[Stillhart]

  That's weird that you found the X1 to be muddy.  The bass might be a bit loose, but muddy?  Never.  When I had both the X1 and HE400 I found the X1 to be much more natural sounding and balanced, even if the bass wasn't as good.  The HE400's midrange is just too distant and odd sounding, and the treble spikes are borderline painful to listen to.

 
My first impression of the X1 was muddy bass too.  Especially after listening back to back with the Q701.  That didn't change until I had them amped well, after which they became a very nice can (though still not as nice as my Q's).  Interestingly 80%+ of the people who owned the X1 and Q701 like the Q better.
 
One of these days, I'm going to have to figure out where I can audition a flagship.  There are no head-fi shops in Vegas and no meets either.  :-/

 

[jodgey4]

After I thought about it for a while, the bloated/muddy bass and rolled off treble of the X1's made me think about the cable on them... I tested them with a V-Moda Boom Mic on there, so I'll be doing some cable measurements of the V-Moda and just a normal AUX cable to see if maybe the V-Moda has an abnormally high impedance that could be causing issues. I doubt it though, I've never heard anything bad about V-Moda cables. I'll post my results here next week... I'm out for the weekend.

 

[Saoshyant]

I've used a V Moda cable before, I think they're commonly used by T50RP modders as well, perhaps the professional ones, can't remember.  Either way, they are kind of a staple of reliable aux cords.  But you never know if the cable itself is faulty.

 

[jodgey4]

It's the mic one, so there's more going on, what with the mic mute switch and little volume pot on it and such.

 

[Saoshyant]

I was always under the impression that as far as a mic on the cable, for you to notice it'd have to be higher end gear that's oriented towards detail.  I could be totally wrong though.

 

[jodgey4]

The potentiometer is on the audio signal path to the headphones, so a crappy one could maybe cause issues... we'll have to see next week when I try them with a different cable. It's more of my interest in measuring the cable than it is the sound quality at this point, tbh.

 

[Saoshyant]

Somehow, I'm not surprised by that.  BTW, got in a portable amp/dac that I'm liking so far, although it is totally phone driven.

 

[Stillhart]

  After I thought about it for a while, the bloated/muddy bass and rolled off treble of the X1's made me think about the cable on them... I tested them with a V-Moda Boom Mic on there, so I'll be doing some cable measurements of the V-Moda and just a normal AUX cable to see if maybe the V-Moda has an abnormally high impedance that could be causing issues. I doubt it though, I've never heard anything bad about V-Moda cables. I'll post my results here next week... I'm out for the weekend.

The stock cable and the non-Boompro V-moda cables both are known to have abnormally high impedance.  The Boompro is supposed to actually make the X1 sound better, and in my experience, it did.  Ever so slightly, but the difference was there.
 
Do a search in the MLE headphone guide.  It's been discussed there.

 

[jodgey4]

I just finally added the LCD-2.2F section, revised some spacing, and changed the X1 to say DOES have rolled off treble instead of not. Please ask any questions and comment all you want!

 

[Chris J]

I just finally added the LCD-2.2F section, revised some spacing, and changed the X1 to say DOES have rolled off treble instead of not. Please ask any questions and comment all you want!

Interested to see what you think of the bass modded Q701!

 

[jodgey4]

I measured the cable I was using with the X1 - a VMODA BoomPro Mic cable, and it was a stunningly horrible 50 ohms on each signal channel, and about 1 ohm for the common return. This didn't really make sense, so I tried swapping to another cable (the stock one at ~2.1 ohm per). I immediately noticed an increase in volume which tells me it wasn't a measurement artifact - perhaps as much as 1.5 db. Bass tightened up appreciably (though not near enough or even really that much), and treble seemed to maybe extend clearer, it's hard to tell because I couldn't volume match. I'll look into this more when I can, but I'm not expecting any of my review to really change. But that VMODA cable is clearly crap. I'll be doing the Q701 bass mod this weekend as well, travel depending.

 

[Saoshyant]

Well, that sounds like a cable I'm never going to buy.

 

[jodgey4]

Apparently the normal aux cables from VMODA are fine, so I have no clue why this one would be so messed up. It's not like the microphone interferes with these lines? That's why I was so confused.

 

[Saoshyant]

It could be a fluke

 

[Stillhart]

Would love to see the HE-4 added to this comparison some day.