Decel
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Jan 20, 2005
- Posts
- 148
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I received my SQ5s yesterday, and it seems no one has talked about them yet. Here are my impressions (no pics
I have no camera):
Motivation:
Maybe it's my age, but I've grown a tad tired of iems, so natually I turned to real phones.
Loving my A900s, I decided to pull the trigger on the SQ5s even though the ESW9 were tempting, but the different form factor -compared to the A900s- had me a tad worried. The SQ5s looked rather nice and were about a third of the price. Of course, I wasn't expecting ESW9-range with them.
Build Quality:
These phones are a lot smaller than I expected.
The cups themselves feel rather well made. Overall it has a solid feel. However one hold of the band and you know you didn't buy an upper-tier product. This oozes plastic and makes sure you know that it is. The paddings' plastic covering is definitely a league below the often-complained-about 900's. The metallic part of the band is slightly slimmer than the ones of my SA5000 and definitely feels more bendable. Minor complaint here: there are no marks on the metal band, so you actually have to count the clicks to make sure the sides are even.
I used to think that my A900s were built like a tank, but compared to these phones, they're a complete bunker.
Comfort:
The phone cups are a lot smaller than I expected, but still marginally larger than the SE-Dir800c's cups. I did discover one thing: I'm a big-phones type of guy, and somewhat pleased that I didn't go for the ESW9s; I bet those are musical bliss (from what I've read), but I know I'd have the lingering consciousness of the cups compared to being oblivious to the presence of the A900s/SA5ks after a timelapse.
There's a slight pressure towards the bottom, not enought to piss me off, but nagging nonetheless. I wonder if it will go away once the phones are more used.
The cups themselves are rather comfortable; enough to lose the headwear even in this mild-so-far Canadian winter. There's definitely very little heat coming out of them, but I wonder how they will feel in the blazing summer.
Sound Impression:
The first thing that came to mind when I first heard these? My late Shure E3c
I'm definitely not talking about sound quality, but rather the lack of bass. With the A900s my primary home phones (I'm always on the comp) and the soon-to-fall-apart EX71s my portable solution, this came as a huge surprise. Dissapointing at first (I want my bass), but Audio-Technica's soundstage fame still has a slight-but-noticeable presence in these things.
Even though these feel like closed phones, sound leak almost as much as they do on the SA-5ks.
So far my use was with my sister's iPod mini, phone out (I know, the blasphemy...), so I haven't checked their performance with an amp.
Conclusion
So far I'm satisfied with them. I'd say they feel like 60-70$-ish headphones. At 80$s my thoughts are "80 bucks huh, hmmmmm....." but not yet in the "How much?!? No way!" region.
To compare I'd say that I'm extremely satisfied with the A900s that I paid 210-ish back in the day (at the price now, they're almost an awesome deal). So much so that I'm still debating on getting the A900ti with it's crazy price tag.
Hope I've appeased some of your curiosity on these headphones!
Motivation:
Maybe it's my age, but I've grown a tad tired of iems, so natually I turned to real phones.
Loving my A900s, I decided to pull the trigger on the SQ5s even though the ESW9 were tempting, but the different form factor -compared to the A900s- had me a tad worried. The SQ5s looked rather nice and were about a third of the price. Of course, I wasn't expecting ESW9-range with them.
Build Quality:
These phones are a lot smaller than I expected.
The cups themselves feel rather well made. Overall it has a solid feel. However one hold of the band and you know you didn't buy an upper-tier product. This oozes plastic and makes sure you know that it is. The paddings' plastic covering is definitely a league below the often-complained-about 900's. The metallic part of the band is slightly slimmer than the ones of my SA5000 and definitely feels more bendable. Minor complaint here: there are no marks on the metal band, so you actually have to count the clicks to make sure the sides are even.
I used to think that my A900s were built like a tank, but compared to these phones, they're a complete bunker.
Comfort:
The phone cups are a lot smaller than I expected, but still marginally larger than the SE-Dir800c's cups. I did discover one thing: I'm a big-phones type of guy, and somewhat pleased that I didn't go for the ESW9s; I bet those are musical bliss (from what I've read), but I know I'd have the lingering consciousness of the cups compared to being oblivious to the presence of the A900s/SA5ks after a timelapse.
There's a slight pressure towards the bottom, not enought to piss me off, but nagging nonetheless. I wonder if it will go away once the phones are more used.
The cups themselves are rather comfortable; enough to lose the headwear even in this mild-so-far Canadian winter. There's definitely very little heat coming out of them, but I wonder how they will feel in the blazing summer.
Sound Impression:
The first thing that came to mind when I first heard these? My late Shure E3c
I'm definitely not talking about sound quality, but rather the lack of bass. With the A900s my primary home phones (I'm always on the comp) and the soon-to-fall-apart EX71s my portable solution, this came as a huge surprise. Dissapointing at first (I want my bass), but Audio-Technica's soundstage fame still has a slight-but-noticeable presence in these things.
Even though these feel like closed phones, sound leak almost as much as they do on the SA-5ks.
So far my use was with my sister's iPod mini, phone out (I know, the blasphemy...), so I haven't checked their performance with an amp.
Conclusion
So far I'm satisfied with them. I'd say they feel like 60-70$-ish headphones. At 80$s my thoughts are "80 bucks huh, hmmmmm....." but not yet in the "How much?!? No way!" region.
To compare I'd say that I'm extremely satisfied with the A900s that I paid 210-ish back in the day (at the price now, they're almost an awesome deal). So much so that I'm still debating on getting the A900ti with it's crazy price tag.
Hope I've appeased some of your curiosity on these headphones!
