These headphones are hard to review because I like the balance of this headphone and to me balance is probably number one on the list of what makes a headphone of any quality because without balance you can have immense quality in the whole spectrum of frequencies and it would be for naught. Second on my list is vocals and clarity; 2a and 2b followed by bass impact. These have good balance and decent quality through the range but are otherwise irregular sounding largely due to what I can assume is shoddy driver replication, bad assembly, lack of real quality control or all of the above.
They are very comfortable. Maybe the 2nd most comfortable headphones I have tried behind the WS1100iS. See I had gone years thinking all around ear headphones were designed to torture the user, so the recent ones I have tried have been very surprising in the comfort department.
They have decent clarity especially in the treble region and for a small part of the bass region there is very good resolution, like little short flashes of brilliance. Vocals are actually very very well done and actually sound "airy" but unlike the treble and bass it's weakness outweighs its brilliance; by this I mean every so often you will find music that doesn't sound "right" vocally.
If my analysis stopped here these would be GREAT headphones but alas there are serious concerns. Concerns so serious I would put some kind of dangerous material sign on these headphones, maybe something black and yellow with the lines of "Caution Radioactive". There is a radioactive leak of harshness somewhere in the mids and/or upper bass that has a sonic effect similar to what one would feel if hit in the neck with a ninja's throwing star. This was most apparent in the left side driver. Every once in a while a frequency would hit perfectly to have this undesirable effect and I would watch my health bar go down like a Tekken character being pummeled by Marshall Law's unending windmill kicks. Every so often i would also feel a small almost imperceptible rush of air on the left side like a ghost, an apparition of very low level bass frequencies being activated. Bear in mind it took time but surprisingly not very long to notice these flaws and it took even longer to realize they were serious enough to make the headphones unusable.
With bass ports closed I could tell these were harsh for prolonged use within maybe an hour or two.
With 1 bass port open some of the harshness is less noticeable, as the treble gained some shine and the bass gained some fun buzz to achieve a more v-shaped sound, but nevertheless the harshness was still there over time. This actually sounded the most desirable to me because I like a little extra bass accentuation.
With 2 bass ports open bass was obviously more elevated similar to headphones only diehard bassheads would enjoy.
So china copies A LOT. Cars...headphones...other things. It's hard not to notice similarities between Takstars headphones and other popular big brands. Most likely some of the big brand headphones are made in the same place or assembled by Takstar employees. Maybe some of these parts slip under the table. Maybe we assemble our own headphones with some of these parts. I get a feeling these drivers are sourced from one of Sony's piles of drivers. The previous iteration of Takstar's the Pro 80's might be sourced from Beyerdynamic pile. I don't know if they're actually using the same drivers or creating "rough" copies of the big brand's drivers but somewhere within that assembly process, which I can assure you does not include quality control measures longer than a few seconds, the chinese counterparts fail miserably. I did like the Pro 80's and Superlux 681's(I would probably pick both over these) but both had serious treble issues and I could never use either one for long periods of time. I actually ended up destroying and throwing both away after some modding.
These are one of the few headphones I feel I need to actually give out a warning. I would literally recommend any other headphone than this. For audiophiles, modders, tinkerers, people who have too many cables and electronics devoted solely to audio, and who would be using amps and equalizers to make these barbaric things sound unobtrusive, for 70-90 dollars these will be a steal for them, and they might be happy with their Frankenstein results. For me I like simplicity and I'm glad I got these from amazon so it was easy to return. I only give these a 2/5 because like the Pro 80's before them; they're ambitious, and even though I suspect some uniformity in assembly and design of these headphones I cannot rule out that mine might have a unique defect. Maybe I just got a bad one, but from previous experience with Chinese headphones I doubt it.
They are very comfortable. Maybe the 2nd most comfortable headphones I have tried behind the WS1100iS. See I had gone years thinking all around ear headphones were designed to torture the user, so the recent ones I have tried have been very surprising in the comfort department.
They have decent clarity especially in the treble region and for a small part of the bass region there is very good resolution, like little short flashes of brilliance. Vocals are actually very very well done and actually sound "airy" but unlike the treble and bass it's weakness outweighs its brilliance; by this I mean every so often you will find music that doesn't sound "right" vocally.
If my analysis stopped here these would be GREAT headphones but alas there are serious concerns. Concerns so serious I would put some kind of dangerous material sign on these headphones, maybe something black and yellow with the lines of "Caution Radioactive". There is a radioactive leak of harshness somewhere in the mids and/or upper bass that has a sonic effect similar to what one would feel if hit in the neck with a ninja's throwing star. This was most apparent in the left side driver. Every once in a while a frequency would hit perfectly to have this undesirable effect and I would watch my health bar go down like a Tekken character being pummeled by Marshall Law's unending windmill kicks. Every so often i would also feel a small almost imperceptible rush of air on the left side like a ghost, an apparition of very low level bass frequencies being activated. Bear in mind it took time but surprisingly not very long to notice these flaws and it took even longer to realize they were serious enough to make the headphones unusable.
With bass ports closed I could tell these were harsh for prolonged use within maybe an hour or two.
With 1 bass port open some of the harshness is less noticeable, as the treble gained some shine and the bass gained some fun buzz to achieve a more v-shaped sound, but nevertheless the harshness was still there over time. This actually sounded the most desirable to me because I like a little extra bass accentuation.
With 2 bass ports open bass was obviously more elevated similar to headphones only diehard bassheads would enjoy.
So china copies A LOT. Cars...headphones...other things. It's hard not to notice similarities between Takstars headphones and other popular big brands. Most likely some of the big brand headphones are made in the same place or assembled by Takstar employees. Maybe some of these parts slip under the table. Maybe we assemble our own headphones with some of these parts. I get a feeling these drivers are sourced from one of Sony's piles of drivers. The previous iteration of Takstar's the Pro 80's might be sourced from Beyerdynamic pile. I don't know if they're actually using the same drivers or creating "rough" copies of the big brand's drivers but somewhere within that assembly process, which I can assure you does not include quality control measures longer than a few seconds, the chinese counterparts fail miserably. I did like the Pro 80's and Superlux 681's(I would probably pick both over these) but both had serious treble issues and I could never use either one for long periods of time. I actually ended up destroying and throwing both away after some modding.
These are one of the few headphones I feel I need to actually give out a warning. I would literally recommend any other headphone than this. For audiophiles, modders, tinkerers, people who have too many cables and electronics devoted solely to audio, and who would be using amps and equalizers to make these barbaric things sound unobtrusive, for 70-90 dollars these will be a steal for them, and they might be happy with their Frankenstein results. For me I like simplicity and I'm glad I got these from amazon so it was easy to return. I only give these a 2/5 because like the Pro 80's before them; they're ambitious, and even though I suspect some uniformity in assembly and design of these headphones I cannot rule out that mine might have a unique defect. Maybe I just got a bad one, but from previous experience with Chinese headphones I doubt it.
