[nickchen]

If your model finally lands nearby what my MS1 sounded like (quality spread!) I am very confident in repect of mids, bowls and longrange ownership.

 

[donunus]

OK so you have listened to them with bowls. Mine are still getting better. its as though they started off sounding like the sr60s and improved in the first hour but still weren't "bowl ready" but are improving over time. I'll report tomorrow with my findings with the bowls and burn in.

 

[donunus]

now with more than 50 hours of burn in, I did a quick random check of the sound with just a few songs from one cd namely the verve's this is music. I did a side by side comparison against my sr60s. wait a minute here... the sr60s have a less honky more neutral midrange and more free flowing highs. Does the ms1 still need more burn in or is the sr60 a better headphone using the bowl pads? hmmm. I'll add more hours to find out. By the way, my sr60s are not totally stock because i took the sr60 button off and broke some of the grilles at the back making them a little more open back than the ms1s

And as for the differences in sound between the sr60 and ms1 at this stage of burn in, it is less than the difference between my hd600s with stock cable vs equinox hd600 to give you guys an idea.

 

[donunus]

the above post was using an audio cd and the glite w/dps amp...

This time, ms1 vs sr60 using my lenovo laptops headphone jack with no eq or any effects of any sort on. I'm changing things up by using ttvj flat pads. Unbelievable, comparing them with some acoustic alchemy, sr60 wins hands down. the ms1s have muddier mids. whats wrong here? I'll confirm on this thread in a few days if this is a fluke during the burn in period of the ms1 or the sr60s(no buttons) just sound better

EDIT: did a bunch of swapping pads around with both cans and the sonic winner for majority of my music is the sr60 with flats at this stage of the ms1s burn in. The bowls win only with selected music but it is not as set and forget as the flats for the sr60.

EDIT AGAIN: ive read ms1s having different sonics. some say they are brighter than sr60s (BrookR1 is one of them) some say alessandros are not as bright as grados(majority). My old ms1s were duller than sr60s and these newer ones are brighter. Or so I thought... After some burn in, they turned to become like my old ms1s "dull" grrrr. These better brighten up again. If not, off to do nickchens mod. These absolutely suck with flats!

Sorry for posting this in the appreciation thread, it just seems like the right thing to do for educational purposes

Oh, and pls dont forget... I took the buttons off my sr60s so that could make a difference. I dont know. cant remember the sr60 with the buttons on

As for long term listening of all the pads on the ms1 at the stage they are at right now, comfies still win(oh wait, read more)

EDIT AGAIN: Tried my sr60s reverse comfies on the ms1s, they are like the comfies with slightly more soundstage and highs so they might be better than the comfies but who knows what will happen in the long term. They were an improvement for the sr60s coming from comfies too but something in the sr60s mids still bothered me using them. The flats made that upper mids problem almost dissapear on the sr60s. The ms1s however get too dark with the flats. The stock comfies of the ms1 have an OK overall balance but lacks some highs which the reverse comfies fix. They are still not as detailed as the bowls but dont sound as thin and colored in the mids.

Here are some pics of the grados and various pads. Reverse comfies are on the ms1, Flats on the buttonless sr60

 

[HeadphoneAddict]

I say just keep burning the hell out of them.

 

[donunus]

After analyzing why the heck the ms1s sound so bad(boring and dull) with the ttvj flats, it occurred to me that the sr60s when i got them were plasticky and not so good with the comfies which led me to do things like take off the button and mod the pads.... then later get bowls and flats to see what they sound best with. This led me try the ms1 vs sr60 using stock comfies. Ahaaaa... Now I'm beggining to understand what George Alessandro might have wanted with the ms1s. My guess is that he wanted a good portable can to sound best with its own stock pads(get the best synergy with comfies). It seems that the ms1s eliminate most of the sr60s faults using the comfies like the glaring upper mids. This is good and bad at the same time. Great for those that don't want to use other pads but not very good for those that want to squeeze more quality out of them since they dont really synergize well with the other pads so well IMO.

