Recessed mids and hash treble definitely sounds like a defective pair; it's a quite common defect too........my 1st pair had harsh highs, very little bass, etc. I returned them when the left cup died. When I heard the EL-8C at Can Jam London, the highs were smooth as silk and it had mids.
When my replacement pair arrived, it sounded like the Can Jam pair; smooth silky highs and pretty balanced.
I told a friend of mine to check out the EL-8C and he went to his local hifi store-he hated them. Said they had harsh highs, no mids, and no bass. I told him the store had a defective demo pair, lol. He told the store and they caught it but they must've demoed that defective pair to more than a few audiophiles.
A non defective pair of EL-8s should sound almost exactly like the EL-8 open with a smaller soundstage; all the parts are exactly the same except the opens have the grill instead of the solid backing.
This is my experience comparing the two at Can Jam and my local dealer because they gave me a choice between the two when I returned my defective pair and I had a tough time deciding which one I wanted. In the end I decided I wanted portability and the soundstage difference wasn't big enough to convince me to go with the opens.
Wow, I had no idea. The store I listened to them at usually gets early stock from Audeze, so it's possible that Audeze made some significant tweaks since the original few batches. The ones I heard took me about 10 seconds to take off my head and say, ewwwww. The fella at the store said that the closed model had more bass than the open but this wasn't at all the case in the pair I tried.
A closed back EL-8 with even 80% of the quality I hear in my opens would be without a doubt the best closed headphone on the market, particularly with the speed and transient response of planar tech.
I'll see if I can find another store in Melbourne that has a demo pair of closed EL-8s, thanks!
