Hooyahaha
New Head-Fier
- Joined
- Oct 27, 2012
- Posts
- 2
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Hi Audiophiles! First time poster! I consider myself an audio noob, but I appreciate good sound (but not necessarily accurate at knowing what is good when I hear it) and I have been lurking around this forum for the past couple of months looking for headphone recommendations.
Bear with me while I talk about my IEM experience: I have a pair of Sennheiser CX271 for a couple of years, and recently acquired a pair of ATH-CKM500. I find the ATH-CKM500 too bassy (but getting used to it) but have really lush and smooth vocals which I like. The problem is that 1) The bass was too dominant and I crave more mids; 2) IEMs hurt my ears if I wear them longer than 1 hr. This brings me to looking into a pair of full size headphones. I have been reading about the hyped ATH-M50 and Philips CitiScape Uptown and how they are apparently very similar in sound quality, but different signatures. As I've had enough with the CKM500 bass and craving more mids, I went for the Uptown. To my surprise, it was like listening to my laptop speakers (tinny? distorted?), as if I have something between my ears and my music (veiled?). I might be exaggerating but that's the best I can describe the sound. I had noticed this with all the headphones on display when I was at the shop, but I thought it's because they were using bad sources. I don't use an amp or an external DAC, as the volume and bass are plentiful on the uptown for me and I was happy with the sound quality when I was on my IEMs. Could you audiophiles please educate me about the difference with IEMs and full size headphones? Is it because of something to do with my ears getting in the way of the sound? Is it because of bad seal? Or is it just a matter of breaking in? Does anyone else notice this?
Thanks guys!
Bear with me while I talk about my IEM experience: I have a pair of Sennheiser CX271 for a couple of years, and recently acquired a pair of ATH-CKM500. I find the ATH-CKM500 too bassy (but getting used to it) but have really lush and smooth vocals which I like. The problem is that 1) The bass was too dominant and I crave more mids; 2) IEMs hurt my ears if I wear them longer than 1 hr. This brings me to looking into a pair of full size headphones. I have been reading about the hyped ATH-M50 and Philips CitiScape Uptown and how they are apparently very similar in sound quality, but different signatures. As I've had enough with the CKM500 bass and craving more mids, I went for the Uptown. To my surprise, it was like listening to my laptop speakers (tinny? distorted?), as if I have something between my ears and my music (veiled?). I might be exaggerating but that's the best I can describe the sound. I had noticed this with all the headphones on display when I was at the shop, but I thought it's because they were using bad sources. I don't use an amp or an external DAC, as the volume and bass are plentiful on the uptown for me and I was happy with the sound quality when I was on my IEMs. Could you audiophiles please educate me about the difference with IEMs and full size headphones? Is it because of something to do with my ears getting in the way of the sound? Is it because of bad seal? Or is it just a matter of breaking in? Does anyone else notice this?
Thanks guys!