Seeing as the TH-X00 is going through it's second drop on Massdrop, and will be close to selling out by the time I press "Submit", I thought I'd write a review to try and explain what all the craziness is about.     The TH-X00 are a Massdrop.com exclusive headphone designed by Fostex for Massdrop.  You cannot purchase these headphones anywhere but from Massdrop, and currently there are only 2000 of these headphones in existence, and as of May of 2016, 1000 additional copies will exist.  So scarcity helps build the hype around these gorgeous natural...

I was a happy P5 owner and I've been a huge B&W fan for quite a while.  Their products always fall into that "Bose done right" category.  B&W makes the consumer grade products which Bose SHOULD be making.  Extreme high quality without sacrificing sound quality.   Enter the P7.  I'm happy to report with the P7, B&W took everything they learned in the making of the P5, and improved upon it.  The prime difference between the P5 and P7 is the P5 is on-ear, where the P7 is over-ear.  The P5 were very picky when it came to ear placement.  You could get 5...

I'll make this brief.  Apogee is well known for doing quality interfaces for musicians and engineers.  Their Symphony line is really 2nd to ProTools when it comes to quality.     I purchased the Duet2 to be a way into my system for doing voice overs using its mic pre.  I also wanted a nifty interface for my Avid Symphony editing system feeding my Genelec near-field monitors.  On that front it does what it's supposed to do.     I was hoping it might make a good DAC for listening.  Unfortunately this really doesn't run with the high end...

Not that there haven't been a hundred thousand things written on this most-controversial headphone-- but what the heck are we here for if not to give our opinion, right?  So sit back with a cup of coffee, while I'll tell the story of my HD 800 experience.   It's funny-- there's a growing Apple-Microsoft type environment growing in the Head-Fi community.  It's between HD 800 owners and fans, and Audeze owners and fans.  If you read any forum with the omni-present headline "Which Headphone Should I Buy?" the two sides make themselves known in...

The HiFiMAN RE-272 are the best sounding pair of non-customs I've put in my ear.  Period.   I wanted to try a pair after reading favorable reviews around these parts, and I'm glad I made the journey.   The bass is slightly accented without overdriving.  The high end detail doesn't suffer at all.  It's a bit of a closed in sound-- but these are full range earbuds.  They have good detail and they're decent at delivering transients.   My main pair of buds are UERMs, and the supreme balance and detail put them in a much higher class (both in...

I purchased this-- because for around $150 bucks-- how could I pass?     My needs were to provide a way to get audio out of my work computer and drive larger headphones, while stopping my chair from rolling over the headphone cables.  My computer is set on the floor-- and running a headphone cable out of the computer proved hazardous to the cables.     I'm driving a bunch of different headphones-- Grado 225, UERMs, ATH-50s-- for the purposes of this analysis-- I used the UERMs.   Okay- the good-- SPDIF, Optical, line, you name it-- you...

I wanted a closed set of cans for work-- and I like to show off new headgear every so often because I live in headphones at work.  The flashy white pair of ATH-M50s fit the bill.  Take that Beat lovers!   First impressions when plugging them into my WA6 was -- "Are you certain they're not Beats-- relabeled?"  Wow the bass thumps!  Fun.  I was also pleasantly surprised by the amount of detail and clarity through the upper frequencies.   Not a very open sound-- The HD800 is wide and airy-- these are definitely about a closed in, personal...

I got my pairs (plural) because my last pair of tried and trusty EC-4s bit the dust.. losing the left channel as they tend to do over 3 or 4 years.  In the past, I'd send $100 dollars and the EC-4s to Shure, who'd fix them and send them back.  Good to go.   Unfortunately, Shure has end-of-lifed the EC-4s.  Boo!  So rather than fixing them, they replaced them with two brand new pairs of SE425's-- right off the store shelves.  Impressive that Shure backs their gear as well as they do, it says a lot about the company's integrity.     So now I'm...

I was on the road last week and wanted a mid to low priced headphones for working out and quick listening.  I own many in-ear headphones now, and after reading review after review how Beats by Dr. Dre where over-priced hyped headphones, I thought I'd check them out for myself.     What I was expecting was a muddy pair of headphones with tons and tons of bass suited for hip-hop.  And that's what they are, sort of.     Beats have so much bass it blows your mind out of the box.  I tend to shy away from bass heavy headphones, so these were a bit...

I'm a relative newbie to the headphone game.   My reference system (at the time of writing) is a Burson 160D, and having a good reference is essential when you're comparing tubes.     My reference headphone (at the time of writing) is the Sennheiser HD 650, which are known for their veil until you put great amplification with them.  I also own UERMs, which aren't appropriate for this type of listening analysis.    First out of the box I was quite unimpressed.  The soundstage was decent, but not exactly impressive.  The bass was muddy and...

Having spent time with a lot of Bose QuietComfort (X) headphones on my ears, they all left me wanting better sound.  I work in a noisy newsroom.  The need for cutting back some of the chatter is always a premium here.  Active cancellation was the first stop on the path that led me to in-ear customs.   Style File:  The Sennies are pretty attractive, as far as headphones go.  Nice mesh case, and the cups are rather large (appreciated all the more after spending time with Bose). Sennheiser did a great job on comfort.  You can wear these a long time...

These are my go-to headphones when I don't want to use my customs.  They are easy to wear, sport all-day comfort, provide reasonable isolation-- to excellent if you buy the foam inserts, and are a full-range in-ear monitor lacking very little, and a steal for the price.  I own 3 pairs.   I keep a pair of these in my bag at all times.  They come in a round zippered case that's quite protective and unzip in a second.  If I need to grab a quick listen to something, these never let me down.     Construction is good, but about every two or three...

What can I say-- they do their job-- which is to protect my other headphones from use when I need to work out.  They do their job well, but let's face it--  they don't sound very good.      

I've recently amended this review, based on my education into the world of Head-Fi.   I've been toying around with getting a set of in-ear customs for a long time.  I caught the write-ups in my audio rags about UE's new product and jumped all over them.   I'm a video editor, but I also do a lot of music and mixing, writing, directing, and anything else that has to do with entertainment production.  It's like UE decided to custom build a pair of in-ear headphones just for me.  Thanks guys, much appreciated.   My super-secret hope?  They'd...

I bought these at an Apple store after jumping around between a few display models, and they certainly were the best of the lot that they had, in both sound quality and comfort.  I didn't want to take them off, so that told me something.   What's wrong with them-- Well the mids can get mucky-- like there's a film over them.  The bass is loose on the extreme low end-- it gets really slappy in the extreme lows below 200hz.  The treble gives me the most bother.  There's a real lack of imaging in these phones-- they bowl over the transients and...