[kramer5150]

ex51. Mids are excessively recessed and treble is exagerated. EQ-ing helps tame the treble a little but boosting mids just makes make it more conjested.

Others have noticed improvements after LONG burn in times, but mine sound the same after ~300 hours of rigerous burn-in.

They are very comfey though.

Garrett

 

[Feanor]

Heh, it's fun to see the same headphone as somebodys biggest dissapointment and the next persons biggest positive experience. My biggest disappointment so far was the sony-mdr-g52 I got way before headfi.

 

[Philco]

The 7506.

After owning the 7509 and liking them a lot, I came here on Head-Fi and lots of people (including EagleDriver...) started to say the 7509 was a ****** pair of cans, that it was the same as the V900 which is a piece of crap, that it sounded congested...etc...blah blah..

Hey, only Mike Scarpitti says the 7509 is worth something!

Also, Mike Walker said the 7506 were his favorite cans to mix on...Then it was it....I was completely sold!

So I got the 7506s (200$ CAN here) for mixing and boy are they lacking in the low mids. I don't think the high-mid is THAT proeminent, it's only that the low mid is lacking so much that you can't tell what is really going on.

Most of the mixes I've done with the 7506 sounded really DULL and had WAY too much congestion in the low-mids.

 

[eight08]

hd280 - my first "post-headfi" cans.

after doing so much researching, the sound sig was sort of similar to my v6 and comfort was horrible on my head. of course it was all my fault for not knowing what i really wanted, but at the time, i was truly disappointed. now that they are just another set in my stable, they're ok. not that they are bad phones, i think my expectations were just a bit higher at the time.

 

[geardoc]

Very interesting thread. I never realized some of these high end cans
had so much dissapointment.

Well, here is my list:

A900 - recessed mids

E5 - sound is ok, but getting them seated properly in my ears was a letdown
(Edit on 4/21/05: I like the memory wire now and am happy with the triflange sleeves; with these sleeves they are easy to insert)

Senn SR65 wireless - have to sit so close to get noise free signal, might as well use a wired can. Big dissapointment considering "....specs indicate a clear transmission range of 100 meters"

I won't mention any of the throw-away stuff like Koss the plug or EX51's, because these were impulse buys. No, on second thought, the EX51's came
from a high end audio store where they guy working there said they were great and he listens to them all the time. So, ok add the EX51's to the list:

EX51 - no mids, after they told me they were great

 

[Aman]

HD595s.. no contest.

Really bad bass impact, mids were grainy, highs were rolled off, detail was there but nothing spectacular -- in no way as detailed as the HD580/6x0

Build quality was terrible. I felt insecure wearing them.

 

[chia-pet]

It's amusing how seemingly every can is a disappointment. Just goes to show how relative qualitative judgments about sound really are.

ultrasone hfi-650 trackmasters were hugely disappointing. not only has the headband cracked, but there seems to be a relatively small mid/upper bass hump and the mids are slightly recessed. somehow i expected more from these phones for the price i paid at the time--which was a lot for a headphone newbie to fork out.

sennheiser mx450, but enough lower end on an earphone. the bass, though clean, lacks any adequate presence. perhaps some a mid-bass hump is in order here to compensate, as found in stock ipod buds.

sennheiser mx400, veiled sounding to me.

also in defense of the sennheiser hd650s, with my setup the bass seems perfect. seems to tightly, impactfully, and accurately deliver the correct amount of bass as dictated by recordings. i've experienced phones that seemingly exagerate the quantity of bass, regardless of what the recordings call for. i'm just curious whether those who openly criticize the 650s for having bloated bass are partial against bass (like the opposite of a basshead)--i dont mean to offend, i only ask to satisfy my curiosity.

 

[spike33]

k240 - bloated bass overwhelms everything else

hd580 - does well on instruments but fails to capture the emotions in vocals

grados - awesome sound, but crappy build quality and comfort is huge turn off. cpads help the comfort but having to resize everytime I put it on finally turned me off for good, no matter how good it sounds. When grado decides to make a full size circumaural headphone, I'll be first in line to buy.

in defense of 595, the bass goes deep, mids are better 580, highs are less rolled off than 580. Drums especially have alot of impact. less space between the notes, but that makes it less analytical and more musical. I agree build quality is lacking, but looks nice though

 

[zool]

AKG K501. I payed pretty much for mine, about twice the price of what they cost in US and I sold them for not even half of that. But I'm glad to be rid of them

.

