[subguy812]

Has anyone slightly bent their headphone to release a little of the clamping force?

 

[inthere]

  Sorry if I missed this, but does anyone have both Sine and Ether C? I'm wondering how they compare. Being that Sine is a third the cost of Ether C, I'm considering it more strongly if the overall improvement (if any) in Ether C is only marginal.

I have both and Ether C has way more treble clarity than the Sine, but sounds a bit thin and bass light compared to the Sine. Ether C is also a more airy presentation and much better soundstage. 
 
I think the difference between the two is quite big but only worth the price difference if you prefer that type of high end tuning. If you like weight on your bass get the Sine and you won't look back. If you want to listen to music with no bass bloat whatsoever, get the Ether C.

 

[Maelob]

Or run and get some Alpha Primes or Alpha Dogs in the used market. 

 

[the8o88y]

 
I have both and Ether C has way more treble clarity than the Sine, but sounds a bit thin and bass light compared to the Sine. Ether C is also a more airy presentation and much better soundstage. 
 
I think the difference between the two is quite big but only worth the price difference if you prefer that type of high end tuning. If you like weight on your bass get the Sine and you won't look back. If you want to listen to music with no bass bloat whatsoever, get the Ether C.

 
Appreciate the response! Damn, that's tough. I love clear treble and open soundstage, but I really am not a fan of bass-neutral phones either. Is the lack of clarity in the Sine treble due to the tuning volume level or just seems less because of added bass?
 
I'm also concerned about whether or not Sine creates a proper seal since it is on-ear. I listen at high volume, and don't want sound leaking out, or coming in for that matter.

 

[inthere]

  Appreciate the response! Damn, that's tough. I love clear treble and open soundstage, but I really am not a fan of bass-neutral phones either. Is the lack of clarity in the Sine treble due to the tuning volume level or just seems less because of added bass?
 
I'm also concerned about whether or not Sine creates a proper seal since it is on-ear. I listen at high volume, and don't want sound leaking out, or coming in for that matter.

 
 There's no *lack* of treble clarity in the Sine unless you compare it to Ether C or another similarly tuned high end headphone. Even at top volume Sine won't leak much sound at all, the seal and isolation are top notch.

 

[acia]

  Thank you for sharing this case. I have purchased from BuySonic before without problem. I do not know why but each thing I had purchased had the seals broken as well, but you could clearly tell it was new.

same size as bose??  so no need to me to buy the case if i have bose i reckon?

 

[Deders]

  Hey, my 1st post - long time lurker, but this time I wanted to share my impressions.
 
I just got the Sines (no Cypher) and a Chord Mojo a couple of days ago.  I'm not going to go into comparative detail, other than to say I've heard a lot of things over time - these are my raw impressions.  I spent the last two days wandering around Madrid listening to the Sine & Mojo & iPhone 6+ combo - overall, around 11 hours of listening.  I used the stock Apple Music app, and files varied in quality - nothing less than 256 AAC, but otherwise ranged from 320MP3 to full-on WAV.  All the named albums and songs were in ALAC, except NOFX (320).
 
I'm just going to focus on the things that matter to me.  It should be noted that I have rather different preferences to many here - I am an audio engineer with a tech background, and tend to value transient response and clarity over any other quality, so keep that in mind!  Also keep in mind that this is basically stream-of-conciousness - it may not make the most sense, but they are my honest impressions.
 

