Long time lurker here, thought I'd post some first impressions on my new toys
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First some background, so, maybe 3 years ago, my old sennheiser HD500's broke, I'd had them since 2003, getting them for lanning after buying a computer with money from my first job (25 now), and they'd served me well, nice headphone, what they lacked in bass and punch they made up with awesome imaging which was a huge advantage in CS back in the day. They never really had enough bass / body / punch for my taste for music, I'd find myself listening to lots of accoustic music, going these sound awesome and then I'd go back to stuff I normally listen to (Anything from rock/hard rock/punk/metal/house/trance/electro, loud, punchy music basically), and I'd find them lacking. By the time they broke I was hardly using them, and didn't really miss them, and went on using the logitech something or other piece of crap that I got when I did my last computer system upgrade.
Then a few years ago, I got some etymotics HF-5's after reading reviews and going these will be awesome with my iphone, seeing as I couldn't stand the apple earbuds and needed something for the gym. Boy were they something, so clear, so neutral, so much clarity. I've used these quite a bit, only downsides are comfort after an hour or so, which is ok because if I did find shoving foam tips into my ears comfortable I'm pretty sure I'd also find a straight jacket pretty comfortable. As for the sound, I like it, very clinical, 'cold'? I guess (I still don't have the greatest handle on the audio-phile techno but in my research into new headphones I don't think anyone really does) but almost a little soul-less, great for beats if I'm not wanting thumping bass, just want a nice chilled listen, great isolation as well so awesome at the gym, but really lacking that lush, organic sound. I love electro on them, but they don't rock well I guess.
Since then off and on i've occasionally looked at doing a proper setup, I'd end up reading thread after thread, review after review, and coming away a couple of days later dazed and confused, thinking no wonder people don't bother with hi-fi, there's no objectivity, it's all subjective hocus pocus mixed in with the odd bit of common sense. At one point I got a good deal on some astro a40's/mixamp combo a year or so ago (I know, there's no such thing as a good deal on astro a40's, even if it was only $40 more than just the mixamp new) , and have used them mainly for gaming but they just hadn't been doing it for me. I'd go to the gym, be like awesome music, come home, put these cans on, and just be ugh when it came to music. Sure enough every few months i'd research, get ready to pull the trigger on some gear, and then back out because i'd read something that was completely counter to what I'd read earlier, if there's one thing that's been consistent reading these forums is that audiophiles [size=small]
≠ consistent. I nearly pulled the trigger on the ultrasone 900's that many times because 'they're a good edm can', to some, and to others, the mids are a problem, to the next guy, the mids are fine but the bass is flabby, to the next guy the bass is tight but the highs are harsh etc, etc. I ended up deciding to focus on the negatives, look at what the drawbacks would be and what I could live with to determine which cans I should go for, and I thought I'd gotten there, tossing up between HE-500's & Ultrasone 900's. I'd decided that for my tastes (clarity, punchiness, good bass, good imaging but i'm not really fussed about soundstage), and wanting something that didn't sound like the sennheisers I'd once owned, it would either be ultrasone somethings, some Hifiman's or maybe even some sony 5000's or whatever they were. All would have a drawback of some sort, and I couldn't decide what to go with.[/size]
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Then the more I read about ortho's the more I thought I'd like them. Black background, strong bass, good clarity and mids, strong punchy sound, but I thought the LCD-2's would be out of my price range to amp properly, etc. Then low and behold, random ebay deal, $650, rev 1's with rev. 2 drivers, I pulled the trigger, thinking hey, if I'm going to do this, I'll do it properly, save now, pay later and all that (Mastercard should use that as their slogan). No audition, nothing, the next day I woke up thinking what have I done, $650 without ever auditioning, maybe I am crazy enough to go on those head-fi boards , thinking the only decent headphone shop was Headphonic over in Perth, which is a decent flight away. Then to make matters worse google decided now was the time to show me banner ads for a shop in melbourne where I could have gone an auditioned cans, thanks adsense, where the hell were you when I needed you! Anyway, now I had to look for an amp/dac combo, and after wading through the subjective audiophile thoughts, I settled on the Schiit lyr/bifrost, mainly because not only do I like bad jokes, but I also like how they used plain english on their website, not once did I read bright, warm, cold, dark, open, closed, etc, and this pleased me greatly, something other manufacturers could take note of, not to mention loads of power, tubes to change sound signature, plus they look slick stacked on top of eachother.[/size]
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So here I am, all set-up, it's 4:30 in the morning, way past my bedtime, and I can't stop listening to tunes. As for burn in, I'm sure everything will sound 'better' in a week or two, whatever that means, and I'll be completely sold on the concept of burn in on the amp /dac (headphones are used), or it will sound the same and I'll just use technical terms like lusher and brighter to justify the huge hole in my wallet. Comfort factor, pretty good, 5 hours straight and they don't feel heavy, but then I do a lot of physical work and don't have the neck muscles of an obese child which might have something to do with it, pads aren't sweaty & give a good seal.[/size]
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As for sound, these things rock, they rock rock music so well that I want to juggle rocks while rocking out to these cans playing rock (insert obligatory picture of Xzibit here), what I felt was missing with the hf5's is there, that soul, punch, whatever you want to call it, it's there, and it's clearer, and louder, etc etc. Listening to Blood Pressure's by the kills is so raw and organic (I'm getting the hang of this audiophile lingo stuff now ) For trance and EDM, they go loud, the bass goes low, it punches hard enough, then the vocals are awesome, there's just nothing missing. Anjunadeep02 (The Jaytech cd, one of my personal faves) is just so much deeper now. Not only that, but it seems like when I turn them up louder, they sound better, I get to uncomfortably loud levels and they sound better, it's like the complete opposite of every other piece of audio equipment I've ever heard in my life. I now may have actually have to worry about tinnitus, not from clubbing or concerts but from sitting in my chair tapping along to tunes. The detail resolution is amazing, hearing the singer inhale, tiny little details that I hadn't heard previously, great seperation between sounds, still sounds very 'in my head' like headphones, not speaker like imaging, a decent sized soundstage I guess but it's not like a concert hall, more like a small club I guess? But good plenty big enough for me atm. I feel like now I can listen to and properly appreciate music for the first time in a long time. There's something special about listening to a track (the one I keep going back to is the Robbie Rivera - Float Away (Dubfire Casaplex [/size][size=small]
Remix), a track I've heard probably a hundred times, and it sounds new on the LCD-2's, sounds like I havn't ever heard it properly. [/size]
Downsides? I guess the main one is crap music sounds worse, but what has probably happened is good music now sounds amazing, and crap music doesn't scale as much, whether it's a 192k podcast problem or just a badly mastered recording, but there's a simple solution, not to listen to it, or replace it with a lossless version. That, and not being able to stop listening to them. Then there's the inevitable tiredness I'll experience at work today but I'll make do I guess
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TL;DR version, I got them, paired them with shiny new schiit (woo bad joke), and am loving the crap out of them so far, all imo, imho, ymmv, etc, etc.
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