[The-One]

Hi, so I bought a pair of Philips Fidelio X2HR off Amazon UK yesterday for £109 as I thought it was a good price. I'm a bit sad to find that even though this is X2HR so supposed to be newer / later production date than the X200, the left channel seems to be louder than the right?

TP Vision Amsterdam Netherlands - Made in China (no date of production) SNY1A1910018441

I though the X2HR was supposed to have gotten rid of all production problems with the X200s?

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I determined that these were louder in the left by flipping wearing them the other way round. as well as comparing with other headphone (OneOdio) and earphone (Senn CX300).

Funnily, but also sad is that usually my L ear is more sensitive to sound than the right is so that everything always sounds a bit to the left, if I flip the X2HR to R/L (then use VLC to reverse stereo channels), things sound exactly in the middle... Pity they couldn't have made the exact channel imbalance on the other side

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obligatory sound impressions after channel imbalance corrected is that it does bass quite well, it's clear and has good extension for a headphone. Mids are fine also, I can't detect anything amiss. Treble however is uneven, on a lot of tracks voices can have more of a brittle quality and instruments slightly grating. My guess is that they tuned this to a slight V curve to accentuate the lows and highs. reference they are not, generally warm with occasional brittle treble. Sound stage is better than closed, not the best ever (I owned a Senn HD800 once upon a time).

 

[Sefelt103]

Strange that you say when you reverse the channels the sound is in the middle, try listening with the headphones rotated 180 degrees and see if they are louder on the right side. When I first got my Beyerdynamic DT 880, I was convinced there was a noticeable channel imbalance. Now they seem balanced. I think headphones often change after the first few weeks of use. Sometimes the positioning of the headphone makes a difference. It also takes time to become "acclimatised" to the headphone. From photographs it is a single sided detachable cable. Presumably the cable feeds into the left side ? It is possible you have a faulty set, driver matching won't have been a priority at this price level. I'd give it a bit more time before returning them as faulty though.

 

[The-One]

Strange that you say when you reverse the channels the sound is in the middle, try listening with the headphones rotated 180 degrees and see if they are louder on the right side. When I first got my Beyerdynamic DT 880, I was convinced there was a noticeable channel imbalance. Now they seem balanced. I think headphones often change after the first few weeks of use. Sometimes the positioning of the headphone makes a difference. It also takes time to become "acclimatised" to the headphone. From photographs it is a single sided detachable cable. Presumably the cable feeds into the left side ? It is possible you have a faulty set, driver matching won't have been a priority at this price level. I'd give it a bit more time before returning them as faulty though.

That's what I meant. I put the X2HR's flipped 180 so that R was on my left ear and L on my right. Then I used VLC on my PC to reverse stereo channels.

As I said, my left ear is more sensitive to sound than the right, or maybe it's the right that's more deaf. Either way, an adjustment of about 10% reduction in the L or 12% increase in the R makes the sound more in the middle of my head.

So that's how I knew there's a definite driver imbalance. I am still probably going to return them though as it's a valid defect and also because the way they boosted the treble, I mean it's not like a bad implementation. But if they're going for a "fun" sound, well I have a pair of OneOdio (Yenona) headphones that cost 1/5 of the price (<$30) and gets at least 80% of the performance.

 

[zazex]

Hi, so I bought a pair of Philips Fidelio X2HR off Amazon UK yesterday for £109 as I thought it was a good price. I'm a bit sad to find that even though this is X2HR so supposed to be newer / later production date than the X200, the left channel seems to be louder than the right?

TP Vision Amsterdam Netherlands - Made in China (no date of production) SNY1A1910018441

I though the X2HR was supposed to have gotten rid of all production problems with the X200s?

--
I determined that these were louder in the left by flipping wearing them the other way round. as well as comparing with other headphone (OneOdio) and earphone (Senn CX300).

Funnily, but also sad is that usually my L ear is more sensitive to sound than the right is so that everything always sounds a bit to the left, if I flip the X2HR to R/L (then use VLC to reverse stereo channels), things sound exactly in the middle... Pity they couldn't have made the exact channel imbalance on the other side

--
obligatory sound impressions after channel imbalance corrected is that it does bass quite well, it's clear and has good extension for a headphone. Mids are fine also, I can't detect anything amiss. Treble however is uneven, on a lot of tracks voices can have more of a brittle quality and instruments slightly grating. My guess is that they tuned this to a slight V curve to accentuate the lows and highs. reference they are not, generally warm with occasional brittle treble. Sound stage is better than closed, not the best ever (I owned a Senn HD800 once upon a time).

to OP,

Seems odd because generally channel imbalance means an issue with the signal
source (e.g. CD player, DAP) or maybe a preamplifier or amplifier.
because the headphones (in this case) use entirely passive drivers.

Did the mfg place two different drivers in the headphones? - one
with greater sensitivity than the other?

Or perhaps their internal (very simple) wiring is somehow defective?
resulting in one driver receiving greater input than the other?

I'm thinking - IME - this is really unusual. Headphones of this type
are quite simple to assemble.

My guess would be that this imbalance situation lies somewhere
in the signal chain rather than with the headphones.


.