1. The Sines have excellent transient response, especially in the lows.
2. They have very good overall clarity, with some caveats, which I'll get to in a moment.
3. Soundstage is smallish, but still bigger than HD25. Not an issue for me, but if you obsess over wideness, could be off putting. Just the name of the game with closed-back on-ears, though! It is on par with most IEM's, but not quite on the level of IE800's.
4. Comfort is very good. Takes a bit of getting used to, but better than most on-ears. Ears get warm, but not unpleasantly so. Once you get used to the shape of the pads, getting a good seal is pretty easy. I had no problem accommodating my sunglasses while walking briskly, something I find difficult with most other mid-sized cans - the HD25's can be torture in that regard.
5. On the same note, they won't fall off easily, though their clamp force isn't too high. It is about on par with well-worn-in ATH-M50's, but no where near the vice grip of HD25's.
6. Have a nice weight - not so light as to feel as though they aren't there (the 25's, again), but not heavy to the point of being noticeably so.
7. Isolation is good enough to use without issues on the subway - which is my usual standard for good iso!
8. Music (the 1st day) was an assortment of rock and electronic, in an assortment of formats (mostly ALAC, some Apple Music, some 320 MP3, some raw WAV). Spent about 4 hours wandering, so there was a fair amount of it - stuff that sounded notably excellent was Infected Mushroom, Queens of the Stone Age, and some of my own orchestral work. Stuff that was a bit "off" (not bad, just unexpected) was mostly Americana - for instance, The Old 97's Drag It Up (in ALAC) didn't really sound great - the downtuned, fuzzy lead guitar sounded a bit muddy, taking away from the excellent vocal presentation...
9. On the second day, I think I've found the Sine's Achilles' Heel - things that have a whole lot of dense detail in the lower mid and upper bass range.
10. The most strikingly "off" sounding album I listened to was Dinosaur Jr's Hand It Over. One of my reference tracks has always been "I'm Insane", not because I really like the song - it isn't one of Mascis' stronger efforts - but because it is just so dense. The Sines reproduced the density with far too much intensity - while it was possible to pick out all the details of the song - the many layers of guitars, the spastic drums, the horn and string parts over super-fuzzy guitars, and most importantly the bass - it was by no means pleasant while doing so!
11. The detail was there, but it was just overwhelming - overly dense. The same thing happened with Devin Townsend (not a huge fan, just looking for difficult material); Z2's "Midnight Sun" was almost overwhelming, and not in the way that it is supposed to be.
12. Another album which I didn't listen much past the first couple tracks was Smashing Pumpkins' Siamese Dream. "Cherub Rock" in particular has the same issue that "I'm Insane" does - the guitars just don't sound right, even if all the info is there.
13. It wasn't all bad news, though - things that were sparser and less dense in the 300-1200hz range benefited greatly from the same effect that made the dense stuff fatiguing to me.
14. Wilco's A Ghost is Born sounded amazing, for instance. That's my favorite Wilco album (not their "best", but MY favorite), and though it is easily as dense as Dinosaur Jr in places - "Handshake Drugs", for instance - the density felt engaging, rather than fatiguing.
15. Amusingly, the same seemed to be the case with Prog Metal - Dream Theater (Images and Words, Metropolis Pt.2) sounded awesome as well, even in their most spastic moments (though nothing could make me hate LaBrie less). Same with more upper-mid-focused stuff like NOFX (So Long and Thanks for all the Shoes) and Jets to Brazil (Orange Rhyming Dictionary, one of my favorite albums ever) - both sounded "right", if that makes sense.
16. Drums in general sound great with this rig - and that is quite the trick. They even sounded very good on the dense stuff, excepting the DTP album (which has a crapy drum sound in the first place).
17. It should be said that the stupid-dense stuff sounds that way on most systems - the Sines handled the material with aplomb, bringing out all the details, they just didn't sound particularly pleasant doing it!
18. My theory is that it is the lack of an upper-mid emphasis to define the instruments - Mascis and Corgan's fuzzy, dense guitars in particular - leaves the sines with all "meat" and no "bones", if that makes sense. Basically they are the anti-Grado, and the material I found that they struggled with is exactly the same material that Grados can sound awesome on, in spite of their [obvious] flaws!
19. I wouldn't let this particular niggle of mine dissuade you from trying them - I have played guitar for over 20 years, and fuzzy, dense stuff is kinda my thing. I'm really picky with that sort of material, and someone else might not even notice the issue - it wasn't as though it were muddy, after all, merely overwhelming. Remember, I'm not an "audiophile" per se, so the same thing I find "overwhelming" someone else might find "engaging"! After all, I have a penchant for things most enthusiasts would call "painfully bright", mainly because I value transient detail so highly.

I've posted a similar reply to your post in another forum, but I thought it might be useful here.  I'm a guitarist myself and have had some experience with engineering, so having your level of input is very useful for me.
 
Am seriously considering these headphones as they seem like a perfect fit for my needs. We seem to have similar tastes in music (bands might be a bit different), was wondering if you you give me a bit of insight as for what to expect.
 
I realise that personal tastes in audio equipment is comparatively subjective, usually based on what someone is used to listening with. And in your case your line of work demands that you use equipment that can pick out more details than headphones designed for consumers, but your impression of Siamese Dream caught my attention as this is an album I will be listening to, along with a few other bands that have centralised/doubled/thickened guitars around the same frequency space, instead of say Appetite for Destruction where each instrument seemed to have it's own space in the mix, different sounding guitars panned left and right, Duffs melodic bass (with that almost chiming top end) ringing through, and Axl in ranges I'm pretty sure that band had to take it in turns kicking him in the balls to maintain.
 