 

[SDA]

HD595. I don't know why, but it just sounded fake and plasticky to my ears, no matter how long I gave my ears to adjust. Also, it made obnoxious squeaking noises whenever I moved my head.

chia-pet, out of curiosity, did you form your impressions on the MX450 using an iPod? If so, do you feel the same way about their sound when running them out of your home source or something? I don't own them, just asking out of curiosity.

 

[spike33]

Quote:

Originally Posted by SDA HD595. I don't know why, but it just sounded fake and plasticky to my ears, no matter how long I gave my ears to adjust. Also, it made obnoxious squeaking noises whenever I moved my head.

Another case of build quality turn off

I think there'd less negative opinions if senn made it more 'solid'
add some metal maybe.

 

[SDA]

Quote:

Originally Posted by spike33 Another case of build quality turn off I think there'd less negative opinions if senn made it more 'solid' add some metal maybe.

Probably wouldn't change things for me. I'm perfectly willing to tolerate poor build quality if I like the sound, but I really disliked the HD595's sound signature, and I couldn't listen to it for long. I still don't know why it sounded "fake" to me, but it did.

 

[geardoc]

Quote:

Originally Posted by chia-pet It's amusing how seemingly every can is a disappointment. Just goes to show how relative qualitative judgments about sound really are. ..

It seems that dissapointment can happen more easily when expectations
are high. Maybe this explains why so many high end cans make the list.

 

[sethk]

In order of dissapointment
- Sony EX-71. I know they're cheap (~$50), I know theyre a mass market brand, but boy are these bad. They're uncomfortable (although if you can live with other canalphones, maybe you won't care about this) they're highly microphonic (pick up sounds from cable) and you can't eat anything while you listen. Worst faults are with the sound signature though, which is just bad muddy bass, shrill highs, garbled mids.

- Sennheiser PX200. Bad bad bad. Still cheap, but I can't believe that sennheiser sells these. One of the few phones in this price range that sounds worse than some of the better pack-ins (not the very worst pack-ins.)

- The $50 "upgraded" headphones apple sells on their site for the iPod, the pseudo-canalphones. I didn't buy these, I got them for free since Im a known headphone nut in my friends circle and a friend told me that these sucked so much he'd give them away, this from a guy who is not an audiophile at all and thinks Klipsch speakers are high end. So I had no / low expectations, but WOW, these are worse than the EX-71, worse than a $20 pair of MX500 buds, hell, I can't think of a worse name brand pair of headphones at any cost.

I know some people will crucify me for this, but after hearing comparisons to the Grado SR-60s, I tried a pair of KSC-35s a couple of years ago, and while they aren't bad, they're outclassed by any Grados. Doesn't count as a big dissapointment, but still, theres a lot of improvement to be had if you can afford to get closer to the $100 mark.

Also, I will straight out say I'm a Sennheiser apologist (no that doesn't mean I apologize for liking Sennheisers, it means that I would defend / recommend them.) and I think a lot of people who bash the HD6x00 line are people who would also not like many high end stand speakers, such as mounted monitors like the Dynaudio Contour 1.3 SE or Special 25s or Talon Hawk's or the like. I think the Senns share the dark / warm but tonally accurate signature of high end Dynaudio stuff, they need to be properly powered, they need to be fed from a high end source, but in the end they are tonally truthful, transparent and accurate. They're not harshly analytical, nor do they gloss over details, and they don't add artificial excitement to music. I like Grados, I like AKG 501s too, but in the end, I can listen to and enjoy music the most with Senns because theyre the least fatiguing and I can trust in their truthfulness to the source. Some other headphones feel like they have the equivalent of a loudness swith in crappy consumer audio products that provides artificial excitement, or car radios with the treble and bass turned up to +11. Sure that adds artificial excitement but its fatiguing and coloring the sound (in my opinion) negatively. I know this is supposed to be a biggest dissapointment thread so I'll stop here, but for people who like high end audio through speakers (more from Thiel, Wilson Audio, Talon, Von Schweikert than Klipsch or Yamaha) would *probably* prefer the Senn sound signature. It has a similar purist bent.

 

[GoRedwings19]

Lemme see the Grado sr-125's, the less said about them the better.

and please don't flame me for this: Sony R-10's. The sound is not for me pure and simple. There are shining qualities of this phone that very few can match. But there are a few which make this can for me the biggest dissappointment.