[buke9]

Well finally got back from CamJam SoCal after a couple days in San Diego and have just put the Vesper pads on. First off comfort is much better even though the originals were not that bad. Second they do up the bass just a bit. I have to swap them out with the originals a couple of more times to get a good feel for them as how they sound but so far they are good. Just to give a plug to Darin and his Out of Your Head software. I haven't heard any of the speaker systems that are on there so i can't say they have  replicated them but it is a cool effect between them. If you watch movies on the computer or from the computer the the surround sound from it is just awesome even my wife thought so plus he is a really nice guy.

 

[darinf]

  Well finally got back from CamJam SoCal after a couple days in San Diego and have just put the Vesper pads on. First off comfort is much better even though the originals were not that bad. Second they do up the bass just a bit. I have to swap them out with the originals a couple of more times to get a good feel for them as how they sound but so far they are good. Just to give a plug to Darin and his Out of Your Head software. I haven't heard any of the speaker systems that are on there so i can't say they have  replicated them but it is a cool effect between them. If you watch movies on the computer or from the computer the the surround sound from it is just awesome even my wife thought so plus he is a really nice guy.

Hi @buke9 ,
 
You were in my neighborhood? I hope you enjoyed our fair town...
 
Also thanks for buying the Vesper pads at CanJam. Glad you are enjoying them. And good for you swapping the pads more than once. I haven't even gotten around to trying the memory foam versions yet.
 
And thanks for the plug for Out Of Your Head. I had several people throughout the weekend mention that they felt the Koss ESP-950's or the Stax 009's worked the best with Out Of Your Head. I also find that electrostatic drivers are able to really recreate the micro-detail and speed of the subtleties required to emulate the various speakers and rooms. Everyone should put on their 950's and give a quick listen to our online demo.
 
-Darin

 

[Policar]

Did a lot of A/B/C/D'ing and the sub bass does sound VERY recessed to me with these headphones but the mid tones are the best. 
 
DT1350s win for for all arounder/bass monster. So freaking good for their size.
 
SR-303s (lambdas) have more impact to the bass, but they also have a slightly plastic quality. Oh well.

 

[Kazekeil]

Very unlikely I'll find someone with the same gear, but can anyone compare the 950 to the Baby Stax iem, ie SR-002/SR-003 mk2?
 
Got the staxes and I love them. From what I'm reading, they're on the bassy, full bodied, non plastic side of the stax family. The 950 seems to be similar. I'd love some comparisons if possible. I'd like a full sized estat.
 
Also maybe a little easier to answer. I was looking at the Stax 404 or 404 with leather pads(ie LE edition). How would the stax compare there?

 

[Kazekeil]

Well got a 950 in and man they are the perfect compliment to the HD800. The 950 made me realize what I was missing from my HD800. The Sennheisers feel hollow in the mids and grating in the treble(I've never had an issue until now) coming from the 950. I like the two approaches to tuning too. Senn was like "Vel ve should replicate the frequency of a flat speaker in a completely echoic room" and Koss was all "How 'bout we just slap massive flat response drivers to the side of the end-user's head?"
 
Since getting them, I've been listening to albums and songs twice over. Once with each set. I don't feel like I have a full picture of each track until I've heard it on both sets.
 
As an aside, I love the look of the Koss. I really think they're the best looking electrostatic available. They feel a bit off for sure, but pure looks, the Staxs, orpheus, and kingsound can all eat their hearts out.
 
Little niggle: The pads are terrible. Anything below like 80HZ and the bass actually causes them to crinkle and rattle. Listen to the last minute of The Haxan Cloak - Mara to confirm. I alleviated this by pressing down on the pads but that's obviously not an actual fix. The vesper pads are on their way. When they're not rattling, they're crinkling from every subtle head movement. Incredibly annoying.

 

[Music Alchemist]

  Senn was like "Vel ve should replicate the frequency of a flat speaker in a completely echoic room" and Koss was all "How 'bout we just slap massive flat response drivers to the side of the end-user's head?"