I've just had a very quick listen to the beginnings of a couple of songs on both the standard and 24bit versions of Siamese Dream through my upper mid range Hi-fi, and the bass does seem more lost in the mix than when listening to it on my MP3 player with Sony IEM's. this isn't a phenomena I'd noticed before, and I'm not sure whether to thank you genuinely, or sarcastically.
 
The 24 bit remaster on the other hand somehow does seem to let the bass ring through a bit, just enough to hear it better defined between the Guitars and Bass. This is even more prominent on my MP3/IEM's but I can't remember if I encoded them from the original mix or from the 24/96 remaster (Same Lame VBR v0 codec for both). I thought both were on there for comparisons, but can presently only find one.
 
I'm probably worrying about nothing really, and was going to ask you a lot more questions. I seemed to have resolved most of them myself whilst writing this. I guess I'm just so used to the IEM's that I was expecting the same kind of clarity or better from these kind of headphones (intended for use with my Hi-Fi/Receiver).
 
As expectations can often lead to disappointment, at least I now know what to expect, It won't be such a shock to me now you have said it's common for most speakers/headphones that weren't intended for sound engineers.
 
You might want to try the 24 bit Re-issue though, I do kind of sense that somehow, whether its through eq-ing at the remastering studio, there are definite slight differences you'd only notice through A/B-ing them. For instance some of the swirly guitar sounds at the beginning of Quiet are more prominent. Say if they were made using 3 tracks, one for each kind of sounds, one of the "swirls" sounds more prominent compared to the others, compared to the original mix. It may just happen that the particular frequencies the guitar was producing, lined up with a change in EQ. Not sure how the overall 24bit version was treated, or whether it was the original mix sent to the remastering studio all those years ago, before any EQ was applied.
 
Could give the orig mix a bit of a listen every now and then and see if burn-in (don't worry about pink noise, just as you'd naturally play music through them) clears this up at all over time? As some have mentioned this pair does seem to benefit from a bit of burn in.

 

[Focker]

  Has anyone slightly bent their headphone to release a little of the clamping force?

Personally I find that just extending them a bit more relieves it to a comfortable degree. 

 

[YugiRider2]

Deciding between these and the PM-3... I mainly listen to pop music and some female vocals. Which one would you recommend?

 

[inthere]

Tyll calls the PM 3 the most neutral headphones he's ever heard and as a former owner and present PM-1 owner I think he's not far off. But be warned everyone is not a fan of that tuning.

 

[Maelob]

Tyll calls the PM 3 the most neutral headphones he's ever heard and as a former owner and present PM-1 owner I think he's not far off. But be warned everyone is not a fan of that tuning.

And Tyll is currently reviewing the Sines- will see what he has to say.

 

[michaelgordon]

I was told by my Dealer that cypher cables were back logged and Apple was the culprit. Apparently Apple is supplying the chips for the Cypher cable DAC/amp and Audeze ordered and paid for a few thousand but Apple is giving them Only 200 chips at a time for whatever reason.

So if you're lucky enough to find a Cypher cable for sale grab it,I couldn't find one in the UK so my Sine will have to go through Mojo for awhile

Surely the Mojo will be better than Cipher anyway?

 

[captblaze]

  Surely the Mojo will be better than Cipher anyway?

 
Mojo is better than most $1000 dacs, so I don't think a $50 cable stands a chance

 

[Maelob]

   
Mojo is better than most $1000 dacs, so I don't think a $50 cable stands a chance

Agree but I would not take a Mojo on my daily commute or put it in my pocket.  I think Cypher is a great on the go solution for iPhone users.  So it is just a matter of convenience.  I am still waiting on my iPhone6 hifi Skyn DAC/amp but even that case is somewhat bulky.  So for me the Cypher is going to be a big plus. 

 

[inthere]

  Agree but I would not take a Mojo on my daily commute or put it in my pocket.  I think Cypher is a great on the go solution for iPhone users.  So it is just a matter of convenience.  I am still waiting on my iPhone6 hifi Skyn DAC/amp but even that case is somewhat bulky.  So for me the Cypher is going to be a big plus. 

 
 Bang, Cypher cable makes the Sine one of the top portables out, without it, things are very clumsy and how many people really want the hassle of worrying about losing their Mojo?