I noticed, and realized when I played a song is that it won’t play all songs the best, and instead, orchestral, classical genres would shine quite well. So first thing I did was hunt for an anime song, in which the series in question uses a lot of emotional (read: fitting to what’s shown currently to augment the viewers’ experience that they aim for) orchestral pieces. And it did fit so well!
[VIDEO]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTNQNkQCoXA[/VIDEO]
So I browsed through some more soundtrack from the series, and I then noticed how there’s this annoying spike around 1.7k or so. Further testing revealed that it won’t do good for squirrel dubstep (long story…) as the bass rolloff (don’t worry, I made sure this track does have real drops and real subbass) on the AKG, I feel, is quite early. The bass impact is also a bit lacking, but the control is still superb.
But the pinnacle test for me that any headphones I tried had to pass: female vocals. It didn’t perform very well to my expectations.
Overall though, in this setup, I do feel that should I listen more to orchestral music, the superb soundstage and the feel that it can convey for the tracks would be a great match. But for someone like me who’s into screeching high pitched female voices (most aren’t though, if you know where to look, [sarcasm] or just have superior taste in anime like me [/sarcasm]) it’s too limited in use for me.
The comfort is great though.
Sennheiser HD800 (unknown) (to the Project-H DAC/amp)
First things first: the pads on this is … seasoned, so I assumed that the sound is slightly different than one with firmer/newer pads.
This is a headphone that I have read about, heard about, and hyped about, all from those that I don’t and do trust, as one of the more “affordable”, or should I say “entry-level” summit-fi gear. But then again, I’ve also read posts from those that I trust and value their judgement to high regards that it’s also one of the pickier headphones to “synergize” with amps. With that said though, spoiler: I kind of glad that:
- the P-H can drive it loud enough
- it doesn’t seem to run into the problems of un-synergy (just a gut feeling though, as I forgot what are the characteristics of un-synergy)
First things first, I tried it with my exclusive, by default, extra sibilant song and am glad to not hear it exaggerated beyond sanity. In fact, there isn’t actually any sibilance, meet condition in mind.
Secondly, it passed my highest standard test: female vocals. My god, this is amazing at it. Sadly, since this is early on in the meet, I haven’t got into the “write everything that comes to mind” state of mind yet and didn’t expand on how great it is with female vocals.
Other things that popped out is that it has godly soundstage. If I were to guess my train of thought at that moment, it’s probably better quality/resolution soundstage compared to the K701 I tried prior. There’s some weird high treble that I detected, but then I suspect that could also be my songs.
But the cake goes to it being a god tier OST headphones. One of the more recent OST CD that I listen to regularly nowadays is the Gundam Unicorn one. And with this song:
[VIDEO]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y1wCOxhn3A[/VIDEO]
it just puts me in the zone; transported me back to the scenes that had this song playing.
I also wrote this in my notes:
Ha. Ha.
---------------
More to come!!!!!