 
Play this frequency sweep in a video player and you'll see how not flat any headphone or speaker (especially the HD 800) really is.

 
https://www.dropbox.com/s/pyi1gug2s2jumzq/sweep.mp4?dl=0

 

[Kazekeil]

   
Play this frequency sweep in a video player and you'll see how not flat any headphone or speaker (especially the HD 800) really is.

 
https://www.dropbox.com/s/pyi1gug2s2jumzq/sweep.mp4?dl=0

I know the HD800 isn't flat. The HD800 is tuned to the Diffuse Field frequency response, which is the FR of a flat speaker in a completely echoic room. This results in a very non flat FR but it's what the ear hears if you would sit in that echoic room with a flat speaker(very basic explanation).
 
The Koss drivers were an attempt at creating a flat response. It isn't perfect of course but it's pretty damn close.

 

[Music Alchemist]

  I know the HD800 isn't flat. The HD800 is tuned to the Diffuse Field frequency response, which is the FR of a flat speaker in a completely echoic room. This results in a very non flat FR but it's what the ear hears if you would sit in that echoic room with a flat speaker(very basic explanation).
 
The Koss drivers were an attempt at creating a flat response. It isn't perfect of course but it's pretty damn close.

 
It doesn't follow the diffuse field curve closely at all, though. (The measurements Sennheiser include with the headphones aren't actually the diffuse field curve, but their own proprietary curve that they just call diffuse field.) Here are measurements that show how far it deviates from it:
 
http://en.goldenears.net/4326
http://en.goldenears.net/22602
 
http://cdn.head-fi.org/a/a9/a9650bb7_Sennheiser_HD800_Frequency_Response_HRTF.png [mislabeled; the green line is the diffuse field curve and the black line is the Harman curve]
http://www.innerfidelity.com/images/SennheiserHD800.pdf
 
And the ESP, for contrast:
http://en.goldenears.net/15022
 
More importantly, headphones have far more peaks and dips than what shows up in the measurements, for whatever reason. As you can see above, the InnerFidelity measurements don't look as extreme. That's why I suggested the frequency sweep. I think the HD 800 is even brighter than any of those measurements would suggest.
 
The STAX SR-207 follows the diffuse field curve more closely than nearly all other headphones, and it's the most neutral headphone I've heard. The diffuse field curve is actually my neutral reference for headphones, not only because the STAX follows it and sounds neutral to me, but also because most high-end headphones follow that curve more closely than other curves, and headphones that are considered to have linear bass (especially planar magnetics) follow that curve in the bass.
 
The ESP and 207 measure similarly on InnerFidelity despite the ESP having more roll-off at both ends with the Golden Ears measurements.
 
http://cdn.head-fi.org/6/6d/6de6f4f3_STAX_SR-207_EP-507_SB2217.png
http://www.innerfidelity.com/images/StaxSR207EP507LeatherPadsSerNumSB22217.pdf
http://www.innerfidelity.com/images/StaxSR207SB2217.pdf
http://www.innerfidelity.com/images/KossESP950Sample2.pdf
 
If you go with the InnerFidelity measurements, the ESP follows the diffuse field curve more closely than the HD 800 does.

 

[Kazekeil]

Huh, interesting. Thanks for all the links and info.

 

[Policar]

  Huh, interesting. Thanks for all the links and info.

 
Let me know if the new pads boost the sub bass at all. The sub bass sounds very rolled off to me, especially at low listening levels. 
 
Edit: and what's the deal with their angled pads? The lambdas are all angled, so I'm curious if those provide any advantage. The lambda pads are definitely nicer than the Koss pads, maybe that's part of the reason the bass is less rolled off on lambdas.

 

[Kazekeil]

Let me know if the new pads boost the sub bass at all. The sub bass sounds very rolled off to me, especially at low listening levels.

Edit: and what's the deal with their angled pads? The lambdas are all angled, so I'm curious if those provide any advantage. The lambda pads are definitely nicer than the Koss pads, maybe that's part of the reason the bass is less rolled off on lambdas.