Comparing the sr60 with flats vs the ms1 with comfies... the result is a toss up in the long term. some songs sound better with one over the other and vice versa. Coming to think of it, the sr60 with flats is $5 over the ms1s price and even more for people outside the US so value is actually similar since the sr60s with its stock pads didn't sound as good as the stock ms1s.

 

[nickchen]

Either your listening habits differ severely from mine, or your exemplar sounds different than my MS1. I can't stand the veiled and dark MS1 presentation with stock comfies, but I really liked bowls or reversed 414s. That all together is cold coffee compared to the MS1000 mods though.

 

[donunus]

I like the brightness of the bowls. actually prefer the brighter sr60 with the bowls. its the mids of the ms1 that are not agreeing with the bowls. I just washed the bowls with conditioner and are letting them dry as i type. I'm gonna see what that does to the sound. The comfies are brighter than the flats yet less defined in the bass and have less upper highs. Flats are the least bright but let the upper highs of the sr60 through. the upper highs of the ms1 seem to be absent using the flats.

So, in comparison to what ive described, what do the ms1000 mods do to the mids and highs?

 

[donunus]

update on the washed bowls. They sound more balanced now. I can now tell the difference between the ms1 and the sr60s easier. The sr60s just add highs in the sibilance region compared to the ms1s which make them more exciting. Its not super bright like dt990s though. Its just right. The washing made the bowls sound the best among all the pads now. I knew it.

The sibilance region being emphasized on the sr60s are what make them great for portable use with the flats. I keep mentioning portable use because the sensitivity is bumped up and there is more bass to combat outside background noise

 

[nickchen]

Quote:

Originally Posted by donunus /img/forum/go_quote.gif So, in comparison to what ive described, what do the ms1000 mods do to the mids and highs?

Thanks to the final "drilling mod" in the distancers, the mids can be regarded as quite unaltered (meanwhile, they were a bit thinner without the drills in the beginning). Highs get slightly emphasized. That all is presentated in a peculiar gentle way (I guess also thanks to the monstrous soundstage, which relativises 50% of the Grado roughness). Nicest of all is the bass, which gets an additional deep bass layer that was completely absent stock. You end up somewhere between an agressive Grado PRat monster and a "softer" HD650/DT880/K701 (but still more gradoish). The only other creature I know which has a similar "strategical position" in presenting things is the legendary Sony CD3000. But the CD3000 has a real mids recession and no deep bass at all.

Disclaimer: As times move forward, it gets harder and harder for me to recall the features of the stock MS1 correctly though.

 

[ak40ozKevin]

When I owned MS1 I vastly preferred the comfies to the lauded quarter modded & reversed 414 pads. I prefer a dark and warm presentation though.

 

[F107plus5]

I find I like the sound of my MS-1 with bowls better than with reversed 414s, but prefered the 414s for overall enjoyment.

 

[donunus]

the washed bowls sound the best on them IMO

 

[HeadphoneAddict]

Do the washed bowls get softer and compress more easily, so they act like 3/4 height bowls? Like I said in our PM before your MS-1 arrived, with bowls I didn't have a problem with the mids, and my spare bowls are new. With bowls, all I get is a boost in the high treble but not the upper mids - so the SR-60 and MS-1 are pretty different sounding to me. I have yet to try the scotch tape bowls mod, which should improve the MS-1 bass with bowls (my main complaint).

I posted in another thread the Headphile C-pads help the SR-60 but make the MS-1 worse (more congested was the term I used) - which is seems similar to what you said you hear with flats when you try them on SR-60 and MS-1. Interestingly, I can use flats or bowls with my ALO woodied and dead silver re-cabled SR-60, which do sound better than an MS-1 but they better for the cost. One of these days I'll sit down and try to note the exact differences, and compare to the woodied re-cabled HF-1 and RS-1 too.

Anyway, I have my rds spacers now, and my Grado GS-1000 bowls are on backorder with TTVJ (ordered Monday or Tuesday); so I'll be trying the nickchen MS-1 mods soon - but I have been happy to leave the comfys on for almost a year. If I want bowls I grab my RS-1.

 

[donunus]

the bowls become softer so i guess they compress more that the drivers get closer to the ears giving more bass