When the Denon D5000 first came out, I was pretty impressed with it – I felt if delivered a considerable amount of audiophile goodness for a reasonable price. There was, in the end, some room for improvement, however, and when the D7000 first came out, I was very eager to try them.
On listening to them at a meet, however, I came away with the feeling that they didn’t sound that much better than the D5000, and stayed away. I should know better than to judge anything just on a meet listen.
Some time later, I was kind of itching for a new headphone, and my D5000 were long gone. A nice used pair of D7000’s came up, and I bit. And I am sure glad I did. The D7000 are a very, very good headphone, a definite step up from the D5000, as I recall them. The D7000 are really quite balanced. They have good performance top to bottom. They are just a little recessed in the midrange, and just a little fat in the bass (although the bass is of exceptionally high quality). Some people have reported that he highs can occasionally be just a little much, but I have not experienced this. There is lots of detail, but I think the treble is well integrated and balanced.
The D7000 are very nice in terms of their soundstaging capabilities, too – for a closed can especially, they have a well defined soundstage with excellent depth, and very good width, although the better open headphones are universally better on that last vector. This may be due to their one big weakness, though – for a closed can, they offer very little isolation. They should be better in that regard, IMO.
But beyond that, the D7000 offer an awful lot of high-end headphone performance. While expensive at the list price of $1,000, they are always available for much less than that. At the “street price” of between $600-700, I think they are very competitive. They are cheaper at street price than the JVC DX1000, and while I do not think they are better across the board, they are in a similar class of performance (both the DX1000 and D7000 have a distinct and different flavor, which some will love, and others will not).
If you want an articulate, detailed headphone that isn’t overly lush in the mids but that has strong, detailed bass and clean, detailed treble, the D7000 are a good choice.
On listening to them at a meet, however, I came away with the feeling that they didn’t sound that much better than the D5000, and stayed away. I should know better than to judge anything just on a meet listen.
Some time later, I was kind of itching for a new headphone, and my D5000 were long gone. A nice used pair of D7000’s came up, and I bit. And I am sure glad I did. The D7000 are a very, very good headphone, a definite step up from the D5000, as I recall them. The D7000 are really quite balanced. They have good performance top to bottom. They are just a little recessed in the midrange, and just a little fat in the bass (although the bass is of exceptionally high quality). Some people have reported that he highs can occasionally be just a little much, but I have not experienced this. There is lots of detail, but I think the treble is well integrated and balanced.
The D7000 are very nice in terms of their soundstaging capabilities, too – for a closed can especially, they have a well defined soundstage with excellent depth, and very good width, although the better open headphones are universally better on that last vector. This may be due to their one big weakness, though – for a closed can, they offer very little isolation. They should be better in that regard, IMO.
But beyond that, the D7000 offer an awful lot of high-end headphone performance. While expensive at the list price of $1,000, they are always available for much less than that. At the “street price” of between $600-700, I think they are very competitive. They are cheaper at street price than the JVC DX1000, and while I do not think they are better across the board, they are in a similar class of performance (both the DX1000 and D7000 have a distinct and different flavor, which some will love, and others will not).
If you want an articulate, detailed headphone that isn’t overly lush in the mids but that has strong, detailed bass and clean, detailed treble, the D7000 are a good choice.