Got the Vesper Pads in through fong audio's amazon shop. First main thing out of the way, they are hell to get on. After a dram of Bruichladdich and another of Ardbeg, I finally got them situated.

First off, holy hell they are comfortable. Drastic increase in enjoyment on comfort alone.

Next, looks. They're really nice. The crinkly vinyl pads just really ruined what I personally find to be a really sexy looking headphone, certainly the nicest looking e-stat. The Vesper pads really complete the look, make the headphones look and feel more substantial than they are.

Now for the seal. They do an excellent job of "filling in" the little nook at the bottom back corner of the headphone. Where the pad overhangs your jaw. The vinly pads don't seal there, but the vespers do.

Subbass has certainly been improved and overall the koss gets a slightly warmer tilt from the higher frequencies being smoothed a bit more.

Now unfortunately, I thought bass tones below 100hz or so were causing the vinyl pads to crinkle. As it turns out, my 950 must be slightly defective. Even with the new pads, low frequency tones, even pure sine tones, cause a crinkly buzzing. I got a partial refund from amazon, then I'll send the set into koss sometime next week to iron things out. Not looking forward to putting those pads on again.

In short, the pads are totally worth the $103 or so I paid shipped. You could also order them direct from vesper for like $80ish shipped, but they come from the ukraine and will take about 2 weeks. Fong audio got me my pair in 3 days.

 

[Policar]

Thanks, that sounds pretty great. Although for $100 the Bruichladdich or Ardbeg might be the better choice. Don't tell me it was the Uigeadail... that's my favorite. :/

It seems vesper offers leather-sided pads (rather than alcantara) as well as angled pads. My Lambas definitely (well, imo) seal a lot better than the Koss with their all-leather pads despite also having huge ear pads and I think they angle the driver a bit, too. The sound has a bit more impact in the bass but it's not my preference for tuning quite as much.

I'm wondering if I should try the all-leather and/or angled pads. The LCD2s seem to be angled. What's the benefit?

 

[Kazekeil]

Thanks, that sounds pretty great. Although for $100 the Bruichladdich or Ardbeg might be the better choice. Don't tell me it was the Uigeadail... that's my favorite. :/

It seems vesper offers leather-sided pads (rather than alcantara) as well as angled pads. My Lambas definitely (well, imo) seal a lot better than the Koss with their all-leather pads despite also having huge ear pads and I think they angle the driver a bit, too. The sound has a bit more impact in the bass but it's not my preference for tuning quite as much.

I'm wondering if I should try the all-leather and/or angled pads. The LCD2s seem to be angled. What's the benefit?

I always try to keep the same type of pads as the original ones. Headphones are tuned with the pads they're going to use in mind. Slapping an angled pad on a headphone that came with flats will give a bit more soundstage but cause some funkyness in the highs and bloat the bass in comparison to the original flats.

 

[Policar]

Interesting... I think I'm going to go with leather on leather with memory foam with straight pads then. I want the best seal possible. The lack of sub bass is so annoying for me.

I listened to a frequency sweep with my electrostatic headphones and dynamic headphones to compare them. What's interesting is (I listen to music way too loud and go to too many concerts and am old, so bear with my poor hearing) the cut off for every headphone for treble is about the same for me: 15.4khz.

But for bass it's different for each headphone. The Koss have a very faint sound starting at 15hz (the very start of the sweep) building to something clearly audible around 22hz. The Stax are the same but there is more bass, a better seal and beyond that just a bit louder bass that's less rolled off. The HD650s and thunderous in the sub bas... and so are my Porta Pros and Monoprice heapdhones. The Monoprice are just booming from a high output impedance OTL tube amp... and they sound awful lol even if they're not bad otherwise.

This contradicts measurements. Maybe part of the dynamic sound is the thud in the bass from distortion. 16khz should not be that loud if it's truly 16khz, it should be too quiet to hear that loudly. I'm going to try my basshead headphones tonight without the amp (they're higher impedance and low distortion anyway though).

 

[Shure or bust]

Can someone measure the ear pad inner opening ? Thanks