joeexp
500+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Aug 5, 2014
- Posts
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- 261
Got my pair in two days ago.
My first impression is awful to be frank. This is my first foray into the high(er) price bracket of hi-fi sound equipment and I have been seriously disappointed to find that in most cases I still prefer my $250 Fidelio L2's. Maybe my preferences are horribly skewed, but to me these don't perform. The more dense the music, the more egregious the issue. Listening to shoegaze, drone, or something really maximalist like Machine Girl's new album is an absolute disaster. It's not relaxed. It's just a flat mush. It's not even dark beacuse the bass can perform well but often times it doesn't because these headphones just sound confused.
With that said, some moderate eq'ing, less taxing music like Visible Cloaks Reassemblage, and curiously breaking the seal on the ear cups makes these sound a lot better. Really, really good in fact.
Like I said, I'm kind of a novice with this and I'm wondering about that last bit of breaking the seal to improve the sound. I put on a 60hz tone and moved the headphones away from my ear and found that moving them a short distance from my ears and breaking the seal made the bass louder and (to my ears) more natural and realistic. This confuses me because 1. I thought open headphones wouldn't have a seal. Doesn't sealing imply closure? 2. I thought that the more closed a headphone is, the louder the bass tends to be because it can resonate.
Anyways, I figure I'll end up selling these. I bought them at the $600 price so I'll probably be reselling them at that price.
Impossible to know what the problem is without knowing what source and amp you are using. ...
I certainly wouldn't start dismantling the LCDs quite yet -- doh!