I have been listening to my AD1000X lately. It is a shame that I did not give this headphone a real chance when I got it a long time ago. I probably have about 50, or maybe 55 hours use on it now. The last time I used it, it maybe had 20 hours use on it, and I just put it back in the box. I noticed the headphone reached its final burned in sound at about 40 hours. With the brainwavz XL velour pads combined with the EQ set I created, this headphone is completely balanced sounding.
Pre-Amplifying: - 2
31.5Hz: + 2
40Hz: + 2
50Hz: + 2
63Hz: + 2
80Hz: + 1.5
100Hz: + 1.5
125Hz: + 1
160Hz: + 1
200Hz: + 1
250Hz: + 1
315Hz: + 0.5
400Hz: + 0.5
1kHz: - 0.5
1.25kHz: - 0.5
3.15kHz: + 0.5
4kHz: - 1.5
5kHz: - 0.5
6.3kHz: - 1
8kHz: - 1
10kHz: - 1
I am not a fan of the stock tuning of this headphone. It is too lean in the bass, and the mids are bizarre. The headphone has a dip at 3kHz, followed by a big peak at 4kHz, and then another peak in the mid treble from 7-10kHz. The tuning to the mids gives everything a hollow and shouty presentation. That said though, once I put those pads and this EQ on it, it sounds completely neutral, detailed, articulate, and has the appropriate bass extension. It now just sounds correct. The improvement in sound quality is drastic. Soundstage and imaging is also greatly improved. The drivers used in this headphone are very high quality. They can easily handle any adjustment to the sound that is wanted.