Finally got it!
It will take a few days for me to make a final decision on how well I like them, but so far I'm not absolutely, completely, totally blown away like I had expected to be. Though I do find them to be very good. Perhaps I need to 'grow' into them.
I gotta say the build quality isn't quite what I had hoped for. The pair I have has several scuffs and the cord for the right phone is about 1 inch shorter than the left so it hangs crooked from the 'Y'.
I'll have to figure out something to do with the cord. I use my phones at my desk so I've got a lot of extra cord getting in the way, and its heavy so I keep knocking my PA2v2 over.
I have an AV-710 and I have my master system volume maxed out, wave at 1/2 and my PA2v2 at 3/4. Do I have something wrong? It seems that everything is set very high. I would think that these levels together should be unlistenably loud.
So far I really like using reverse 414 pads, I find them more open and comfortable than the comfies.
Wow, you guys weren't kidding, there is literally
no soundstage compared to my PPs. It takes a lot of the positioning out of some 5.1 DVD-As I have laying around, a small bummer as I was surprise how well my PPs handled this. Super-leaky, I saw in another thread someone said PPs were really leaky, but that isn't quite so, they have nothing on these. Bass is excellent, less boomy than my PPs but still impactful, really it's just perfect. Mids and highs are far better than on my PPs, especially in the highs there is no comparison. These sound fuller, more detailed, clearer, and smoother overall. Very close, but perhaps slightly less forward then my PPs.
Day 2---------------
I was going to submit this last night, but I decided to make sure to listen more before writing in. OK, so I was rather negative because they didn't do so hot on Dark Side of the Moon, which is what I like to test with first. "The Wall" and Wish You Were Here sounds
really great on these. Stadium Arcadium was a treat, Def Leppard was fun, and Amon Tobin, Dido, and Jet were
far better than on my PPs. On the other hand so far I like AC-DC Live and Garbage better on my PPs. I still need more testing on Pearl Jam, Zeppelin, and Nirvana as I haven't been able to decide on a favorite for these yet. So much to listen to all over again!
I would say that these MS-1s
are less forward than my PPs, but more neutral and are far better at highs. Cymbals sound like "CRASH" rather than "scratch" and Fiona Apple's highs were effortless, compared to the near squeal on my PPs. Bass is richer and overall better than on my PPs. Overall the MS-1s
are better, but it makes me realize just how good the PPs and KCS-75s are for the price.
I'm really liking my MS-1s a lot more today! Hopefully even more tomorrow!