Here's some initial impressions after a few hours of listening this afternoon.
First off, I have to say thanks to whoever it was that posted the Jaben deal. I've never bought anything through them before but they were a real pleasure deal with.
I tried to capture what was going through my head as listened so this ended up being a bit of a stream of consciousness type post. My apologies for it being a bit all over the place.
Upon opening the box I was a bit surprised by the color of the wood, I was expecting a little more reddish tinge around the edges. The colour isn't bad by any means, just not quite what I was expecting. Next, the cables. You guys weren't kidding, these are pretty thin and frail looking. I immediately connected the 4.4mm balanced to the headphones and the iFi hip dac, fired Audirvana and queued Bon Iver's self titled album. Not bad, guitar has a nice snappy quality albeit a touch thin. Justin Vernon's vocal's lack some body and sound a little honky but there's tons of detail coming through.
Next up, Billie Eilish's latest. Holy schiit balls! These things have some nice punchy, detailed bass. A lot of details coming through that I hadn't really heard before. Overall tonality seems better here.
Now for a total change up with Isis's "Oceanic". The drums have nice weight and body while the snare has a nice snappy quality. The electric guitar has a crunchy, almost Grado quality, but also seem to lack some fullness as does the vocals.
Time for another 180 with Sarah McLachlan's "Freedom Sessions". I've used this album for testing audio gear ever since it came out. In particular the version of "Hold On" highlights Sarah's vocal's and piano. There's a lot of little detail here but it's such a simple composition that it's really easy to focus. All the little details come through but with a delicacy I've rarely heard. Sarah's voice is touch thin and just bordering on being overly sibilant in places. The piano was recorded fairly well so I also like to use it to gauge tonality. Through the WP900's it's lacking a little heft and body but emotion Sarah is playing with really shows through.
On the next track "Ice Cream" the harmonies are more present and separated than I've ever heard through headphones. The bass has a really nice punch quality.
It's at about this point in the listening that I had a thought. I took off my glasses, put the headphones again and started to listen again. Ok, now we're talking! Bass and midrange are fuller. The midrange in particular seems to benefit here. The downside is I'm pretty blind without my glasses on. Being a goofball I put my glasses back on but put the arms above the pads. Ummm, damn, this actually works! The pads are small enough that the arms of my Oakley glasses are only pushed up a small amount and it's more comfy because the pads aren't pushing the arms into my head.
As I was playing around with this, I also noticed that because the cups are able to turn I can actually push on the side of the cups that faces the back of my head which redistributes the pressure from my jaw/cheekbone to behind my ear which helps with the TMJ related pain I can get from the clamping force. This is a bit of revelation and something that I'll be looking at when considering other headphones.
Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming. As I continue to listen to new tracks and go back to listen to those I previously listened to again the WP900 seems to get better and better. The midrange sounds more and more natural and the highs have smoothed a hair so that tracks with a little extra sibilance are better controlled than the first time around. Now I'm really impressed with these. The bass has a nice fast and punchy quality that does not lack for detail. Now that the mids have filled out some they sound much more natural with only lacking a little bit of body in comparison to some of the more lush headphones I've heard. I'm really liking the treble as well, it's present without being overbearing or sibilant. I'm sensitive to that so I've tended to veer towards darker headphones. This is refreshing!
I think there's a couple of things going on here. First, a good seal is important to get the best out of these. Second, it really felt like I was hearing them settle in as was listening. Kind of like listening to a cold amplifier or DAC that sounds hard and brittle when first turned on but as it warms up so does the sound. In this case though, it would be the drivers settling in and I wouldn't have to go through this "warm up" period every time I go to listen.
