Pre-review info:
I've produced music for 6 years now these are my most expensive headphones I've bought. (prev Sennheiser HD600) These cost me 700$ due to Customs and Tax to Finland.
I'm driving these out of a Cambridge Audio Dac Magic Plus, also these are the first planars AND high end closed headphones I've heard,
so maybe you will find this review interesting. I had a lot of fun writing it.
First Impressions:
These feel really weird on my head.
*Starts first song* What (Takes cans off and sees I connected the wires the wrong way lol) There we go...
Oh wow that detail! That bass sounds super boosted though. (Immediately adjust the bass port 1 full turn)
Allrighty that's good. Hmm they seem to sound "hollow" (lacking 1-5kHz) Maybe the thick pads also had something to do with it, that gave it that impression.
The treble is not as sibilant as I would've thought but mine had 2 Dots pre-installed. Sounded rolled off actually.
After a few days I can now collect my observations more accurately.
The speed that these have is just INSANE...
Listening to Despised Icon - Les Temps Changent (Deathcore) Which is by no means a reference quality track.
At 2:14 in the song, I literally heard the ride cymbal as if there wasn't anything else there playing at the same time...
Like as if it had its own layer where none of the other instruments could leak in and mess with it and there being
guitar, bass, vocals, fast drumming at the same time in such fidelity is just crazy.
Also this is the first time I've heard EVERYthing in Noisia ft. Amon Tobin - Sunhammer.
It's the most complex song I've yet heard and the speed of the Alpha Dog just makes it sound effortless...
Lots of detail everywhere. Even though some of the sounds are compressed to **** It does not make you tense your ears,
It's just very effortless and liquid. You can hear everything clearly from the transients to the ends of reverb tails.
Now the soundstage:
Surprisingly wide: HD600 territory. Some sounds are more closed in but some sounds come further away than the what the HD600s could ever do.
The soundstage is weird though, while the sounds are clearly placed in the soundstage, it lacks cohesion. They are either in the middle or wide.
What's in between seems unfocused even though it is still there. Very hard to explain but it is still very good although not as good as the HD600.
Bass: At first it sounded all over the place and crazy in quantity (just like this review lol), but once I tuned the bassport 1-1.5 turns (can't remember what I finally settled on)
It now sounds... Well I don't know, none of my headphones / monitors has had this kind of bass, So I don't even have anything really to compare it to.
Like I'm unable to say "ooh texture this lack of distortion that." I don't know. What I CAN say is: It is very, very flat down to as low as I can hear. Straight line.
Finally able to hear the fundamentals on the sub-bass on Tipper - On The Natch which goes down to 35Hz. The bass is very tight and controlled So yeah...
It's super weird hearing those frequencies on instruments and sounds, that I thought never had them with the HD600's, which gave the impression of the Alpha Dogs being bass heavy
(Which they still are out of the box.)
Mids: Lacking. Just saying that first because it is the most prominent quality of the mids to me that I percieve.
They are really neutral though. Maybe that's just what it is, although people say the HD600's are neutral yet they sound way more present and engaging, so I'm not sure...
Boosting the mids ~3dB sounds more like them. The lack of mids for me just makes them boring sounding. They do not grab my attention at all, I have to actively "listen" to listen to these.
Recording my acoustic guitar through a Sony-PCMD100 and playing it back on the Alphas sounded exactly right though. They did not take away mids and listening to the same recording back
with my HD600s, they seemed to add some sparkle in the top end, so yeah. Otherwise the mids sound super smooth and liquid. Vocals on these, while sounding a bit lacking in fundamentals
make up for it in clarity.
Highs: This is where most of the tweaking comes in. You have to take the time to at least try the available customization options. Mine came with 2 Dots pre-installed which sounded too rolled off
so I took them off. Now the highs were peaky and piercing. Added one Dot on each side was the sweet spot, but I had to change the positions of the Dot to find the sweet spot also haha.
On one of the bottom edges it sounded the best to me. The treble lacks air and liveliness that I was seeking for unfortunately, but it is super smooth and fairly clean sounding.
Comfort: They a lot more heavy compared to HD 600's and It is very noticeable. It is not an uncomfortable headphone though, the thick leather pads hug your head nicely providing very good
isolation. Out of the box the clamping force is very high but it is quite easy to stretch the headband by hand, if it gets too loose you can also easily reverse the process to make them fit tighter.
Can easily wear for hours, but in the summer the pads might get too hot if the sunlight is directly on them.
Overall thoughts:
Man, I wish they had the quantity of mids and highs as the HD600. I could've seriously considered settling for these as an endgame headphone.
That and a better more cohesive and deeper soundstage,
and you have what I would call a "perfect" headphone. They defeat my HD600s in every other department.
They make the HD600s sound digital but you only really notice it when A/B'ing. They sound fairly dynamic but I'd say they could be even better.
Certainly again, beating the HD600s. I would think that if you like a more neutral/dark closed headphone,
you should give these a shot if you can find them.
EDIT: 1.12.2016 I had to update the rating from 4 stars to 3 stars due to me giving it 4 stars only because I found it objectively competent. I want to give my true unbiased opinion so I had to lower it to 3* because I just didn't like them... Now even though I have upgraded to the Ether C I can still even from memory say that the Alpha Dogs seemed faster and had better seperation with certain songs but still poopy bad overall. Take that for what you will.