Takstar Pro 80s
NOTE: I did not buy the Takstar Pro 80s, I instead bought the Gemini HSR-1000s. By all accounts, these are the same headphones, so I brought my review from there over to here in order to give more people an understanding of these headphones. Please comment corrections if this is not true.
Isolation: Okay, but not great. They aren't going to block out the world, but they will make it more manageable. I would like to have something much more isolating.
7/10
Comfort: The pad size could be bigger, over a couple of hours they will somewhat hurt my ears. I can wear them for multiple hours, though. They do not have a death grip. Overall, they are pretty comfortable. If I could find replacement pads that are more isolating and more comfortable, I would buy them in a heartbeat.
8.5/10
Sound: For testing the sound, I used this test file.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/69968986/MyMusic/CombinedTestTrack.mp3
The song samples contained are:
Safe and Sound by Taylor Swift, Strobe by Deadmau5, Pirate Bay by Savant, I Want It All by Queen, Small Two of Pieces from Xenogears, Home Sweet Home + Title Theme from Earthbound,
Star Stealing Girl from Chrono Cross, Aquatic Ambiance from Donkey Kong Country, For River from To The Moon, and finally the Final Fantasy VII Main Theme performed during Tour De Japon.
My main priority when listening to these songs is to question, how well do the headphones provide the intended emotion that the song sets out to create?
Songs that did not perform well:
~~~
Safe and Sound by Taylor Swift,
I Want It All by Queen,
Small Two of Pieces from Xenogears, and
Aquatic Ambiance~~~
The reason being that these songs are very vocal focused, and the headphones have a dip around 4 Khz, which I personally find to be a very important area for vocal listening. None of these songs provide emotion without EQ. I Want It All is heavily lacking even with EQ. Rock music does not mix with DJ headphones, I believe. It sounds lifeless. The drums are great, but the guitar, man. It makes me sad :c
Aquatic Ambiance, on the other hand, suffers from the impactful bass. The song should be relaxing, but the bass breaks any attempt at a soothing piece.
Songs that are okay:
~~~
Final Fantasy VII Theme~~~
This song, listened to on the best of equipment, will take my breath away. On the Takstar's, this will only make me smile. An acceptable reproduction, but not the best.
Songs that are great:
~~~
Strobe by Deadmau5,
Pirate Bay by Savant,
Earthbound music,
Star Stealing Girl from Chrono Cross, and
For River from To The Moon~~~
Do you like Bass impact? Because these headphones got it. I'm normally not a bass head, in fact, I'm into treble, but the bass production on these are nice.
Pirate Bay proves that the headphones will do well with dubstep and the like. Strobe has a wonderful kick to it, and the organ is perfectly eerie.
On the other hand, the bass really makes the Earthbound track something else. I didn't even know the bass synth went so low in Home Sweet Home!
Star Stealing Girl might be here and not on "okay" because of the EQ I started using, but it also is a wonderful reproduction of the piece. The instruments are well separated and clear, and I believe that is great. The piano in For River also sounds wonderful on these headphones.
The sound is much more transparent than I expected, overall. I love how revealing these can be, but this also can bring some harshness to your listening experience in the treble, making them possibly too revealing for some people. They also do not reproduce vocals as well as I had hoped. The soundstage is slightly better than your average closed headphones. I find these to be a wonderful new edition to my tiny headphone collection.
9/10
Conclusion:
I found these headphones to be lacking slightly in isolation, comfort, and vocal reproduction, but making up for it in almost every other aspect of the sound.
Sold my DT770's and CAD audio cans as well.